The "The Birthday Crêpe" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Celebrating my youngest son Tad's birthday at Rachel's Cafe & Crepêrie at 608 Richmond Drive, Lancaster, Pennsylvania.  He had told Carol and me about some of the fantastic crêpes he has had at their downtown location at 201 W. Walnut Street and we decided to take him to the new location on Richmond Dr. which is closer to our home.  

Rachel's at 608 Richmond Drive, Lancaster,  PA.

Our other son Derek's wife Barb met us to celebrate Tad's special day before heading to work.  The restaurant was slightly more than half full when we arrived at 10:00 AM.  After being seated we purused the menu and special offerings for the day.  Tad chose the Thai chicken crêpe that had grilled chicken, rice, diced red onions, scallions, peanut butter and hot sauce.  My wife had a breakfast crêpe that featured eggs, Swiss cheese, ribeye steak, mushrooms and scallions.  Barb had the California chicken cheesesteak crêpe that had mozzarella cheese, grilled chicken, diced red onions, diced tomatoes, spinach and fresh basil.  

The Zesty Lemon Berry Cheesecake Crêpe

Being that I love desserts, I chose the Girl scout special "Zesty Lemon Berry Cheese- cake" crêpe which featured sweetened cream cheese, graham cracker crumbs, lemon juice, Savannah Smile Cookie Crumbs, fresh blueberries with whipped cream and strawberry drizzle.  For dessert Carol and I passed while Tad and Barb split the Ali Fausnaught Cheesecake crêpe which was fresh berry cheesecake with Nutella and bananas.  

The Ali Fausnaught Cheesecake crêpe.

Crêpes are popular throughout France as well as islands in the Caribbean that have French connec- tions.  On our trips to St. Martin we frequently had crêpes at a small open-air restaurant atop a hill in the Orient Village area known as Paradise View Crêperie.  If you have never had a crêpe, its common ingredients include flour, eggs, milk, butter and a pinch of salt.  Crêpes usually come as either sweet or savory.  

The Paradise View Créperie in St. Martin.

The sweet variety (crêpe sucrêes) are made with wheat flour and sweetened slightly while the savory ones (savoury galettes) are made with buckwheat flour and unsweetened.  The name "gallette" came from the French word valet ("pebble") since the first galettes were made on a large pebble heated in a fire.  Mille crêpe is a French cake made of many crêpe layers.  The word mille means "a thousand" which implies many layers of crêpe.  If you have ever heard the term English pancake, they are like wheat flour crêpes and served with golden syrup or lemon juice and sugar.  Swedish pancakes, known as Nordic pancakes, are somewhat like French crêpes.  Potato pancakes can be called raggmunk and usually contain shredded raw potato and may contain other vegetables.  We in the United States are used to eating pancakes aka flapjacks.  

A St. Martin favorite made with jelly inside of it with a scoop
of vanilla ice cream and three scoops of whipped cream.

The 49er flapjack is a sourdough crêpe made popular during the California Gold Rush.  Actually, to me, a crêpe is a very thin pancake.  I know many might disagree, but that's OK.  That's my opinion!  When Carol and I ordered crêpes in St. Martin, they had both sweet and savory crêpes.  Carol's favorite was made with a "dippy" egg in the middle that she would break while eating it.  My favorites were all sweet crêpes that may have a variety of jelly in them or fruit in them, all folded over with a scoop or two of ice cream on them with a couple scoops of whipped cream.  My meal today at Rachel's was excellent.  Very sweet with lots of whipped cream on it, but I missed the ice cream!  But what I missed the most was the view of the Caribbean Sea in the distance with the gentle waves breaking on the pure-white sand along the shoreline.  But, anything would taste better in those circumstances.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.