Monday, September 27, 2010

Tarte Fine

My very big news is that I met Dorie this past Sunday!  My husband and I drove from Rochester, NY to Kingston, ON where Dorie was featured at a brunch at the Waterfront Holiday Inn.  We got there very early after driving part of the way the day before and spending the night in Alexandria Bay, NY.  It was a thrill to see Dorie walking down the hall with a big smile on her face.  When she got near me, she exclaimed, "You're Peggy the Baker!"  I was so excited!  Dorie really believes that the Tuesdays with Dorie crowd is a community of friends and she seemed almost as excited to meet me as I was to meet her.

The event included wonderful food prepared from recipes from Around my French Table and a terrific interview of Dorie by noted Canadian food critic James Chatto.  It was an absolutely fabulous time; if any of you can get to see her at one of her book tour events, drop everything and go!  And take your butter-stained copy of Baking from My Home to Yours with you!

Here's a picture of me with Dorie and my husband Rich.


And now to this week's Tuesdays with Dorie pick!  It was chosen by Leslie of Lethally Delicious.  This was truly an easy dessert to make.  The base is frozen puff pastry and Dorie recommends trying hard to find the all butter kind rather than use the Pepperidge Farm brand.  When I last looked, the only brand available was Pepperidge Farm so I was alarmed when that section of the frozen food case was completely empty.  Tucked off to the side, however, was the store brand puff pastry sheet and lo and behold, it is made solely with butter!  Thank you Wegmans!

The next challenge was to find the right kind of apples.  Apple season is just beginning here in upstate New York and we have many varieties from which to choose.  The only Golden Delicious, however, were from 3,000 miles away so I opted to use local Empires that had just been delivered today.

I love the way Dorie describes exactly how thin to slice the apples:  7 slices per quarter of the apple.  And I love the way that in making the slices that way I ended up with precisely the correct amount of apples to cover the puff pastry!  

I almost skipped the glaze but remembered some homemade spiced pear jam my friends Rebecca and Tony gave me for my birthday.  Was that ever a good idea! 

Dorie recommends serving this within an hour of when it comes out of the oven.  Ours was served and consumed within about 5 minutes.  Very yummy indeed!




15 comments:

  1. How exciting to have met Dorie! I'm so bummed I'll be out of the country when she's in California.

    Your tart looks spectacular! I'm so glad you were able to score some all-butter puff pastry. I felt that same excitement when I saw Trader Joe's had started carrying it after almost two years.

    Thanks for baking with me this week!

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  2. How wonderful that you got to meet Dorie.

    Wouldn't it be lovely if we had some sort of TWD convention?

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  3. I thought about going to meet Dorie too, as Kingston is only 2 hours from here. How fun! Glad you enjoyed the tart.
    :)

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  4. Hey Peggy! We just stumbled upon you blog and thought this was such a wonderful story! We are glad that the puff pastry worked out so well :)This looks like a fantastic Apple dessert for the season!

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  5. How exciting!! you got to meet THE dorie :)

    i wish i would have saved some to warm up and have with a scoop of ice cream, but it just didn't last that long :(

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  6. How exciting! I feel like Dorie is my best friend. This Tarte was excellent.

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  7. Peggy, you're right: I was as excited to meet you as you were to meet me.

    And Chocolatechic, I love the idea of a TWD Convention. Love it.

    You're so lucky to have a Wegman's near you -- they're great markets. Bet your tarte was so much better because of the butter pastry.

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  8. Well, there was some left over the next morning, so I had it for breakfast. It was still delightful, if not as tenderly flaky as a proper puff pastry should be. I actually thought it was better without the ice cream - the apple flavor really stands alone. And no, it doesn't need any extra sugar (unless, I suppose, you're using heirloom cider apples, notorious for their high acid).

    And I'm still smiling from our trip to Kingston and meeting Dorie, even though I tend to be quieter about it. It was so much fun to see Peggy's open joy, and talk cooking on the drive home.

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  9. Your tart looks lovely, Peggy! I'm signed up for Dorie's class here in Austin, and I can't wait! I'm taking Baking and AMFT with me. =) I'm also jealous of your local apples. We get NY apples down here, but it's not the quite the same after they travel. I grew up in PA and my grandmother lived in Utica. We'd always stock up on apples from the local orchard when we went up to visit her.

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  10. What a delicious-looking tart! And so glad that you got to meet Dorie. She's such a warm and endearing person, isn't she?!

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  11. Wow, how exciting for you! Congrats.
    And the tart is gorgeous, and sounds superb.

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  12. Dorie is the best! Im so happy and a little jealous that you got to meet her~!!! I love the picture of you three!
    Your tart looks so good and Im glad you found the PP!!

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  13. How awesome that you got to meet Dorie!

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  14. How exciting to meet Dorie. She is our heroine.

    Your tarte looks fantastic.

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  15. Wow, Dorie got to meet Peggy the Baker!! How exciting for all of you. Your tarte looks great, on my list for tomorrow was well. Thanks for the inspiration.

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