On the Side

Crepe Expectations

I'm recognizing a food theme across the country lately, and it has to do with very thin pancakes rolled around things that are equally yummy. I'm talking about crepes, those simple, but filling inventions from France.

My first encounter with them was years ago, at a friend's house (a friend's house, i.e., where many of my food preferences of today originated). Helen's mom, who was from England, could whip up a mean bunch of them. For years thereafter they seemed to me to be relegated to restaurants as a specialty breakfast item. But about three years ago, I began to see them at surprising places.

At the Flamingo hotel in Las Vegas, people begin lining up at the crepe stand when many others are just hitting the sack from a long night of losing at blackjack and collecting stripper cards. A more refined crowd amasses at the crepe carts strategically placed at the Ann Arbor Street Art Fair each year. Even in Cleveland, the quintessential home of heart-attack-on-a-plate meals, you'll find them; on Valentine's DAy, at the Home and Garden Show at the I-X Center, I had a strawberry and chocolate filled crepe for $6 while a handful sat at the bar behind me (yes, in Cleveland you can buy vegetable seeds, a hot tub, a knock-off Sham Wow, a crepe and a beer, all in the same building.)

Made with flour, eggs, milk and butter, and often sprinkled with powerdered sugar, they're just what the doctor didn't order, and therefore a dream come true for most of us. I prefer them with, say, fruit or Nutella, but you can also find filling like pesto and mozzarella. The fun part is watching them being made, often with a special spreading device that looks like a couple of dowel rods fashioned together. Starting in the middle, the spreader is moved in concentric circles outward until the hot pan is covered. So simple and yet such a great example of why Conan O'Brien is right - adults still love to be entertained in the same way that babies do: visually, with minimal props.

Then you eat them, all the while feeling gastronomically superior to the putz who prefered to get a brat instead, and yet remaining mystified by French women; how the hell do they have the willpower to stay so thin when stuff like this is practically seeping into their pores involuntarily? When I get really hungry, I feel like the guy that the movie "Into the Wild" was based on. In one scene, stranded in the Alaskan wilderness, he screams "I'm hungry!" over and over again, and (spoiler here) eventually starves to death. It takes me about 4 hours of fasting to feel like that, and I rectify the issue by, say, stuffing my face with a big fat crepe.

If you ask me (and you didn't, but I'm going to tell you anyway), I think crepes should also be sold in bowling alleys, bars, doctor's office waiting rooms and the Findlay Municipal Building.

I once tried to make crepes but they ended up more like pancakes - too fluffy to roll. There must be an art to it that requires a certain amount of trial and error. So instead, if I want a crepe fix, I mentally page through my calendar of places I've bought them, or, if I'm desparate, just head to Bob Evan's.

Have you ever tried to make them? Ever had one that was drop dead delicious? Or do you consider crepes too frou frou to touch?

Mr. Chips

The spouse and I discovered a new furry friend when we moved into our house last summer. Or rather, he discovered us.

One day, while watching TV in the new garage (which, apparently, that's what you do in there), the spouse heard a sound. A skitter. Looking down, he discovered the animal pictured here, standing at his feet, looking up at him in anticipation. The spouse, with visions of "Christmas Vacation" in his head, scurried into the house, confused and afraid.

A few days later, the squirrel literally knocked on our front door. "Joy, that crazy squirrel's back!" shouted the spouse. Evidently more versed in the ways of the wild, I immediately surmised that our visitor was looking for a handout. He rejected the baby carrot tossed out the door, but seemed to enjoy the Chips Ahoy cookie offered as a second option. He had no fear, so I decided to see if he'd eat out of my hand. Sure enough, he did, rather gently. And so we named him Mr. Chips.

We don't even know if he's a boy or a girl, but when he's nearby, he comes over when I call to him.

Clearly the previous resident, a retired librarian, had tamed the critter, although she hadn't told us anything about it. Good thing for Mr. Chips that I grew up fascinated with the outdoors. I used to feed dead flies to toads (if you drop a fly in front of a toad, from above, he'll lick it up lickity split), catch baby rabbits and capture grasshoppers in my lunch box, among other things that I probably shouldn't have been doing. I feel pretty comfortable around animals. Except for snakes.

He has, at times, followed me around and been pretty persistent with his begging when I've had no food for him. So it can be safely surmised that he now has me trained as well.

Mr. Chips is probably the most well fed squirrel in our neighborhood. I regularly set out unsalted peanuts for him, for those times when he's out of earshot (especially since it's been so frozen lately). I figure peanuts are a little more special, more exotic, than his usual native fare of walnuts and such. Although this fall, during "his busy season," as the spouse called it, he buried a lot of them in our yard rather than eat them on the spot.

We thought about getting specific critter feed at the store, but knew he'd just make a mess of it. For Halloween, I set out some gourds (baby pumkins), and one day I came home to find he had expertly nawed the top off one and flung the pulp everywhere to get to the seeds. And he can be picky. For instance, he would not eat a butter cookie I tried to serve him as a Christmas treat. The spouse says I shouldn't give him cookies anyway, because they're about as healthy for him as they are for us.

Do any of you have any such critters that you feed? Any ideas on what else Mr. Chips might like?