Place the frying pan over a medium heat the crêpes should be cooked relatively quickly, or they’ll be dry and crispy. Set aside for at least half an hour (overnight, if you prefer).Ģ. If you have any lumps in your batter, pour it through a sieve.

Pour in 30g of the melted butter, and keep the rest for greasing your pan. Whisk vigorously, then continue to add the milk until you have a batter the consistency of single cream. Make a well in the centre, then crack in the eggs and add a splash of the milk. Melt all the butter and set it aside to cool. Photograph: Kate Young of The Little Library Café Crêpes SuzetteĬrêpes (this should make 12 - enough for 3 each)ġ50ml freshly squeezed orange juice (from 2-3 oranges)ġ. I’ll be revisiting this book again – particularly an extraordinary meal that takes place in the midst of a car chase – but I found myself thinking of this meal instead, one that lives up to expectation after an intensely taxing day.

Her friend Charity, around whom the book is set, heads off instead to explore, and becomes embroiled in a twisting story of murder and kidnapping. I identified a kindred spirit in Madam, Will You Talk?: Louise, who sits in the garden of their Provencal hotel, far too hot, drinking ice cold vermouth, burying herself in sketchbooks and novels. And so I relish narratives where the summer itself is an inescapable aspect of the story, impacting on the actions of everyone under its influence. In all honesty, after a few lovely days, I struggle with the summer months – I find myself quietly looking forward to the arrival of autumn. And as the sun sets in the evening, we take to the back deck, with cold drinks in our hands. We’ve picked wild garlic from verdant fields, and have been eating it with everything.

We’ve been hunting for wide brimmed hats and cool, linen dresses, finally packing away coats and tights, until the leaves start to turn again. The sun is high and bright in the sky, drenching the garden in light. The recent, glorious spring days in the UK have felt reminiscent of the wonderfully evocative Mediterranean summers in the books I have been reading this week: Mary Stewart’s Madam, Will You Talk? and My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell, have somehow manifested in Stroud.

Madam will you talk