I love plums. I love that they are small and that you can rinse a few of them at a time, whirling them in your hand like Baoding balls. I love that they come in sundry shapes and colors to match your outfit, I love that they have a pit that you can spit out into the sink, and I love that they grow on trees under which you can stand, look up, and feel like all is right in the world. I love even the name, plum, how it rolls off the tip of your tongue, and the French version of it, prune, which makes your lips purse as if you’d eaten an underripe specimen.

I have to say, though, that a sunny September day a few years ago very nearly ruined plums for me: this was the day that Maxence and I stumbled upon a pick-your-own farm in Alsace. We spent a few euphoric hours filling buckets of mirabelles (tiny, goldenrod plums with dark orange freckles) and quetsches (egg-shaped, purple-blue plums, which resemble damsons but are much sweeter) and gorging on them as we went (the sign said we could), after a quick brushing off of the powdery white veil called bloom (pruine in French) — a sure sign of a plum’s freshness, since it vanishes shortly after the fruit has been picked.

I have since then found it difficult to procure the kind of fragrant, tree-ripened plums that would live up to the memory: the Gérardmer market has crates of them of course, but produce shops in Paris tend to offer plums that have been picked a touch early so they’ll travel without bruising, and anyone with half a taste bud knows that plums were not meant to end their ripening on a kitchen counter.

But, if you’re bold enough to ask the merchant for a taste, and bold enough to say, “Um, maybe not,” when the plum is not to your liking (if you develop a friendly relationship with your produce guy, boldness is not required; a simple smile will do), this will guarantee that only ripe, sweet, juicy plums pass your threshold. And when that happens, perhaps you can bake a tart to congratulate yourself.

The following is a simple variation on my mother’s classic tarte aux quetsches: instead of pouring an egg and cream custard over the plums, I lined the tart shell with crème de noix, the same mixture of walnuts, eggs, sugar, and crème fraîche that is used in walnut tarts in the Périgord. I deliberately used little sugar in the walnut cream, so a slight edge of bitterness could be heard through the sweetness of the sandy crust and caramelized plums. The use of unrefined cane sugar added a faintly earthy note to the ensemble, making it a most appropriate treat for a late summer or fall day.

Continue reading »

Coquillettes au Comté et Pousses d’Epinard

A lot can be learned about your cooking self by considering what you eat when you’re on your own. I have friends who are simply not hungry when they’re alone, who forget to eat (say what?), who don’t consider it a real meal if there’s no dining companion, or — and I am not making this up — who just eat a Kinder Surprise, build the little toy and call it dinner.

What’s most surprising to me is that some of them are great cooks, but somehow they don’t find it worth the effort to use their talents if it’s just for their own benefit. I say, you should treat yourself as if you were your own guest.

Eating dinner alone is a unique opportunity to eat exactly what I please and how I please, and relish my sweet solitude.

I understand the desire to keep things simple when no one’s looking, and I’m not saying you should prepare multiple courses or unleash a parade of votive candles, but to me, dinner alone shouldn’t be expedited as if it were a chore. Instead, I see it as a unique opportunity to eat exactly what I please and how I please, and relish my sweet solitude. In my world, this usually means eating from a bowl, on the couch, while watching an episode of whatever television series I’m currently devouring.

This effortless pasta dish is one of my standbys. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it is a variation on a dish I ate as a child: for a slightly more grown-up flavor, I now add shredded baby spinach leaves, which soften in the arms of the pasta, and a dash of freshly grated nutmeg to complement the greens and cheese.

Continue reading »

Langues de chat are classic French cookies that fall into the category of petits fours secs (“dry” petits fours, as opposed to miniature versions of pastries with buttercream, pastry cream, etc). They used to be a frequent accompaniment to ice-cream in restaurants, in rotation with cigarettes russes, but I haven’t seen that done for a while — gavottes seem to have taken their place.

“Cat’s tongues” are oval butter cookies, with a blonde center and lightly browned edges. The packaged versions one can find at French grocery stores are crunchy all over and quite decent, but the homemade langue de chat offers a nice change of texture, with thin crispy rims and a tender, slightly chewy heart.

Langues de chat are very simple to make, and they’re a great use for leftover egg whites. I usually flavor them with vanilla — delicious with a warm apricot compote — but the other day, when my mother asked if I could bring something to nibble on with tea after dinner at their house, I decided it was high time I used the small package of matcha that had been waiting around in my baking treasure box for months, and was beginning to feel a little dejected.

I was unsure how much matcha I should use, so I just added a teaspoon and a half and hoped for the best. As it turns out, this was just the right amount for the earthy green tea notes to come through, without giving the impression that you had just swallowed a spoonful of tea leaves — don’t try this at home. The flavor was lovely in an adult kind of way, the cookies an interesting shade of olive green, and we liked them so much that I baked a second batch for us the next day.

[As for the picture, it was sheer luck: we happened to be cat-sitting Maxence’s cat, who lives with his mother (Maxence’s, that is). I am normally not much of a cat person but I’ve known this one for over nine years, and she and I cohabit courteously enough, although I hate it when she sleeps on my feet. Anyway. Just as I was shooting pictures of the cookies, she got curious (“Green tea cat’s tongues? What a peculiar idea!”), came closer for a second, and I was able to tilt the camera and catch her with the cookies just before she turned her attention to some fly-chasing activity or other; I couldn’t have staged it if I’d tried. Update: Sadly, Maxence’s cat died last summer, not long after this picture was taken. Wherever she is now, I hope she has plenty of tuna to eat and cables to chew.]

[This post originally appeared in June of 2006.]

Continue reading »

So. Batch #1 in my brand new ice cream machine was dedicated to Maxence, in gratitude for such an exciting, perfectly tailored, and all-around thoughtful gift.

But when the time came to make batch #2 — that is, the next day, as soon as the bowl had had time to refreeze — I decided I had paid my dues, and I could now make my favorite, which, you may be un-surprised to learn, is the dark chocolate sorbet.

Chocolate ice cream is all right, I guess*, but I find that the dairy gets in the way of the chocolate. A good sorbet, on the other hand, made with just chocolate, water, and sugar, delivers the sort of undiluted chocolate punch I hunger for, of which one only needs a small amount — the frozen equivalent of the square of extra-dark, extra-smooth chocolate the doctors prescribe you place on your tongue to melt, each day after lunch.

David’s Perfect Scoop rose to the challenge once again, providing me with an easy six-ingredient recipe (and one of them is water), which I easified even further by not running the mixture through the blender. It seemed blended enough to me. And because I am the only one, in my household of two, to be bound by the spell of ebony chocolate — my other half only eats milk or (gasp!) white chocolate — I divided the recipe by two.

The ice cream churning process seems nothing short of magical, I know, but when it comes to the flavor of your sorbet, it’s just you and the ingredients, pal: this sort of preparation can only be as good as the chocolate you put into it. I, however, would be hard pressed to tell you what went into mine, for I took the opportunity to scrape together and use a variety of odds and ends** from almost-but-not-quite-entirely eaten tablets in my chocolate stash.

Martine Lambert’s chocolate sorbet is the gold standard by which I judge all chocolate sorbets, and although I wouldn’t be so presumptuous as to say mine rivalled hers, I don’t think Martine would have scoffed at it, either. (Not to my face anyway.)

My sorbet was splendid as it was, but my next batch will involve, I think, a handful of cacao nibs thrown in as the mixture thickens. An interesting thing to note is that the flavors kept blooming over the next few days — just like those of a dark chocolate cake will — and that the texture remained perfectly smooth. This can be explained, I imagine, by the cocoa butter in the chocolate***.

Needless to say, my dark chocolate sorbet went terrifically well with Maxence’s mango sorbet.

~~~

* Oh my god, did she just say, “Chocolate ice cream is all right I guess”? Nurse!

** In my family we call those rataillons, as in: “Il reste du fromage?” “Bof, juste des rataillons.” It is a regional expression, from Provence I am told, so sometimes I use it and people look at me funny.

*** On the subject of texture, I will add that placing a piece of plastic wrap directly on the surface of the ice cream or sorbet efficiently prevents the formation of ice crystals.

Continue reading »