I recently received a strange email from Macy’s. The retailer said it understands that not everyone wants to receive the Mother’s Day email and offered me the opportunity to opt out of receiving it.
I don’t know why Mother’s Day was given such special attention. Perhaps Macy’s executives feared that people who lost their mothers (or hated their mothers, or didn’t like being mothers) would be saddened by the holiday’s reminders. I guess he was worried.
It has been over 12 years since my mother, Jan Hallett Weisblatt, passed away. Still, I love that Mother’s Day gives me a chance to remember her.
This May holiday, I often make things that my mom loved. This year, we’re remembering her love for Paris with crepes. These are classic Parisian street foods.
Jan, whom I called Taffy, had an ear for languages and studied French in high school. When she arrived at Holyoke College at the age of 16, she was determined to continue her studies in her language.
She was proud that her connection to the French language (along with her lifelong love of theater) was alluded to in her 1937 book On a New England Campus. I was thinking.
Author Frances Lester Warner, who visited the university for a year, said, “I have never seen a more captivating performance than the recent performance of “Le Médecin” by a new student wearing a pointy hat and white cotton wig.” writing. [the doctor] In Moliere’s play. ” That new student was my mother.
The freshmen’s favorite French professor, Paul Saintonge, and his wife, Connie, adopted several French students each year. Tuffy/Jean joined their adopted children when he arrived on campus in 1935.
In 1936, the Saintonges took her and a group of other students to France for the summer, and she fell irrevocably in love with the country and its capital.
She spent her junior year abroad there, studying at the Sorbonne and living with a Parisian landlady whom her American lodger found unsophisticated but endearing. During her time in France, Taffy became a social butterfly and she flew around golden Europe at the height of the World Wars.
Her French skills also deepened from proficiency to knowledgeable during her stay in Paris. “She learned that speaking good French was important, but what she said was more important,” she later recalled.
When she returned to college for her senior year, she was the head of a small on-campus dormitory called Le Foyer, where French was the only language spoken.
While in school, she developed a perfect Parisian accent and was often mistaken for a French woman. (My French was pretty good when I was younger, but the French always knew I was American.) And she returned to Paris many times throughout her life.
In 1953, she visited the city with my father and young son. Taffy was very worried because she had not been back to her beloved Paris since it was occupied by German forces during World War II.
On that return visit, she went to see a play at the Comédie Française, France’s national theater. This is the world’s oldest active theater company. Tuffy wrote in her diary:
“During a break I wandered into the lobby and looked out through the colonnades to the fountain in front, further delighting my soul. [sic] I rediscovered my favorite Paris!
“And life – the magnetic life of the city I saw again, wandering through the streets, its narrow streets crowded with shops and people.” I thought my crepes would have pleased her soul too. I want to think We can’t recreate these shops and people, but we can recreate a little bit of the atmosphere of Paris in her honor.
My crepes, like most of the food I make, look a little crumbly around the edges. But it’s delicious. As with other tricky foods like puff pastry, my advice for crepes is: show no fear. When food is feared, it becomes difficult to cook.
Crepes come in sweet and savory varieties, and the recipe below includes both types. My personal favorite is the savory crepe, often called a galette in France. I first tasted this sweet filled with gooey cheese when I visited France.
Congratulations Mother’s Day!
By the way, the bakers among you may want to spend the eve of Mother’s Day at Orange’s Over-the-Top Bakery. The bakery will be hosting a cookie baking event on Saturday, May 11th from 5pm until 8pm. There is an entry fee for those who just want to participate and cookie judging, but the winners will receive prizes and lots of glory.
material:
For crepes:
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup flour
2 tablespoons melted butter
Add butter if desired
For stuffing:
Lots of butter
Served with grated Gruyère or Jarlsberg cheese, or lemon juice and sugar, optionally whipped cream and raspberries
Instructions:
Place the eggs in a mixer and mix well. Add milk, salt, and flour and mix again on low speed. Add melted butter and mix.
Cover the blender bowl and let the dough stand for at least 30 minutes before making the crepes.
When ready to cook, melt a small amount of butter in an 8-inch nonstick skillet over medium-low heat. Spread the butter all around with a pastry brush or paper towel.
Pour a few tablespoons of the batter into the center of the pan. Swirl the pan to evenly distribute the batter and create flat pancakes.
Cook for a few minutes until the bottom is light brown and the edges can be easily lifted. Then flip the crepe and cook the other side.
Remove the crepes from the pan and let cool on a plate or rack.
Continue until all the batter is used, adding more butter to the skillet as needed.
Crepes can be stuffed to make them savory or sweet. To make savory crepes (also known as galettes), melt the butter in an 8-inch or 10-inch nonstick skillet. Spread it out like you would a crepe.
Place one baked crepe in the frying pan, fry it in the butter for a few seconds, then flip it over. Sprinkle grated cheese on top and let it melt for about 1 minute. Next, fold the crepe over the cheese to create a semicircle.
Cook until cheese is melted. Remove the galette from the heat and fold it again. Repeat with the remaining crepes.
The process of making sweet crepes is similar, but instead of putting cheese on the inside, sprinkle sugar and a little lemon juice on the inside of each crepe. After cooking, before rolling or folding, add a little whipped cream and a few raspberries for a nice touch.
Makes about 10 crepes.
Tinky Weisblatt is an award-winning cookbook author and singer known as a delicious diva. Visit her website TinkyCooks.com.
