Hurrah! After last week’s pie with a lid for Tuesdays with Dorie, this week was much more my speed – a rustic galette filled with mixed berries (p 377). Sadly though in my attempt to be organised for Tuesdays with Dorie, I accidentally bought the ingredients for this week’s crust last week and then this week, whilst I made sure I did have the right ingredients for the pie crust (namely, crème fraîche standign in for sour cream and cornmeal to make a nice texture in the crust), Sunday in France got in the way of me making this correctly, to the letter so I hope the Tuesday Doristas don’t kick me out!
“Sunday in France got in the way” – what on earth can I mean by that??? Well, you see on Saturday, after travelling all day from Epernay to Paris then down to Avignon on the TGV, we collected the lovely Cathy from the train station and piled into our rather Brady Bunch-like station wagon (“pour 5 personnes“) and headed to find out beautiful rental house in Sablet. And you see, this looked so inviting that we could barely tear ourselves away from it to head straight back out for food basics at the nearby hypermarché.
But we did. The hypermarché was in a state of chaos – looking a little like the end of the world was nigh with hundreds of people stocking up. For Sunday. Yes, Sunday. In my Champagne-logged state brought on by the last week of copious tastings in the Champagne region, I had blocked it out of my mind that food stores in France are not open much past midday on Sundays. I KNOW this. I’ve experienced the Sunday hunger in the past. But somehow I forgot. Again. So we merrily bought up food just enough to get us through to Sunday. We were expecting guests on Sunday evening but decided that we would buy our supplies for that on Sunday. Afternoon. Uh huh.
Sometime around 1pm as we left Montélimar on Sunday, it hit me. Nothing was going to be open. Nothing. Yes I patted myself on the back for making sure that at least I had ingredients for the dessert. Ha! Even though we would have takeout pizza for the main course, we would have a beautiful dessert. Except that it was Sunday in France. And because noone was clearly in the shops, everyone was out on the road. Driving. Where we were. Which was fine. Until, all of a sudden, on our way home in plenty of time for this pie crust to rest for a couple of hours in the fridge as the recipe required, our GPS lady flashed a warning that there was a “traffic incident” and did we want our route changed. In the past week we have ignored her when she asks questions like this, but mindful of the dinner guests, we asked her to select an alternate route. Clearly we missed the memo about this alternative route being the grapegrowers’ special – whereby we were asked to drive on the tiniest roast possible for miles and miles – windy, tiny roads that were by now so far off track that even having an expert map reader and navigator in the car meant we couldn’t get back to the “traffic incident” roads which were surely much much quicker.
Nearly three hours later and with 15 minutes until our guests were due to arrive, we reached home. With no idea if we would even be able to pick up dinner in the village and with no time to make the proper pie crust. I quickly googled the recipe to see if anyone had made a variation on this crust and found that Jen at Use Real Butter had adapted the crust recipe to one which didn’t require resting as long and which – hurray – I had all the ingredients for. No cornmeal or crème fraîche required but that’s ok (sorry Doristas!) – I will make that crust again at some point, loved the idea of it!
I was in such a hurry to prepare said crust once it was done resting in the fridge that I didn’t have time to find the beautiful rolling pin I purchased last month in Paris. But this worked at a pinch…
As you can see, the crust didn’t suffer too much…
Yeah. I was definitely going for the “rustic” look. No really!
I also didn’t have a proper baking tray or pie tin for this so it was baked on parchment on the oven tray. Note to self: travel with parchment paper, always. You never know when you might need it! In any case, I was pretty happy with the results considering the circumstances…
If you look at the crust up close, it was lovely and short – crumbly and sweet. The berries were not soggy at all – they held their shape nicely though they were a tad juicy. I did not achieve crisp pie crust on the bottom.
But apparently that did not matter. After lovely takeout pizzas and a salad cobbled together from what we had leftover from the day before (and the pear tree outside our door), we enjoyed this galette very much.
This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie, Baking with Julia was hosted by hosted by Lisa of Tomato Thymes in the Kitchen and Andrea of The Kitchen Lioness Tuesdays with Dorie participants do not publish the recipes on our blogs except if we happen to be the host for the week, rather, we prefer if you purchase Baking with Julia for yourselves which you can do here on Amazon or Amazon Canada. Or for free worldwide shipping, buy from The Book Depository. Then join us, baking along at Tuesdays with Dorie. Go on, you know you want to.
Follow my French travels on Flickr this summer with my Summer 2012 set of photos – updated regularly!
Looks lovely!!
Merci!
That story is worth a late TwD post! I’m glad you managed to cobble together a lovely dinner party out of all the detours. The galette looks delicious.
Well I made it with plenty of time actually AND I made last week’s on time too despite lack of proper ingredients!
Wow, what an adventure! I’m so glad it had a sweet (and berry bright) ending. Rustic strawberry tarts are, perhaps, my favorite tart of all!
Me too, now I know how to make them!
Mardi – it sounds like you had one of my adventures (especially with the detours) 🙂
Lovely pie, great rolling pin. I think we all go a bit “rogue” here and there…
Us, rogue? Never! 😉
Great performance for such an eventful weekend! The galette looks really great, I wonder how you got the strawberries to stay in place and not spill like crazy! Love your drinkable rolling pin.
I packed them in really tight so they wouldn’t “spill”!
hahaha I have done the wine bottle roller so many times too! This looks absolutely devine!
It works, right?
What a great story! I agree, baking in a different place can be tricky! You managed better than I did! Your galette turned out beautifully! Great job!
It’s not always easy for sure!
Beautifully done, Mardi! And loved your traveling adventures. My post will be a Wednesday with Dorie this week 🙂
Thanks Liz!
That’s an amazing adventure! That free form tart looks delicious.
Thanks so much Helene!
I tasted it. It was great.
{phew}
You made it Mardi! Your Galette is a masterpiece and for sure delicious! I wish I could have a slice! 🙂
Yay! Thanks!
Sounds like you had one grand adventure–and a galette too!
We did indeed!
This was a suitable dessert…
Riiiiight.
Lovely post. This invoked a distinct “I wish I was there” moment, conjuring up all the memories of our past trips to France.
Aw thanks!
That’s just a wonderful tale and memory of a Sunday in France although I think you are building up memories every day during your Summer adventure. When I go to Sanary-sur-Mer, my home away from home, for a few weeks every year, I make sure, upon my arrival, to remind myself of the French grocery and market schedules. I don’t do well without food. As for your dessert, it probably would have been enough, all that sweetness. And, your guests had to appreciate that you really scrambled to make it all happen —- the markings of a true chef.
Yeah normally we are so much ore organized…
Love your improv rolling pin! Galette looks great!
It did the trick!
That’s how I imagine Sunday in France… pie, flowers, bikes…
Kinda, yeah! And a galette!
You are a genius: I love your “homemade rolling pin”!
Your galette looks strawberrily wonderful.
Thank you for such a great post!
Thanks so much!
At least you got it done in time for dinner! How lucky you are to be eating your galette in France 🙂
Everything tastes better!
I loved reading this post and your Paris adventures always sound so lovely. One year we should do an exchange-you meet me in Italy and I’ll come to Paris;) Your galette looks perfect!!I’m happy to see you again through Dorie and to bake with the group;)
Or we should just meet up 🙂
This is how you say “YUM” en francais!
Or even “miam” 😉
That looks yummy! I want to make one! 🙂
Love the rolling pin, and those strawberries look so good.. I made mine with plums and really enjoyed it..
Love the idea of a plum tart!
Can I just tell you how much I love that you rolled out the crust with the bottle of wine? Looks lovely!
Mais oui. Needs must…