Lindsay Taylor

The sight of the wide silver bottom and the slight tilt of the worn red sides transported us into a higher class. My favorite feature was the engraved words on the bottom of the pan: “Crêpe Pan.” I would close my eyes and trace the letters with my finger. No other cookware in the house was so distinguished. - excerpt from Eating Crêpes in My Mother's Kitchen

LINDSAY TAYLOR lives in Minneapolis with her husband and two young sons. She usually cooks spaghetti, tacos and hot dish, but when she's feeling celebratory, she turns to crêpes.

Martha Lavoué

Once production gets going the crêpes pile up on our large plate that is used almost exclusively for this purpose. He takes special delight in flipping them in the air and catching them in the pan, shaking the handle slightly to keep them from sticking. In 30 years, he has only missed the pan once, much to our dog’s delight. - excerpt from The Flip Side of Crêpes

MARTHA LAVOUÉ hails from California and has lived in a suburb of Paris, France for 40 years. She married a Frenchman she met while perfecting her French at the Sorbonne. She worked in IT, but is now retired and devotes herself to her first loves: reading, writing, painting and music.

Melissa Doffing

I bit into my crêpe, letting the butter and sugar melt on my tongue and found the language that had seemed so foreign a few weeks ago was now soothing and familiar. This was what being independent was all about. Letting the sweet taste of a new experience overwhelm your senses and surround you. Simultaneously losing and finding yourself in a moment, in a crêpe, in a garden, while enjoying each luscious bite. - excerpt from Crêpe Sucre

MELISSA DOFFING has published a broad range of work. Recent publication credits include articles in Savvy Women's Magazine and book reviews in Women Writers: A Zine. She is currently working on her first novel, Chasing Fireflies.

Philip Krummrich

La Grange aux Crêpes is nothing more or less than the perfect crêperie. There may be other items on the menu, but with two dozen mouth-watering savory crepes and two dozen more tempting dessert crepes, who would order anything else? - excerpt from The Repeatable Pleasure of Crêpes

PHILIP KRUMMRICH has been teaching languages and literature at the college level for over thirty years and has published translations, poetry and travel writing. He has eaten crepes and other good things on three continents and in fifteen countries and looks forward to doubling those numbers. He lives and works in Morehead, Kentucky.

Sasha Aslanian

She called them "tin panacakes." Her American grandkids giggled about her Norwegian pronunciation, but we'd dive for the platter piled with pancakes folded as neatly as handkerchiefs. Her "tynne pannekaker," as they're called in Norway, were light brown with dapples from the frying pan, lightly sugared and then folded into quarters. - excerpt from Tin Pancakes

SASHA ASLANIAN is a reporter and documentary producer for Minnesota Public Radio. Her essays have appeared on National Public Radio and been published in Adventure Cyclist Magazine, Modern Bride, the Minneapolis StarTribune and St. Paul Almanac. In 2008, her words were pressed into cement as a sidewalk poet in the City of St. Paul where she lives with her husband and two daughters.

Rebecca Epstein

My grandmother’s crêpes are sweet and mealy, chewy, gently browned. She fills them with jelly or warmed apples or banana slices or peanut butter or, best of all, broken bits of chocolate that melt in the warm cradle of the crêpe’s skin. - excerpt from Chocolate-Filled Crêpes

REBECCA EPSTEIN recently graduated from the University of Arizona with an MFA in fiction and is now an MFA candidate in nonfiction at the University of Iowa. Her fiction and nonfiction have been published in journals such as The Sycamore Review and Arts and Letters.

Anika Fajardo

The last time I had crêpes had been years ago. My mother used to make them out of buckwheat flour and fill them with broccoli, cream sauce and cheese. I remember her rolling them up and placing them row by row into a glass baking pan, transforming a French delicacy into a Minnesota casserole. - excerpt from Eating Crêpes in Colombia

ANIKA FAJARDO is a writer, librarian, mother and avid cook. Her book reviews of women’s fiction appear regularly in Library Journal, and she has published work for the American Library Association, the Wisconsin Historical Society, and in various library-related publications. Most recently, her writing earned second place for nonfiction in The Talking Stick 18 and has been featured online in Frostingwriting, Midway Journal, and apt: an online literary journal.

In 2009 she was a winner of the Loft Literary Center’s Latino Inroads Mentorship and the Loft’s Mentor Series in Creative Nonfiction Prose. At present, she is working intensely with authors J.C. Hallman, Shannon Olson, Judith Kitchen, Pablo Medina, and Philip S. Bryant and Gene Yang to produce a memoir for publication. She is also a teaching artist at the Loft and on the prose advisory panel for the Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant.

Meredith Escudier

I can still see the face of the crêpe vendor on the Boulevard St. Michel. He had a dour face on the sallow side with a vacant stare, a gaze seemingly lost in space. All his customers got the look-through as if they were a bunch of bothersome phantoms flocking around his stand. - excerpt from Decrêpitude

MEREDITH ESCUDIER'S work has appeared in anthologies, literary journals and the Meanwhile column of the International Herald Tribune. She also has an ongoing column in a bilingual monthly journal, Blablablah, based in the south of France. As she has lived in France for many years, her writing is often informed by the pleasures of the table. She is pleased to have published the essay “Watching Him Cook” in the premiere issue of the food/lit journal Alimentum, "The Fig Lover" in Culinate, and "A Man's Castle is his Home" in Imitation Fruit. She is also a contributor in the anthology, Steeped: in the World of Tea (Interlink 2005).

Catherine Flowers

Once my mother had tossed and slid a dozen or so into a pile, she would set about drizzling fresh lemon juice and sprinkling castor sugar onto each, and then arranging the rolled-up pancake on a large platter. I remember how the pancakes would melt in my mouth, leaving a sumptuously sweet yet tart aftertaste. I remember how in the blink of an eye my brother, father and I would devour them while my mother remained in the kitchen working steadily on another stack. - excerpt from Holy Pancakes

CATHERINE FLOWERS is a graduate of St. Catherine University where she currently works as a Financial Aid Counselor.When not advising graduate students about their loans, she loves to write about food, family and nature.Her hobbies include playing tennis and her conga drum.As an English major, it is a given that she loves to read.

Rochelle Mass

The six crêpes looked beautiful, curled at the edge like a crêpe must, and I was proud. I sliced an apple, rolled it inside the newly formed crêpe, placed a little sour cream on the side and dusted it with powdered sugar. - excerpt from The Mother of Them All

ROCHELLE MASS is Canadian born and has lived in Israel since 1973. She won first prize and two honorable mentions in the Reuben Rose Poetry competition and has twice been Pushcart nominee, twice shortlisted by the BBC for a radio play and Middle Eastern Fiction. She has published poetry collections including The Startled Land (Wind River Press) and Belmont Street (Wind River Press).

Rachel Gabriel

Just nineteen and hungry. We make love all afternoon until we are driven out of our hotel room in search of dinner, another bottle of wine, a stroll along the river Seine. It is your first time in Paris, my third, and I take you to Crêperie Saint-Malo on the Rue du Montparnasse. - excerpt from Crêperie Saint-Malo

RACHEL GABRIEL lives in Minneapolis. A recent winner of the Loft Mentor Series in Creative Non-Fiction, she is currently working on a memoir manuscript. She is the co-editor and a contributor to the essay collection My Red Couch and Other Stories on Seeking a Feminist Faith (The Pilgrim Press, 2005) and is a MFA candidate at Hamline University where she is studying fiction.

Gary Allen

They stared, mesmerized, as her pale, floury hands formed incomprehensible arabesques through the air, air that gradually acquired a warm buttery perfume, a scent more intoxicating than anything else they had ever inhaled. One by one, tender crêpe-like pancakes materialized on their plates and, just as deftly, disappeared. - excerpt from A Bunch of Boys were Whooping it up

GARY ALLEN is the author (and/or editor) of: The Resource Guide for Food Writers; The Herbalist in the Kitchen; The Business of Food: Encyclopedia of the Food and Drink Industries (with Ken Albala); and Human Cuisine (with Ken Albala). He also blogs at onthetable.us, check him out!

Eric Gustafson

I find my hotel in lively Marais and then head out at twilight to foot traffic and lovely smells and find a walkup crêperie counter and a young guy wearing a Yamika working the iron. I step confidently forward and say, "Bone swaw; own crape cone-fih-TAR-ay, see voo play.”

ERIC J. GUSTAFSON is a community organizer and writer in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He writes personal essays about his experiences traveling independently, and primarily alone, overseas. Professionally, he critiques local government and writes in defense of grassroots neighborhood democracy, and organizes participatory projects including community murals, farmers' markets, and citizen journalism.

Susan Koefod

The cloudberries, fresh and seedy, tempered the sweetness of the crêpe was a melding of flavors I didn’t quite recognize at first. They captured the essence of the northern summer, combining the flavors of honey, oranges and raisins. Tangy and lightly fermented, it expressed the fleeting lushness of a Finnish summer. It satisfied a craving I didn’t realize I had. - excerpt from Breakfast in Helsinki

SUSAN KOEFOD holds a MFA in Writing from Hamline University, St. Paul, Minnesota. Publishing credits include essays and poems, most recently in Literary Bohemian, The Talking Stick, Minnetonka Review and June Cotner's bestselling anthologies. In addition to being a co-editor for Let Them Eat Crepes, she is working on her new novel, Washed Up.

Jenny Rusinko

Eating the family pets; gorging on crêpes with Nutella; trying to deconstruct Led Zeppelin; debating Coca-Cola’s takeover of the world—these were my experiences of France. Yes, I will explain how we ate the family pets in a moment.
~ excerpt from More Crêpes, Please

JENNY RUSINKO lives in Malibu, CA with her husband and daughter. She is a full-time mom and a part-time freelance writer and adjunct professor of writing at Pepperdine University. She enjoys the beach and loves to travel.

Erica Rivera

I lean over my plate and inhale the steam rising from the piping hot surface. I slide my knife slowly, seductively, between each billowy layer. The butter dissolves into a lipid gloss across the surface. The powdered sugar falls from the serving spoon like snowflakes. - excerpt from Spanish Pancakes

ERICA RIVERA is the author of Insatiable: A Young Mother’s Struggle with Anorexia (Penguin Group, 2009). In addition to columns in the Star Tribune newspaper, her creative non-fiction writing was featured in LaChance Publishing’s Voices of Breast Cancer anthology. Rivera recently launched maneaterbook.com, a website for foodies and infatuation junkies. She lives in Minnesota with her two daughters.

Erica's memoir was released this week! Check out a sampling of her interviews and book reviews. Congrats Erica!

Lucy Ferriss

“C’est magnifique,” said Mary—the first flawless thing she had uttered since we arrived in Belgium. I was transfixed by the colored fire, which flickered, died away, and left behind a smell of longing and desire. Genevieve distributed the crêpes. I ate mine with pears and a dollop of crème fraiche. - excerpt from The Nuns of Berlaymont

LUCY FERRISS is the author of six published books of fiction, most recently Nerves of the Heart (U. Tennessee, 2002) and the memoir Unveiling the Prophet (U. Missouri, 2005). Her short fiction and essays have been published widely and she contributes occasionally to the New York Times. She is the Writer-in-Residence at Trinity College in Connecticut.

Shane Noecker

"I imagine a morning a decade from now, my wife, our brood, and I are all sitting down to a breakfast of plump berries, pineapple, crêpes smothered in raspberry sauce, caramel rolls and kosher vegetarian ham." - excerpt from One Tradition

SHANE NOECKER grew up in Minnesota, but is currently living in India. His essays have recently appeared in South Dakota Review and Knock; his short stories in Bryant Literary Review, Silk Road, and Wisconsin Review. He is the former editor-in-chief of New Delta Review. Shane's crêpe essay will be featured in The Two Review 2010 issue, to be published in November 2009.

Israeli Crêpes

No holiday is safe from crêpes! Rosh Hashanah begins Friday, September 18 and why not include crêpes in your menu? Jewish Exponent features a recipe for Israeli Crêpes and Sabra Sauce. What a delicious combination to include include orange in sweet crêpes.

And why stop there? One of our contributors, Rochelle Mass, includes a recipe for crêpes with matzo meal in her story, The Mother of Them All. Ms. Mass has lived in Israel since 1973. Stay tuned for more recipes.

Alice Owens Johnson

"I saw for myself in Paris how crêpes can start revolutions... As this dispute wore on my attention wandered. All I wanted was a crêpe. A hot crêpe filled with raspberry jam, drenched in butter." -excerpt from Revolutionary Crêpes

ALICE OWENS JOHNSON has published short stories and non-fiction in The Lyricist, Pembroke Magazine, The Guilford Review, The Crucible and the O.Henry Festival of Stories. Her work has appeared in I Thought My Father Was God: And Other True Tales from NPR's National Story Project edited by Paul Auster (Picador, 2002) and Alice Redux: New Stories of Alice, Lewis and Wonderland (Paycock Press, 2005). Owens Johnson and her husband currently live in North Carolina and run an event center in Black Mountain called Wolf Creek Cove.