A Crêpes Shoot

We are both using the same basic recipe for the batter, with slight tweaks depending on whether your crêpes will hold sweet or savory fillings. But the thing that makes this bi-coastal posting extra special is that they had the opportunity to be given a lesson in crêpe-making from their friend and French teacher Madame Janine Kolb, who hails from Saint-Gaultier, France. They videotaped the lesson (en français with subtitles) and have posted it on their site. Click here to see how easy it is to make the batter and flip the crêpes!

Crêpes have always been one of my favorite foods. Rich, yet somehow light, they have a real sense of Old World elegance about them. My mother used to make them when I was young, probably after watching The French Chef with Julia Child.

My first real memory of eating them as an adult was when I was at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, in the late 1970s, before there was really a "food scene" to speak of. Just around the corner from school was an oddly-shaped restaurant called Café la Crêpe which was frequented by many of us musicians.

I mention its odd shape because I always had the feeling that it was like being inside Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. It stood on a corner where the two intersecting streets did not create 90-degree angles. Its front door was at the thin wedge of the corner, giving the interior an octagonal feel when you walked in. There was a large, sunken center area with café tables and bentwood chairs. The center area was surrounded by a "stage" level - one step up with a railing - that had booths around the perimeter which looked down into the central arena.

The floors and walls were dark wood and the drapes were, as I recall, emerald green velvet. The curtains play into my favorite - and the most romantic part - of the story. They weren't found on the windows looking out to Main Street. Instead, each booth along the wall could be made into an intimate, personal dining room for you and your companion simply by closing a pair of curtains. Each booth had a buzzer inside for you to call your server; once the food arrived they only approached your booth/table when beckoned, lest they disturb your romantic evening.

I loved the crêpes I ate there for the romance they added to my life, but it wasn't until I ate them in Paris and Grenoble - either in crêperies or from street vendors - that I really began to appreciate them. There is nothing like wandering the streets of the Marais while enjoying a crêpe jambon fromage, or getting out of Grenoble's bitter winter winds, into a warm and dimly lit crêperie, for one filled with crème de marrons (chestnut purée) and topped with crème Chantilly!

The nice thing about crêpes is that are really pretty simple to make and, once you have made a batch, any that you do not use may be stored (with nothing between them) in stacks in the refrigerator or the freezer.  As easy as they are, though, I have not yet been brave enough to flip them à la Madame Kolb.  Maybe I will try that tomorrow.