In any case, the cooking bonanza began. In unintended deference to the French soccer captain, or perhaps in honor of Ty’s favorite part of Barcelona, the Crepe Man, I’ve been on a serious crepe kick.

Ty’s favorite:
The crepe man

July 4th, Independence Day, I was manning the fort at home, watching the Italy-Germany game on the Spanish channel, with the 30-second delayed ESPN feed going on the computer, and developed a burning urge for blintzes. I had already made some ricotta, which would last only another day or two, so why not? I lifted a recipe for whole-wheat crepes from the Williams-Sonoma site, and off we went. Blintzes with sweetened ricotta, lightly hit with some cinnamon, then pan-fried in butter. Yum. And so good for me, too.

A batch of crepes produces about 10, which means leftovers! In a self-proclaimed masterwork of refrigerator scavenging, I put together Wednesday dinner with bits and pieces from the fridge: A bit more ricotta made pink with some bolognese I’d frozen a few weeks earlier, mixed with some spinach, then wrapped in crepes and baked like cannelloni — or, more accurately, crespelles — honoring my newly championed Italian boys.

My crepe obsession (which likely started when I was six, and Mom and Dad first took us to The Magic Pan) went a little nutty when Traci and I decided to throw a birthday brunch for Kevin at my house. I don’t give parties much, and when I do, I go a little overboard. OK, fine, a lot overboard, but it’s always fun to cook like a maniac for a week, and plans menus, and arrange invites, and crepes! It was a brunch, after all.

When I see our pal Chris’s photos, I’ll recap the menu. (The man is a photo genius, and he snapped shots of the food! I’m hoping for lessons.) But the crepes were key:

Blintzes, of course. I made a rather dry batch of ricotta, so I mixed that with about half as much cottage cheese plus powdered sugar, a dash of cinnamon, and egg. (I hate cottage cheese, by the way, but if used creatively and very well seasoned, it actually makes a brilliant cream sauce, and lightens some heavy cheese concoctions beautifully.) The honey-wheat crepes came straight from my Tyler Florence book, Real Food, as did the fig-orange compote I served alongside. A hit.

The pièce de résistance, however, was Tyler’s smoked salmon torte. I blew a rather large wad on about a pound of smoked salmon, which was by far the toughest part of this misleadingly complicated-looking dish.

To construct: Spread a buckwheat crepe (a fantastic recipe, by the way) with a thin layer of softened cream cheese, then a layer of salmon. Top with another crepe and some cream cheese and sprinkle with chopped red onion, capers, dill, and ground pepper. Repeat about 5 times, then chill, wrapped in plastic in a springform pan and topped with a plate. Just before serving, I spread a last layer of cream cheese on its top and decorated the “cake” with extra onion, capers, and dill. Because the cream cheese had set in the fridge, the torte proved astonishingly easy to slice, so the layers stayed intact — and with all those fixins, how couldn’t it be good? Ty polished off the leftovers before nightfall.