What says summer more than the gorgeous fruit that descends on the markets? Apricots, berries, peaches, figs, plums, and so much more. I am a dedicated jam maker, so I usually concentrate my efforts there. But I also love to bake. I find it relaxing, especially after a long and especially grueling semester. With graduate admissions, 16 defenses, and two Zoom classes, this was more exhausting than it usually is. I was ready to do some cooking and try to become a human being again.
I subscribe to New York Times Cooking, and a recipe came up that I thought I'd like to try–Gâteau Breton. It was adapted by Melissa Clark. I love her recipes. Her cookbook, Dinner in French, really helped me get through the first part of the pandemic. Sitting down to a civilized dinner seem to keep the chaos at bay. The glasses of wine probably helped, too.
I made the Gâteau Breton. It was delicious. I served it with crème fraîche–ooh, la, la. It looked just like the photo in the NYTimes, not something that always happens. An obsession was born. I thought why not make fruit tarts to take advantage of the summer's bounty. The Gâteau Breton used dried plums and rum, but fresh fruit was already in the markets. I had a couple of good tart recipes, and I wanted to find more.
In his essay "Are You Still Writing About Your Father?" Tony Hoagland says that a poet is lucky to have an obsession. I certainly have my core obsessions, but I also like to cultivate peripheral ones that talk to the big mamas. I never know if they are going to crop up in my work, and sometimes they don't, but as Keats says you have to work in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts. Who knows what will happen? I love that feeling, and nothing is better than a slice of tart with an afternoon cup of tea.
Here's the recipe: https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1017854-gateau-breton
Next tart: Patricia Wells is a baking goddess!
Barbara Hamby was born in New Orleans and raised in Honolulu. She is the author of seven books of poems, most recently Holoholo: Poems (2121) Bird Odyssey (2018), and On the Street of Divine Love: New and Selected Poems (2014), all published by the University of Pittsburgh Press, which also published Babel (2004) and All-Night Lingo Tango (2009). Her first book, Delirium, won the Vassar Miller Prize, The Kate Tufts Award, and the Poetry Society of America’s Norma Farber First Book Award. Her second book, The Alphabet of Desire, won the New York University Press Prize for Poetry and was published in 1999 by New York University Press. She teaches at Florida State University where she is Distinguished University Scholar. You can find out more about Barbara here.