A Finger in Every Pie

On this day...

 

...we didn't work;
I didn't cook today, and
G didn't wash the dishes.
We slept late, and G brought me
coffee in bed.

We went out for Mexican breakfast, and had chorizo and eggs and rice and beans and
guacamole and tortillas. 

We went walking in the Conservatory Gardens,
and drenched ourselves in Spring. 
G bought me an ice-cream. 

Back at home, we curled up together
for a lazy mid-afternoon nap and fell asleep in each others' arms. 
Before I met G, I had never fallen asleep in
someone's arms,
except perhaps when I was a baby.
I always seemed to need to turn away from someone else; I needed  space to fall asleep.
But now, in his arms, I sleep like a baby again. 

I took a long lazy bath, and we went out for a simple but very good dinner.  Just us.  Today was just for us,
no others included.

We came home, and watched movies, and made popcorn.

We didn't do anything splurgy or costly.  We didn't buy any gifts.
But we had a day that felt completely and utterly luxurious. 

We paid attention to each other; we made a
conscious effort not to let the pressures and difficulties and stresses of other days distract us from each other today. 

And we kissed a lot, and smiled a lot, and touched a lot.
We thought about this past year, which has brought us both painful challenges and deep grief, the things that happen outside our private duality, outside the current of
happiness we have in each other.  And still,
it's been the best year of our lives.
We thought about the six years before this past year,
and remembered and
joked and teased and tickled.

On this day, one year ago, we were married.

Pi Day, My Way: The Whole Story

I gave you just the teaser in the last post, but here's the whole story of this galette, or rustic tart.  And I must say, while a large wedge of two-crust apple pie probably reigns supreme in G's heart, I like this a lot.  And yeah, so does he, judging from the second not-so-dainty slice which he cut for himself.

Pi day stole upon me, and I knew I didn't have time to think of, plan for, shop for, and bake a full-scale pie.  But I had apples in the fridge.  I just needed to create something a bit different from our favorite, already-blogged apple pie. 

Galette, I thought, rustic tart.  I could whip that up pretty fast.  After a quick perusal of that favorite cookbook known as the internets, I took a bit from here and a bit from there, and came up with a few secret weapons to set this galette apart.  The first was apricot jam, but not just any old apricot jam.  This was a jar of preserves bestowed upon me as a set of three (also including raspberry and blueberry-lime, both of which I have been seen eating straight from the jar with a spoon -- and I don't even like jam all that much, except for this jam and June Taylor's jam).  They were serendipitous birthday gifts from a cousin lucky enough to live in Cambridge, where she has breakfast at the Hi-Rise Bread Company every day.  These preserves are so good that either Hi-Rise is going to have to start selling them online, or I might have to move to Cambridge.  I was saving the apricot, doing my delayed gratification routine, since apricot is one of my preferred flavors of anything.  But what better sacrifice than to use a few tablespoons to waterproof a crust and flavor a filling in honor of pi day? 

Secret weapon number two is an old baker's trick -- using crumbled amaretti cookies to soak up fruit juices between the crust and the fruit. Fortunately I had some of my favorite pretty amaretti to crush into rubble and sprinkle atop the jam, under the apples.  And their toasted almond flavor would be perfect with the apples and the apricot.   

My favorite pie crust recipe, a bunch of apples, a shot of Calvados, and we were in business.  The lovely thing about a galette is that it's actually about half as much work as a pie -- only one crust to roll, less filling to peel and core and cut and season, and a rough, devil-may-care shaping.  None of your (or Martha's) cut-out leaves and hearts here.

The proof, however, as they say, is in the tasting.

"This might be the best crust yet," I said. 

"Mmmmff, I mfdunnommffff," said G, from around another large mouthful of galette.  He swallowed, and continued.  "The crust on the one you made at Thanksgiving was pretty great." 

"Well, that was a pie, and this is a galette or rustic tart."

"Yeah, well, maybe it's that the two-crust pie has more crust." 

"And it has more apples, too.  I use twice as many apples for the pie, and twice as much crust."

G seemed to experience a sudden "aha!" moment through his next mouthful.  "Now it all makes sense," he said.  "This is diet pie.  It only has half as much of everything."  Clearly this was ample justification for the second slice, as he got up and ambled toward the kitchen. 

Pi Day Apple Galette

Pi Crust

1 1/2 cups flour

1 Tbsp. sugar

1/2 tsp. salt

8 Tbsp. unsalted butter

2 Tbsp. Spectrum shortening (w/o trans-fats)

2 Tbsp. vodka with 1 Tbsp. water and 3 ice cubes

Process flour, salt, and sugar in food processor until combined, about 2 one-second pulses. Add butter and shortening and process until cornmealy, and there are still some small, pea-sized pieces of butter and shortening.  Empty mixture into medium bowl.

Sprinkle vodka and water over mixture. With rubber spatula or your hand, use folding motion to mix, pressing dough until it just clumps together. Flatten dough into a 4-inch disk. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 45 minutes or up to 2 days.

Pi Apples

5 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored, sliced into 1/8 inch pieces

1 tsp. grated lemon zest

3 Tbsp. sugar

1 Tbsp. Calvados

1 tsp. cornstarch

4 Tbsp. apricot jam/preserves

3 pairs of hard amaretti cookies, crushed into rubble

2 Tbsp. butter

Cream and crystal sugar for sprinkling

Preheat the oven to 350F.  Toss apples with zest, sugar and Calvados.  Roll out pie crust into a 15 or 16" circle on a piece of parchment.  Slide the parchment with the rolled-out crust onto a rimless baking sheet. Spread apricot jam in a circle in the center, leaving a one and a half to two-inch border for folding up over the apples.  Sprinkle with crushed amaretti, making a nice thick bed over the jam.  Arrange the apples over this in concentric circles.  Add the cornstarch to the liquid left in the apple bowl, and stir until dissolved.  Drizzle this over the apples until it disappears.  Dot the apples with bits of butter. Then fold and pleat the crust up to make a nice rim around the apples. Brush the crust with cream, and sprinkle the whole with crystal sugar.

Bake the tart for 30 minutes in the bottom third of the oven.  Rotate the tart, and bake for another 30 minutes in the top third of the oven, until the pastry is golden brown, the apple juices are bubbling nicely, and the apples yield tenderly to a knife point. Cool for a little while at least -- but eat while still warm. 

Pi Day, My Way

Consider this a mere placeholder.  Suffice it to say that I did bake this apple galette today in honor of pi day, which is being hosted by both the fabulous Alanna of Kitchen Parade and A Veggie Venture and  the delightful Krysta of EvilChefMom. 

We haven't eaten it yet, but I'll come back and fill in this post with some details, and hopefully a recipe.

ADOURation Society: Revelry Continued

 
Is there ever really such a thing as *enough* when it comes to celebrating your birthday?  I think not.  And apparently our dear friends B & B, who have often figured in these pages, agree with this dictum.  Months ago, darling B asked what we were going to do for my birthday.  "Oh, G will take me out to dinner."  And he did.  "And maybe I'll have a party this year," I said, and I did. 

"But let's do something else too, just the four of us," said dearest B.  "I think the new Ducasse restaurant would fit the occasion."  Who am I to argue with such suasion?

That's how we came to be at Adour last night.  Alain Ducasse's latest project is a stunner indeed.  Ruth Reichl has described the room far better than I, and I really hope she and the rest of the staff at Gourmet will forgive me for *borrowing* the images above from their website (does attribution make a difference?)  I'm still phobic about photographing food in posh restaurants.  I know this makes me a bad blogger, but it just really interrupts my dining experience.  I have this preference for allowing myself to be overtaken by the lush environment and the lovely dinner, rather than documenting it.   

The word that best described our experience at Adour is "balance," I think.  Perhaps harmony, but I'll start with balance.  Everything was beautifully balanced, from the perfect touch of sea salt in the olive butter that accompanied the very, very good breads, to the service -- which was comfortable, with just the right touch of put-us-at-our-ease familiarity.  There was a light lacing of humor, but nary a moment's sense of intrusion.  Everyone who came to our table was smoothly delighted to serve our any and every whim -- and not for a moment obsequious.  It was as if we were all, served and servers, just having a very, very good time.  Which we were.  Well.  At least we the served were, since I can't really speak for the servers.  But it's fair to say that if they weren't, they put on a very good show.

Personally, there wasn't a mouthful I met at Adour that I didn't like -- and in most cases, love.  From my bouche's amusement at a tiny vol-au-vent filled with molten truffled cheese (quite perfect with a flute of Dom Perignon) to the petits fours pictured below, it was an evening of simple bliss. 

The stand-out was my starter.  Imagine tiny round ravioli in a herbacious, truffle-laden broth.  As you bite into each one, the rich filling of foie gras melts and fills you with happiness and well-being -- as do the slices of black truffle shaved generously over the top of the dish.  G's starter of tiny buttery clouds of ricotta gnocchi were clearly at the very pinnacle of their game -- whatever gnocchi's game is.  The normally laconic fellow that is my husband was moved to exclaim their deliciousness, especially with their partnering greens and crisped prosciutto. These were the only starters we tasted, since we're not food critics and therefore not obliged to all order different dishes.  The breakdown was that the women ordered the foie gras ravioli, and the men had the gnocchi.  I don't know what this says about gender, and I don't really need to know, since the one true thing was that it was all quite transcendent. 

Next up, staying gender-true, B and I both had Adour's luxurious version of Lobster Thermidor -- beautifully tender small lobster tails and claw meat in a classic sauce, flavored with cognac and tarragon.  The dish was accompanied by swiss chard, geometric domino slices of delicious albeit indeciferable vegetables, and a gorgeously crusted patty of lobster and mushrooms, baked in a little shell.  The men were meat-eaters -- B had a rack of lamb with piquillo peppers and apricots, and a quinoa risotto, while G had venison accompanied by jewel-like carved blocks of root vegetables.  With the agile help of the sommelier, G found us an excellent red that paired well with everyone's food.

Again, everything was in balance.  There was precisely the right amount of sauce in everyone's dish, never overshadowing the main ingredients, but simply enhancing them.  And everything was luxurious, but nothing was overly rich.

Except maybe dessert, which was a glittering event in its own right. First we had a little intermediary cheese course chosen by our most helpful and gentlemanly server, with accompaniments of red pepper jelly, acacia honeyed raisins, date paste and walnut-raisin paste.  Then the stars came out, in the form of huge desserts.  My chocolate sorbet, under a crust of unbelievably good dark chocolate, was graced with a large feuille of gold-leaf, drenched in a dark chocolate sauce and peppered with espresso flavored brioche buttons.  It was one of the deepest, darkest, most delicious chocolate experiences I've ever had -- and I've had a few.  G's apple soufflé was both gloriously pouffy and seriously apple-y -- and accompanied by a vanilla ice-cream with such an addictive vanilla perfume that the table began referring to it as vanilla crack.  B's pear clafoutis (which was actually more of a pear napoleon) was everything pear -- pear pastry with balls of pear, pear ice cream, and julienne salad of pear. 

I'm always a little sad when the petits fours appear.  I just never have the capacity for them, and I do love sweets so very much.  Which is why the servers kindly packed up a whole box of lovely macarons (filled with concentrated raspberry gelée and dark gianduja, respectively) and some chocolates for me to take home, so that I could photograph them for you on my much less lovely petits four dishes in the comfort of Chez AFIEP.   

So ends another installment of the feast of love that has been my latest birthday.  And according to some forecasts, even though February has waned, the celebrations have not, yet.  Imagine. 

Revelry Unlimited

Have you ever had an evening where you really, really needed (and you're going to have to excuse me the cliché) to feel the love - and you actually got what you needed?

That's what my umptieth birthday party was like on Saturday night.  It was the sort of evening where you wrap yourself in a delicious warmth, a sense of being surrounded by dear family who are also true friends, and true friends (some of whom you've known, as you might say, "since before we were born") who feel like -- and really are, in the best sense -- family. 

Pics are lacking at the moment, since I didn't bring a camera, and those that others took are still forthcoming.  Above is a plate that blurrily shows some of the spoils that my darling cousin Diane (in whose home we were) and I were left fighting over at the end of the evening.  Among the five(!) desserts, the only reason the fabulous Trianon cake and the stupendous chocolate gingerbread were left is because the makers (equally fabulous Bakerina and completely stupendous Bunni) made two each of those.  So alas, there's no chocolate raspberry cake or pistachio nougat cream cake or Lemon Hoo-Ha! (and yes, Lemon Hoo-Ha!  Therein lies a tale and a recipe for another time) left to show you.

Nor are there yet picture/samples of Julia Child's paté with fig jam or Amanda Hesser's lamb pitas or devilled eggs with smoked paprika or Thai-style shrimp fritters, or my own Tunisian-Russian eggplant salad or Asian blood-orange chicken wings, or rosemary-lemon-white bean spread or Maryland crab dip or marinated chevre or a platter of other cheeses (served with a June Taylor plum paste hoarded for just such an occasion)...

...because, well, not all of it, but almost all of it got eaten up.

While I was cooking and prepping all of this, I felt somewhat despondent, thinking that I'd waaay overdone it with the food, and that we would all be swamped with too many leftovers.  Not so.  The crowd of musicians and visual artists, helping professionals, theater folks, educators, science/medicine professionals, lawyers, non-profiteers, and writers descended like locusts. Fortified by Scott Peacock's champagne punch as well as lots of our favorite red and some of our favorite white that we'd laid in, they demolished the platters.

The theme was clearly *eclectic mix* both in the food and the folks.  My darling husband provided a fab music mix, and everyone ate, drank, talked, mingled, laughed uproariously, found six or many less degrees of separation (some quite amazing connections, actually), made new friends, and stayed late.

We finally left in the exuberant state of happy exhaustion that comes of a successful party, and the knowledge that whatever else life may bring, uh-huh, the love is there, whenever you have a chance to put it all together. 

The Cookie Chronicles: Pecan Sand Tarts

Let's face it, I should probably just re-name this blog "mea culpa."  It simply happens far too often that I drop the ball.  I promise you posts and recipes, and then life intervenes, sometimes in startling and good ways, sometimes in horrifying ones.  I know this happens to everyone.  Quite a number of my most favorite bloggers take a little hiatus here and there.  But I do feel neglectful; I promised you the story of my lovely Lisette baking afternoon with friends Peter and Karen, which happened fully three weeks ago.  As far as excuses go, I did have a family crisis, which has fortunately been resolved. Then of course there was Menu For Hope (thank you all so much for supporting this great cause), which took up my blogging time and energy for the past couple of weeks. 

Sadly, my pictures from Lisette-baking Sunday did not appear.  It's not just that they didn't turn out; they somehow or other vanished from my camera altogether.  But you've had a fair number of Lisette pictures, and you know what these dome-shaped, glazed little lebkuchen nut tortes look like, even if you can't lick the screen and find out what they taste like.  I have to see the vanishing of the pictures as something of an omen.  I'm simply not meant to share too much information about these cakes.  Suffice it to say that I had a lovely time with Peter, being his sous-chef for the Lisette-making process, and learning not to sprinkle too many nonpareils on top -- as well as sharing tales of childhood.  Peter told me several delightful stories about his family's erstwhile Lisette-making business -- how his father, an engineer, created a machine that could automatically grind large amounts of nuts by jerry-rigging their little old-fashioned nut-grinder; how his mother was invited to sell her luscious little cakes at some of Manhattan's poshest department stores.  It was indeed a glorious afternoon, and at the end, I went home with a large container of beautiful glazed Lisettes.  That batch is, unfortunately, long gone; I've bought the ingredients for more, but haven't yet had the time to put them together. 

In the meantime, I've been cobbling together time for my annual cookie-baking ritual.  I had thought, of course, that this year I'd get lots and lots of baking done, as I'm on sabbatical.  Somehow or other, just the opposite happened.  Here it is Christmas Eve, and instead of a dozen kinds of goodies for the cookie platter, I have a mere eight.  But they are eight very good ones.  I've also made some modifications to old favorite recipes that have worked out very well, and I'll share those with you anon. 

So far, I've managed a large batch of the good old-fashioned  oatmeal cookies with-everything-in-them.  In addition, I've made wallflower loaves, extreme gingers, double-chocolate mint cookies, linzer biscotti, espresso-toffee shortbread, World Peace Cookies, and oh, I don't even know what else.  And I've made the cookies I'm about to share with you.  You see, I'm thinking you might need another cookie at the eleventh hour, or perhaps you have plans for baking during holiday week or for New Years'.  So I'm going to give you one of the all-time, most-requested favorites of my repertoire, Pecan Sand Tarts. 

Oh, you say.  Yet another recipe for the Mexican Wedding Cookie/Russian Tea Cake clone.  ZZZZZ.  But I'm going to have to exhort you to give this version a try, because there are several things that set it off from the standard recipe for this treat. 

One is the ratio of pecans to flour/butter/sugar/etc.  This recipe has about twice the number of pecans as the standard formula, and the added crunch factor is quite noticeable.  And that brings me to the second point.  Instead of grinding the nuts to a powder, this recipe leave them chopped so that some of them are finely ground and some are quite chunky, which gives great texture to the cookie.  Next is the fact that cake flour is used, which makes the whole thing quite light, and increases the whole melt-in-your-mouth factor. 

Then there's the low amount of sugar in the dough, which means that you don't go on sugar overload when you coat them with powdered sugar.  Instead, there's a nice contrast of the only faintly sweet and nutty buttery cookie to the sugary coating.  And finally, there's the baking time.  These cookies are baked slowly, for a long time at a lower temperature than normal.  This gives everything a chance to develop fantastic flavor instead of leaving a generic nutty buttery pastiness in your mouth.  You can pre-toast the pecans if you wish, but I think the slow baking gives them the extra toasted crunch anyway. 

I've been making these cookies since I was about 10 years old, ever since the Christmas a neighboring family gave them to us as part of a cookie assortment and I begged the recipe from them.  They called them pecan puffs, but my father said they tasted like cookies he remembered from long ago, and he always called them sand tarts.  They're his favorite, and beloved of many other family members and friends as well.  So instead of apologizing any more for my bad blogger tendencies, I leave you with this, another recipe which has become a family heirloom for us, and will perhaps become one for you as well.

Pecan Sand Tarts (aka Pecan Puffs)

Approximate yield:  30 - 50 cookies, depending on how large you roll them.  I usually make this recipe times six during this season -- the demand for them is such that a large number of people would be unhappy with me if I showed up without them at holiday time. 

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
2 tablespoons white sugar
fat pinch of salt
1 teaspoon good vanilla extract
1 cup sifted cake flour
1 cup pecan halves
1/2 cup confectioners' sugar for rolling

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F (150 degrees C). Line cookie sheets with parchment.  In a medium bowl or a stand mixer, cream together butter, sugar and salt until smooth. Beat in the vanilla. Roughly chop pecans in a food processor or blender so that you have a mix of textures; toss with cake flour. Stir the pecan mixture into the creamed mixture until well blended (at this point, the dough can be refrigerated and kept for several days, to bake at a later point. Or it can be frozen, probably for a couple of months). Roll the dough into balls "the size of a walnut," then place them 1 inch apart onto the prepared cookie sheets.

Bake for 30 to 40 minutes in the preheated oven, or until nicely golden brown (keep an eye on them; ovens differ, so I'd begin checking at 20 minutes). Roll warm cookies in confectioners' sugar (I often skip this step, not liking too much sugar -- I just roll them when they're cool). When cool, roll again.

Is Anyone Hungry?

I'm quite certain that there are those with much sadder tales to tell on Thanksgiving, but I'm having a tiny pity party here.  Why, you may well ask.  Why, indeed.  My house is filled with the smell of a 19 pound turkey roasting to a turn, there's cornbread and sausage stuffing, homemade cranberry sauce, brussels sprouts and garnet yams waiting to be roasted, salad greens with an amazing lemongrette (and everything, everything made with as much local and organic provender as I could find), this Classic All-American Apple Pie, a dessert beloved of G and my father:


And further below a new invention, Espresso-Maple Pecan Pie, inspired by other bloggers and recipes, as well as being something I particularly thought my brother would like.  And so we come to the heart of our Thanksgiving heartbreak -- late last night, my poor brother called me to say that he's horribly sick with a bad cold, had stayed in bed all day trying to beat it, but was pretty sure they would not come to Thanksgiving dinner for fear of infecting my rather frail and elderly father.

So I scrapped the plan for the Pumpkin Tart, and the vegetarian stuffing for my sister-in-law, but still and all, we have enough food for way more than a dozen people, and we'll be four.  One of whom is my dad, who doesn't eat a whole lot to begin with.  So if you know anyone who has nowhere to go, tell them to contact me right away -- they're invited to Thanksgiving...

Just Because

Despite cheerful blog-rhetoric that might lead one to think that pie-anxiety is my biggest problem, it's been a very difficult week -- couple of weeks, in fact.  G is the one person who's kept me sane in a morass of work, school and family-related stress.  I won't go into details, but suffice it to say that about half an hour ago my husband came home with these in his arms.  For me.  Why?  Just because, he said.  Just because you've been having a rough patch lately.  Just because I love you. 

Sure.  Of course I burst into tears -- what then?   Well, then he ran out to pick up the dry-cleaning before the shop closed.  Yes, I know.   And I guess I just thought the rest of the world should know as well.   

Pie-Makers Anonymous

Help me.  I feel that I need a Twelve-Step program specifically geared to people who simply cannot keep themselves from making too many pies at Thanksgiving. 

I don't have a huge crowd of eaters gathering at my father's table this year, so I don't really have any good excuse to make the five or so pies that I'm dreaming of for Thursday's dinner.  Five pies for six eaters seems slightly excessive, right?  I'd like to say that we have eight coming to Thanksgiving, as that would give me more leeway.  Considering that the five-month-old twins will be dining on (organic) formula and rice cereal, I'm not sure I can get away with that one.

I know it just sort of looks like a study in brown, with fluffy clouds on top, but above is a plate showing samples of the three pies I made for Thanksgiving 2006 (and Thanksgiving 2005, and 2004, and so on), back to front:  Souffléd Pumpkin Cognac Pie, Pure Maple Pecan Pie, and Toffee Apple Crumble Pie.  They are all more or less my own inventions, and yes, I've been making them for years.  This year I'm chafing at tradition a little, and have a nudging little feeling of wanting something new.   But my brother loves that maple-pecan, and my sister-in-law craves pumpkin, and G and my dad both want apple. 

The rest of Thanksgiving dinner presents no turmoil for me.  I'm very happy to go with our tried-and-true menu of favorites:  the crisp-skinned turkey, its gravy made from pan drippings and turkey broth, cornbread and sausage stuffing, cranberries made the way my mother always made them.  I look forward to these things, and so do my family members.  I might hesitate slightly between plain baked yams, and a lovely sweet potato purée, or whether or not to dress up the brussels sprouts in a new way.  But for the most part, the savory menu is set. 

I'm really struggling with the sweet table, however.  I've been railing against the old favorites in my mind, and looking at new possibilities:  A chocolate-espresso pecan pie featured in Fine Cooking magazine.  Deb's (and well, The New York Times') gorgeous nutmeg-maple cream pie.  The idea of pumpkin cheesecake laced with cognac and bedded in a ginger-pecan crust caught my fancy for a while -- I'd made one some years ago for a holiday party, and always wanted to make one again.  But I always cave in to the traditionalists in my family, who want the same old, same old. 

Even the  apple pie presents some conflict -- both G and my father love apple pie best for Thanksgiving dessert, so there's certainly going to be one.  At least one.  But what kind?  My dad wants the two-crust traditional, and while my husband loves that too, I think in his heart of hearts he really wants the crumble-topped kind. I swear to you that I'm fairly well tempted to make two apple pies...along with everything else.

Step one:  We admitted we were powerless over pie...

Lune de Miel

This post was already long-overdue when I started writing it, more than a week ago.  We were still enjoying our honeymoon/vacation -- but I was then struck down by a virulent sinus infection which I'm still battling.  We're home again, and I'm diligently taking the Augmentin doled out to me by the good health professionals at Nantucket Cottage Hospital, despite the havoc that antibiotics wreak on the rest of my organism. 

Where do I begin?  We've been on belated honeymoon in Quebec, Vermont and Nantucket for the past couple of weeks, finally enjoying some real rest and relaxation after the hectic round of this spring's wedding parties, G's trade shows and business obligations and my usual crazed multi-tasking workload.   We used my in-laws' home in Vermont as a midway stopping point for our trip, so driving to Quebec was at a relatively easy pace.  The picture above is from our first stop, an "agrotourisme" farm/auberge in a region known as Quebec's Eastern Townships.  To our city eyes, the area felt delightfully remote.  As we drove through the countryside, we found that any town that had an actual restaurant was considered rather large: the resort town of Lake Megantic, for example, with 5,000 residents, was a veritable metropolis.  Most places consisted of a gas station, perhaps an ice-cream stand and a few small businesses.  One of the greatest treats for us was the nighttime sky, on the nights when it wasn't overcast.  This region is designated as a "star preserve"; the local observatory has been working in tandem with the government so that municipal light fixtures give off the least possible ambient light, making the nighttime viewing spectacular indeed. 

We found ourselves outside of a tiny town called Courcelles, on a farm that specializes in ducks and foie gras, as well as a stunning variety of produce from their organic garden, eggs from their own chickens and quail, and angora wool from their goats.  The Auberge d'Andromède provides equestrian holidays for those interested in riding, or peace and tranquility for those who just want to get away from it all.  Gilles is the chef, smoker of the house-smoked salmon you see above, and Gina, his very chic wife, guides riding tours and serves guests her husband's excellent breakfasts and table d'hôte dinners in a quaint sunporch dominated by this:

I can't tell you how happy it made me to eat two days worth of delectable meals (lake trout in citrus sauce with tiny potatoes and a veritable bouquet of garden vegetables; pancakes made with buckwheat flour milled in Courcelles and maple syrup from the érablière down the road, to name just a couple)  sitting in the same room as this stove, with its ingenious warming cabinets and nook for salt and pepper shakers.  The big dark Mason jars sitting on it are Gina's homemade raspberry conserve, made with berries grown on the farm's enormous patch of raspberry canes.

We went on to Quebec City, a locale new to both of us.  G decided that it lends itself as the perfect setting for a movie with a serious car-chase sequence --  the hills are quite daunting.  Our favorite experience in that area was actually outside of the city, exploring the glories of the Ile d'Orleans,and lovely parishes, and is devoted, as a whole, to (mainly organic) farming.  We bought local hard cider to bring home as gifts, and drove around, reveling in the beautiful scenery, white farmhouses with red roofs, old stone churches and apple orchards, munching on berries bought from the some of the many, many farm stands.  We learned that somehow, despite the inhospitable northern clime, the island enjoys 120 frost-free days per year.  It has become "the garden" for all of Quebec City, a mere 15 minutes away.  One imagines that a similar locale in the US would have already been turned into some sort of Hamptons clone-like resort, but not in Canada.  This lovely place has obviously been preserved, with some nods to progress and tourism,  in more or less the same state for what appears to be a long, long time. a beautiful island oasis in the middle of the St. Lawrence River.  The island is divided into seven quaint

We enjoyed our time in a couple of Quebec City's fine B&Bs, where we found genial, helpful hosts, good accomodations and excellent breakfasts.  But all in all, we were quite happy to move on, a few days later, to a favorite city -- Montreal.  We stayed once again in the delightful auberge we discovered on our last trip, booking what we've come to think of as "our" room.  This time we were able to enjoy our huge terrace overlooking the Parc de la Fontaine even more, simply by breakfasting there each morning.  Since we'd never been to Montreal except in the depths of winter ice and snow, we enjoyed walking Mont Royal on this trip, and exploring the wonders of the Jean Talon market.  We revisited  some old haunts -- we couldn't leave without some smoked meat from Schwartz's, of course.  We also made a few new culinary discoveries.  I found Premiere Moisson -- and it will take all my restraint, the next time we're in Northern Vermont, to refrain from suggesting that we take a leetle three-hour drive to Montreal in order to pick up a box or two of pastries and some olive fougasse. 

G's favorite new Montreal spot, and mine too, is outside the chic Plateau district.  I had noticed that there were a number of North African cuisines represented in Montreal's restos, so I thought we'd try to find Tunisian food, something rare in NYC.  I remember this food fondly from a summer in Aix-en-Provence, where I had a favorite Tunisian restaurant.  I picked a spot, and we reserved a table at L'Etoile de Tunis, which was a bit off the beaten path, in the Petite Italie district.  Petite Italie seems more of a blend of many ethnic cultures rather than a neighborhood devoted solely to things Italian.  It was fun to get away from the tourist-centered neighborhoods and enjoy what seemed a more working-class locale.  One of the things we love about Canadian cities is that even in what are the more "downscale" neighborhoods, the quality of life seems good.  People have space, little gardens, and apartments with generous terraces abound everywhere, instead of being the luxury that they are in NYC.  The gap between socio-economic groups doesn't seem nearly so pronounced as it does here.  It appears to us, just from looking at housing stock and neighborhoods, that there's a continuum that runs not from obscene wealth to abject poverty, as it does here, but that economic class seems to range more simply from upper middle class, to middle class and lower middle/working class.  And I know I'm coming from an outsider perspective, but we never picked up on painful tension in any of these neighborhoods, unlike when you walk through NYC's poorer districts.  We saw a few (very few, actually) people who were homeless or drunk or otherwise in trouble, but no-one, anywhere, ever accosted us or anyone else that we saw for spare change.  Oh -- except for the guy who squeegeed our windshield -- and did a great job.  As we handed over some change, G sighed that even unsolicited squeegeeing is done better in Canada. 

But I digress, as is too often the case.  L'Etoile de Tunis is in the aforementioned working class neighborhood, not on any tourist map at our disposal -- no obstacle to intrepid explorers like ourselves.  What did take us aback was that we hadn't needed the reservation, not at all.  At 8:00 p.m. on a weeknight, we were the only people in the restaurant.  "Uh-oh," I thought.  "Is this going to be a disaster?"  Quite the contrary.  I don't know where the rest of Montreal and its visitors were that night, but they were missing out.  L'Etoile de Tunis was everything we'd hoped, and then some.  I started with a brik a l'oeuf, a crunchy triangular pastry filled with a cooked egg ("coulant," as the proprietress specified) and aromatic green herbs.  Delicious.  G had ordered gratinéed garlic toasts to start, and then his favorite merguez sausages and frites.  He told me he was playing it safe, since these were things he knew he'd like.  But the stand-out was my main course -- the chef's couscous, a neat mound of reddish grains, studded with large chunks of  the traditional seven vegetables.  On this lay a tiny loin lamb chop, skewered lamb, chicken shish taouk, and merguez, all smelling delightfully smoky from the charcoal grill where they had recently done time.  It was all so fresh, so good.  Even the boneless, skinless chicken breast of the shish taouk was juicy and extraordinarily flavorful -- not dry, not a bit of it. On the side was a bowl of rich, meat-and-vegetable scented broth, only slightly tomato-enriched, which I could have eaten by itself as a soup.  Even better was a bowl of the freshest harissa (spicy red-pepper sauce) I've ever tasted, which which we both anointed our dinners .  G loved his dish, but couldn't stop dipping into mine, either.  And of course, we were hard-pressed to spend $50 on dinner for two, even with a generous tip. I tactfully asked the kind proprietress in my halting French about where her clientele might be, saying that everything was so good that I wondered why she wasn't mobbed.  She shrugged, saying that Montrealers seem to consider this a more wintry cuisine.  Perhaps, although most of the meals we'd had in the Plateau were pretty hearty for summertime.  In any case, the question got her talking, and she described how everything in the restaurant was made fresh and in-house. 

Which inspired me, the next day, to purchase a big bag of non-instant couscous and some spices at the Jean Talon market.  I wanted some of the big vat of fresh harissa that I found in the refrigerated case of olives in the little Arab shop on the market's perimeter, but knew that it would spoil before we could get it home, since we had at least two full travel days before us as well as a stay on Nantucket. 

Where, as mentioned earlier, I became ill.  This was particularly sad since I had come primarily to feed and swaddle and cuddle my new niece and nephew.  Since I was deeply afraid of passing on germs, I kept my distance from the babes, who are growing like weeds, and just tried to relax and enjoy one ocean swim before I got too sick, several delicious fresh fish dinners, the best corn and tomatoes we've had all season, and the pleasure (after 10 days of restaurant meals) of making an apple-plum crumble, a nectarine-blueberry crumble, and a rustic plum tart for various groups of assembled family and friends.  As soon as the babies come home to NY, I plan to make up for lost time.