The Incident of the Rhubarb Tarte Tatin

It was Friday the 13th, and I quipped to Andrew by email, "I hope I don't burn the dinner!" Hmmm. I had chosen a fancy dessert recipe from Olive to wow our dinner guests, and also to use up the last batch of rhubarb from K's parents' garden. First problem - I haven't cooked with rhubarb much before, and had never made a tarte tatin, and found upon reading the recipe closely that this was supposed to be done in blini pans or in a Yorkshire pudding tray with four indents, neither of which I had. So a single tarte tatin in a cake tin it was going to be. Then came the issue of making the caramel base. I discovered the hard way (er, literally) that when the recipe says butter and granulated sugar, one should not use caster sugar to make caramel.

After two attempts (the first with golden caster sugar, the second with normal refined caster sugar, just in case its goldenness had been the problem), K was dispatched to the local corner shop to procure granulated sugar, and hurrah! all proceeded satisfactorily with caramel production. I made a nice arrangement of the rhubarb bits on top of this, and I must say the tarte tatin did look beautiful when it was turned out. I don't have a photo unfortunately. Andrew was presented with the first slice and we all waited for the verdict - poor man, having been put on the spot, he did a valiant job of keeping a straight face. I tried a bite of mine - decidedly sour!! What happened to all that sugar in the caramel??? Plus the recipe suggestion of serving this with mascarpone was not a good choice.

With lashings of caster sugar, the dessert was eaten, but lesson learned - always test a new dessert recipe before serving it to one's dinner guests!! Alas, I feel this episode might go down in personal legend - "remember when you did that rhubarb tarte tatin for Alison and Andrew....?"

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The nice thing, however, was that we had a dinner party at all. It has been far too long since we had people over for supper, and this is one of the very nice outcomes of the time I have off work at the moment. Five whole weeks! I had so much annual leave to use up, having taken almost no holiday over the busy last few years, that I decided to take a big batch of time off in the middle of the summer - when it is usually quiet anyway - and spend it in the library, finally starting to focus on how to turn my PhD thesis into a book... I get two different reactions to this:

1) "Don't work too hard / Make sure you actually give yourself some time off!"
2) "Five weeks in the library! What bliss!"

I fall into the latter category myself. Two weeks in, and I am feeling immensely relaxed! I have said before that I don't really know how to relax like normal people - I actually really enjoy going to the library, and it is wonderful just to have the time to read things. I made a list of books and articles that have been published since I submitted my thesis in 2002 - not too long fortunately - and have been working my way through that, but also reading the odd other article, which I'm interested in but isn't directly relevant... Plus - I have space in my brain! And time to get round to things I have been meaning to do for months! Like write emails, send people photos or references I said I would send them, and just see people and be sociable!

The British Library is a pretty sociable place, as I have noted before, and I have been meeting friends for lunch and coffee and a post-library drink. Now Juliette has joined me in Rare Books, on her own PhD sabbatical, and we're getting into a habit of taking our packed lunches outside at 1, to sit in the sun for half an hour or so, and debrief... K will be off work too soon, so the 3 of us will be chilling out together...

And two weeks in, I have nearly a complete first draft of a book proposal! Reading the thesis again after 8 years was an interesting experience, and I was gratified to discover that it wasn't too awful, and that mostly I still agreed with myself... It's a bit dry and in some places overly defensive, but that's what makes a PhD different from a book, and that's what I have got to work out how to tackle. I've even had some positive feedback from the professor who supervised me for the beginning of the process, but didn't see it through because he went off to the States to be a hot-shot museum director - amazing to have some actual feedback as the viva was such a let-down... But water under the bridge an' all.

So - the next dinner party is planned for just over a week's time, and I'm already plotting the menu. I'm starting with the dessert first this time...!

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And finally...

Signpost, Chenies © KR

Our calendar picture for this month. A very English country road sign, but for K one which conjures up the places of his childhood. Chenies was where his grandparents lived, both now passed away. It was exactly this time last year that we were in Hereford for the 3 Choirs Festival, unknowingly spending our last days with his grandfather Robert... Perhaps a little sombre for the kitchen calendar, but it prompts some happy memories.