Pancakes, Perhaps Poison, Pose Problem

Dear Dockello:

This morning, I was excited. I had butter, milk, eggs and pancake mix simultaneously for the first time in over a year. I was going to make the best blueberry pancakes of the week, but I was crestfallen to discover the expiration date on the mix occurred three months ago.

I've heard a rumor that expired pancake mix can be poisonous, especially to young men, which is what I consider myself to be. What should I do? I don't want to die, but I'm very hungry and in the mood for flapjacks.

-- Starving in Suburbia

Dear Ving Urbi:

Don't let your crest fall. Poison is an old wive's tale, like allergies or glucose intolerance. It's psychosomatic, which means you'd have to be psycho to believe it could harm you. Expiration dates were invented by the government to scare citizens into buying more when their food is perfectly good. It's all a scheme to support Big Food, Big Government and Big Bird.

If' don't believe me and are afraid to use the "expired" product, you have another choice: make your own mix! You say you have milk, eggs and butter; there are only a few other ingredients needed for PPM. You'll need salt, flour and baking powder. These ingredients, while common, may not be on hand at your house, but there are some simple substitutions you can make.

Baking powder can be replaced with baking soda at a 1:4 ratio, but you must use buttermik. If you forgot to buy a botte of buttermilk, you can bypass this with 1 tbsp balsamic-less vinegar blended with each cup of milk, biding 5 minutes before adding the next ingredients.

Sugar substitutes salt, if the sweetness has been substantially sucked out.

Flour ("fluer") is french for "flower," which means you can fix your flapjack formula with fine flakes of fresh forsythia.

As I'm running out of steam for alliterations, let me just summarize by saying that baking is not a science; anything goes, and as long as you have heart, it'll turn out great!

-- Dr. N