Our fourth of July weekend was more than a little odd, which is why I haven’t quite pulled myself together enough to post on what we ate.

It all started with a birthday party…

My grandfather was turning 98, so of course we had a party. Strawberries have just come in like gangbusters in our area, so we brought a flat, and my mother made yogurt cake and a checkerboard layer cake. It was all very festive and tasty. There were many relatives.

Then came a really swell noodle salad, followed by a long drive east. My father cooked Chinese egg noodles and grilled marinated thin-cut beef and tofu while I stir-fried cabbage and zucchini to toss with it. It was extremely good the first night, but the leftovers served an invaluable purpose, giving us something to eat while we sat in the park at Grand Coulee Dam the next evening waiting for our turn to play on the music stage for the Festival of America.

The mayor of Coulee Dam put us up in a hotel up on the hill. Many of the rooms had little balconies facing the dam, presumably so people could watch the nightly laser light show without leaving their rooms (or their beer). Our room faced the UFO-ish Crown Point viewpoint perched on top of the coulee, which on the whole I preferred. It was one of the stranger hotels I’ve stayed in.

The next morning (which was the 4th of July) we got breakfast at the R&A Cafe, a small diner set into our hotel, facing the Coulee Dam Casino. It wasn’t a bad little place, although the coffee was kind of spectacularly awful. The eggs and bacon were perfectly fine, though, and the biscuits and gravy surprisingly good.

We drove all the way home (the morning light on Banks Lake and the Grand Coulee was gorgeous), put together a dinner of beef kebabs, salad and flatbread, and watched our hometown fireworks display. We felt, perhaps, just a bit disoriented.

It was all because of the blood orange curd.

My parents gave us a jar of blood orange curd for Christmas (it was a very food-centric holiday all around). I’ve been trying to decide what to do with it – tarts, ice cream, biscuits? Finally I thought of my favorite yogurt cake, a simple dessert that lends itself well to fruit toppings of all sorts. Instead of my usual recipe, though, which is from the blog Chocolate and Zucchini, I thought I’d try Dorie Greenspan’s variation on the traditional cake. The main differences are that it has half as much yogurt, one extra egg, and vanilla instead of rum. She also suggests rubbing lemon zest into the sugar, but I decided not to since I was pairing the citrusy curd with the cake.

The result was marvelous. The cake was perhaps a bit less tangy, but the texture was fluffier and finer-grained: delicate enough to serve for a dinner party, but sturdy enough to eat out of hand over the kitchen sink. It went spectacularly with the tart-sweet curd. It will also go very well with fresh berries next summer, I feel sure. And whipped cream. Just a little.

Yogurt Cake with Blood Orange Curd

adapted from Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan

• 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• pinch of salt
• 1 cup sugar
• ½ cup plain yogurt
• 3 large eggs
• ¼ tsp vanilla
• ½ cup vegetable oil
• 1 jar blood orange curd

Butter a 9-inch cake pan (I used a springform and lined the bottom with parchment). Preheat the oven to 350°.

Whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt.

In a separate bowl, combine the sugar, yogurt, eggs and vanilla and whisk smooth. Add to the dry ingredients and stir well, then use a spatula to fold in the oil. Scrape the batter into the pan and bake about 40 minutes, until golden on top.

Cool for 5-10 minutes, then invert the pan over a cooling rack, using a knife to loosen the sides if necessary. When the cake has reached room temperature, slice it in half lengthwise with a long serrated knife and spread the orange curd over the bottom layer. Put the top layer back on and serve.

Do you feel that homemade ice cream just isn’t rich enough? Do you make it with cream, whole milk, egg yolks and sugar, but still feel that something’s missing, calorie-wise? Then this is the recipe for you: mascarpone ice cream.

We got this, of course, from David Lebovitz. It’s a variation on his crème fraîche ice cream, which also sounds magnificent, but we had some mascarpone left over from making Elise’s strawberry mascarpone tart, and you don’t want to waste mascarpone, do you?

Jon halved the recipe (or two-thirded it, or something), but it was so rich it still took us days to get through it. Some of it we ate with fresh strawberries, which was of course lovely, but it was best on the first night, when we made affogato. We scooped it out of the machine into bowls, then poured hot espresso over the top. It began to melt instantly, of course, necessitating hasty consumption, but that really wasn’t a problem. The swirls of cold ice cream and hot coffee dance together in the bowl, creating one of the best desserts on earth.

Affogato with Mascarpone Ice Cream

adapted from Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz

• 1 cup whole milk
• 3/4 cup sugar
• pinch salt
• 5 egg yolks
• 2 cups mascarpone

Warm milk, sugar and salt in a saucepan.

Whisk together the egg yolks in a bowl. Pour the warmed milk in, whisking, then pour everything back into the saucepan.

Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until thickened. Strain and cool. Chill.

Whisk in the mascarpone, then freeze in your machine. Get a pot of espresso going (or whatever strong coffee you like best).

When the ice cream is ready, scoop into bowls and pour hot espresso over the top. Eat instantly.

For some unknown reason, I had never tasted tarte Tatin until recently, and it was a revelation. I like apple pie, but often find it a bit bland. Tarte Tatin is not at all bland: the apples are soaked with caramel, chewy around the edges, and the crust has a wonderful shatteringly crisp quality that I’ve never encountered in a regular fruit pie. As soon as I tasted it, I vowed that I would try making one myself.

The basic concept really isn’t too complicated, and there seems to be some flexibility, based on the difference between the various recipes I looked up. The foundation is a caramel sauce made with sugar and butter, the apples are laid on the caramel, and pie crust is laid on the apples before baking, then the whole thing is turned upside down before serving. I found variations involving cooking the caramel in a separate pan, then mixing it with the apples, but I went with an approach of cooking the butter, sugar and apples together in a skillet, without stirring, until the sauce caramelized with the juice from the fruit.

Another simple variation is whether to use puff pastry or pie dough. I had some pastry in the fridge, but I felt more inclined to a simple crust, so I just mixed up a single-crust amount of my usual recipe, based on the Joy of Cooking’s Pie Dough Cockaigne.

This is a great example of the kind of food that you should really get other people to make for you, just so you don’t have to see how much butter really goes into it. Between the crust and the filling, this had nearly one and a half sticks of butter! But it’s so good that it’s worth turning a blind eye to the calories. And besides, it’s full of apples, so it’s good for you!

I’m obviously going to need more practice making these – my first attempt was delicious, but not very beautiful. Guess we’ll have to have another one…

Tarte Tatin

adapted from Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan and On Rue Tatin by Susan Herrmann Loomis

pie dough:

• 1 cup unbleached white flour
• 4 Tbsp butter
• pinch of salt
• cold water (about 1/3 cup?)

tart filling:

• 1 stick unsalted butter
• about 5 apples (I used Braeburns, but any flavorful, firm apple would do)
• 3/4 cup white sugar

Preheat the oven to 400º.

Mix up the pie dough, roll into a disk and set aside (you can refrigerate it if you’re working ahead).

Melt the butter in a heavy skillet. Sprinkle the sugar over the butter, remove from the heat, then arrange the apples in the pan, as snugly and artistically as possible. Put the pan back over medium or medium-low heat. The sugar and butter will bubble up around the apples. Keep an eye on it as it cooks, it will eventually turn a dark caramel color. This took me about half an hour (Dorie says 15 minutes, Susan says an hour, so I just split the difference). Don’t stir.

Lay the crust over the apples and tuck in the edges. Into the oven with it.

Bake 30-40 minutes, until the crust is crisp and golden. Then, without hurting yourself or anyone else, place a large plate over the top of the skillet and invert it. I spilled quite a bit of caramel doing this – I think I need to use a different pan. Rearrange the apples if they became mussed – you may need to scrape some out of the pan.

Make sure to give the tart a few minutes to cool, otherwise the hot caramel may cause injuries. Serve with unsweetened whipped cream (or creme fraiche if you can get it).

As so often happens, last time we were at my parents’ house there was a box of pears to deal with. I took what I thought was a modest assortment and hoped they wouldn’t all ripen at once. So far, so good – only two came ripe this week, although I did have to put them in the fridge until I was ready for them.

We had already made and eaten a pear custard pie not long ago, so this pair of pears was treated to our other usual preparation: poached in sugar water in the oven, then stuffed with a mixture of chopped pecans, sugar, brandy, vanilla and sour cream. Unbelievably, this recipe came out of a Betty Crocker cookbook, but it really is a winner: tender, sweet, hot pears with a rich crunchy filling – what’s not to like?

Pears with nut-sour cream filling

Adapted from Betty Crocker’s New International Cookbook. Serves two (amounts are estimated – I tend to just add things until it tastes right).

two pears, peeled, halved and cored
1/3 cup water
1/3 cup white sugar
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1/4 cup pecans (or other nuts)
1 Tbsp brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp brandy
1/4 tsp vanilla
1 Tbsp sour cream

Preheat the oven to 325°. Mix the water, sugar and lemon juice in a 9×9 inch roasting pan and put the pears in – turn them several time to coat them with the liquid. Bake for 25 minutes. Arrange the pears cut side up in two soup plates.

In a small bowl, combine the nuts, sugar, brandy, vanilla and sour cream. Spoon this mixture into the hollows of the pears. If desired (i.e. if you have a larger capacity for rich desserts than I do) you can mix more sugar and sour cream in a bowl and spoon it over the top. Serve.

I finally got hold of a bottle of Clear Creek pear brandy recently, so I decided to try a little nip with the baked pears. It actually didn’t go very well, because the flavor is so thoroughly pear that it just disappeared alongside the dessert. It was excellent sipped afterwards, though.

As we drove on a sweltering summer’s day from Kansas City to Columbia, Missouri, we made a lunch stop in Blackwater, a very small town near Boonville. We hadn’t really planned anything for lunch – we had eaten a lot of round things (i.e. bagels and doughnuts) with the family in K.C., but were feeling peckish while still aways out of Columbia. I saw a sign for “Blackwater historic downtown” and for some reason decided that meant restaurants, so we took the exit and wound our way through rolling hills and cornfields until we suddenly emerged in a small, unlikely frontier-ish town studded with flags.

When we parked the car the first thing we saw was a small storefront with a handmade sign informing us of the availability of sandwiches, soup and pie. We went in. The place was full of hand sewn items: aprons, potholders, baby accoutrements and pillows, and there were two tables set with napkins and placemats. On a counter sat some plates, pitchers and a number of pies.

As it turned out, this place (called “Picket Fence”) was the home of Imogene the Pie Lady of Blackwater. When we saw the fantastic layout of pies we immediately ordered a ham and cheese sandwich to split so we would be able to order pie afterwards. The sandwich was nothing special – sort of aggressively nothing special, just white bread, ham and American cheese with a mayo packet on the side, and some potato chips - but the pie!

J got a slice of coconut creme pie, which was very good. I got the plain custard pie, which made me very happy indeed – it was exactly like the egg custards that both of our mothers made for us when we were kids, with lots of nutmeg on top, just in a pie shell that was rustic, flaky and had plenty of salt (I may have to try making this at home). We inhaled our slices in record time, along with plenty of unsweetened ice tea, and continued down I-70 feeling pleased with ourselves and with the pie lady of Blackwater.

The rhubarb in the garden is coming along beautifully, and we’ve been hankering for a pie or crisp. I finally had time to make our first crisp of the season – just enough for the two of us.

I kept dinner really simple: some steamed asparagus with olive oil and salt, and a halibut fillet sauteed in a little butter, with a glass of verdejo. I was mostly looking to eat something light so as to save room for dessert, but this actually turned out fantastic – the halibut was incredibly tender and flavorful, like crab claw meat, and the verdejo matched perfectly. It was so good.

But then we got to eat rhubarb crisp!

Rhubarb Crisp

adapted from The Joy of Cooking by Irma Rombauer

I’m not one of those people who puts nuts or oats in her crisp – I like the main texture to be the crispy crunch of brown sugar, which then melts away in the mouth. Crisp, whether rhubarb or apple, must be served with either vanilla ice cream or whipped cream – the best part is the melted cream mixed with the hot fruit juices in the bottom of your bowl.

• chopped rhubarb, enough to fill a gratin pan
• half a stick of butter
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp salt

Preheat your oven to 375°. Mix the flour, sugar and salt thoroughly in a bowl, then cut the butter into it and crumble with your fingers until it forms even, small clumps. Sprinkle over the rhubarb in the pan and bake for half an hour. Take out and let sit until it stops burbling, then serve with ice cream.

I gave J a bottle of Vin Santo dessert wine last Christmas. I believe we had tried some at a wine tasting not long before, and been rather excited by it. But then the bottle lurked in our cellar all year, waiting for the appropriate occasion. Of late, though, I’ve decided that wine-opening occasions have to be created, not just awaited, so I went searching for possible accompaniments.

We recently bought ourselves a copy of What to Drink with What You Eat, so I looked up Vin Santo. Along with the usual recommendations of biscotti and nut-based desserts, I saw pears. Aha! We are definitely in the heart of fresh pear season around here, so I went digging for a recipe I remembered liking back in the mists of time – a pear custard pie that my mother used to make. She got the recipe at a farmer’s market meeting and then printed it in the Cashmere Valley Record newspaper’s recipe collection. Usually when we eat pears around here we poach them in sugar water and top them with pecans, brandy and sour cream. Obviously, there’s nothing wrong with that, but pie sounded fun.

So I found my copy of the custard pie recipe and looked it over…and hey…it doesn’t have any milk or cream in it! Can it really be a custard with just eggs, butter and sugar? Won’t it be more of a sweet pear omelet in a pie crust? Hmm. I called my mother and had her dig through her recipe boxes to see if the original copy of the recipe could be found, but no luck. Hmm. Well, it’s worth a try, we thought, so I went ahead and did it.

Golly, it worked! It wasn’t obviously eggy, just rich and sweet, enhancing the flavor of the pears. With a good blop of whipped cream on top it was fantastic – the only thing I’d change would be to remember to peel the pears (I’ve added a note to my recipe, since I obviously need it). And it had these delicious little sugary crusts on top. Yum.

But, you know, it didn’t go all that well with the Vin Santo…oh, well. Maybe I should make some biscotti.

Pear Custard Pie

• enough peeled and sliced pears to fill one pie dish (I used 3 medium yellow Bartletts)
• 1 unbaked pie crust
• juice of a half lemon
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/4 white flour
• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• a shake of salt
• a pinch of nutmeg or mace

Preheat oven to 350°. Arrange pears artfully in pie shell and drizzle lemon juice over them. Cream together butter and sugar in a bowl, then beat in flour, eggs, vanilla, salt and nutmeg. Pour this mixture over the pears and put the pan in the oven. Bake 45 minutes or until set. Cool before serving, eat with whipped cream. And maybe black tea or coffee. Not Vin Santo.