Enter your email Address

ENTROPY
  • About
    • About
    • Masthead
    • Advertising
    • Submission Guidelines
    • Info on Book Reviews
  • Essays
    • All Introspection
      Creative Nonfiction / Essay

      The Animal Form

      January 22, 2021

      Creative Nonfiction / Essay

      On Fantasy and Artifice

      January 19, 2021

      Creative Nonfiction / Essay

      Tales From the End of the Bus Line: Aging Ungraciously

      January 18, 2021

      Creative Nonfiction / Essay

      Salt and Sleep

      January 15, 2021

      Introspection

      The Birds: A Special Providence in the Fall of a Sparrow

      January 2, 2020

      Introspection

      Returning Home with Ross McElwee

      December 13, 2019

      Introspection

      The Birds: In Our Piety

      November 14, 2019

      Introspection

      Variations: Landslide

      June 12, 2019

  • Fiction
    • Fiction

      The Birds: Little Birds

      December 11, 2020

      Fiction

      The Birds: Perdix and a Pear Tree

      December 9, 2020

      Fiction

      The Birds: A Glimmer of Blue

      November 23, 2020

      Fiction

      The Birds: Circling for Home

      November 13, 2020

      Fiction

      The Birds: The Guest

      November 9, 2020

  • Reviews
    • All Collaborative Review Video Review
      Review

      Review: Dear Marshall, Language is Our Only Wilderness by Heather Sweeney

      January 21, 2021

      Review

      Review: Shrapnel Maps by Philip Metres

      January 18, 2021

      Review

      Perceived Realities: A Review of M-Theory by Tiffany Cates

      January 14, 2021

      Review

      Review: Danger Days by Catherine Pierce

      January 11, 2021

      Collaborative Review

      Attention to the Real: A Conversation

      September 3, 2020

      Collaborative Review

      A Street Car Named Whatever

      February 22, 2016

      Collaborative Review

      Black Gum: A Conversational Review

      August 7, 2015

      Collaborative Review

      Lords of Waterdeep in Conversation

      February 25, 2015

      Video Review

      Entropy’s Super Mario Level

      September 15, 2015

      Video Review

      Flash Portraits of Link: Part 7 – In Weakness, Find Strength

      January 2, 2015

      Video Review

      Basal Ganglia by Matthew Revert

      March 31, 2014

      Video Review

      The Desert Places by Amber Sparks and Robert Kloss, Illustrated by Matt Kish

      March 21, 2014

  • Small Press
    • Small Press

      Gordon Hill Press

      December 8, 2020

      Small Press

      Evidence House

      November 24, 2020

      Small Press

      death of workers whilst building skyscrapers

      November 10, 2020

      Small Press

      Slate Roof Press

      September 15, 2020

      Small Press

      Ellipsis Press

      September 1, 2020

  • Where to Submit
  • More
    • Poetry
    • Interviews
    • Games
      • All Board Games Video Games
        Creative Nonfiction / Essay

        How Zelda Saved Me: The Inspiration, Feminism, and Empowerment of Hyrule

        November 2, 2020

        Board Games

        Session Report: Victoriana and Optimism

        December 14, 2019

        Games

        Best of 2019: Video Games

        December 13, 2019

        Games

        Hunt A Killer, Earthbreak, and Empty Faces: Escapism for the Post-Truth Era

        September 21, 2019

        Board Games

        Session Report: Victoriana and Optimism

        December 14, 2019

        Board Games

        Ludic Writing: Lady of the West

        July 27, 2019

        Board Games

        Session Report: Paperback and Anomia

        July 27, 2019

        Board Games

        Ludic Writing: The Real Leeds Part 12 (Once in a Lifetime)

        November 10, 2018

        Video Games

        How Zelda Saved Me: The Inspiration, Feminism, and Empowerment of Hyrule

        November 2, 2020

        Video Games

        Best of 2019: Video Games

        December 13, 2019

        Video Games

        Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is the Spirit of Generosity

        December 31, 2018

        Video Games

        Best of 2018: Video Games

        December 17, 2018

    • Food
    • Small Press Releases
    • Film
    • Music
    • Paranormal
    • Travel
    • Art
    • Graphic Novels
    • Comics
    • Current Events
    • Astrology
    • Random
  • RESOURCES
  • The Accomplices
    • THE ACCOMPLICES
    • Enclave
    • Trumpwatch

ENTROPY

  • About
    • About
    • Masthead
    • Advertising
    • Submission Guidelines
    • Info on Book Reviews
  • Essays
    • All Introspection
      Creative Nonfiction / Essay

      The Animal Form

      January 22, 2021

      Creative Nonfiction / Essay

      On Fantasy and Artifice

      January 19, 2021

      Creative Nonfiction / Essay

      Tales From the End of the Bus Line: Aging Ungraciously

      January 18, 2021

      Creative Nonfiction / Essay

      Salt and Sleep

      January 15, 2021

      Introspection

      The Birds: A Special Providence in the Fall of a Sparrow

      January 2, 2020

      Introspection

      Returning Home with Ross McElwee

      December 13, 2019

      Introspection

      The Birds: In Our Piety

      November 14, 2019

      Introspection

      Variations: Landslide

      June 12, 2019

  • Fiction
    • Fiction

      The Birds: Little Birds

      December 11, 2020

      Fiction

      The Birds: Perdix and a Pear Tree

      December 9, 2020

      Fiction

      The Birds: A Glimmer of Blue

      November 23, 2020

      Fiction

      The Birds: Circling for Home

      November 13, 2020

      Fiction

      The Birds: The Guest

      November 9, 2020

  • Reviews
    • All Collaborative Review Video Review
      Review

      Review: Dear Marshall, Language is Our Only Wilderness by Heather Sweeney

      January 21, 2021

      Review

      Review: Shrapnel Maps by Philip Metres

      January 18, 2021

      Review

      Perceived Realities: A Review of M-Theory by Tiffany Cates

      January 14, 2021

      Review

      Review: Danger Days by Catherine Pierce

      January 11, 2021

      Collaborative Review

      Attention to the Real: A Conversation

      September 3, 2020

      Collaborative Review

      A Street Car Named Whatever

      February 22, 2016

      Collaborative Review

      Black Gum: A Conversational Review

      August 7, 2015

      Collaborative Review

      Lords of Waterdeep in Conversation

      February 25, 2015

      Video Review

      Entropy’s Super Mario Level

      September 15, 2015

      Video Review

      Flash Portraits of Link: Part 7 – In Weakness, Find Strength

      January 2, 2015

      Video Review

      Basal Ganglia by Matthew Revert

      March 31, 2014

      Video Review

      The Desert Places by Amber Sparks and Robert Kloss, Illustrated by Matt Kish

      March 21, 2014

  • Small Press
    • Small Press

      Gordon Hill Press

      December 8, 2020

      Small Press

      Evidence House

      November 24, 2020

      Small Press

      death of workers whilst building skyscrapers

      November 10, 2020

      Small Press

      Slate Roof Press

      September 15, 2020

      Small Press

      Ellipsis Press

      September 1, 2020

  • Where to Submit
  • More
    • Poetry
    • Interviews
    • Games
      • All Board Games Video Games
        Creative Nonfiction / Essay

        How Zelda Saved Me: The Inspiration, Feminism, and Empowerment of Hyrule

        November 2, 2020

        Board Games

        Session Report: Victoriana and Optimism

        December 14, 2019

        Games

        Best of 2019: Video Games

        December 13, 2019

        Games

        Hunt A Killer, Earthbreak, and Empty Faces: Escapism for the Post-Truth Era

        September 21, 2019

        Board Games

        Session Report: Victoriana and Optimism

        December 14, 2019

        Board Games

        Ludic Writing: Lady of the West

        July 27, 2019

        Board Games

        Session Report: Paperback and Anomia

        July 27, 2019

        Board Games

        Ludic Writing: The Real Leeds Part 12 (Once in a Lifetime)

        November 10, 2018

        Video Games

        How Zelda Saved Me: The Inspiration, Feminism, and Empowerment of Hyrule

        November 2, 2020

        Video Games

        Best of 2019: Video Games

        December 13, 2019

        Video Games

        Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is the Spirit of Generosity

        December 31, 2018

        Video Games

        Best of 2018: Video Games

        December 17, 2018

    • Food
    • Small Press Releases
    • Film
    • Music
    • Paranormal
    • Travel
    • Art
    • Graphic Novels
    • Comics
    • Current Events
    • Astrology
    • Random
  • RESOURCES
  • The Accomplices
    • THE ACCOMPLICES
    • Enclave
    • Trumpwatch
Food

Summer of Tarte Tatin

written by Andrea Lambert August 3, 2017

A whole stick of butter melts down in a skillet. I sprinkle it with half a cup raw sugar. I am making a second try at a Tarte Tatin. It is the summer of French baking experiments. In trite schoolgirl French I sing, “Voulez-vous couchez avec moi? Ce soir? Seulement si vous faites des desserts!”

From the inside out I arrange a spiral of halved crabapples in the blackening goo in the pan. Not cored or peeled despite recipe instructions. I don’t have the energy to bother. Apples, butter, and sugar sizzle in savory delight.

The apples were plucked from the tree in the backyard. In the 90 degree evening. Watching the sun fall across the mountains. Reaching higher into the cool of leafy green branches for the tart green apples I missed before.

All summer I have been coming out into the parklike backyard to pluck crabapples and ripe yellow cherries from the trees. First blossoms then fruit they gave me. The peas still wild with purple flowers. The cherry blossoms I Instagram and flower crown my heart out. Watch the first tiny tart green cherries form like a father-to-be watching his pregnant wife bloom.

When the yellow orbs were ripe I made a cherry clafouti. I’d never heard of such a thing until the Williams-Sonoma Essentials of French Cooking index led me to the recipe. I mixed milk, cream, eggs, flour, vanilla, salt, and sugar. Baked the batter for two minutes in a heavily buttered blue glass pie dish. Poured in yellow cherries I didn’t have the will to pit. Poured the remaining creamy batter over the top until the fruit was submerged. 30 minutes later a white and yellow fruit custard emerged from the oven. Shaped like a pie yet crustless. Full of juicy cherry pit landmines.

I lay out on the grass sunburning then tanning with books. Coffee. Laughing at the world inside my iPhone. Walked around the backyard surveying the fruits of my domain. This patch of land in the Wild West of Nevada where I have lived for four months now. A stranger in a strange land. I hole up inside to avoid the opioids, guns, and rape that I fear. Come outside only for meds and provisions. Today returning from CVS with a plastic bag of pill bottles a kindly neighbor I recently met hollered greetings between front yards.

Perhaps Reno isn’t the cesspool of vice and danger Los Angeles was? San Francisco? Even Portland? Despite that I frolicked in past cites quite freely. Each trauma and violation ratcheting up that ol’ PTSD so that in Reno now I hide out in my hole. Perhaps unnecessarily.

Reno I think of as a cheaper, chiller, cut-rate Vegas. Sure there’s gaudy money pit casinos that are fucking depressing. Sure the bars never close, not that I ever go to them. But there’s this adorable burgeoning arts renaissance here. Totally a surprise. Reno galleries still see my figurative oil painting as a legitimate art form, unlike LA’s conceptual performative installations. Plus now Nevada has legal recreational weed. Best thing ever for soothing that beastly PTSD. Living in nowheresville, “the sticks,” really isn’t so bad.

Besides, sticks make twigs make branches that bear apples and cherries, and that shit is delicious. In a moment of grocery store agoraphobia I tweet, “Is not buying groceries just eating & baking w/ backyard fruit an adulting fail or thrifty DIY win? Asking for a friend.” I buy the most disgusting Marie Calendars and Michelina’s frozen dinners imaginable at the Raley’s five minutes away. Stock up on sugar and butter for baking adventures.

After May’s clafouti’s came June’s galettes. The crabapple galette is the equivalent of a personal dessert pizza. Fairly easy to throw together in that sacred trifecta of apples/butter/sugar/flour. A pastry round on a cookie sheet brushed with melted butter. Arrange a spiral of cored quartered crabapples leaving a one inch margin on the edges. Fold pastry edges over the apples. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar. Bake for half an hour. The first crabapple galette I brought to my grandma warm from the oven. The second I selfishly ate myself with whipped cream all in one night.

The Joy of Cooking reveals flocks of recipes that flutter like birds across my kitchen. A cherry and two apple trees and my hands are busy all summer.

The first Tarte Tatin was a delicious disaster. I followed The Joy’s prescribed schtick of butter, sugar, apples sizzling in a skillet. Covered it with a homemade pastry round. Baked for 25 minutes. But when the time came for the climactic flip my first Tarte Tatin was not to be.

Caramelized apples stuck to the skillet to be pried off with a spatula. My eagerly awaited French dessert was a pile of dog shit looking pastry and blackened apple bites. I got a fork out and ate the whole pile in one sitting. Compulsively delectable. Vomited it up in four am heaves that night. Thought apples might be over for the season.

Yet the trees kept bearing fruit deep into July so who was I to turn down free food? That Disability check only goes so far. Making my own desserts was cheaper than the six packs of Heath Klondike bars I savored in the summer heat.

Tonight I craved Tarte Tatin yet again. So tonight I tried out William-Sonoma’s recipe. This called for the same skillet prep but instead a pre-fab grocery store pastry round. I pulled out the white oblong box from the freezer. Unfolded the unfamiliar dough. When placed on top of the apple skillet the dough round covered the apples completely. Unlike my previous experiment. I put it in the oven for 25 minutes. Listened to Ke$ha’s new song, “Praying,” as was I.

When I peeked into the oven to pull it out the pastry had puffed dramatically. Golden. I pulled the pan out with pot holders. Ran a pie serving spatula around the edges and bottom. Placed a plate on top. Gritted my teeth. Flipped the skillet, dessert and plate. Hot apple juice and instantly crystalizing caramel spots spewed from the pan to the teal tile.

I carefully lifted the skillet up, leaving the perfectly plated Tarte Tatin in the white china plate like a summertime dessert miracle. It came out this time. Hallelujah!

Summer of Tarte Tatin was last modified: August 3rd, 2017 by Andrea Lambert
Andrea LambertbakingclafoutiRenotarte tatin
0 comment
0
Facebook Twitter Google + Pinterest
Andrea Lambert
Andrea Lambert

Andrea Lambert is the author of Jet Set Desolate, Neon Hysteric, Scaffolding Hollywood Hedgewitch, and Grieving Through “American Horror Story." Books of poetry: Lorazepam & the Valley of Skin and Bleed Almond. Anthologies: Impact, Golden State 2017, Haunting Muses, Writing the Walls Down. Writing in Entropy Magazine, Blanket Sea, The Because Better Project and elsewhere. Queer artist. Nevada recluse. .

previous post
The Birds: Four Hidden Birds
next post
Wild Bill

You may also like

Escarole

February 9, 2016

Dinner Whore Celibate

August 29, 2016

The Serving Fork

July 13, 2015

Dinnerview: Crisosto Apache

September 16, 2020
Facebook Twitter Instagram

Recent Comments

  • Lei Yu wow so beautifully written!

    Review – : once teeth bones coral : by Kimberly Alidio ·  January 18, 2021

  • Lisa S Thank you so much for your kind words and your feedback. I can only hope my story is able to help someone who needs it.

    WOVEN: This isn’t love ·  January 8, 2021

  • Ann Guy Thank you, Josh. And glad you didn’t get tetanus at band camp on that misguided day.

    A Way Back Home ·  December 24, 2020

Featured Columns & Series

  • The Birds
  • Dinnerview
  • WOVEN
  • Variations on a Theme
  • BLACKCACKLE
  • Literacy Narrative
  • COVID-19
  • Mini-Syllabus
  • Their Days Are Numbered
  • On Weather
  • Disarticulations
  • The Waters
  • Session Report series
  • Birdwolf
  • Comics I've Been Geeking Out On
  • Small Press Releases
  • Books I Hate (and Also Some I Like)
  • The Poetics of Spaces
  • Fog or a Cloud
  • Tales From the End of the Bus Line
  • 30 Years of Ghibli
  • Cooking Origin Stories
  • YOU MAKE ME FEEL
  • Ludic Writing
  • Best of 2019
  • The Talking Cure
  • Stars to Stories
  • DRAGONS ARE REAL OR THEY ARE DEAD
  • Foster Care
  • Food and Covid-19
  • LEAKY CULTURE
  • Jem and the Holographic Feminisms
  • D&D with Entropy

Find Us On Facebook

Entropy
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram

©2014-2020 The Accomplices LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Read our updated Privacy Policy.


Back To Top