This all started with a close friend asking me if I could teach a cooking class on crepes for her work group of 20 people. Crepes are all the rage right now it seems, and I love crepes, but hadn't made them since I was in school. And, I didn't think it was something I particularly shined at, to be honest. So I started experimenting. I went back over my class notes, looked in books and searched the internet for tips. I didn't want something so heavy, everyone would want to take a nap afterwards (it IS a workplace, after all), but wanted something filling and fairly healthy. In the end, we moved in a different direction with the class since there's no real stove tops to work with and I'd be renting hot plates. Then along came this contest and thought I'd post one of the recipes came up with anyway. There are 3 critical steps in making crepes, I found, that support an easy, consistently successful crepe that won't tear easily but is tender: 1) add the ingredients in a certain order and let the batter sit in the refrigerator at least an hour, ideally longer to allow the flour to completely absorb the liquid; 2) use at least some meaningful % of pastry flour, especially if one of the flours you're working with is whole wheat flour, like I was; and 3) zone in on the temperature of your pan. Not hot enough: you won't get a nice soft browning; too hot: the crepe will be too crispy. You can fill these crepes with a wide variety of fillings, but since I was putting chives in the crepe batter, I thought something with smoked salmon and cream cheese would work well and be a festive looking breakfast on Christmas morning. Bonus points: The crepes and cream cheese / smoked salmon mixture can all be made a couple days ahead, leaving you only with the scrambled eggs to make on Christmas morning. I won't be doing these for the class, but as luck would have it, my friend Ina and her husband will be visiting us at Christmas, and this is on the menu for Christmas morning!

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