SAHADI HONEY

Coconut and Lemon Wheat Crêpe, with Dulce de Leche

This is a butter-less crêpe (in the batter mixture), instead I used grape seed oil (measured just as much) -  the oil I bought in Mendoza, Argentina (wine country) last month. The desiccated coconut and lemon zest add rusticity to the whole wheat flour batter, thick and crumbly, and when cooked the cake achieves a gorgeous South Pacific color and wave. Here, Dulce meets Gauguin on the sand and draw each other out - and put the honey in my mouth. As the title of the post suggests, all my ingredients come from the "Persian Food Empire" Sahadi's in Brooklyn. The act of eating this crêpe is "ruminative": you roll it up from the side like a tobacco leaf - then bite and inhale. How often do you do that? That's why I like writing after eating. 

(Ingredients: 1 cup wheat flour, 1/4 cup dried shredded coconut, 1/4 cup muscavado sugar, zest of 1 lemon, a pinch rock salt, 1 1/4 cup whole milk and 1/4 cup grade seed oil. This is your batter.)

For the Dulce de Leche, well.. you can presumably make it at home using only 3 ingredients: whole milk, white sugar and baking soda; and 3 hours of your time. In a double boiler pot, pour half a gallon of milk and half a cup of sugar - boil them up, and reduce heat to low right after. Watch for change in color (as when the sugar darkness in the milk, 20-30 minutes in), then add a teaspoon of baking soda. The liquid will heave up (this is normal, as the powder reacts to the acid); just be prepared to stir it in to avoid boiling the foam over the brim. Leave to simmer for a little more than 2 hours, stirring roughly every 12 minutes... until thick and honey brown spreadable. Let cool, and transfer to a cute glass jar (must refrigerate).  

Gauguin said he likes to look at his paintings over a glass frame - for they look more real...