Julia Child's Gateaux de Crepes.

Rosie is making the custard sauce for the gateaux: 1 stick of cream cheese, 6 aigs, 1 cup milk, and some freshly ground nutmeg.

The custard sauce is ready, as are the carrots, the broccoli, the mushroom duxelles, the crepes, and the Swiss cheese.

Time to start assembly. Buttered wax paper on bottom. Crepe on bottom. Then start hanging crepes over. Eight of 'em.

First layer is Swiss cheese and carrots.








Pour in the custard sauce.




















Then, top the carrot/custard mixture with another crepe and add the mushroom duxelles in.

Pour more custard over the shrooms, then place another crepe on top, then more cheese, broccoli, and custard sauce.

More Swiss cheese on top of the broccoli layer, then pull the over-hanging crepes over top. Top with more crepes. Cover with buttered wax paper and foil, then cook. Why is my hand that horrendous color?

Here's the gateaux of crepes. It's exploding over top of the dish.

Let set for 10-15 minutes then invert.

Here's the inverted Gateaux of Crepes.

Ta dahhhhh!!!!!!!


Just wait until I slice it.

Ahhhh. Here's the slice. Broccoli, mushroom, carrot, with Swiss cheese and a custard sauce.

I must say, This is DELICIOUS!.

This is, hands down, one of my ALL-TIME FAVORITE dishes.

Rosie Cooks Lunch For Herself Today. And, Damn, Was It Ever Good!

After being industrious yesterday and actually cleaning out my refrigerator, I was inspired today to clean out my laundry area and my hall closet/pantry. And believe me when I say I worked up quite an appetite doing this. I decided to fix myself a special lunch. Remember the other night when I caught, cooked,

and picked the blue crabs? Well, I'm having crab meat crepes with Grand Marnier sauce for lunch today.

Here's my starting mise en place: spinach green onion Block of delicious Swiss cheese given to Mr Hawthorne by Jason, who owns Corolla Pizza, deemed by many to have the best pizza on the Outer Banks. Round of unsalted butter we bought from the Amish Market in Yanceyville, NC. My crepes, leftover from last Thanksgiving (Julia Child's Gateaux de Crepes) (Yes, they were frozen. And no freezer burn, thankyouverymuch.)

Let's get started with my lunch.

Butter in the pan, then the torn spinach.

Cook down for a few minutes.

Now, here's a tip for you gardeners out there. Have you an asparagus bed? I know you're used to thinking asparagus is a spring crop. It is. But it can also be a fall crop. If you have a nice, healthy asparagus plant, cut down the foliage now. Within a day or two, you'll have new shoots. WHOOT!

I sauteed my asparagus bits.

Added in the spinach and the crabmeat, just to heat through. Don't mess with the crab meat. Leave it in nice big chunks.

Add in a bit of sherry.

Add in some lemon juice.

Now, I've prepared some toppings: green onions cucumbers red pepper tomato

I'm getting ready for my Grand Marnier sauce. Here, I have the juice of one orange.

And here are the main players: Grand Marnier heavy cream fresh orange juice flour butter

Melt butter, then add flour, and cook to get the raw taste of flour out.

Add in the Grand Marnier.

Add in the orange juice.

And finally, the cream goes in.

Stir constantly, until nicely thickened.

Here's everything waiting for assembly: crepes in the foreground crab meat/spinach/asparagus to the right Swiss cheese slices to the left back right - toppings of tomato, cuke, green onion, red pepper

Place the crab meat mixture in the crepe with two slices of the Swiss cheese.

Roll up. I got four crepes out of 6 crabs plus the additions.

Next, I picked the biggest crepe out (natch), and sauteed in buttah.

Turn over and it's lookin' good.

Plate the crab meat crepe and pour the Grand Marnier sauce over top.

Top with the fresh, diced, veggies.

Oh my.

Oh mymymymymy!

I'm at a loss for words. Because THIS? Is SO freakin' good.

Cedar Waxwings And Hollywood Junipers.

Here's a site for Hollywood Junipers, in case you didn't know what they were. And here's a site for Cedar Waxwings.

The other morning, while I was blogging, I heard several loud pops, in my octogon room. It was the Cedar Waxwings in the Hollywood Junipers eating the berries and flying into the windows. Check out the video here. Sadly, no video of the birds flying into the windows. The waxwings do this once a year. They all congregate and eat the berries on the junipers all at once. I wonder if they are fermented berries and the birds get drunk. My octagon room is a little turret on the northwest side of the house. When we built onto this home in 1995 to get bedrooms for all the children, we made this octagon room. just for a focal point and point for focus. It looks toward the sound. And I like to go into that room and pretend I'm in a special chaise. I want a chaise for that octagon. It's wonderful for sitting in and drinking a cup of coffee in the morning. It's wonderful for sitting in in the afternoon and just looking sound-ward. At Christmas-time, it is magical. Neighbors across the canal asked my niece one time about that room. Something like, "What do they call it?" I told niecy to tell them, "It's my occasional room. I have occasions in it. Like Christmas. When the tree takes up the whole octagon. The lights, the decorations, the memories all come back and slap me silly. And Easter, when dyed eggs drip from the conical ceiling. And Thanksfreakin'Giving, when we have Stuffed Turkeys hanging freely. Or the 4th of July, when we have our Confederate flags out. Mardi Gras -Purple and gold beads are flowin'. St. Pat's Day. Shamrocks, corned beef 'n' cabbage, and green beads. Halloween. Just try and take on my punkin'. My carved turkey in the pumpkin for Thanksgiving. It's my tradition. I started my own traditions. That pumpkin and Julia Child's Gateaux de Crepes are what I do for Thanksgiving. For the last year and years. I wonder if my family realizes this. I would want to impart to them the importance of family and occasions and tradition and the MEAL. I just hope I have. I would not want to leave this world without giving my children a certain joie de vivre. We have occasions. And we celebrate them all. Sit at the table. Hold hands. Embrace. Enjoy. Feast. Eat. Poetry.