Last night I came home with grandiose plans of making rhubarb and raspberry tarts. I'd made them before, during last summer's Failed Martha Stewart Meal Jamboree. The original plan back then was to follow Martha's recipes and create a simple summer meal. The pasta made enough to feed a small army, nobody else wanted to try the delicious beet salad, and baking the tarts made the whole kitchen feel like a furnace. The meal took an entire afternoon to prepare, and the ingredients cost almost forty dollars.
This time around would be different, I decided. It would be a grand success! I'd serve beautiful, perfect little tarts to my friends, whose eyes would light up with the inner glow that can result only from flaky pastry. "Truly you are the queen of tarts," they would say. "This is bliss," Trey would remark. "Is there anything you can't do, my politically feminist yet amazingly skilled little kitchen-fox?" I'd wipe the flour off my apron and blush. "It was really nothing," I'd say with a gentle shrug. "Just something I tossed together." Cue the tickertape parade.
I unearthed my toque blanche and got down to biz-a-ness. The recipe called for pate brisee, which sounded like some scary French version of braunschweiger. Instead of making this fancy dough from scratch, I powdered my face with flour. When my roommate wasn't looking, I quickly thawed the Ready-to-Bake Pie Crusts. What they don't know won't hurt them, right? After tossing around some sugar, berries, and flour, the fruit mixture tasted lovely but didn't look so pretty. "Maybe it will look nicer and less soupy after it's been baked," I reasoned. With great aplomb I piled the rhubarb/raspberry glop on top of the dough, shoved it all into the oven, and waited for the tarts to bake.
While the oven did its thing, Trey called. He was telling me about his day when I decided to peek at the goings-on in the oven. I opened the oven door and squealed in horror. "MY TREATS! MY PRECIOUS, PRECIOUS TREATS!" Trey asked what was wrong, but how could I shatter the fragile illusion of effortless domesticity I'd endeavored to create? Sadly I confessed that the fruity liquid had bubbled over the crust and was now creating large black clumps that resembled molten lava. I managed to salvage a few of the tarts, and sent one to him with Owlie (who works with him). The workday is almost over now, and since I haven't heard from him yet, I can't help but wonder if the poor boy choked on a rhubarb-rock.
This time around would be different, I decided. It would be a grand success! I'd serve beautiful, perfect little tarts to my friends, whose eyes would light up with the inner glow that can result only from flaky pastry. "Truly you are the queen of tarts," they would say. "This is bliss," Trey would remark. "Is there anything you can't do, my politically feminist yet amazingly skilled little kitchen-fox?" I'd wipe the flour off my apron and blush. "It was really nothing," I'd say with a gentle shrug. "Just something I tossed together." Cue the tickertape parade.
I unearthed my toque blanche and got down to biz-a-ness. The recipe called for pate brisee, which sounded like some scary French version of braunschweiger. Instead of making this fancy dough from scratch, I powdered my face with flour. When my roommate wasn't looking, I quickly thawed the Ready-to-Bake Pie Crusts. What they don't know won't hurt them, right? After tossing around some sugar, berries, and flour, the fruit mixture tasted lovely but didn't look so pretty. "Maybe it will look nicer and less soupy after it's been baked," I reasoned. With great aplomb I piled the rhubarb/raspberry glop on top of the dough, shoved it all into the oven, and waited for the tarts to bake.
While the oven did its thing, Trey called. He was telling me about his day when I decided to peek at the goings-on in the oven. I opened the oven door and squealed in horror. "MY TREATS! MY PRECIOUS, PRECIOUS TREATS!" Trey asked what was wrong, but how could I shatter the fragile illusion of effortless domesticity I'd endeavored to create? Sadly I confessed that the fruity liquid had bubbled over the crust and was now creating large black clumps that resembled molten lava. I managed to salvage a few of the tarts, and sent one to him with Owlie (who works with him). The workday is almost over now, and since I haven't heard from him yet, I can't help but wonder if the poor boy choked on a rhubarb-rock.
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