Happy Bastille Day!

To celebrate France today, I read through La Marseilles. Wow. Jeff says it was in the old French LDS hymnbook, but they removed it from the newer version. That was probably a good thing—this anthem is a tad violent for church! (“Let impure blood water our furrows??”)

The other thing I did for Bastille Day was to try my hand at tart-ing for the first time:

I doubt that the people who stormed the Bastille 220-plus years ago ever enjoyed a gorgeous crème tart heaped in 3 kinds of berries and kiwis. Nobody could possibly be angry enough to storm anything after eating such a delicacy. But I thought moldy bread wouldn’t taste as good as this berrylicious tart, even if it would be a more historically accurate celebratory food for the day. I don’t even know how French my tart ended up being, but I did separate 6 eggs (and tempered 5 of them) while making the thing, so that has to count for something!

The custard filling I made was a tinsy bit grainy, but it was deliciously vanilla-ed and buttery-rich anyways. The crust was flaky and buttery as well, in spite of my difficulties in making it (the dough never “came together,” so I dumped the pile of crumbs into the pan, smooshed it around with my fingers—gasp, I know—and hoped for the best). It was agony slicing into the perfect pattern, but it was so worth it. YUM.

Jeff had me say “fromage” instead of “cheese” when he took this picture. I think the French must say “Brie” instead of “fromage” when they take pictures, because my mouth was not quite all the way smiling after fromage-ing it up for the camera.

It was my week to cook family Sunday dinner. When I was planning the meal, I realized that it would be on Bastille Day. So I planned a French-style 5-course meal to celebrate. As it turned out, both the Whites (Dan and Leslie) and the Gibbons (Steph, Jasen, and Layne) were out of town today. I had already started the preparations for the meal, but I decided to tone it down a bit due to the HEAT of our kitchen and the lack of company. Our 5 “courses” turned into:

1. Corn on the cob (probably not authentic French cuisine, but it needed to be eaten so I cooked it up)
2. French bread (from the Safeway Bakery) with Brie cheese
3. Fresh green beans with butter
4. Soft sweet fresh-picked apricots
5. The Fruit Tart

Since the heat ‘o summer came upon us, I have not enjoyed cooking—it’s been grilled cheese and other minimal-effort meals for us lately. The heat saps my kitchen-motivation. So it was nice to create something a little fancier after so many quick fixes. I did make the tart over 2 days to make it more bearable.

Jeff said the prayer for dinner in French. I understood it! I seem to be doomed to understand multiple languages and to speak them poorly. Ah well, it’s better than nothing! We were too busy enjoying our Bastille Day/Sunday dinner together to take pictures of the rest of the food. I put the first four “courses” onto mine and the kids’ plates all at once to save time and energy, but Jeff Frenchly stuck to the one-course-at-a-time tradition. Bon appetite! 

It was so fun arranging the pretty fruit on top of the custard. If you’ll remember, I rarely make pretty food. Tasty—often. Pretty—nope. This project set my inner zen a-humming. The symmetry!

Jeff and I ate half of the tart for dessert with minimal help from Jay and Rose. There’s something to be said for a light bread-cheese-veggie dinner. It leaves more room for dessert!