Cooking and crêpes

I just made smoked salmon and goat cheese crêpes for lunch. They were delicious. I have to say, I am rather astounded that I can make a crêpe at all. I never even had a bagel until I went off to college. I grew up eating hearty steak and potato suppers, strange concoctions in the pressure cooker, tuna casseroles on Fridays during Lent, and sandwiches of the Jif, Smuckers, and Wonder Bread variety.

When mom steamed white rice and topped it with a dollop of butter aside a pork chop and some lima beans, we felt downright exotic.

I don't actually cook much these days. I have my few staple dishes—lasagna, baked beans, oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, fruit crisp—and I rarely stray from them. But a couple of years ago, my friends Mary and Ron gave me a crêpe kit for my birthday. I looked at the tag on the gift, and then I looked at them as though they had lost their minds. Yes, I'm a foodie in that I like to tie on a fancy-pants feedbag at high-, low-, and no-concept restaurants. But as a single gal who doesn't like to waste money (on anything other than shoes and video poker), I don't experiment in the kitchen. I don't whip up a Barefoot Contessa entrée like my friend Jared, who served me a gorgeous cold beet soup a couple of weeks back. I don't concoct new and daring dishes by melding four recipes like my best friend Alison.

I follow recipes.

So I followed the instructions for seasoning my crêpe pan and whipping up light-as-air crêpes and I started filling them with all sorts of sweet and savory combinations: ham and swiss, salmon and chevre, strawberry and chocolate, classic lemon and sugar. I even hosted a brunch with crêpes as the main attraction. I wowed my friends and myself.

But if truth be told, I still prefer grilled Polish sausage or my mom's pot roast or perfect mac and cheese to coq au vin and its bon amis. Hmmm, I bet leftover pot roast would be pretty tasty wrapped up in a crêpe. That sort of experimentation I can totally get behind.