Every year at this time my sister, who lives in Maine and is a Vegan, sends me pancake "mixes" of the dry ingredients mentioned above and which are "organic" in origin. Right now I am eagerly devouring "Fiddle Cakes". She also sends me organic maple syrup to pour over the stack. Yumm!

The directions on the package say you can substitute orange juice for water! Boy these are great!

When I visited her in 2003 I picked up a package of "Ployes" an arcadian pancake which cooks up like a crepe. Again Yummm!

Sometimes I use water and also use natural peanut butter and natural honey to slather over a stack of hot cakes!

I justify all this by telling myself that I need the "extra energy" to clear brush or shovel snow or take a walk-about in the cold weather.

I'd make my pancakes from scratch but I'm lazy. Besides I really like these stone-ground organic beauties better than anything I have ever been able to come up with.

The Fiddle Cakes are sold by Fiddler's Green Farm in Belfast, Maine(www.fiddlersgreenfarm.com) and the Ployes by the Bouchard Family Farm of Fort Kent, Maine, (no website) the maple syrup is from Strawberry Hill Farms of Skowhegan, Maine (www.puremaple.com)'

Whatever justification you use, there is nothing tastier than a nice stack of hotcakes on a cold winter's morning.

CB