a sunday market?

We found some fresh raspberries and blueberries, that were tart suitable. I know this is America, I know we can get all fruits all year 'round. But that doesn't mean the stuff tastes good. We got some strawberries in, early this week, sour as a cornichon. Huge, red, shiny, taste like hell. They sat for two days in the fridge, and finally got some sweetness so we made strawberry tarts, yesterday. Sold 'em within a few hours. Jennifer also made some fresh raspberry tarts, really bad ass! We make our tarts shells with an all butter dough, that has a hint of almond flour. The almond flour, as far as I'm concerned, doesn't do much for the flavour of the crust, but it gives it such a nice nutty brown colour as it bakes. I learned this from Laurent le Daniel, he has a few incredible pastry shops in Reims, France. He also taught me to bake tart shells in a cooler oven. The shells get a nicer, deeper carmel colour all over. The real consequence is the tart shells get much stronger if you bake them long enough to caramelize the sugar in the crust, they also develop much more flavour. She filled the raspberry tarts with chocolate cremeux, French term. It means, "Absolutely the best, over the top, chocolate pudding, ever"! She boils whipping creme, adds sugar and egg yolks, and cooks it to thicken. She pours that over semi sweet Belgian chocolate, and smooths it out with an immersion blender. Pout it in the shells and let it cool. She topped them with fresh raspberries, really did a good job with them.

For the blueberry tarts, she used the same tart dough, but filled them raw, and baked the whole deal together. She used almond creme, lemon curd and folded in a few blueberries. After baking she topped them with a pile of fresh blueberries, and a light dusting of confectioner's sugar. Really pretty, she did an equally good with these. Her and Tracy do a great job with our tarts and galettes.

We are contemplating adding another farmer's market to our list. We got an email from a group in Roger's Park that is doing a sustainable market on Sunday's. Easy hours, 9 to 1. I'm all for it, but it needs to go before the board for approval, if ya know what I mean. We have been approved for the Evanston market, that starts May 8th, and Andersonville starts June 23rd, I think. They have extended the hours at Aville, gonna start at 3pm til 8 pm, until a certain point in the year. Probably when the clocks get set back, they'll wrap it up at 7pm. still waiting to hear about Green City.

Well, gotta get upstairs, gotta get this whole Passover thing started.