HER FRENCH CORNER

"The discovery of a new dish does more for the happiness of the human race than the discovery of a star." ~ Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

My post about the Tomato Pesto Tart yesterday got me to thinkin' about French galettes in general, and that got me to thinking about an amazing woman whom I never got the chance to meet. She was a school teacher in D.C. whose sister married a Frenchman. She spent most every summer with them in France, and the rest of the year she would blog about it here...

 
If you recall, when we first got back from our river cruise through southern France a couple of years ago, I was a bit obsessed with all things French. Okay, truthfully? I've always been obsessed with all things French, but for a few months there, it was especially bad. Stumbling upon her blog helped ease the pain a bit. Since she was heading off to France just as I was coming back, and taking a break from blogging, I used that time to go back to the very beginning of her blog, and worked my way forward. Yep, I read three years worth of blog posts in just three months -- that's how obsessed I was!

The blog is about many, many things, not just cooking. However, she happens to cook the way I like to cook -- very simply, but with the best of ingredients -- and she often turns to galettes when seasonal fruits are plentiful. Here are a couple of her recipes.

Raspberry Galette

Preheat oven to 400 F.

Pastry dough for a 9" galette (I cheat and use Pillsbury ready made crusts)
1 - 1 1/2 cups of fresh raspberries, depending on size
3 T. of white sugar
1 T. cornstarch
sheet of baking parchment, enough to cover a medium sized rimmed cookie sheet

In a bowl, gently toss the raspberries with the sugar and cornstarch. If you prefer a sweeter juice, add more sugar. If you prefer a thicker juice, add more cornstarch.

Take the prepared pate brisee from the refrigerator. Roll out the dough on a floured surface then place it on the parchment. Transfer rolled dough on the parchment to the cookie sheet.

Place the raspberry mixture on the pastry dough leaving a 2" border. Gently fold and pleat the border up over the raspberry filling.

Bake for 30 minutes or until the crust is brown and the juice has formed. Cut and serve once the galette has cooled and set.

Blackberry-Nectarine Galette

The directions for making this galette are pretty much the same, however this recipe makes two galettes.

pastry dough for 2-9" galettes
1 pint blackberries
3 - 5 nectarines, sliced
3 T. sugar
1 T. cornstarch

Bake 30 minutes at 400 F.

Sadly, not long after I discovered this blog, the writer's life went through a bit of turmoil, she decided that she'd said all she had to say, and she gave up writing the blog. Fortunately for me, she never took it down (I just checked!). Why do I say "fortunately"? Well, every summer I get to thinking about that trip again, and then I get to feelin' a bit of French-deprivation. It's pretty severe right now, since I had to scroll through all of my photos from the trip in order to do that summer market art project the other day. I'm thinking that reading back through some of her posts might be just what the doctor ordered, since she knows all those things that most of the French know, but which so few Americans really get.

"Think of it as an opportunity for jump-starting your creativity. Cooking is one of the best ways for your authentic self to remind your conscious self that you are an artist...scraping, slicing, shredding, stirring, simmering, sauteing are all sleights of hand that switch your conscious mind onto artistic, automatic pilot. Once the conscious mind is distracted, the creative mind takes over, even if you aren't aware of it." ~ Sarah Ban Breathnach, Simple Abundance

Mais oui!