BY MARGARETDELANEY| Staff writer
What started as asmall tasktofind and create a recipe worththe caloriesand filledwith autumnal flair turned into alarger lesson aboutpatienceand acceptance thatcaramel does in factburn sometimes—and that’sOK.
As Isearched theinterweb andasked my familyand friends what delectable dessert rings true forthe fall season, Iwas metwithanoverload of recommendations: my mother’siconic This delicate,classic French dessertbrings warmth andfallflavorstoLouisiana kitchens ä See DESSERT, page 3G
Pear TarteTatin
Makes one tarte tatin.Recipeisby Simply Recipes, revised byMargaret DeLaney
FOR THE CRUST:
Pillsburypuff pastrysheets
Note:Ifyou are feeling adventurous, gather the ingredientsand setaside an hour or two to make your own roughpuff pie crust.
FOR THE FILLING:
4pears, peeled, cored and cut in quarters
Pinch of granulated sugar
2tablespoons of lemon juice
1teaspoonofcinnamon (to taste or preference)
4 tablespoons of unsaltedbutter
2⁄3 cup of granulated sugar (forthe caramel)
1. Set oven to 375 F.
2. Prepare thepears. Peel, core and cut the pears into quarters. Leave one pear cut in half if desiredfor design (recommended if using alarger cast iron pan).Set asideina bowl andsprinkle granulated sugar,lemon juice and cinnamon to preference (I prefer a more subtle cinnamon aroma to thedessert).
3. Make the caramel.Once the panishot on the stove, lower theheat just abovesimmer andput the butterinthe pan. Melt thebutter slowly as to not burn it. (Note: Make sure to use an oven-proofpan.I used an 8-inch cast-iron skillet.)
Morning GloryMuffins. She says the muffins areher signature dish and have basically becomea form of therapy for her Themuffinsgoback to her baking obsessionthatgrew duringthe COVID lockdown. “I loved every minute of the lockdown.Igot to behome. I knowthatwas not everyone’s experience. To bind anxiety,I started making muffins,”Mann
4. Oncethe butter is completelymelted,takethe pan off theheat andsprinkle 2/3 cup of granulated sugar evenly over the butter.Gently mix thebutterand sugartogether (should createaslightly pasty texture) and return to heat.
5. Continue to lightly stir the butter and sugar mixture untilitbegins to lightly bubble. Addthe pears in acircular design withthe round side of the pear face down, and thepears slightly overlapping as to not have any gaps.
6. Let thepears simmer with the caramel for 15 to 20 minutes or untilthe caramel reaches arich brown color
7. While the pears simmer, prepare the pastry.Whether store-bought or homemade, make sure the pastry is slightly cold (not frozen) beforebaking. Cut the pastry intoacircle that is slightly larger than the pan used for thepears (about half an inch wider on each side).
8. When the caramel and pears are arich brown, take thepan off the heat and place the pastry directlyoverthe top of the pan. With afork or small spoon, lightly tuck the puffpastryintothe inside edge of the pan, wrapping the pear andmixture in alight encasing.
9. Putthe pan directlyinto the oven set to 375 Fand bake for30to40minutes or until the pastry is golden brown.
10. Whentaking outofthe oven, have apie dish ready that is slightly bigger than the pan used to cook the pears. After aminute,place the spare pie dish atop the pan, and using twohands with oven mitts or potholders,flip it over,releasing the tarte tatin onto thepie dish(if youloseafew pears, that’sOK! Just place them back on).
11. Let cool and serve. Pear tarte tatins arebestserved withvanilla whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.
STAFF PHOTO BY MICHAEL JOHNSON
Trish Mann is
‘Seasonofthe Swamp’ locksinonNew Orleans’ vibe
BY RIEN FERTEL
Contributing writer
”Season of the Swamp” by Yuri Herrera, Graywolf Press, 160 pages If you’re not reading Yuri Herrera yet, what are you waiting for?
Review
The Mexican-born Tulane University professor of creative writing andliterature ranks among the most dynamic and unique authors working today Each of his previous three novels is awildly inventive, worddrunk,frenzied fever dream. They’ve earned him an audience, accolades, including the Best Translated Book Award for “Signs Preceding the End of the World,” and arecent New York Times profile. They also each clockinatjust over 100 pages, able to be consumed —and, if you’re like me,reconsumed like abitter cocktail: evanescent, intoxicating and possibly addicting.
Where Herrera’searlier quasi-trilogy takes place along adistorted version of Mexico’s present-day borderlands, his latest offers acunning swerve. Ahistorical novel set in New Orleans, “Season of the Swamp,” despite the shifts in time and place,allows the author to revel in the theme upon which he’s built his career: the occasionally humorous, often savage grotesqueries of humankind.
The novel is pure Herrera, perfect for fans and first-timers, aread that should leave readers,toquote one of the author’s coinages,“dizzle-dazzled.” It reimagines Benito Juárez’sNew Orleans sojourn in the 1850s, an 18-month stopover that warrants only abrief mention in his memoirs. The Indigenous Mexican liberalpolitician has recently been ousted from the governorship of Oaxaca and sent into exile by aconservative coup intent on reinstalling the corrupt and bloody dictator,Antonio López de Santa Anna.
On the last days of 1853, Juárez and his brother-in-law,Pepe Maza, arrive with little else but aSpanish-language copy of the U.S. Constitution. Afew days’ stay at most, enough time to
rendezvous with their fellow exiled compadres. New Orleans, of course, has other plans.
“If you knew how many people have only been here for afew days,” ashady Spaniard named Rafael Cabañas tells them with alaugh, “for years.”
In only amatter of hours, New Orleans “sucked them up like a sponge,” Herrera writes. Juárez and Maza explore the city, where the marketsremind them of Oaxaca, the architecture of Havana, but the friendly similitudes end there. The streets, then as today,are “perpetually under construction,” filled with hazards: sewage-filled gutters, countless stray dogs, and, most menacing of all, New Orleanians, who appear devoted to excess in all its forms, but especially money,alcohol and violence.
The floor of their flophouse lobby is smeared withthe “sanguineous intimacies” of arecent brawl. The season’s must-see show is a fight between two bears. Every few pages, abuilding burstsinto flame. Herrera has done his research, and these 130-odd pages are crammed with Juárez’svery probable handshakes with history: Congo Square, Carnival, anasty bout with yellowfever Chapters are punctuated by crime reports ripped from historical newspapers: “One captured man had beenarrestedfor stealingapairofshoes, another
forstealing bread, yetanotherfor biting an officer …a womanhad been takenin for dressing in men’sclothing …and three musicians for playing harps and violins without a license.”
As in many historical novels, famousnames pop in for a cameo. Ateenage Paul Morphy dazzles coffeehouse chessboard dilettantes. Louis Moreau Gottschalk, just back from a star-making tour of Europe,
conducts a10-piano concerto, all playing different overtures to form “one continuous, absurd song.” The budding Cuban intellectual Pedro Santacilia,who will later,outside the novel’s confines, marry one of Juárez’s daughters, shows the Oaxacan exile around the city’sauctions of enslaved people.
There, Juárez witnessesthe very worst that New Orleans and humanity have to offer “These people farm people, they
breed humans captured at birth,” Herrera writes. “These people fatten up their children, their own children, and then sell them.”
To copewith the horrors on display,Juárez takesrefuge in endless cups of coffee, straybits of news from abroad and rolling cigars for pennies. He holes up outside the city’sold quarter, which offers its own rewards and menace. There’s“endless untroubled oaks just oaking around, as if, hands in pockets, they were merely watching folks go by,” Herrera says of the swampscape.“The houses were less solid, seemed softer,like the ground. …Itsmelleddifferent too, this was adefiant smell …itwas beautiful here,and it wasn’t.”
The author also allows his own experiences living in New Orleans, his home since 2011, to bleed into the past. After Juárez locates his fellow exiles, for instance, they discuss revolution, war and returning home, and compare notes on this strange, brutal place in which they’ve landed.
“There are drunks everywhere,”they confide to each other.“It’simpossible to get anywhere without ending up covered in mud, andthe drivers all drive so furiously,and it reeks, it reeks, it reeks, and if this is winter,imagine what it’slike in summer,and sometimesyou hear music but have no ideawhere it’scoming from.”Thatpassage, and many others, could be ripped from amodern-day gripe session with afriend or neighbor.
In the book’sfinal pages, Juárez hops aship for home, where he will be welcomed as a hero. Astatue dedicated to him, a gift from Mexico to New Orleans in 1965, risesalong the Basin Street neutral ground. Its plaque reads: “In homage to the restorer of the republic and president of Mexico from 1858to1872.”
“Season of the Swamp” is an impressive tribute to aman, a city and their sharedhistory Ican’tthink of arecent New Orleans-set historical novelthat better capturesthe city’svibe, past and present
Rien Fertel is the author of four books, including,most recently, “Brown Pelican.”
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Morning GloryMuffins
Makes14to16muffins. Recipe by TrishMann, inspired by Ina Garten
3 largeeggs
½cup vegetable oil
½cup unsweetened applesauce
2teaspoons vanilla extract
1tablespoon cinnamon
1teaspoon salt
2cups grated/ matchstick carrots
1apple, chopped into small pieces
8ounces canned crushed pineapple, drained ½cup chopped pecans ½cup shredded coconut ½cup dried cranberries
1cup packed brown sugar
2¼ cups all-purpose flour 2teaspoonsbaking soda
Makes about 3cups.
1 (12-ounce) packageoffresh cranberries
1cup sugar
½cup packed brown sugar
½cup golden raisins
2teaspoons cinnamon
½teaspoon ginger
½teaspoon nutmeg
¼teaspoon ground cloves
1cup water
1apple, cored and chopped
½cup pecan halves, optional
THE DISH
Continued from page1G
are lots of ingredients but says they are well worth the effort.They remind me alot of carrot cake, which is my husband’sfavorite, so he loved the muffins. We ended up using the muffins as adessert for a Caribbean-themed dinner Imade alightly sweetened creamcheese icing our guests could have withthe muffins or not. Ilikedthem either way Mann approved of my improvisation and suggestedserving them with her cranberry conserve recipe.
1. Preheat oven to 340 F. Line twomuffin tins with paper muffin cups.
2. In alarge bowl, whisk together eggs, oil, applesauce, vanilla,salt andcinnamon
3. Add the carrots, apple, pineapple, pecans, coconut, cranberries and sugar. Mixtogether.
4.Add flour and baking soda untilall ingredients are combined.
5. Scoop thebatter into the muffin cups. Bake for30to35minutes untilaninserted toothpick comes out clean.
6. Turn the muffins out onto acooling rack. Enjoy aglorious morning.
CranberryConserve
1. Combine cranberries, sugars, raisins,spicesand water in atwo-quart saucepan. Cook over medium heat until berries pop.
the longer it sits. Add an additional cupofcranberries for athicker version.)
2. Stir in apple. Reduce heatand simmer, uncovered, until thick —about 15 minutes.
3. If desired, stir in nuts before serving. (The conservewillthicken slightly
“You know how other people are excited aboutpumpkinseason. I’mexcited aboutcranberry season,” she said. “If you takea spoonful of that cranberry conserve andput it on top of that muffin, you’ve pretty much reached nirvana. If you put cream cheese on it, that elevates it even more.”
The Dishisanew Thursday column by Jan Risher.Each week, she will try her hand at making someone else’s signature dish— and compare notes.Ifyou or someone you know has asignature dish that you would like Jan to try email her at jan.risher@ theadvocate.com
Continued from page1G
monkey bread recipe, my grandmother’sgumbo (with okra and tomatoes like a true Lake Charles native) or my father’slove for the classic oatmeal chocolate chip cookie. Nothing spoke to me until Iturned on the TV This year,Ihave been baking (and joyously eating) my way through the “Great British Baking Show” challenges before they air on Netflix.
The show,astaple for any baking lover and Food Network enthusiast, combines witty humor with British sweetness and humble amateur bakers. This year, Idecided to be one of them at home. The fourth week of challenges revolved around caramel, including abiscuit caramel challenge, mousse cake spectacular and pear tarte tatin. Iwas familiar with the French pear tarte tatin, but the way to make the delicacy was lost on me. Now I realize why Caramel is no joke. To anyone who is venturing into abaking journey,this is not abad place to start as an introductory course to caramel. This recipe does not require athermometer or intense knowledge of the properties of sugar heated atdifferent temperatures with cold butter Isifted through various texts online on how best to go about making the cara-
mel for this dish (arguably thehardest part). Some chefs melt thesugar inapan first untilitever soslightly bubbles, then take the sugar off heat to slowly incorporatecold butter to stop thesugar from burning. Others melt the butter first, then sprinkle sugar over thetop to make apasty texture that then bubbles when returned to heat. Ichose thelatter methodfor this recipe. Whenselecting the pears, the firmnessmattersmore than the brand ortype Make sure the pearsare ripebut firmenough to hold their shape.Ifthe pears are too far gone, orslightly mushy,the tarte tatin pastry can absorb that liquid and result in uncookedlayersof crust. Somerecipes recommend addingchoppedginger, nutmeg or star anise tothe pears before caramelizing them. Ichose to addcinnamon exclusively as to not overpower the delicate pear flavor profile Iwas goingfor But, as they say,choose yourown adventure!
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STAFFPHOTO BY JANRISHER
The batter for Morning GloryMuffins, arecipe by Trish Mann, of Baton Rouge, includes a variety of fruits, carrots, nuts and more.
STAFF PHOTOSBYMICHAEL JOHNSON Slices of pear cook in abutter mixture until theycaramelize.
Margaret Delaneypeels a pear
