Oh Crepe, i thought it was Saturday already!

Aahh... It's Friday morning and you can already feel the mischievous pull of a lazy weekend tugging at your arm.  It can get you high on life thinking about it: the morning cartoons;  the Sunday paper being divided among your family; a rich, aromatic breakfast that doesn't involve a bowl, a spoon and less than five minutes.  Alas, for most of us Friday can't be a day for fluffy whole wheat pancakes, challah french toast and slow-cooked steel-cut oatmeal with fresh local fruit.  There is a saviour, however,  amidst the teems of sugary breakfast cereals and bone dry nutrition bars and that savior is the simple crepe!

The Crepe is a masterful combination of the pancake with its deliciously spongy consistency and the fried egg with its light fluffiness and, most importantly, quick cooking time.  So what's the deal with crepes?  They usually have only a few simple ingredients you can mix in minutes (and even do so the night before if you must) and they are delicious as a stand alone dish for any carb addicts or as the setting for a host of sweet and savory toppings.

The Recipe

1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

2 (cage-free) eggs

1/2 cup (organic, grass fed) milk

1/2 cup tap water

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons of butter, margarine or oil in liquid form

As goes with most doughs (and you are making a form of dough) it is best to combine all the wet ingredients (eggs, milk, water, fat) in the bowl first and whisk together then slowly incorporate the flour to avoid clumping.  Now what i usually do is separate the batter into two bowls and add about 1/3 of a cup of sugar and a teaspoon of vanilla to one batch.  This sweet mixture will be for crepes that i eat with fillings like fruit, chocolate, cinnamon, or even some soft cheeses.  In the unsweetened batter i will usually put a hard cheese or some finely diced veggies sauteed in oil and garlic.

Heat up a skillet and spray it with non-stick cooking spray and ladle on some batter making sure to keep the size of your crepe small enough that you will be comfortable flipping it halfway through.  All that is left now is popping it into a plate and tossing a topping on and you have a delicious breakfast, lunch, dinner or dessert that didn't take too much time or effort.

The best part, though, is when you start experimenting with toppings.  My favorites so far are:

 melted dark chocolate - throw some chocolate chips (i like ghiradelli semi-sweet at least 60% cocoa) into a microwave-safe bowl and melt them.  it helps the consistency if you add just a spoon of canola oil and take it out of the microwave to mix it every 30 seconds or so.

Cinnamon goop - This one came about when I had leftover cinnamon crumb topping from a cake i made so i threw it onto the crepe while it was still in the pan and it melted into delicious cinnamon jam.  For this you need 1 cup sugar 1 cup cinnamon 1/2 cup flour and 3/4 cup butter then you combine the dry ingredients and throw in little pieces of butter at a time and smash it in with a fork til you have small crumbs of butter covered in the cinnamon mix.  YUM

Savory veggies and cheese crepes - use the savory crepe mix to make your crepes.  Then throw veggies like carrots broccoli snow peas string beans and anything else you like into a food processor for two seconds to get very fine pieces of your veggies.  Put that in a separate pan with a few spoons of oil and clove of diced garlic or garlic powder and saute.  Portion that mixture onto each crepe and sprinkle with finely shredded cheese (mozzarella, cheddar, monterey jack, they all work!) fold the crepe over like a half circle and serve.  It's a delicious meal!

Well i hope that i haven't made you late for work with the whole explanation.  I know when i first started cooking i preferred the long version because it taught me not only how to prepare this one dish but also how to reuse some techniques to make original dishes too.  If you already think you're past the novice stage though I have a suggestion for a website that always inspires me to try something new.  www.Tastespotting.com is great for recipe ideas but sometimes less so for explanations on how to make these things.  Also if you're into eating sustainably, as I am, a good resource is Mark Bittman at the NY Times.  He has a regular cooking video on NYTIMES.com if you want to check him out and he also just came out with a new book called "Food Matters" which is doing pretty well so I hope people are walking away from the table with a greater appreciation of the way the food we eat gets to our plates. Anyway, without further ado, some pictures to bedazzle the eye and excite the palate.

mmm... strawberry jam

 a lighter blueberry preserve variety

Breton-Style is flakier, and usually served savory.  In this case with cheese and tomatoes.

Van Gogh eat your heart out

Warning: If the childish nature of my artwork is offensive to anyone's refined ideas of art i apologize. I was only attempting to capture, however pedantically, some of the craziness going on in my head.

Like i said i'm about the furthest thing from an artist. I'm friends with a few though and as art is such an important part of our culture i try to maintain a little knowledge on the subject - i know a Monet from a Manet - and i also like to draw when i can. I still havent mastered the art of scanning so my sketchbook will remain a mystery but sometimes i like to go to Microsoft Paint and kill some time doodling. As you can probably see i'm a fan of landscapes and Comic Book Heroes. I'm a huge comic fan (mostly mainstream stuff like Dc and Marvel) and I have always wanted to write my own comic but the toughest part seems to me like the drawing and formatting. One of my friends promised to give it a try with me this summer so hopefully it will work out.

After doing a few of this drawings i sent them to some people and inspired some response drawings. Seriously, though, if I can create art anyone can and I encourage everyone to explore with different mediums. My father likes cray-pas and coal. My grandma is an awesome oil painter. My muse is a blank screen and a steady mouse. I don't know if it's possible to do this but if people want to (or are able to) respond by posting scanned or computer-generated art of their own that would be awesome! And remember: Paint on! Art is a conduit to the soul!

Find your gatekeeper (but be true to your style)

Now i'm no music expert and i was just making this point in my music class today. So far we've looked at everything from opera and concert to motown and broadway musicals. What i realized is that it is almost impossible to stay on top of all the awesome stuff that is out there. Someone brought up a good point about the artist M.I.A. who is now first hitting the popular American scene and yet, in England, she was an indie hit for years. When we read magazines like Rolling Stone or Blender (i've subscribed to both in the past) it does the best job it can on the comprehensive music circuit but the best job just doesn't cut it.

So is the blogosphere a better source for finding gold nuggets? well, after a little bit of research i decided the answer was decidely no. There is a lot of crappy music out there. Now i'm no critic and I know there is a market for everyone but my suggestion is to feel around for a music blog that offers some sample songs and if you like the guys/gals taste then you can make that blog your official "Gatekeeper". A gatekeeper is any review that consistently recommends music you can get behind.

Personally i'm a little backwards in my tastes. I love folk/protest music of the 60's but i don't just stay tuned to the Bob Dylan station. Pete Seeger, Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez, Janis Joplin and my personal Favorite - Phil Ochs! I recommend checking some of these guys out on youtube.com or pandora.com (two great resources for sampling music - the former to sample individual songs and the latter for getting a feel for a certain style).

My other suggestions is to listen to a great show on National Public Radio at noon every weekday called "Soundcheck" where they have an open and intelligible conversation about music for an hour. It can span from discussions with hip/hop executives to discussions with authentic Malaysian throat singers. It's perfect for all you self-proclaimed renaissance people out there who want to stay informed about music (one of the necessary knowledges to be considered a renaissance man/woman) without boring the socks off of you if you don't have much educational background on the topic.

And last but not least - my suggestion for anyone who wants to break out of the Billboard hits mold and try some good, original music out I have a great blog for you. http://runbpm.blogspot.com/

A backdoor entrance to the blogosphere

Hi - a brief introduction and explanation.  Long time blog reader, first time blog creator.  I wanted to have my own forum for discussion of things that are important to me and i didn't want to limit the topic to anything too specific like most blogs do.  See, i'm a college student in Brooklyn, NY so my life and experiences have yet to become an ad nauseum doldrum of repetitiveness.  I don't deny that if you want the most up to date info on any one subject this probably isn't the place to come but if you want to hear, see and converse about a little of everything then this is your kind of blog. 

 I am very concerned about the environment, human rights, animal rights and social justice issues (yeah just about every possible cause) and i also like to stay abreast of things like great places to travel and hike, delicious foods to cook (personally, i'm a vegetarian,) great movies, books, tv and comic books.  

The reason i titled my blog as I did is because, as a student, i have access to a vast array of knowledge and interests from professors and peers alike that give me interest in many topics.  On the other hand, being a city-bred adolescent I also have a tendency to spend more time watching television or chatting online with my girlfriend (who goes to college in Maine) than I will pursuing interests like playing the xylophone, snow-shoeing or creating my own comic books.  So hopefully this blog will serve to teach and inspire me as much as it does any visitors.  Right now i see knowledge as the only currency that can't be undervalued by an economic crisis - and that makes it invaluable to me!