07-90-2021, Friday, Rain
In the afternoon, my daughter told me: “Rachel invited us to have crepes for dinner tonight.” However, I didn’t realize that crepes were my favorite western sweets. It seems that English, which is not my mother-tongue, needed to take a longer route to reach my memories.
When we arrived at Rachel’s house at six in the afternoon, she and her younger son were practicing cutting skills in the kitchen. She was chopping and dicing apples, and her chopping board was already full of diced apples. D. her younger son, is cutting bananas. A. her eldest one, was looking after the Western sausages on the baking pan.
After Rachel mixed the diced apples with butter, cinnamon powder, and vanilla extract and put them into a non stick pot to cook, I took over the job to stir the diced apples.
We stood side-by-side next to the stove counter top. I stirred the diced apples and enjoyed the smell of cinnamon apples. Rachel skillfully added sugar and water to the frozen blueberries in a pot and stirred the blueberries to make fresh jam.
I asked Rachel curiously, “Are the crepes we’re eating tonight the same dessert you made for us last Thanksgiving?”
“No, the dessert I made last Thanksgiving was called turnovers,” Rachel said.
After the diced apples got soft, I got another job to make scrambled eggs from Rachel. While frying the scrambled egg with 12 eggs, I said, “Wow, I am frying 12 eggs for the first time in my life.”
Rachel laughed when she hears it: “experiencing what it means to be in a big family.”
When Rachel started making crepes, I realized that she was making the Western dessert that I really like. So I felt excited.
While making the crepes, Rachel said: “In my last semester’s cooking class, making crepes was the most popular lesson for my students. For this year’s cooking summer camp, I will also let students make crepes. L and D (my younger daughter and my older son) will also participate in the cooking summer camp. ”
I asked: “What ingredients do you usually use as fillings for crepes?”
“Chocolate, raisins, strawberries, bananas, jam etc.” Rachel said.
There are nine people for today’s crepes dinner, each of us had a big plate. After Rachel put the crepe on the big plate, everyone went to pick their favorite fillings to pile on the crepes to enjoy their own flavor of crepes.
I divided my crepe into two: half was for sweet fillings, as the sweets were freshly made, it tasted very refreshing. The other half was for salty fillings and it was also very satisfying.
Crepes are a Western dessert I like very much. “Enjoying crepes in the United States is always a warm sweet experience for me, because crepes crosses my European, American, and Asian memories.” The first time I tasted crepes was in Germany. Eating crepes always brings back my memory of eating DanHongGao in Sichuan: soft and light sweetness.
After participating in the preparation of crepe fillings at Rachel’s home tonight, and eating Rachel’s homemade crepes, my memory of crepes had the warm feeling of being part of a big family now.
Little Episodes
1. Crepes for dinner by Rachel:
Rachel is making crepes：
Rachel’s choice of crepe fillings for tonight:
The salty fillings: scrambled eggs, Western sausages and tomato sauce.
The Sweet fillings: sliced strawberry, banana, cinnamon apple, blueberry jam, and pudding
My son who is visiting us from California is cutting the sausage.
My half crepes with sweet fillings:
2. Crepes dough recipe ：
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 eggs
½ cup milk
½ cup water
¼ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons butter, melted
Rachel said：“After mixing well, let it stay for an hour.”