what do you want to be when you grow up?

I would like to be a poltergeist. It might be more fun than being Kim Jong-il.

Yesterday I walked on salt. It was white, it was grey, it was pink (or more Milly mauve), it was shimmery, soft, and crystalled hard. My feet came away with a better than sugar shine.

An amazing thing has happened. With the advent of this house with clean roommates and lovely rooms, I have rediscovered my interest in cooking. I am repicking up the New York Times on Wednesdays so I can savor their dining section. I am redevouring all of my cook books and thinking of the fun twists to tie and tweaking this pretzel recipe to a practice bagel recipe and substituting this flour for that flour etceteras.
I've found a new waffle recipe I've been playing with, it's supposed to be a sour cream thing and while I'm sure that's delightful, I never actually buy sour cream. I cannot recall if I have ever bought it before in my life. So I made something up.
My friend also taught me a neat trick with a final dashing of cheese. One of the tragedies of moving from home is no longer having access to our fine, large, cast iron waffler. The surest way to have great waffles is to have a magically fantastic waffler. In university, we seem to only have mini-weaklings. Read on if you care about the life-saving trick.

My Yogurt Waffles
1 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1 TBsp sugar (though next time I'm trying it without)
1 TBsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup canola oil (at most) (note here: I'm a very loose measurer)
1 cup milk
1/2 cup fat free plain yogurt
3 large eggs
a squeeze or so of a lemon

THE SECRET INGREDIENT (well the lemon is key as well): shredded cheese

CAVEAT: If you have a mini-weakster waffler, you MUST start heating your iron well before, at least 15 minutes, otherwise you're sunk in my book.

Mix dry ingredients in a small bowl. In a larger bowl mix the wet ingredients. Combine, and start pouring into the waffler. But WAIT! Before you shut the waffler, generously cover the top of batter with shredded cheese. The fine grate is better and I've been using Swiss. The cheese creates a great crispy outer shell and adds a little rich flavorish twang.

The syrup I've been making recently is a lemon simple syrup. It's especially delightful to balance the cheese flavor. Simple syrups are two cups sugar dissolved in once cup boiling water, then with a half teaspoon of whatever flavoring you want.

There, I have divulged some of my waffle magic for you.