Thursday, July 31, 2003

I used to be the crepe-making queen – what happened?  Last night, I just couldn’t make them work.  True, these were Crepes Fines Sucrees, which use only egg yolks and have sugar, and are therefore more delicate.  But I think my problem went deeper than that.  Julia says that “dessert crepes, especially if they are for crepes Suzette, should be as thin as possible.”  Well, I supposed that all rests upon your definition of “possible.”  In the larger scheme, I suppose it is possible for the crepes to be feather light and thin as a whisper; it’s just not possible for me.  Not last night, anyway. So I blended together milk, cold water, egg yolks, sugar, orange liqueur, flour and melted butter and let it sit in the freezer for awhile, while Eric cleaned spinach, miserably, for Canapes aux Epinards, while I made the canapés themselves – squares of white bread fried in butter, basically.  I also spent a good time explaining to Eric several times, and to Em when she arrived, the difference between crepes and canapés.  It seemed to be an issue of great confusion. Speaking of Em, I don’t know what she was thinking.  She had asked me what she should bring – cigarettes for instance.  I responded that I was ambivalent, because while I didn’t want to smoke cigarettes, I also didn’t want to get drunk and then go out and buy cigarettes if she already had some handy.  Obviously, this is all a delicate dance – like a marriage ritual, really -- at the end of which Em is meant to offer up said cigarettes.  Only she didn’t.  Not only that, but she effectively resisted all my attempts to get her drunk and make her come with me to buy some.  I’m just going have to get myself a new devil, that’s all.  Though to her credit, she did bring a bottle of vodka.  She also did not play a very good drill sergeant, nor did Eric, when I realized it was nine o’clock and I had miles to go before I achieved Canapes aux Epinards, and that I’d blow it off and do it tomorrow.  True, the crepes count as two recipes – one for the batter, one for the treatment that makes them Crepes Suzette, but still, I’ll never get done at this rate.  And if I don’t finish, the terrorists have won. So, while Eric made us a dinner of London broil, corn and rice – rice because I’d forgotten to stick the potatoes in the oven for bake potatoes – I cooked the crepes.  First of all, I added WAY too much butter to the pan.  The first crepe was a big ball of bleck.  Okay.  Second crepe was slightly less ballish, but I still was having trouble getting it to spread out into a nice thin pancake – the batter just solidified too soon after hitting the pan, before I could get it all spread around.  Another thick, blecky mess.  The third one went slightly better, was at least more or less the right shape, but how do flip it over?  I seem to remember that flipping the crepes over used to be easy, that it was just a matter of helping it along with a spatula.  That didn’t work this time.  The crepe tore and fell apart.  Julia says, “as dessert crepes are fragile, you will probably find it best to lift them with your fingers to turn and cook them on the other side.”  But, um, Julia?  The crepes are hot.  I’ve got a skillet on fairly high heat, here.  It kinda burns my fingers.  I suppose the trick is not to mind it.  I wound up with only three misshapen, sad little crepes.  I set them aside and started making the butter for the Crepes Suzette.  Since I only had three crepes I figured I’d make a half recipe of the butter.  Started by rubbing some sugar cubes over an orange until they were nice and orangey.  I love rubbing sugar cubes on oranges, it feels so silly but it smells so good.  Then I scraped the orange part of the peel off with a vegetable peeler and minced it up with the sugar cubes, and some more sugar.  I used my, what do you call it, mezzaluna, one of those half-moon blades, to mince it up, which is another fun thing.  Then I beat it in with some softened butter, and beat in the juice from the orange and some more orange liqueur, and stuck the stuff in the fridge until we’d eaten dinner and were ready for our Crepes Suzette.  Eric meanwhile had made us, and honey I say this out of love, and in full knowledge that you have made us some stunning meals in your time, the sorriest-ass dinner you ever did see.  Steak, white boiled corn, and the most spectacularly burned rice ever.  To be fair it wasn’t entirely his fault.  In addition to the fact that I was in his way making crepes while he was trying to cook, I’d also bought him some organic white corn, which while very good was rather boring to look at and, being organic, also had the odd rotted moldy bits, which were cut off and left the cobs looking a little moth-eaten.  The steak was good, but just slightly overdone so that it didn’t give the nice dark red color to the plate.  At least we had the blackened bits from the rice to add color.  Canapes aux Epinards would have helped the situation, but I failed him there.  We ate our sad, though tasty, dinner in front of the TV while watching Jaws, which Em has never seen.  I’ll repeat that for you: Em has never seen Jaws.  And guys, for those of you not appropriately aware of this fact, Jaws is a beautiful movie.  Beautiful.  Makes you mourn for Steven Spielberg, really – Steven, Steven, Steven, what happened? It is, however, a movie I have seen approximately seven hundred times, so I was able to tear myself away long enough to make the Crepes Suzette.  I am supposed to make these in a chafing dish.  But I don’t know what a chafing dish is.  I mean I guess I do, sort of.  But I’m not going to be going out and buying one anytime soon.  I did mine in a skillet.  Melted the orange butter over low heat.  Dipped the crepes in it.  Julia instructs: “Its best-looking side out, fold it in half and in half again, to form a wedge.  Place it at the edge of the chafing dish.” That is amusingly unlikely on several counts. I stuck the pathetic crepe-things in the butter and squooshed them over to the sides of the pan as best I could.  I sprinkled them with sugar, poured over them a third cup of half Grand Marnier, half cognac, and lit the mother fuckers up with a Bic lighter Em left over at our house once when she was still my devil.  I had no problem with the flambéing this time.  Whoo scary.  Big blue flame very impressive.  And long lasting.  Though I fear in fact I let it go out a little too soon, because when we ate our crepes whilst watching Jaws, they were a little alcoholic tasting, still.  Good though.  Pathetic and sad, but good.  Okay – political comment of the day.  We’re going to float a theory here.  This is Eric’s theory, not mine, but it intrigues.  Eric posits that perhaps the republicans know something we don’t.  Some overwhelming scandal on the horizon.  And so they’re desperately consolidating their power before it breaks, risking political suicide by indulging in frankly anti-democratic tactics like, oh, say, recalling the governor of California because he’s a democrat, or calling endless special sessions in Texas for redistricting, even AFTER the proposal’s been voted down.  OR – and this is a theory I just thought of – maybe they’re planning a coupe and a new form of government, a Megalo-Democracy, for the rich people, by the rich people, without all that pesky Bill of Rights stuff.  You heard it here first. I've just had a brilliant idea.  I should be the Ann Coulter of the left!  A nasty, stupid bitch spouting far-fetched theories about the Evil Right.  Only with food.  Because people like your political rants better when deformed crepes are involved, I find.     7:29:16 AM    comment []

The Julie/Julia Project