Lisa Douglas' Hotcakes - On the rural comedy GREEN ACRES/CBS/1965-71, Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor played Oliver and Lisa Douglas, two New Yorkers who moved from the big city to a farm near the town of Hooterville, USA.. In New York City, Lisa  Douglas was accustomed to maid service in her posh Manhattan apartment, but now as a simple farm wife, she had to learn such domestic duties as cleaning her house, milking the cow and cooking. Sadly, her skills in the kitchen were, at best, minimal. 

One of the staple foods served at mealtimes were Lisa's hotcakes (pronounced "Hotscakes" by Lisa) that were created from a heavy mixture of flour and water. Her hotcakes were so tough that they came in handy as backup shingles when the roof needed repair, and acted as a mold to fix a blown head gasket for a truck engine. Oliver even used the hotcakes to steady a wobbly table leg.

Lisa's infamous "hotscakes"

A variation on Lisa's hotcakes was her waffles (pronounced "Vaffles") which were nothing more than the hotcakes pressed  in a waffle Iron. They were nicer looking than the hotcakes but still inedible. Sometimes, the hotcakes doubled as bread when Lisa needed to make Oliver a sandwich. To make toast, Lisa placed two pieces of bread in the toaster and them placed the toaster in the oven.

Occasionally, Lisa's hotcakes recipe varied from her regular mix to "veatcakes" (wheat stalks pressed into a batter mix), onions hotcakes, flaming hotcakes (Lisa's attempt at Crepe Suzettes), pizza hotcakes. hot-kebabs (flaming hotcakes on a skewer), hotscakes stew and hotcakes hash (left-over breakfast hotcakes).

For a change of pace, Lisa made Oliver fried oatmeal, cupcakes (hotcakes cooked in a coffee cup), and hotcakes a la mode ("cold" hotcakes on top of "hot" hot cakes. In reality, the only one who enjoyed eating Lisa's hotcakes was her cow, Eleanor. Apparently, it helps to have two stomachs to digest them.

The remaining dough makes a great head gasket

Besides hotcakes, Lisa found the time to make other food items. They included:

• Eggs fried in the shell

• Hot water soup

• Tuna fish and jelly sandwiches (or Peanut Butter w/ sardines or caviar)

• Liverwurst, jelly and ketchup sandwiches

• Raw spaghetti

• Spaghetti with orange juice sauce

• Spaghetti ball (spaghetti rolled into a ball shape and cooked in a pot without water)

• Chopped chicken liver and chocolate syrup

• Upside downside up cake

Also on the menu at the Douglas house were homemade preserves (Lisa just tears off the labels on store bought preserves), banana jelly, dehydrated meals (Dee Dees' dehydrated Mason Dixon Southern fried chicken dinner; Dee Dees' dehydrated New England Boiled Dinner; and Dee Dees' dehydrated New Orleans Pompano - with  a dehydrated bottle of wine). And once, Lisa baked Oliver a cake whose contents included an earring, one of Oliver's neckties, a salt shaker, a spoon, and a thermometer.

To wash down all of Lisa's fine gourmet cuisine, Oliver's choice of beverage was coffee. Unfortunately, Lisa's coffee can be very thick and syrupy. Sometimes, Lisa will brew the coffee, cream and sugar together for that special added flavor. To make iced coffee, Lisa placed a "can of coffee" in a champagne bucket filled with ice.

Other drinks on hand were hot chocolate (made by sticking a  melted chocolate bar in a cup) and lemonade (Lisa puts whole uncut lemons in a pitcher and adds water).

For another "not so great" cook check out "Elly May Clampett"