Valentine’s Day vs Pancake Day: A Case for Making a Mess
Different strokes for different folks, so to speak
‘ey up! Surprise post for you today inspired by real life. I’d love to know if you can relate.
I was on a date last night.
Mexican food, followed by an indie cocktail pub. She absolutely nailed the venues.
Booth seating, low lighting, big tunes at a singable volume – you know loud enough without having to lean all the way in like you’re boarding a helicopter – my kinda vibe.
As we sat down and between rounds, two couples caught my eye.
One pair moved between the bar, a table and the booth next to us to photograph her in each one. Different angles. Different light. Different poses. Maybe they were having a brilliant time.
Another couple sat in the booth after them, across from each other, ran out of conversation after about fifteen minutes, and then just… stopped. Him vaping. Her staring into my date’s back. They might have been perfectly content. They might have had a long day.
All dates are performative to a degree. Early ones especially/too. Lord knows I felt like I was rolling the dice on some of my answers – I’ve had a text for a follow-up this morning, so I don’t think I stacked it!
Dating can be exhausting – from apps to non-starter chat to finding the quirkiest spot possible – but they’re also a wonderful opportunity to un-mask, to present yourself to someone in the way that you want or, hopefully, simply are.
Plus, there are a very select number of people in my circles currently who’d hang with or even want the kind of chats I seem to have with strangers in my 30s – my best mate wants to know “the dynamics of that”, my lad mates want to know if I’ve been to Hawksmoor yet, and one aunty would go off to make some quiches to save any embarrassment.
Now, I’m not for a second saying we were having the best time. It was just interesting to see how many different versions of the same date could happen in the same room.
Which brings me to Pancake Day.
Pancake Day has no script. No dress code. No expectation that it look good. It doesn’t care whether you’re coupled up, single, somewhere in between, or avoiding labels altogether.
It just asks: do you want to flip something in a frying pan and see what happens?
When I was a kid, our pancakes were horrible. Thin and aggressively pantry-based. Lemon juice and sugar. That was it. But the flavour wasn’t the point. The flipping was.
Watching my mum crack up as we misjudged the catch, allowing us to alternately succeed and make a mess, doing something she’d have done with her mum, keeping it going with me and my sister.
Two years ago, in the relatively early days of a meaningful relationship, I invited my then girlfriend over around Valentine’s day to make sweet, savoury pancakes. And I think it was one of the best afternoons we’d had up to that point.
Proper thick pancakes as the base. Crispy bacon. Banana fried in butter and cinnamon. Peanut butter loosened with maple syrup so it drizzles. And then more maple syrup over everything. Completely excessive and, aside from the caramelisation, properly unpretentious food-based fun.
Both versions worked. Grim lemon-and-sugar childhood pancakes. Over-the-top adult stacks. The through-line wasn’t the recipe. It was the act of making something slightly chaotic and sharing it with someone you care about.
That’s the bit I think we get wrong about days like Valentine’s.
It isn’t the flowers or the set menu that bother me. If you love that, brilliant. Book it. Photograph it. Frame it. The photographer couple might have been having the best night of their year.
The problem is when you’re doing something because you think you’re meant to. When the booking exists before the desire. When the optics matter more than the experience.
You don’t have to prove Pancake Day happened. No one expects a flawless flip. There’s no prize for plating.
You just put ingredients together, apply heat, and see what sticks.
That’s what good dates for me – with potential partners and mates – feel like. Not necessarily impressive. Not overtly optimised. Just choosing to do something in the same space at the same time and paying attention to it and/or (ideally at some point) each other.
Valentine’s Day is tomorrow. Pancake Day is Tuesday. You can do both. You can ignore both. Or maybe you combine the two too. I’m glad I did.
Reply to this newsletter if you’d like the combination of recipes that led to this masterpiece!
Otherwise, that’s it from me.
Much love and I’ll see yas in the next one
J x