Today is my last day of a week in the suburbs hanging out with my parents, siblings/siblings-in-law and niece. On Friday I bought buckwheat flour and thought I’d attempt these galettes. I’m not going to link to the recipe I used because the results were horrifying.

The batter was way too thin and looked liked runny sand. The crepes I poured out would neither stick together nor cook through. When I tried to flip them they fell apart and started to resemble roast beef. I gave up and my mother took over with little more success. They came out in circles when she made them but they still tasted the same – like a buttered salt sandcastle. I had wanted to fill the galettes with savory stuff like a fried egg, sauteed spinach and tomatoes, but we spent so much time and effort agonizing over the galettes themselves that there was no energy left for fillings, which I assume would have helped balance out the strong gritty buckwheat flavor.

After that fiasco my mom wanted to throw out the batter but I couldn’t bear to so I added a cup more buckwheat flour to it the next day and tried again.

With the batter a little thicker, the resulting forms were a little more recognizable as crepes. They still tasted like licking a beach but, bathed in marmalade, a sweet beach. For people who can eat anything, a sweet beach is not really appetizing, but for the gluten-free it’s often as good as it gets, and I soon learned to appreciate the earthy flavor.

The batter lasted four days at which point I was finally ready to throw in the towel and just pour the rest down the drain.

Upshot of failed galettes experiment: now I need to go to Brittany to see what they’re really supposed to taste like.