poof

I've always resisted the notion that things disappear. In metaphysical terms, this stubbornness manifests itself in my credulity about the existence of ghosts, angels, demons, and other paranormal residues of entities that linger just outside our ability to perceive them. Similarly, there is a part of me that responds to D's or my habitual loss of keys or important documents with the bald pragmatism of the law of conservation of matter: "Well, they can't have disappeared into the ether. They have to exist right now somewhere." In the end, I guess I just have a naïve faith in the intrinsic findability of things (though I would add that my life would be much easier if it came with a Command+F function).

For over a month, I've had an open Word document that I keep minimized on my computer's desktop. It's the beginning to a poem that I'm not sure yet how to finish. Here's what it says:

(pain) perdu dans le labyrinthe

Last year on Ash Wednesday, D and I went to a service at a local Episcopal church. The rector had encouraged attendees to arrive early enough to allow plenty of time to walk the labyrinth that had been set up on the floor of the fellowship hall. The circular puzzle itself was painted in purple onto an enormous canvas drop cloth, and the path was just wide enough for one person at a time to walk, single file, through its serpentine loops. Silently, in the dimmed light, we slipped off our shoes, waited a couple of minutes for the person in front of us to gain a little distance, and then entered the maze ourselves. Because multiple people were traveling the labyrinth at the same time, occasionally I would brush by someone as he or she passed, going the opposite direction. It took longer than I thought it would. I admit, I lost my sense of reverence at a couple of points and felt anxious to just finish the thing.

I really hope there's not a minotaur

waiting in the middle of this.

In that labyrinth, there was only the one path. The point wasn't making the right choices. It was slowly and meditatively navigating a series of predetermined twists and turns. I might have been able to see where the next about-face would take me, but I couldn't see beyond that. I would only have been able to anticipate further if I could have viewed the entire thing from above. At ground level, where I was, all I could do was simply take the next few steps and trust that I would eventually make my way out of the maze.

grandmother's lace cookies

I don't know where my grandmother got this recipe, but she used to make these cookies all the time when I was a kid.

My grandmother was a spitfire. Even her name, Eddie (her real first name, by the way, and not a diminution of something more feminine) made her the scrappy girl equivalent of a boy named Sue. It only occurs to me now that she was one of my best friends during my college years. On Friday nights I used to go to her house and watch The X-Files with her, and I took her to see the movie when it came out. She had always loved that weird sci-fi stuff. In fact, when my dad was a kid, the two of them had likewise been avid viewers of eerie movies and episodes of The Twilight Zone.

By the time she was in her seventies, she was spending most of her days watching inflammatory political news shows and C-Span, and these topics comprised the majority of her conversation starters when I came by to see her. Unfortunately, she and I had, shall we say, divergent political leanings. I say "unfortunately" because I'm the kind of person who tends to avoid conflict whenever I can. But I learned something important from knowing her: sometimes the best way to love someone is to give her what she actually wants, and not what you would want if you were in her shoes.

olive oil cake

I'd been wanting to branch out a bit and do some more baking over the past few months, and this was a cake I cooked up using Cat Cora's recipe. She calls it "Ladi Tourta," which sounds so much fancier than my title, but in the end, it really is a very simple little cake. It's so fruity and moist, and it would be absolutely lovely in the summer with some fresh fruit.

The most important thing to remember with a recipe like this one is that its minimalism means that using good ingredients is crucial. It's like wearing the simplest white cotton dress: you need to make sure that the "undergirding" doesn't show through, at least not in a bad way. :) So, use the best, fruitiest olive oil you can find (if you're like me, you could drink a good olive oil by itself and any bread you dip in it is just a vehicle for conveying the oil to your mouth). Feel free to substitute your favorite adult libation for the Tuaca. I was going to buy Grand Marnier or Cointreau, both of which I love, but they're so darned expensive. I decided to try this less-pricy Tuscan liqueur, and I ended up liking it very well in the cake (though not so much to drink - I'm still researching drink recipes where it might taste good). 

I've only made a couple of amendments to Cat's recipe here, including decreasing the amount of olive oil. I based my changes on the comments that other cooks have made, which are listed under the recipe. (I always try to read recipe comments, if there are any - they can provide a wealth of advice about techniques and ingredients in a recipe that might need a bit of adjustment.)

Overall, this recipe reminded me that cooking is a learning process and that you can learn how to make anything if you do enough research. Any recipe I've ever "created from scratch," honestly, has been the result of not just considering which flavors and ingredients I think would go well together, but also first reading about how more experienced cooks have excelled at a particular kind of cooking, like roasting meat or baking cake. 

Anyway, thanks, Cat! (You are my favorite Iron Chef, by the way, and I want to marry your bourbon ice cream.)  

cat cora's olive oil cake (amended)
3 large eggs, beaten
2 cups raw turbinado sugar
8 oz. extra-virgin olive oil
10 oz. milk
2 oz. Tuaca liqueur
2 oz. freshly squeezed orange juice
3 tsp. orange and lemon zest
2 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. kosher salt
3 oz. slivered almonds, chopped
powdered sugar, for garnish


Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter a 9-inch cake pan. Cut a circle of parchment paper the diameter of the pan and line the bottom with it.

In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, sugar, olive oil, milk, liqueur, orange juice, and orange/lemon zest. Sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Mix the dry mixture into the wet mixture. Whisk until well blended.

Fold in the almonds. 

Pour the mixture into the buttered cake pan. Bake for 55 minutes to 1 hour. 

Allow the cake to to cool for at least a half hour. Run a knife around the sides of the pan to release the cake, and turn it out onto a plate. If you like things neater, flip it again so that it's right-side up and use a long serrated knife to carefully slice off the domed top of the cake. Then flip it back over and dust it with powdered sugar. (A little freshly squeezed orange or lemon juice mixed with some powdered sugar would also make a delicious glaze to drizzle over the cake instead, if you like that kind of thing better.)

tarte tatin with chantilly cream

Let's get one thing straight: I've never been a baker. There was a short stint, back when I was taking Adult Living in high school, when I managed to make a nice sour cream pound cake and, more impressively, an apple pie completely from scratch, crust and all. But ever since then, I've been more of a savory sides-and-main kind of girl. 


I have another confession: this is not entirely my recipe. It's largely another cook's adaptation of a tarte tatin recipe from The Joy of Cooking, which I found at Deb Perelman's blog Smitten Kitchen. All I did was add the idea of the puff pastry crust, which makes the whole thing easier. I've proven once in my life that I can make a pie crust from scratch. I don't need to do it every time I make a dessert, especially when I like puff pastry better anyway.


And now, for the reason I chose this particular tarte tatin recipe: she calls it "Molly's Apple Tarte Tatin." For those who don't know me, I used to have a wonderful cat named Molly. She had a short tail that wouldn't bend and a calico coat so vividly variegated that it prompted me sometimes to call her names like "Butterscotch," "Bumblebee," and "Speckle." She adored pepperoni and anything made of pork - we used to say she lived in Birmingpig. She was (appropriately) a Leo who was sure upon meeting you for the first time that you were just going to love her. She had teeny, skinny arms and legs, an enormous belly, huge green eyes, and donkey ears. This may not make sense, but D always said that her features made her look sort of like Audrey Hepburn. Two years ago this November, we took her to the vet for some apparently innocuous breathing problems, and as it turns out, she had heartworms. She died on the ER table that night, lying between D and me, mercifully sedated. 

So, this recipe is for the lovely Molly, our little piglet.


I apologize that I only have a picture of the final slice of the tarte and not the whole thing, but I made it for dinner on Friday night with D's parents, and we demolished the whole thing in under 24 hours. Not bad. Anyway, I kind of like the picture the way it is: one lone slice left, swimming in a pool of pure salted caramel. 


The gestalt of this recipe is not to be underestimated. It's composed of a deceptively short list of simple ingredients that somehow, when cooked this way, become nothing short of sublime. As a final note, let me just encourage you not to skimp on the chantilly cream - when it comes to dessert, I say go big or go home.



tarte tatin with chantilly cream
7 medium apples (We used Gala.)
1 stick (4 oz.) salted butter
1 cup sugar (white or brown, depending on your preference)
1 frozen puff pastry crust, thawed in the refrigerator overnight

Take out the thawed puff pastry and unfold it. Using the same 10-inch skillet you’ll use for the apple filling as a template, lay the square of pastry over it and cut off the corners so that it’s basically circular and fits inside the skillet’s top edge. Fold it back in thirds and put it back in the refrigerator, covered in a tea towel or paper towel to keep it damp.

Peel and core the apples, cutting them into quarters – nothing smaller, as they’ll cook down quite a bit. You don’t need to toss them with lemon juice to keep them from browning; they’ll brown plenty in the pan, if you’re lucky! :)

In a 10-inch diameter, heavy, oven-proof skillet, melt a stick of salted butter over low heat. Remove pan from heat and stir in a cup of sugar. Tap or bump the pan so that the mixture is evenly distributed over the bottom.

Arrange the cut and peeled apple quarters side-down in the skillet, overlapping them first in a layer around the edge of the skillet and then filling in the middle. Stack them as closely as you can.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Put the skillet back on high heat on the stove. Boil sugar, butter, and apples over high heat for 10 to 12 minutes, until juices are starting to brown some. Using a sharp paring knife, spear each slice and carefully flip it over in the pan (it’ll take a couple of minutes to do all of them.) Then continue cooking on high for another 5 minutes or so, until it’s really brown.

Take the puff pastry crust out of the refrigerator and cover the skillet with it, tucking in the edges a bit on the sides. Be careful not to burn your fingers!

Bake for 15 to 18 minutes, just until the crust is as golden-brown as you like it.

Take it out of the oven, let it cool for a half hour, and then carefully flip it onto a large plate.  Use a rubber scraper to get all the caramel out of the bottom of the pan, and spoon it on top.

chantilly cream

1 small (6 to 8 oz.) carton whipping cream

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1 tbsp. sugar

Whip all three ingredients together in a large bowl with a hand mixer until they form stiff peaks. Put a dollop on top of your tarte slice.

Enjoy!

Cheers,

H.