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Happy July 4th, American friends!

Today in The Guardian: How to make perfect pancakes! Yummie!

How to cook perfect American pancakes

A stack of pancakes with lashings of maple syrup and strips of crispy bacon is the quintessential American breakfast

Felicity's perfect American pancakes. Photograph: Felicity Cloake

They may get confused about how to fry an egg and be blind to the delights of Marmite, baked beans and black pudding to help start the day, but in general our American cousins are Olympic-level breakfasters. Across the pond, just about anything goes, from a "heart attack on a rack" in a Deep South diner to spicy Tex Mex migas in Santa Fe. You name it, they'll have it for breakfast, preferably washed down with a bottomless glass of iced water and a vat of coffee.

For me, however, the quintessential American way to start the day has to be pancakes, dripping with maple syrup and criss-crossed with brittle rashers of crispy bacon. Kids in the Judy Blume books and Steve Martin films of my childhood seemed to live on these fluffy, saucer-sized discs (along with the equally mysterious meatloaf), yet the closest we ever came to them were scotch pancakes which, even at a distance of several thousand miles, were clearly the puny European weaklings in this particular transatlantic relationship.

Perhaps things are different now: Nigella certainly claims she makes up a batch for her children's breakfast at weekends, despite admitting that it's "undeniably a supermom-with-kids breakfast cliché". But what's the best recipe for aspiring domestic deities?

[...]

Perfect American pancakes

Felicity's perfect American pancakes. Photograph: Felicity Cloake

That aside, it's very difficult to muck pancakes up, however rusty your qualifications as a supermom, dad, or just cook. They're quick, easy, and absolutely delicious with Marmite. Honestly.

Makes about 10

45g butter
115g plain flour
115g fine cornmeal
¼ tsp salt
2 tbsp caster sugar
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 egg
300ml buttermilk
100ml whole milk

1. Put the oven on low to keep the pancakes warm, and cook or otherwise prepare any bacon or other accompaniments. Melt the butter and leave to cool slightly.


2. Put the flour, cornmeal, salt, sugar, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda into a mixing bowl.


3. Put the egg, buttermilk and milk into a smaller bowl and whisk to combine, then stir in 2 tbsp melted butter. Then add the contents of the bowl to the dry ingredients and mix briefly until just combined.


4. Put a heavy-based frying pan on a medium heat and brush the base with melted butter. Use a large spoon to dollop pancakes into the pan (you'll probably need to do this in at least 2 batches) and cook until they begin to look dry and bubbly on top: depending on the heat of your pan, this should take about 3 minutes. Flip over and cook the other side and cook for another couple of minutes until golden. Put into the oven to keep warm while you cook the remaining pancakes, unless you have customers ready and waiting.

5. Serve and devour immediately, while they're still hot.
Are these pancakes just like mom used to make – or a weedy British imitation? What do you top yours with, and which other American classics should we import?
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Kids, have you noticed that the British person who wrote this article seems convinced that adding Marmite to pancakes would make them better?! LOL! Remember our Marmite testing session???!!! LOL again!

Mrs P.

A short interview, by the boys

Theo  is native from France, he lives in Bengy He is in scientific terminal.

. His father is native English. His mother is French. He has a little sister. He has a family in England, he often travels to see them and he doesn’t like living in an other country.

He has a double nationality, it was never a problem in his childhood.

He speaks Spanish a little.

His English is perfect not mistake. It's normal for him to speak English so he doesn’t feel specially proud.

 He probably will speak English in his future job. He said “speaking English is not a drawback because it will help me for my future job”.

Thank you Theo for your collaboration

Another interview, by Guiz18

On the last Tuesday, May 29, 2012 in our High School , we interviewed bilinguals students from the school.

          Among these students there are English, American and South African people. They are in Fourth, Fifth and Sixth form. They all have english speaking parents.

So we asked them some questions like : " Did you suffer when you were little speaking English ? "

and they answered us : " Yeah, when French people laugh, when you don't know a word in English. "

They think that they'll probably use this advantage for their future when we asked them it : " Are you going to use English in your studies and future job ? "

I hope they realize that this is a real chance for them.

It would even seem that speaking two languages fluently would be good for memory.

The majority of students we interviewed felt more French than English, American or South African.

And when we asked them on the question of what is missing in France they replied with a laugh " Pork pies "

To finish, I think they will succeed in life by exploiting what nature has given them even if today we can learn to speak English.

             (they're right, pork pies are delicious! Mrs P.)

Another interview, by our very own Jules (who's also bilingual...when she wants!)

On May 29^th 2012, I've interviewed Margot W.

I asked her a few question about her second language speaking which is english .

Since she were born Margot speaks french and english so she is bilingual. In her family her mother and father speaks english, her father comes from South-Africa whereas her mother comes from France.

For nationality, Margot has the French one but she would like to have the south-african one too. She expected to do it later when she will be older.

(and this, pupils, is the South African flag!- Mrs P.)

After asking her questions about her origins, I asked her questions about her childhood.

Margot didn't suffer during her childhood speaking two languages.

She has now a very good accent and a lot of vocabulary but sometimes and even more now, she looks for her words but it's normal when you don't speak a language everyday.

To finish my interview, I wanted to know what impression Margot had about being bilingual at school so I asked her if the english teachers wanted her to do more than the other pupils. After asking her this question, she looked at me, laughted and replied that it is sometimes true that the teachers want more results from a bilingual person because it is more easier for this person in this subject.

Later, when Margot will be older, she may go live in South-Africa for a year or two just to see how life is other there but she doesn't want to spend her all life there.

Margot is a 16 bilingual girl who speaks very well english and she is proud of it .

Nana is leaving us...

...and we wish her good luck in her new life!

Come and tell us about it on the blog: we'll be delighted to hear from you.

And this is to cheer you up:

We all know it's your favourite band!