Walls in France: Crepe night

Last night was crepe night. We set up the Crep’Party Compact, grated cheese, and got out the ham, cream and butter for the first course and the sugar, lemons and Nutella for dessert. Delicious! We started crepe night recently after enjoying a delightful crepe dinner at the Dupre’s house. The Dupres are friends of ours who live just around the corner. We met them through Marie (previously known as ‘the lady at the press’) who suggested them as potential cat sitters when we were looking. Since then, Annick and her three daughters have taken wonderful care of our cats a number of times, and we have become friends. Annick and her husband, Philippe, own and run a nursery nearby called Le Jardin d’Anadour. We got our (lovely) Christmas tree from them and look forward to buying lots of plants from them this spring. One of their daughters is in high school and the other two go to school with Lucie and Kathleen although they are all in different grades. Annick was a huge help when figuring out the elementary school for Kathleen and our savior when we decided to change schools for Lucie. The Dupres are good people.

Anyway - back to the crepes....The crepes for the main course were made with dark flour. Philippe was in charge of cooking them. He scooped batter onto the big, flat surface and spread it out in a circle with a utensil that looked like a tiny rake without the teeth. He asked everyone what they wanted inside...cheese, cream, ham, sausage, or egg or any combination of the above. The girls and I played it pretty safe with cheese (although I did have one with an egg that was delicious!) but Bucky went for it and tried every combination. Once everyone was filled up on savory crepes, Philippe changed the heating element so that there were six round spaces for little crepes...time for dessert. Those crepes were made with white flour and we filled them with Nutella or butter or lemon and sugar. I swear Kathleen ate a dozen of them!! It was such a fun way to have dinner, the Wall family decided on the short walk home that we should get a crepe maker of our own.

So, while the kids were in Lyon, Bucky and I bought our Crep’Party Compact. It's a heating element that has space for six small crepes and comes with six small spatulas and a ladle for applying the batter (all part of an efficiently storable unit!) Annick gave me the easy recipe for the batter so we were ready to do crepes. Luckily, during the girls’ visit to Lyon, the Defaixs had crepes using a contraption similar to the one we bought so when we broke out our Crep’Party Compact (I love that name!) for the first time, Lucie and Kathleen were pro-crepe-makers. We hope to have crepe night on a regular basis because it is lots of fun and sure makes fixing dinner (my job!) easy! Bon appétit!