Before I go any farther with this post about the Green Hills Whole Foods' new crêpe service, can we please set a ground rule? Can we please, please, please pronounce the name of the thin French pancake "crep," as in rhymes with "step?" I'm not trying to be all faux-froggy about it. I agree it's annoying to force a French accent onto a word that operates just as well with an American pronunciation. I mean, I'm not saying we need to go around talking about "Paree" just because that's how Parisians says it. Leave that to Christopher Walken's Continental and his "Shampahnya."
But "crape?" That doesn't even make sense. It's neither the French pronunciation nor a reasonable American bastardization of the French spelling. It's almost like calling a crème brûlée a "Crame brulay," or worse, a "crame brulette." That makes about as much sense as "crape."
Anyway, Whole Foods has introduced a crêpe station on Saturdays and Sundays from 8 to 10:30 a.m., with someone on hand to prepare gorgeous swaths of lacey-thin griddle-kissed pancakes, folded into pocket-squares with fresh fruits, whipped cream and nuts. Priced at $7.99 a pound, the average crêpe weighs in at about $4. Peaches with ricotta, banana-hazelnut, cherry-orange, strawberries and cream...every combination we sampled was delicious, no matter how you pronounced it.
With that in mind, can we please all say "crêpe," as in rhymes with "step?"
