Crepes are Especially for You

Last week Amaya woke up in the middle of the night, drooling and crying. When she opened her mouth, we saw that she had a white, swollen tongue.

The next three days were awful. Awful. Awful.

We took her to the hour-away doctor on day one, where she was diagnosed as having some sort of mouth fungus (unusual in kids her age) and we were supposed to pick up a prescription that afternoon at our local pharmacy.

Oops. It wasn’t there. I called, the office was already closed. I called 4 times the next day about it, then again the next. In the mean time, Amaya was completely miserable.

Every time she put a bite of food in her mouth, she would immediately spit it out.

“It doesn’t taste goooood,” she cried.

She didn’t like water, ice cream, popsicles, nachos (her favorite food) or anything at all. She sobbed in despair, hungry and feeling punished.

This was so hard to watch for us. We tried buying her anything she liked, and even demanded her to eat because we worried she would dehydrate. She took a few, miserable bites.

On the third day I tried to give her oatmeal. She was so happy about oatmeal. She ate three huge bowls of it. Later the next day it seemed she was getting better.

First thing we did was buy fruity cheerios, which are basically fruit loops for guilt-ridden parents.

We immediately started giving her treats of all kinds. We took her out to eat, she got to choose, and she was so happy about eating. She has been saying for a week now: “I’m so glad I can eat again!”

I made her crepes for breakfast. With chocolate sauce, whipped cream, and raspberries. Basically, dessert.

I’ve never seen crepes make anyone so happy.

There are a million crepe recipes out there, and they’re pretty similar. My dad has one that’s really thick, which may be like the secret crepe recipe.

But I’ll tell you a couple of things to take your crepe to the next level.

Grate some lime or lemon zest in to the sugar for the batter and rub it around in there with your fingers. It is fantastic. The cooked crepe has just a hint of that sweet zest.

If you have a 12 inch saute pan, Use just under a 1/3 cup of batter for each crepe. The batter should swirl around once and that’s about it. I tilt the pan as I’m pouring in the batter.

Your heat should be at medium. I really recommend this cook’s illustrated recommended pan for your non-stick cooking: The T-fal professional total non-stick 12.5” pan. It’s inexpensive and I’ve had it for a year now and it’s still going strong. Pretty much everyone agrees though that non-stick pans don’t last very long, unfortunately.

Flip the crepe when the edges are just barely turning brown. It will be dry enough for you to flip it over with a little help from a chopstick or spatula. If you have to slide the spatula underneath the crepe to lift it up, either you pan isn’t non-stick enough, or it’s not finished cooking enough. Food should lift easily away if it is finished cooking. I’ve used my cast iron skillet for this too, and it works. It’s just too heavy to swirl around.

Chocolate Sauce for Crepes

When I was growing up this is the only way we ate crepes. With chocolate sauce. I never questioned it. I also have to recommend eating your crepes with your hands. My parents always got mad at me for it, but you know what? It tastes so much better without a fork in the way.

• 1 1/2 Cups Ghiradelli milk chocolate chips
• 1/4 Cup milk

1. Put the chocolate and milk into a microwave safe bowl. Heat it in the microwave for 30 seconds. Stir. Heat for another 30 seconds, stir. If the chocolate is not completely melted at this point, heat for another 10-seconds and stir again.
2. If the sauce is not loose enough for you, you can add a tablespoon more of milk and stir, but wait until the milk isn’t so cold and the chocolate isn’t so hot. Otherwise it will seize up and get grainy.

Serve with crepes (pour chocolate down the center and roll it up), bananas, strawberries… Anything. After an afternoon in the fridge the leftover sauce has a fudge-like texture that you can’t help dipping into with a spoon. Straight.