La Pâte à Crêpe

Every year on February 2nd we celebrate la Chandeleur and make crêpes. The tradition in our house started in 1995. At the time, pregnant with our first child I was on maternity leave from my investment banking job (in France you get to rest the 6 weeks before the due date). Happy, not very busy (with another child for example)  and in “full form” as we say in French, I would very often make lovely dinners and have friends over in our apartment in Montparnasse. The night of February 2nd was one of those. But it was the Chandeleur,which is a christian holiday celebrated 40 days after Christmas commemorating the presentation of Jesus to the temple,  but for us average French not caring much about religion it is the crêpe day!

So, I invited Yves and Jean Louis and a couple of other friends, made a large jar ofpâte à crêpe. We had the most wonderful evening eating savory and sweet crepes til late at night. In the middle of the night my water broke and the next day Thea was born ( a little early) at the hospital in the 14th Arrondissement of Paris.

So now its a tradition, every February 2nd I make crêpes.

Of course there are plenty of recipes on the internet and you don’t need mine. But this very simple recipe is actually from a hand printed book my friend Claudine had made in Marseille, at the grammar school called Ecole Amedee Autran (the most adorable small school you can imagine, up the hill from our house) gathering recipes of their favorite dishes from each child (or their parents). This one is from Yann Vallani-

Ingredients

200gr –  7/8 cup of flour

1/2 liter – 1 pint of milk

2 eggs

pinch of salt

and that’s all. You put all the ingredients in the blender, the mixture has to have the consistency of a thick soup basically. Let it restin the fridge for an hour and its ready.

I usually start serving savory crepes with ham, eggs, arugula, mushrooms etc, and once we are done with the savory ones, I add some lemon or orange zest to make the sweet crepes with some sugar and Grand Marnier, or Nutella.

That’s my crêpe story, if you have one, please share!

Merci!

Talin