Who Needs Bali? I Can Have Pineapple Pancakes Here.

“Everybody was feeling happy now. The sun was shining brightly out of a soft blue sky and the day was calm. The giant peach, with the sunlight glinting on its side, was like a massive golden ball sailing upon a silver sea.” ― Roald Dahl, James and the Giant Peach

Or maybe that's the wrong story. It's not a peach, but a pineapple. The pineapple sun rose late in the crisp blue sky.... sounds like a story, doesn't it? Ah, all medicines are stories. I hate the steemposts that are titled 'Pineapple and It's Benefits' and so on. Use your imagination, folks. Or are you here just for pennies? Stories are infinitely more interesting. Sending this photo to my son, he quipped: 'Jamie and the Giant Pineapple'. He too was brought up on stories.

“The walls were wet and sticky, and peach juice was dripping from the ceiling. James opened his mouth and caught some of it on his tongue. It tasted delicious.”

We weren't stuck inside a giant pineapple but boy I wanted to be. Having sadly missed our trip to Bali this year for reasons I'd rather not get into, I was craving tropical fruit goodness. Plus, my lungs have been super suffering in this cold weather, especially after a few nights in the van in freezing temperatures. They hurt viciously - really inflamed and painful. I was disappointed, as I'd only just kicked symbicort - an oral steroid that's meant to prevent asthma but in my mind and to my knowledge, makes your lungs depend on it and eventually makes you six times more likely to have a heart attack. I've been great up to now - so I was determined to listen to my body and ask it what it needed.

And what it needed was pineapple.

Sweet, delicious pineapple - full of bromelain, which is a anti-inflammatory that is known to help asthmatics and anyone with sinus problems - funnily enough, with those post nose operation sinus issues, which is what my hubby is suffering. So the big pineapple I insisted on buying (are you sure? he asked, as he's not a huge fun of this yellow tropical fruit - or fruit in general. Shut up and put it in the basket, I said) was gonna be good for both of us.

How much of this is actually true, I don't know. They say there's not enough bromelain in pineapples themselves to actually help - you need the concentrated dose that an extraction via a tablet gives. But then there's a lot to be said for the placebo effect. Plus, if you eat a whole pineapple between you, it's gotta do something, right? Or maybe we just felt better today because, as the sun rose from behind the hill and pineapple dripped from our fingers and chins, and we sliced thin slices of it into pancakes Balinese pancake stylie, we forgot for a moment we were freezing our asses off in a field in the high country.

We used a buckwheat pancake mix with a no egg replacers, which is awesome for camping - love it. Makes it nice and easy - just add coconut milk (we also have dried coconut milk!). Trick is to slice the pineapple super thin. We drizzled ours with maple syrup. So good. Happy Days. And I swore my lungs were better that day, just for a while.

And then I found mallow... but thats another story.