February 8, 2013

Today the kids’ school celebrated La Chandeleur Crêpe Day, also known as Crêpe Day in France (normally observed on 2/2, but the school scheduled it on a Friday).  This is a new holiday for me, and I must admit that I find it amusing that a nation would celebrate a day by eating crêpes.  Apparently there is a bit of superstition in the celebration; when making the first crêpe, you are supposed to hold a coin in your left hand.  If you flip the crêpe properly in the pan, it is supposed to be good luck (and doom on you if you flub it up). And somehow the day also determines if winter is winding down, or headed for another six weeks of cold (in a Groundhog Day sort of way).

One of our twins corrected my pronunciation of “crêpe” at least four times in the past twenty-four hours, which started off amusing and ended up annoying.  (“Mommy, it is crêpe with a soft “e”, not an “a” sound.  And you need to add the tiger sound before it.”)  Yes, I know my French accent is crap, and I can’t roll my r’s if my life depended on it, but I wish she didn’t need to remind me so many times.

There was some batter left-over from my earlier crêpe-making for the kids’ classes, so this evening I made a few more.  The kids had not been overly impressed with crêpes at school (served with jam, honey, powdered sugar), so they were complaining when I wouldn’t let them have plain ice cream.  Of course, once they tried the crêpes with chocolate/almond spread, sprinkled with powdered sugar, then served with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce, they decided it was the “best dessert ever!”