Tartes and Cats

Today I did absolutely no weaving at all.  Instead, I (with Bruce and daughter Liz's help) made a quince tarte tatin.  The quince were picked from our own trees.  The fruit, heaped in a lard bucket, has been perfuming the air in the garage since October --  it was time to do something with it.  Liz and her boyfriend Kiichi came for dinner (and brought crab cakes made from crab that they just caught.  They didn't want us to eat them tonight -- we'll fry them up tomorrow.  For breakfast!).

Anyway, for desert we followed a Martha Stewart recipe for the French upside-down pie known as tarte tatin.  I'd never made one before but have encountered them in just about every French travel/cookbook I've ever read.  Come to think of it, I'd never eaten one before either.  I'd bought the correct French tarte pan to make it in, but in the end chose to put it in a simple cast iron crepe pan.  This made a smaller tarte, which is what I wanted.  I'll admit right now that my pie crust came from a package from the freezer section of the grocery store.  I;m willing to bet that Martha Stewart made her own, but I'm also pretty sure that she had someone else to clean up her kitchen afterwards. 

When the tarte came out of the oven and had been flipped onto a plate, it didn't look exactly perfect, but close enough (for me, at any rate.  I'm not sure about Martha).  And the fragrant sweet/tart quince flavor was divine!

While we ate, Arby (doing his best to ingratiate himself with both Kiichi and Liz) sat between them -- rear end on Liz's chair and front end planted on Kiichi's thigh.  I'm not sure what was going on in his little head, but he looked pleased at his stunning success at being such an excellent bridge.








Meanwhile, out in the garage, there's Max, who appears to be our new cat.  We've seen him hanging around at the bottom of the drive for over a month now.  He was shy and ran away if we approached him.  He chose Christmas Eve to move into the garage where he made himself at home on some Christmas stockings piled on the freezer.  His timing was perfect -- our own little furry Frogpond Christmas gift.  Bruce brought him a dish of food and Max said thank you by winding happily around his legs and purring like mad.  To our immense relief, the guy's already neutered and isn't feral, so he should fit in with our feline crew.  I think that Max (the name may change) will be staying.

 Tonight Bruce brought him out some canned food plus a bowl of milk to which I'd added a little cream. 

I think he liked it.