Cooking: Crepe Cake

Here and there I begin a non-sensical project at 11 pm.  I know I'm not alone in that particular insanity.  (Can't speak for other insanities...)  Years ago in North Carolina, it was my friend Edna's "fruit" (also known as cake mix) pie.  Now, for Will's 6th grade class mind you, I am making a Chocolate Hazelnut Crepe Cake.  What happened?!?

Well, the recipe is so advanced, I had to take breaks from cooking and go bang on the piano every 10 minutes.  My brain can't wrap around browning butter AND creaming custard AND skinning hazelnuts AND pouring a perfect crepe AND melting chocolate with a double boiler.

The recipe is from Deb Perelman, in "The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook."  (Thank you, Jenny!)  Her book is beautiful.  Her photos are etherial.  A stark contrast to my honest kitchen, adorned with chicken scraps, homework, art supplies, broken eye glasses, food-stained bills, dead plants and more.  Really, I shouldn't have Perelman's photos it sitting around at all.  It's like a diamond in the rough.  Will spotted it and was probably so taken by the novelty of clutterless kitchen scenes that, unbeknownst to me, he submitted this recipe to the school fundraiser cookbook and committed to a taste test the following day.  Where is this boy's sense?  I pushed back, but only bought myself a couple of days.

But now, even as I'm tired, and not exactly the picture of a joyous cook, gratitude still rises to the surface.  I'm grateful for having this boy.  Grateful to mix some love into his hazelnut pudding. And grateful he likes Chocolate Hazelnut Crepe Cakes.  I guess.  Though Edna's cake mix pie would be much simpler, and probably a bigger hit.

This is How We Cook

I have a friend who recently made some amazing sweet potato crepes.  It rivaled my first taste of a chocolate crepe on the streets of Paris years ago, when I proceeded to stuff jars of Nutella into my suitcase home, only to find it stacked on the shelves at Safeway.

This time around, I thought I'd attempt to share such goodness with my family.  So, the procession began:

• On Thursday night, I gathered obscure groceries, like Farmer's Cheese.
• On Sunday, I went back to the store to get whole milk.
• On Wednesday, I baked four potatoes.
• On Thursday, I blended up crepe mix.
• On Friday, Jeff brought more home eggs.  I lacked one.  (I accidentally composted my last yolk instead of the whites as called for in the recipe.  I was double-tasking, cooking and talking to my sister on the phone.)
• On Saturday, I made crepes.

When I woke, the sun was shining so beautifully onto my cutting board, it cried out for some creation.  Similarly, John was crying out for food.  I figured I'd be fast.  After all, those cooked potatoes and the crepe concoction were patiently sitting right in the refrigerator, in bowls topped with plates as they had been for days.

However, John and the others' stomachs were not quite so patient.  Multi-step breakfasts sometimes don't do the trick.  Everyone persevered, sort of.  Will bided the time doing math:  how can 13 crepes  be split between 6 people with differing preferences.  He was ultimately my biggest fan, claiming they rivaled our Valentines Day crepe dinner. (Another story.)

The leftover filling still sits in my refrigerator, this time in actual tupperware.  I'm just waiting for sunshine to inspire.

PS - The recipe for "Jacob's Blintzes" is in Deb Perelman's inspiring cookbook, The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook.

Halloween's Eve

The night before Halloween, I really wasn't thinking.  Will scheduled a class, a "Tasting Session."  Before I knew it, he had his siblings, one by one, behind closed doors.

Classes are not new to Will.  Periodically, a sign-up sheet will appear on a refrigerator or bulletin board, with attention-grabbers like:  "Learn to speak Natonian" or "Experience the Symphony of Smells."

When it came my turn for the "Halloween Tasting Session," I wore the designated blind-fold, and began.  The first taste was familiar:  a vanilla wafer.  The second was most certainly a hit: a handful of chocolate chips.  The third was a peanut butter cup, and the fourth was his own chocolate creation.  (Recipe:  melt chocolate chips, pour them into a homemade foil mold, add lots of turbino sugar.)

I walked out and immediately understood why John was bouncing off the walls, well past his bedtime, on a chocolate high the night before Halloween.  Not ideal planning.

Will charted our results.  Jeff and I were congratulated on our perfect scores.  (A planned distraction from the massive chocolate consumption?)

So everyone wins: Will is the hero, his siblings got sugar infusions, and his parents let it all go, graciously drowning in praise.

Real Life Canning

Recently, I squeezed in some late season canning.  I was determined.  So blindly determined that let me warn you: this is not a post for the faint-hearted.  Nor is it one that will inspire you to can tomatoes.  In fact, if you come to my house and I offer you tomato soup, there's a good chance you'll decline.

One Friday afternoon, all excited to get going, the girls and I went to a local farm and got a big box of tomatoes.  Things got busy, however, and the box sat on the kitchen counter.  And sat.  And sat.  Days (weeks?) later, Clara and I cleared our evening calendar and tackled the huge box we'd long managed to block from our sight.

We salvaged about half the tomatoes, ignoring the mouse poop at the bottom of the box.  Given these self-made trying conditions, we had to work fast to keep up our resolve.   In other words, we didn't really have time to clean up the kitchen before we began.  Clara dove in.  Hands, feet and all.

The result?  Eight beautiful jars of canned tomatoes.  All's well that ends well.  Though we haven't yet made any soup.

Summertime Lemonade

We have a young chef (a/k/a culinary dominatrix) in our midst this summer.  No challenge is too great.  She throws on her apron, dives into her cookbook and is instantly an expert.  One to be revered, if not feared.

Take pink lemonade, a perfect sugary concoction that requires lots of taste-testing and will likely draw a crowd.  She worked hard - cut the lemon rinds, boiled water, chilled water, mixed in lots of sugar, measured juices.  And then, right when all of us hovered with glasses ready to fill... she felt crowded, smothered, pressured, overwhelmed.  She quickly swept up her coveted glass pitcher and wandered the yard, the sweet stuff splashing all over her without much notice.  After all, she was already covered from all the necessary tasting.

Finally, something clicked.  She relented, even embraced the pleasure of giving.  Her minions were all the more thrilled, given the uncertainty of our receipt.  And it was delicious.  I hope she'll bless us with the sticky floors, the uncooperative lemons, the cooperative ones, too, and the prolonged anticipation again and again.  (But, even if she doesn't, it will feel like she has due to her fabled retelling of this her first batch.)