Julia Child I am not

Heck, I'm not even Rachael Ray, as my culinary adventures last night will illustrate.

Erika and Colleen are coming over for dinner tonight. We're meeting at a bar near my house for a pre-dinner drink, and so I can ask them about having a birthday party there next month. So I decided, hey, I'll be smart, and prepare everything I can prepare ahead of time tonight. Stopped at Safeway on my way home. Ingredients purchased, that was fine. I didn't forget anything, and I even remembered to stop at the liquor store and buy the sherry I need. (I tend to forget things if I can't buy them at the grocery.) I made a banana cake, which was fine aside from a tiny bit sticking to the cake pan. It was the crepes that did me in.

I am making spinach and mushroom crepes. You first make the crepes, then the stuffing, then put them in a baking pan, and bake them. I figured I could do everything except the baking part last night. So I made the crepe batter, and got out the crepe maker that Mercy gave me many moons ago. I've never used the thing, though, and I'm pretty sure she bought it at a garage sale, because it has that made-in-the-70s look to it, so it's old. Well, it didn't work. Oh, crepe batter stuck to it, and they cooked, but I couldn't get the stupid things off the crepe maker. I tried it twice, then decided to move on to a pan, like the book said to do. (the crepe maker now lives in the trash.)

I took out one pan, put crepe batter in it, and then again, it stuck. I sprayed it with Pam and tried again. No dice. I got out a different pan, and finally, got one crepe to come out. At that point, there are rejected crepes on the crepe maker, in the sink, in the trash, and in the first pan, plus batter that splashed all over the counter. The second pan worked out OK, but apparently I am not good at flipping crepes or peeling them off the pan. The book said I should have 14 7" crepes. I've got 10 crepes, and they are definitely smaller than 7". Oh well, I guess mine will just have more stuffing.

All of this took me an hour, and I didn't get to the making the stuffing part, because I needed to go to sleep! The book said the whole project -- making crepes, making stuffing, rolling crepes, baking crepes, should take 45 minutes. Maybe Erika and Colleen will have more than one pre-dinner drink, and not notice how horribly misshapen the crepes are.