Top 10 Things That Were Awesome About SQL Saturday Fargo

• The weather was glorious. We have had the Never Ending Winter this year and to have the sun finally make an appearance was wonderful.
• The Microsoft Executive Briefing Center. Microsoft loaned us the use of their state-of-the-art conference rooms and made us all feel like executives.
• And speaking of executives, Mr. Bill Gates (B|T)  himself was in the same building that day doing a meet and greet with his Fargo employees. It ended up being right outside the doors of our seminars and we were allowed to listen in and watch as he answered questions from the audience. I think there is a part in all geeks that loves the story of a guy writing a computer program and then going on to be one of the most successful people in the world. In short it was a very cool to “meet” Bill Gates.
• Elephants, Giraffes, and Okapis - Oh My. I sat in on Jes Borland’s (B|T) session on Index Options You’re Not Using and learned some new things about indexes. Even better I learned how to handle a crashing demo with aplomb and grace.
• I heard you like Excel so I put some Excel in your Excel and now you can excel at BI. I got to learn all about Building BI Solutions with Excel in 2013 from Steve Hughes (B|T). Steve posits the slightly controversial idea that your entire BI solution can be completed in Excel 2013. He does this using PowerPivot, PowerView and other new features (even the new GeoFlow) of every end users favorite place to store data. It was pretty compelling and made me want to play with these tools some more – in Excel of course.
• I got to give away a prize at the end of the day. The company I work for, Digineer, was one of the sponsors for SQL Saturday Fargo which was a first for me.
• Attending a presentation on Encryption by Steve Jones (B|T) of SQLServerCentral fame. It was an excellent no-nonsense session. I came back on Monday and double checked that I had all of my keys backed up.
• I got some great in person and twitter feedback from people who attended my session on the SSIS Catalog.
• #SQLRun. Saturday morning I went on  a 3 mile run with Jes, Steve and Jason Horner (B|T). I’ve been on a bit of a running hiatus and it was great to get out and run again. Did I mention the weather was glorious?
• And last, but certainly not least, going out afterwards with the #sqlfamily and having some serious fun at the karaoke bar. I am not usually one to jump up on stage and sing, but when Jes asked if anyone wanted to go up and sing White and Nerdy I couldn’t pass it up. We managed to convince Aaron King (B|T) to sing with us and the three of us gave a rendition of White and Nerdy that Fargo will not soon forget – no matter how hard they try.

There is a factoid that people like to throw out all the time about how people fear public speaking more than death. So why would I and my fellow SQL Speakers choose to get up and present to a live studio audience? For most of us we are volunteering our time so it can’t be for the wealth. It might be a little bit for the fame, but if adulation from the masses is what you seek there is probably a better path. That leaves happiness as the last big motivator and in a round about way I think that might be the answer. I present because it makes me happy.

If that answer surprises you, then you are not alone. When I sat down to write the answer to this question I didn’t expect to land on, “Speaking makes me happy”. In fact at the core of it I think my reasons for speaking are a little selfish (more on that later). There are people out there who think about happiness a lot more than I do and Gretchen Rubin is one of them. She has a blog and a book called The Happiness Project and there are a couple of tidbits from her blog that I believe speak to why presenting makes me happy. The first one is one of her eight splendid truths:

One of the best ways to make yourself happy is to make other people happy; One of the best ways to make other people happy is to be happy yourself.

More the first part than the second. I believe that there is probably at least one person who left my presentation this past weekend happier and more energized about the SSIS Catalog than when they sat down. Can I say that about everyone who listened to me? No way. I am going to need to get much better at this for that to happen. I just started this SQL Speaking a little over a year ago and I still have a lot to learn. However if everyone in the room did leave happier and more excited than when they came in, how cool would that be? Getting that response would probably urge me to be a better speaker in the long run. It is a pretty great feedback loop. The other piece of advice from Gretchen I am using is:

Novelty and challenge bring happiness.

She references a psychology article that boils down to this: learning and doing something new can be challenging and add stress in the short-term, but adds to happiness in the long-term. Public speaking takes me out of my comfort zone quite a bit. I am nervous for the entire day until my session is over, but while I am up in front of the group talking it can be quite a rush. I think my nerves come from the fear of looking like I don’t know what I am talking about or just being an awful speaker, but so far no one has yelled at me to sit down or thrown any rotten fruit. (I don’t steal all of my wisdom from one place but I can’t help pointing out that one of Gretchen’s secrets of adulthood is People don’t notice your mistakes and flaws as much as you think.)

I think I may have strayed a bit form the original question, but my desire to present right now is tied very heavily with my desire to be a part of the SQL Community. I have been attending events for a few years and last year I decided to get involved. From the examples around me (Jason Strate, Jess Borland, Steve Hughes, Mark Vaillancourt and others) the way to get involved seemed to be to share the things that I have figured out. And for me, figuring things out is definitely part of the fun. I enjoy learning new things (as I think most people in IT do) and when I take the time to write a presentation and explain a concept to other people I always learn something new. Sometimes I learn something in my research, but about half the time I learn something new from the other people in the room.

Lest you think I am all rainbows and unicorns I should confess that the cynical part of me also wanted to get involved with presenting to help my career. I think a little bit of that ambition is pretty normal (and if I am wrong, I’ll probably hear about it). Of course if my career continues to grow as a result of my involvement and I get to do more interesting work that would probably make me…

happy.

On Saturday April 11th: I will be presenting at SQL Saturday #211 in Chicago, IL.

On Saturday April 27th: I will be presenting at SQL Saturday #175 in Fargo, ND.

You read that correctly I will be presenting at three SQL Saturday’s in one month. Luckily for me I will giving the same presentation each time, Flipping through the SSIS Catalog. It’s all about the cool project deployment model and the SSIS Catalog in SQL Server 2012.

I’m excited about all of the events for slightly different reasons. Madison is the first SQL Saturday that I spoke at and I am glad to be going back for the second year. Chicago SQL Saturday is the same week as the PASS Business Analytics conference so it is going to be a very SQL week in the windy city. I can’t make it the BA conference, but I know several folks that will be there and I hope to catch up with them on Friday night. The Fargo SQL Saturday is the first event in that area. Much like Madison I think it will be fun to be a part of something from the inaugural event. If you  are going to be in any of those cities this April take a look at the impressive schedules by clicking the links above. I hope you can make it to come listen to some great members of the community talk about SQL Server.

Earlier this year : As of January 1, 2013 I was assigned the role of Director of Program Development for the PASSMN Board. We’re looking for a few good SQLGeeks to present.

On Saturday April 6th: I will be presenting at SQL Saturday #206 in Madison, WI.

On Saturday April 11th: I will be presenting at SQL Saturday #211 in Chicago, IL.

• Moving to Digineer

There were many things I enjoyed about my last job, but late last year I started thinking about where I wanted my career to go and I decided to accept a position at Digineer as a consultant. They offer top talent consulting for Project Management and IT in the Twin Cities and I was thrilled when they offered me a job. So far I am enjoying the consulting life and the change in roles. For the last few years I have been moving more to the Database Development and Business Intelligence side of SQL Server and my current assignment has me in more of a traditional DBA role. It has been fun getting to apply skills that I haven’t used in a while and learn some new ones. Digineer has a great corporate culture and they encourage personal growth and involvement in the technology community.

• Getting Speakers for PASSMN

I was elected to the board of PASS MN by a landslide of no votes. I volunteered along with a couple of others, Shirley Morillo (@SQLLatina) and William Weber (@williamweber), and we filled in the three spots vacated by the leaving board members. We got together in December and assigned roles. I was lucky enough to get the Director of Program Development. So far I am loving the involvement and the task of finding speakers for our monthly meetings. I am having fun talking to people about their ideas for presentation topics and I am particularly happy about getting new speakers up behind the podium. After all this was how I started getting involved less than a year ago.

• SQL Saturday 206, Madison, April 6th

Last year when I spoke at SQL Saturday Madison it was my first time and I didn’t really know what to expect. This will be my 5th time and I am thrilled to be going back to Madison. It will always be something I remember as exciting, scary, energizing and draining. It hooked me on this whole public speaking thing and I can hardly believe how quickly the time has passed. I will be speaking on the SSIS Catalog in SQL Server 2012.

• SQL Saturday 211, Chicago, April 13th

The week after Madison I will be going to Chicago to give the same SSIS Catalog presentation. I am extra psyched for this event because the PASS Business Analytics conference is the same week. While I won’t be able to attend the BA Conference I know there will be many members of the SQL Community there as a result. Chicago usually attracts a lot of talented speakers for their SQl Saturday, but with the conference the week before it should make for an amazing event. Lots of great SQL people to meet and learn from.

I have dabbled with powershell since it came about and I do like scripting languages in general. However, in the IT world there are always eight ways to do everything and I don’t always turn to powershell for SQL tasks. There is one area that I created some quick scripts which I can modify easily for a lot of situations – Backups and Restores. The same things could be accomplished with T-SQL scripts, but I can easily use powershell to read the file system and do complex conditional statements across SQL instances. I have a very basic powershell script that uses the new Backup-SQLDatabase cmdlet that I can expand upon as needed. The Backup-SQLDatabase cmdlet was added in SQL Server 2012 and is essentially a wrapper that is calling the .Net SQL Management Object (SMO) for a SQL Backup.

I know when I am trying to learn something in powershell I like to see a simple version first and then as I learn I can expand on the script. That isn’t to say that I don’t borrow from other people’s scripts when they have already figured out how something works, but I know I learn more I create something on my own. With that in mind I have a simple script that you don’t need to be a powershell wizard to be able to run. The script below is very basic, but it could be done in even a single command. All I have added is some formatting so I can get a descriptive filename and media set name.

param([string]$db ,[string]$Server, [string]$dest);

$timestamp = Get-Date -format yyyy_MM_dd_HHmmss;
$Dest = $Dest + "\" + $db + "_full_" + $timestamp + ".bak", "File";
$BackupSetName = "Full backup of " + $db + " " + $timestamp;

Backup-SqlDatabase -ServerInstance $Server -Database $db -BackupFile $Dest -CopyOnly -Initialize -Checksum -CompressionOption On -BackupSetName $BackupSetName

In the first line I am using Parameters so that I can call this script from the command line or more often a .bat file and just enter the database, SQL Server Instance, and the file location for the backup. In the second line I am grabbing the Date and formatting so I can use it as part of the filename.

Next I format the destination file name and the BackupSetName. I could do this all on one line or even when I pass the parameter to the cmdlet, but this makes it easier to read.

Lastly I call the Backup-SQLDatabse cmdlet to perform the backup. I pass in several parameters to get the backup that I want. If you are accustomed  to using the T-SQL backup commands these parameters should all look familiar.

• -ServerInstance  = The SQL Server instance where I am performing the backup. Since the server is a parameter I can easily run this script from any machine that has SQL Server 2012 installed (as long as network permissions allow)
• -Database = The database to be backed up. The command can also be used to do a log backup or a file backup, but I typically am doing the entire database when doing these adhoc backups.
• -BackupFile = The filepath and name for the file to backup to.
• -CopyOnly = Typically when I am using a script like this it is adhoc and I don’t want to break the backup chain I have with my normal maintenance scripts.
• -Initialize = A flag that says to overwrite the backup file if it exists.
• -Checksum = A flag that sets a checksum value for validation.
• -CompressionOption – Creates a compressed file which is useful since the next step after these types of backups is usually to restore to another database. This way the file I am copying around is not as large.
• -BackupSetName = A descriptive name for the backup media set that is recorded in the msdb.dbo.backupmediaset system table.

To run the script I save it in the file c:\PSScripts\bu_AdHoc.ps1 and I use the following command:

sqlps c:\PSScripts\bu_AdHoc.ps1 -db Testing -Server DemoServer -Dest C:\Backups

As I said this is the basic version of this script and I can expand on it do things like backup up only at certain times or only if there are no backup files within a certain timeframe. I can easily loop through all of the databases on a server or on a list of servers passed in from a file. Or other options that I haven’t thought of yet.

An easier to read version of the script can be found in the Code section under Basic Powershell SQL Backup 2012. If you are still running SQL Server 2008 (as I am on most of the machines I work with) I have a version of the script that calles the SMO objects directly – Basic Powershell SQL Backup 2008.

BI Solution Development Design Considerations- by Siddharth Mehta (B|T)

This is the first chapter in Deep Dives V2 that I read which felt like I was reading a textbook. I really wanted this chapter to be something I could hand to a manager, DBA, or developer who hadn’t worked on a Business Intelligence project and they would come away with a good understanding of what it was and all of the pieces needed to build it. Essentially I wanted something the me from 3 years ago could have read and not have to learn everything on the job.

Figure 1 Typical BI design for an OLTP-to-dashboard solution from Chapter 60 of SQL Server MVP Deep Dives V2

Siddharth comes close to that, but there is no story to follow;  just dry facts. Also there are many terms and concepts that are hard to follow if you have not worked in BI already. He mentions the Kimball and Inmon Data Warehouse methodologies a couple of times without really providing any reference. The first part of the chapter outlines the pieces of a BI solution as shown in the diagram above and then he moves on to discuss how these pieces can be built using components of Microsoft SQL Server (SSIS = ETL, SSRS = reporting, etc).

Don’t get me wrong there is a lot of information that me from three years ago would get out of this chapter. He points readers to some great tools out on Codeplex like the BIDS Helper and Custom SSIS tasks. These are not items I knew about when I started working with SSIS and I didn’t discover them for some time. He also points out an add on for SSRS called SCRUBS , but I am not sure the community addition was updated for SQL Server 2008 R2. It is my own fault for dragging these reviews out so long that some items are becoming dated, but luckily there are great folks in the community like Rick Krueger (B|T) and Dave Valentine (B|T) who have put together a tool for Reporting on Reports which does work for 2008 R2 and will soon work with 2012.

The sections he outlines as Design Challenges were the most helpful in my opinion because they acknowledge some of the scenarios that can come up when building a Data Warehouse. In each phase of building this solution he discusses the importance of getting the design correct. He lists dashboard devlopment separately from reporting and he has a good definition of what a dashboard is. As well as a good caution against adding all the fancy gauges and charts unless they actually mean something. 

If you are new to BI development this deep dive might be a good place to start. It is well written, but it would probably flow better if it was describing a real world example. Everything is discussed in the abstract and it would be hard to picture if you haven’t worked with the concepts and tools of BI before.

Chapter Sixty SQL Server MVP:

Siddharth Mehta (B|T) is a business intelligence professional with more than nine years of experience. He presently works in the role of a technology architect for  Accenture Services Pvt. Ltd.(Mumbai, India), in the capacity of associate manager. He’s known for his writing in the field of Microsoft business intelligence. He authored a whitepaper for MSDN Library titled “Bulk Report Generation Using SSIS and SSRS 2008 R2.” He continues authoring content on MS BI for community sites like MSSQLTips.com, SQLServerCentral.com, SQL-Server-Performance.com, and others. 

If you are considering purchasing SQL Server MVP Deep Dives Volume 2 you can get a copy at Manning Books.  I don’t get anything out of it if you buy the book, but you might.

This Saturday 9/29: I will be presenting at SQL Saturday #149 in my own Twin Cities.

Friday 10/19: SQL Friends with Dan English (B|T)  at the Edina Grill.

Next Month : I am Running for the PASSMN Board. Vote for Mike! You know if we have to vote or anything.

• SQLServer Pro Article

Several months ago I sent some article ideas to SQL Server Magazine and was lucky enough to have them pick my idea for an article on the new CDC tasks in SQl Server 2012. Then I had to write it. If you have read any of the blog then you know my writing style is fairly loose. This was the first technical article I  have ever written and I was lucky to have a great technical editor and a content editor who worked with me to make sure I got things right. It took me a bigger time investment than I ever imagined – mostly due to my lack of experience, but I think it turned out pretty well. Even though writing this one article hasn’t given me the fame and fortune I imagined it was a great experience and I am already working on the next one. I have to confess that I was a little disappointed that in the months that it took me to write the article and get it properly edited SQL Server Magazine became SQL Server Pro and there is no longer a print version available. I am a big fan of going paperless, but it would have been cool to have a physical magazine with my byline in it.

• SQL Saturday 149, Minneapolis

I did three SQL Saturday presentations in the spring including my first time ever in Madison, but I have not been very active over the summer. Now I am getting back behind the podium and I am more nervous than ever because this is my home town and many of the people in the audience know me. I’ll be presenting on Advancements in CDC with SQL Server Integration Services 2012, which is the same topic as my SQL Server Pro Article. I am excited to be a part of the volunteer committee this year (sort of) and I was put in charge of organizing lunch topics, which I very cleverly decided to call Topics-on-a-stick in honor of the great Minnesota State Fair. It’s been great helping out and getting to talk with a lot fo the speakers briefly about what topic they are doing. I feel like I am very much a part of this SQL Saturday, but it has been an easy task to put together.

• SQLFriends Lunch, Minneapolis

It has been three months since the last SQLFriends lunch here in the Twin Cities. We had a great time talking with Jason Strate (B|T)  and some great food at Hells Kitchen (B|T). I had hoped to have another lunch in September, but decided that with SQL Saturday on 9/29 we could wait until October. On October 19th we will be meeting at the Edina Grill from 11:30-1:30. Dan English (B|@DanEnglishBI), SQL Server MVP,  has agreed to be our host this time around. I hope you will be able to join us. We do limit the seating so be sure and sign up now.

• PASSMN Board Elections

I had been thinking about running for the board this year and when I got an email from the current Chair, Steve Hughes (B|T), I was decided. The election process is all shrouded in mystery so I am not sure what will happen next. This is because there hasn’t actually been elections before. Usually there are enough volunteers to fill the committee and the positions are decided among the committee. A small part of me is hoping that we have enough people to cause an election so that I can create negative campaign ads pointing out my rivals love of Oracle and MS Access. Realistically it looks like I have volunteered to be on the board next year, which should be pretty fun.

Discover your servers with Powershell and SMO - by Joe Webb (B|T)

I’m finally back to my chapter reviews and I restarted with a fun one. I know enough to be dangerous with powershell, but I don’t use it enough to keep it fresh in my brain. Right off I liked the idea of this chapter because I got to play with scripting and do something a little different (at least for me). I know there are other ways of gathering this type of data us ing T-SQL (Brent Ozar’s sp_blitz being the first one that comes to mind), but I haven’t done it with powershell before and I certainly never used powershell with Excel before.

There is more code than text in this chapter, which makes for a quick read away from the keyboard. I would have liked to see a little more explanation of the powershell, but he does a good job of explaining everything so a powershell novice can implement this pretty easily.  I liked the fact that he did not gloss over the importance of adding in the SMO reference library. I’ve seen several powershell articles that assume you know how to set up your script or just tell you to add the line of code in and don’t explain.

Once I started creating the report it was cool to see the spreadsheet open and populate from my local instance of SQL Server. (There are some hints on how to set up a script to import a list of servers, but it was beyond the scope of this chapter.) I liked the simplicity of the report that was created and he even took time to add in formating for the headers.

One of the nice featuers of the script is that is does some conditional checks for common best practtices and highlights them in the spreadsheet. for example it reports when the last backup was taken and if  the database hasn’t been backed up in the last day the cell is shaded red.

if (((get-date) - $db.LastBackupDate).days -gt 1) {
 $fgColor = 3; 
} else { 
$fgColor = 0;
} 
$Sheet.Cells.Item($Row,14) = $db.LastBackupDate; 
$Sheet.Cells.item($Row,14).Interior.ColorIndex = $fgColor;

Since I don’t use the SQL Server on this machine for anything but a sandbox I don’t take very regular backups.

He has basic checks on most of the columns and it is easy to see how this could be expanded to other items and rules that you may have in your own database. I am not sure how much I will end up using this script, but I learned some new tricks in powershell and this was definitely the most hands on chapter in the book so far.

(I should note that if you have a copy of the book and try this yourself I think there are couple of bugs in the scripting. I believe there should be another row increment ($row++) after the column headers for the server information (page 97, listing 4) and also after the column headers for the job information (page 99, listing 6). And further on in the script in the section when changing the color for dbspace available and LAstBackupdate there are references to $intRow that I think should just be $row.)

 
Chapter Ten SQL Server MVP:

Joe Webb (B|T) has served as Chief Operating Manager for WebbTech Solutions, a Nashville-based consulting company, since its inception. He has more than 15 years of industry experience and has consulted extensively with companies in the areas of business process analysis and improvements, database design and architecture, software development, and technical training. In addition to helping his consulting clients, Joe enjoys writing and speaking at technical conferences. He has spoken at conferences in Europe and North America and has authored or coauthored three books. Joe is a seven-time recipient of the prestigious Microsoft MVP Award for demonstrating a willingness to share his expertise with the SQL Server Community.

If you want to discover SQL Server MVP Deep Dives Volume 2 you can get a copy at Manning Books.  I don’t get anything out of it if you buy the book, but you might.

1 – Location, Location, Location - I work in downtown Minneapolis and I enjoy this a lot. It means I can take the bus in to work each day and use that time to read or just turn my brain off for a little while. I’m close to some of my favorite restaurants and I am a 5 minute walk from Barnes and Noble. I also just enjoy the higher energy level that exists downtown vs. the suburbs.

2 – It’s the People - I work with some great folks and I can honestly say I like every one on my team. We may not be great friends, but we all seem to share a similar sense of humor, which is pretty amazing if you think about it.

π - The Geek Factor – There is a fair number of geeks on the team and at the company, which I didn’t realize I was lacking at previous jobs. Being able to talk about Game of Thrones, Star Trek, and math jokes while our code is compiling is great. I’ve never managed to get into sports and if you can’t talk sports at some companies people assume you are mute. I also get to be a part of the weekly game of Settlers of Catan in the lunch room. (And because playing Settlers wasn’t geeky enough a short while back we switched to the Star Trek edition.)

4 – Training Budget – While I may not always agree with how they are allocated the company I work for does have a generous training budget. For instance all of the developers on my team are going to PASS Summit this year (very generous), except for me (which brings us into an area where I disagree.) I have attended two outside training courses in the last year, which is pretty good

5 – Flexible Schedule - I am allowed to work from home when I need to and the day-to-day schedule is not micromanaged. I work 40 hours a week, but I don’t get to work the same time every day and I can shift around my schedule as needed.

#Meme15 is a monthly blogging event set up by Jason Strate (B|T) to write about something that relates to our careers, and likely to have a twinge of social networking included. The assignment for August was  – List 5 things you like about your job. (I want to thank Jason and Kevin Conan (Blog | @ConanTheCDN) for giving me a topic to start up the blog again.)

Friday 6/22: SQl Friends with Jason Strate (B|T)  at Hells Kitchen (B|T). (I know this was in the last SQL Life post, but it is worth mentioning again.)

• SQL Saturday 117, Columbus

This will be my third time presenting at a SQL Saturday in three months (April/May/June). It’s pretty amazing for me to think about when I consider that wasn’t thinking about it at the beginning of the year. I’m going to be talking about SSIS configurations again, which I think is the stronger of my two presentations so far. I think that is because I have good examples to draw from in my day job as an ETL developer. I learned a few things from the first time I presented this topic so I will be making a few tweaks, but for the most part I am glad not to be writing another presentation from scratch. I can just share my information and enjoy learning from others. It should be great. 

• SQLFriends Lunch, Minneapolis

Minneapolis will be having our frist SQLFriends lunch on June 22nd,2012. Jason Strate (B|T) , SQL Server MVP and a Regional PASS Mentor, has agreed to be our host and promises to answer any questions you have for him SQL or otherwise. We still have a few seats left so if you are in the Twin Cities head over and sign up for a great SQL Friends lunch at the infamous Hell’s Kitchen.

If you are curious what is in store you can read Jes Borland’s thoughts about the second SQLFreinds lunch that they had in Chicago just one week ago.

Also, I’ve been working with the great folks at Hell’s Kitchen and I can share with you the menu choices for that day.

Ham and Pear Crisp  – (Featured in “America’s Best Sandwiches” cookbook) Shaved, slow-roasted smoked pit ham, poached pears, melted Swiss and Fontina cheese on spicy-sweet buttered grilled sourdough bread.

BBQ Pork Sandwich – Served on a wild rice bun with pulled, slow-roasted pork shoulder, dressed in a marriage of our northern tomato-based BBQ sauce and Eastern North Carolina vinegar-pepper marinade. Ask for a ramekin of our pickle relish, which compliments the pork perfectly. 

The Ultimate B.L.T. – Toasted sourdough bread with mayonnaise, 3 slices of thick cured bacon, crisp butter lettuce, and slabs of vine-ripened tomatoes.

 

Macaroni and Cheese – Penne noodles tossed in our rich 4-cheese cream sauce, topped with seasoned chopped-walnut bread crumbs, then baked to a golden brown.

 

Huevos Rancheros - A crisp flour tortilla with buttery hash browns, spicy black beans, soft-scrambled eggs and a 3-cheese topping, all baked to a golden brown. Topped with hand-chopped salsa and a dollop of sour cream.

 

Lemon-Ricotta Hotcakes – Three melt-in-your-mouth hotcakes made from freshly grated lemon zest and whole milk ricotta cheese. Served with fresh berries and pure maple syrup…but try your first bite without it!

 

(FYI those last three options are vegetarian)