Crepes, a 42 year voyage with a successful ending.....

I had never heard of crepes until I was 10 years old.  I lived in Winslow Arizona and we had just meant the most interesting people, but one particularly interesting family from New York state.  They were fun and a story unto themselves which I will tell in an upcoming recipe story but for today I want to talk about crepes so will pass over and go on.  We were to get to go have crepes for lunch, or maybe be brunch, at our friends house.  We got there and mom was excited to see how they were made, we had heard they were wondrous things to eat.  We found, when all was said and done, hers were nasty thick heavy pancakes that none of us ever wanted to eat again in our whole lives.  We were polite but no one asked for seconds or for the recipe, for sure.  I sadly no longer wanted to know anything about crepes and wondered how people would even want to make those again, for goodness sake good ole sourdough pancakes were far superior and they were easy to make.  Crepes faded away in my memory, well any thought of their being good ones anyway.

The encompassing years would bring crepes up in my mind once in awhile but then a shiver would run down my back, I would shake my head and pay not attention to crepe conversations.  I often wondered why movies or TV shows made so much about them.  I, in the last five years, had occasion to see an episode of Ina, Anne or Bobby on the food network making crepes and started to notice they didn't appear to be fat doughy things.  They looked elegant paper thin and the people really liked them and me being a foodie I was hooked into watching shows that highlighted or spotlighted them.  I was really more and more interested in making them but the shivers soon would come and scared me away.  I also began to hear that they were a bit fragile to make and that you almost never made them right the first time.  I have seen Paula make chocolate ones and Alton make savory ones, from reviews on line, Alton's are great and Paula's are greasy with too much butter, imagine that.  It was a long time coming but I decided I wanted to make crepes.  I have read recipes, reviews, and studied them to death on line and so I was finally ready to wade in, still a little skiver shook me somewhere in the back of my mind.  Yesterday was the day!

I decided on a recipe, one I found on line I didn't use Martha's I had it right there in a book but thought her recipes are usually great but sometime they are a little ladee dah for me.  I decided to make ones with out sugar and no vanilla so I could make a savory and a sweet application for the family to try.  Funny, Yogie is 10 like I was but I wanted her first impression of them to be better than mine.  I made up the batter let it set the hour, Cubbie and I went out and checked animals while it aged in the frig.  One hour later I was back to make them.  I had figured out over the last few months how to get around the fact that I have neither a non-stick pan or a crepe pan.  I had seen an episode of Guy where the diner, or dive, made crepes on a cook top, no pan required. I thought well I have a huge electric frying pan that would substitute for the cook top.  Batter in hand, in a 1/4 measure cup a little less than full, with a hot electric pan I was ready to make the first one and fail.  Anne had said even the best fail on the first ones, account for it and get over it.  I poured the batter in in a circular patterns and used my pie server as a smoother to shape and thin the batter in the pan.  Viola, it looked perfect, it was thin, not thick unpalatable looking dough globs.  The edges started to dry, I check under and it was golden brown, it flip perfectly and a slight cook on the other side and it was done, and it was perfect, it looked just like it was supposed to.  I put it aside and tried another, another and soon all the batter was gone.  They all turned at as perfect as the first.  I folded them in to quarters, you're supposed to do that I have found, and cooled them in the frig to fill for dinner.  I later heated and filled them with two different savory filling and made sinful cold dessert ones.  We all set down to dinner and one and all liked them.  Booboo says I can added it to my handwritten recipe book, that always means its a keeper in her book.  Poppie loved them and that is not always the case with my long term studies in fancy foods.  I will be adding this recipe to the recipe stories I am currently working on, either in the story of the bad crepes or in the section that will be as a Mrs. recipes.  I am so glad they turned out well, we will use them regularly I am sure and I think I already want to make up some to make manicotti.  I know Booboo and I are making chocolate ones this weekend.....  the end of a 42 year long journey and it was a good ending.

I hope the day brings you joy, I hope that joy is in the Lord, he does joy in you his creation, he has loved you from before time, from the foundations of time and is awaiting your acceptance of his gift, is today the day you receive his gift?  I do hope and pray so.... tomorrow.