REVIVAL OF THE CLASSICS

FOOD is not immune to trends, falling prey to a constant fascination with everything popular.

What’s fashionable today (cauliflower everything) can be boring tomorrow (remember kale).

Every year, we are inundated with lists of the latest trends and foods no longer considered popular. Many of the trends were forgotten too soon.

Back in high school, others had to decide what (or who) was in or out.

Today, I ask you to be the change. Take crêpes, for instance. They took the restaurant scene by storm in the 1970s. There were restaurant chains built around this French classic. They featured giant automatic, round conveyor belts that moved over a gas flame.

Pans were dipped into thin batter and placed upside down on the belt. You could watch as perfectly cooked crêpes went around and around until they were flipped over and filled to order.

The crêpe restaurants left nothing to be desired. Chicken à la king, seafood Newburg, creamed spinach, and fruity fillings with chantilly were some of the offerings.

Then, interest in crêpes waned. I’ve never understood why. They’re practical, simple, inexpensive and can be filled with almost anything.

Crêpes can be made ahead of time, frozen and reheated.

I made a simplified recipe to help make crêpes trendy again.

Crêpe batter is very thin, like whipping cream (any thicker and you’ll end up with pancakes). I added a good dose of clarified butter to the batter so it won’t be necessary to brush the pan with it every time.

Always fill crêpes, shiny side up. For dessert crêpes, add about 2 tablespoons of sugar to the batter.

Your fingers are the best tools for flipping crêpes over – simply grab the edges of one side with your fingers and flip. An offset spatula, long enough to cover a good bit of the crêpe’s surface, works too.

If you entertained in the 1980s, you probably owned a copy of The

Silver Palate cookbook by Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins and made or eaten their famous Chicken Marbella at least once. It’s chicken marinated in an umami bomb of sweet, salty, briny and spicy goodness, and then baked to perfection. The classic, topped with brown sugar, had olives, capers, garlic, prunes and oregano.

My version jives with the sheet pan cooking method popular today. Use bone-in and skin-on pieces and you’ll never have stringy chicken again. Inspired by the original recipe, Use dried fruit you love.

We’re all about honey this century. Use it in place of brown sugar. Clover honey will impart a lighter taste than pungent Manuka honey. Use honey flavoured with bourbon, thyme, sage, lavender or rosemary. Sorghum or dark molasses will also work. Leftovers will be welcome; the dish tastes better the next day.

Just in case you doubt how something old can become trendy again… remember the seven-layer dip? Everyone was serving it during the 1980s and 1990s. Some of you are still serving it today. It deserves a modern redo for the 21st century.

The original idea behind this dip was to make everything with ingredients readily available in your kitchen. That remains true in this version, which is as creamy and colourful as the original.

However, everything else is new, from the cannellini beans to the pesto-crème fraîche and Fontina cheese. It might remind you of the original, but it will seduce you like a new lover. Crispy fried shallots are its crowning glory. Serve the dip with toasted pita chips, crostini or baked wonton skins. Maybe you’ll layer it into miniature glass containers and Instagram the heck out of them.