Cookbook Spotlight: Seasonal Fruit Desserts

I’ve been reading through some of my posts from the past few months, and I must say to any of you who are still reading–I apologize for whining so much. Contrary to what those of you who know me solely from this blog may believe, while living in America this winter and spring, I did, on occasion, do things aside from miss Paris and whine about missing Paris.

Most days, I got up, dragged myself into the shower, dragged myself back out again, put clothes on, poured myself a ridiculously sized mug of coffee and got on the subway, which I rode to Flatiron, where I worked as a translator. There, as one would imagine, I translated things, pretty much all day. Then I filled my coffee cup for the third or fourth time that day and walked the three miles back uptown to my parents’ house, where I ate dinner, shared inappropriate dinner-table conversation with my sisters, and watched more episodes of The Nanny than I ever cared to.

Other days, I freelanced–I write articles that pop up all over the web on all sorts of topics in both French and English. For example, I just wrote a restaurant review for the Olive Oil Times. I’m also in the process of writing a novel, which means that I spent a lot of time staring at my screen and wondering what on earth posessed me to want to write a novel. Since leaving New York, I’ve stopped even staring at the screen, which means that the urge to write said novel will return in a matter of days, leaving me to sit and stare at my screen and wonder what posessed me to write a novel all over again.

And then, of course, when I couldn’t work anymore, I went places with my friends because, regardless of how whiny I can be, there are some people who can tolerate being in the same room with me long enough to actually grab a drink (… or seven), or go to the Brooklyn botanical gardens.

It was actually not my idea, but my friend the Half-Corsican’s. We were lazing around his apartment on a Saturday afternoon, as we often do, although instead of putting on an episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, he decided that we were going to look at cherry trees. Being a native of Manhattan, and thus wary of venturing to the outer boroughs for reasons other than: 1) Mike’s pork shop on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, 2) Yankees games, or 3) Going to arthouse cinemas in Flatbush, I had never been to the Brooklyn botanical gardens and wasn’t sure I wanted to ride a train other than my familiar 4, 5, 6 to get there. The Half-Corsican, though, was adamant, as half-Corsicans tend to be.

He checked some website that informed him that today was the day to go, led me onto the proper train (regardless of the fact that I’m a native New Yorker and he came here from Florida a few years ago), and we spent our afternoon wandering around the trees and flowers that were finally in bloom.

Needless to say, the Half-Corsican was right: the cherry blossoms were in full bloom that day, and the sheer number of cherry trees in the gardens made the entire field pink. It was just warm enough to enjoy the first touch of spring, but not so warm that we could stretch out in the sun–something we quickly remedied by finding a bar and grabbing the aforementioned drink (… or seven).

I like this moment in spring–it’s still happening in Cannes, although I hear that New York has skipped over spring and jumped directly into summer, as New York likes to do. Nevermind, I like summer much better. It’s the perfect time to test out recipes from the book I received in the mail just before flying over here, when the spring days were numbered and summer was pushing in from the edges of the beginning of May.

The book is Deborah Madison’s Seasonal Fruit Desserts, part of this round of the Cookbook Spotlight. It offers recipes, not only for the bountiful produce of spring and summer, but for fruits of every season. I spent days just paging through it, admiring the pictures, and more than once, one of my sisters or my mother tried to squirrel it away for themselves. My sister marked all the recipes she liked with Post-Its–I’ll have to try more when I get home.

As it was, I ended up testing two–pineapple in basil syrup (I couldn’t find the kiwis that are meant to go with it anywhere) and strawberries in red wine. Both were on the simpler end of the scale that you will find within this book, although even the more complicated desserts are not really that complicated at all–I especially want to try a gorgeous raspberry tart, but that will be for another day.

As for the recipes I chose, I loved them both, although we ended up with leftover pineapple once we realized that the strawberries–soaked in wine with a hint of black pepper–made plain vanilla ice cream into something absolutely phenomenal.

My mouth is still watering thinking about the surprising combination of heat and acid and sweet, with the rich complexity of wine to make you feel like a grown-up, even on your third bowl of ice cream in front of the television. I like to be pleasantly surprised… be it by flowers or by dessert.