crepes

I, probably like many others, fell in love with the concept of French cooking after watching Julie & Julia. I mean, come on, who doesn’t love Meryl Streep and Amy Adams? Amy’s adorable portrayal of Julie Powell’s adventures through Julia Child’s brilliant book and Ms. Streep’s stellar and comical performance as Julia made me want to explore French cooking beyond what I already knew, which was literally: snails & croissants.

The first time I picked up a copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking was while visiting my father in Georgia. During the same trip, I’d also picked up my first copy of Saveur magazine and made a necessary stop at the bookstore to find any old issues they might have hanging around. Anyone who knows me, though, also knows that I can never get in and out of a bookstore in less than a few hours. I’m easily drawn to the cookbook section and if there’s a cafe in said bookstore, you may as well super glue my butt to one of the chairs, because I just will not leave!

That aside, I saw the charming turquoise and fleur-de-lis’ed cover of Ms. Child’s book and just had to pick it up and run my hands over the cover and spine. I surprised even myself when I got over the lack of photographs and read half of the soup section until my family demanded that I rejoin them in the real world. So, teary-eyed, I let go of the masterpiece and stepped out into the balmy Georgia air.

Almost a year later, I made my first crepes. I had the pleasure of eating at an all crepe restaurant in San Francisco last summer, but, like other things, the crepe’s intimidating reputation scared me away from trying to make them at home. Until now. The amazing thing about crepes is that you can literally do anything with them. Make them sweet, make them savory, pile them up with something in between and make a cake of them! I suspect that if you made a crepe large enough, you could go parachuting with it.

Crepes
from The Cook’s Book

1 cup all purpose flour
2 tbsp sugar(optional)
1 tsp salt
1 cup (plus extra) milk
2 large eggs
2 tbsp butter, melted

Combine the dry ingredients and whisk together until combined. Then add everything else and continue whisking until you have a smooth batter. It should be the consistency of a light cream. If you batter is too thick, add milk 1 tablespoon at a time until you have the right consistency. Put the batter in the fridge, covered, and let rest for 2 hours.

Grease and heat a crepe pan (I just used a fry pan) and ladle a small amount of batter into it when hot. Swirl the batter around so that the pan is completely coated and cook on medium heat until the sides of the crepe pull away from edges of the pan slightly. Then shake the crepe loose and flip it over and cook for 30 more seconds on the other side.

Place the finished crepes on a plate, covered with a towel, while you cook the rest.