blood orange vegan crêpes

Has it always been this way? That January lasts a thousand days, and in each one of them I watch raindrops chase each other down the window pane, and feel my breath drawn from me, billowing, reticent, each dark morning? Normal life feels like floundering through icy water, physically and emotionally.

It is not that I dislike winter as some people do; I am content to curl indoors with my candles and blankets and listen to the steady drumbeat of rain on a dark night. I am content too with the many bright moments January afforded me: squeezing too many friends around my dining table on cold evenings, or finding shelter at the table of others; washing and drying dishes with them in tiny overcrowded Parisian kitchens at 2am while drinking whiskey and laughing until we cried; heart to heart conversations over steaming bowls of lunchtime ramen in misted-up restaurants; noonday coffee walks with friends down the Champs-Élysées, the wind icy and the trees stark and bare. It is such snatched moments, after all, in which a life is ultimately lived, each hurried coffee and lingering glass of wine a golden thread running through the grand tapestry of a life.

And yet the month of January felt long nonetheless – certainly for me it was a deep creative winter in which I only summoned the energy to cook when I had guests, and did not lift my pen to write once.

Perhaps the fault is not in our stars but in us, that we do the season wrong. It is a month in which the individual and collective pressure is great: to be productive, to get in shape, to hit professional and financial targets, to fill the darkest month of the year with unfettered expectation. And in the end, it weighs heavily upon that darkness.

Long ago in some places it was customary to keep up the Christmas decorations until Candlemas (2 February), the historical end of Christmastide and the beginning of the period where work on the land would begin again in earnest after the winter, and upon which labourers and servants would be rehired for the coming season. It was believed to be the moment in which signs of spring might first begin to be visible, the midpoint between the winter solstice and spring equinox, and coincides with various traditions marking it as such (groundhog day, imbolc, the feast of St. Brigid, etc).

I only became aware of 1 and 2 February as dates of any significance when I moved to France, as Candlemas is marked here, as in other parts of francophone Europe, as their equivalent of pancake day (in contrast to the UK, where I grew up, where Shrove Tuesday is the occasion for pancakes). Marked in the Catholic tradition as a time of purification and consecration (the presentation of Jesus in the temple 40 days after his birth) it is intertwined with pagan traditions of cleansing after winter and celebrating the returning of the sun and its light with candles. The eating of pancakes at Candlemas apparently derives from their resemblance in shape and colour to that of the returning sun.

Since it is when everybody around me eats crepes, I’ve likewise shifted my crepe-eating forward from Shrove Tuesday over the last few years. It felt particularly appropriate this year since it’s about all I feel up to cooking at present.

The idea of the working year beginning properly in February, and letting the land lie still in January, appeals to me too, and makes me feel a little better about having a month which has been somewhat fallow. I am hoping that my energy and creativity comes back to me with the slowly returning sun, and pushes up through the cold earth with the snowdrops.

Vegan crêpes

While the American-style fluffy pancakes are very easy to make vegan (and I have recipes for this already), I’ve struggled a bit more with crêpe-style pancakes over the years, which is what I grew up eating on pancake day. I think I’ve finally got it though: the trick is really not to add too much batter to the pan, to ensure they stay wafer-thin. Otherwise, if they’re too thick, they become rubbery.

For fillings, I personally enjoy a twist on the classic lemon and sugar combo in the form of blood orange, which is in season and has such a bright and sunny flavour – but you can of course do what you like.

Makes 6-8 pancakes

Ingredients

• 2 cups plain flour

• Zest of 1 blood orange (optional)

• 2 cups non-dairy milk

• 2 tbsps maple syrup

• 2 tbsps sunflower oil (plus more for frying)

• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Method

1. Sieve the flour into a large bowl, and stir in the zest if using. Then add the milk very gradually, stirring constantly so that you don’t have any lumps in the batter. Once all the milk is incorporated, add the maple syrup, sunflower oil and vanilla, stirring until you have a smooth batter. Leave it to rest for 15 minutes.

2. Heat a drop of sunflower oil in a large frying pan. Once the pan is hot, add a few spoonfuls of batter to the pan, swirling it to ensure that it covers the base of the pan. Let it cook for 1-3 minutes on each side, until its just golden, then flip and repeat on the other side. Once golden, remove from the pan and place on a plate, and repeat until you’ve used all the batter. Serve immediately.

3. If using blood orange juice for the filling, drizzle it liberally over the crêpe as you would lemon juice, then sprinkle over the sugar and fold it up.