A Parisian love Affair

I’ve found myself entangled in a Parisian love affair.  Every time we meet it’s the same… we spend hours upon hours together, I catch myself dreaming that one day we’ll be together in a corner café in Paris and my heart… my heart just lights up when seeing the beauty and perfection in front of me. 

Thus I openly admit:  Pastry, you are my one true love. 

It’s been a long time coming.  I was headed for a career in medicine when I was asked to make a croquembouche for a home economics class.  A tall tower, with hundreds of pastry baskets oozing with custard, dipped in chocolate, bejewelled with a few flowers and covered in a thin veil of angel-hair-sugar.  The beauty was astonishing.  A French hero had stolen my heart.

For a year the affair continued.  I was taught to make flaky pastry to blanket a homey pie, sucrée, sablé and brisée pastry.  Together our days were filled with frangipane and diplomat cream, covered in chocolate, icing sugar and sugar work.

I distinctly remember the day I made my first little fruit tartlet.  A crispy pastry filled with vanilla baker’s custard topped off with a ruffled skirt of fresh strawberries.  Simplicity, but that perfect little creation transported me to the glass window in the pastry shop along the streets of Paris.  For a brief moment I swear I could hear “la Vie en Rose” playing in my ears. 

The affair has been going on for four years now, but recently sparks were flying whilst making the most mesmerising pastry of all...

Puff pastry.  A forgotten art thanks to the “Today” frozen pastry.  Now the thing about Puff pastry is patience.  To make the perfect laminated pastry takes eight hours.  A process of incorporating butter with flour, turning, waiting and repeating.  But with each of the four roll out processes you incorporate a little bit of yourself with your hands.  You add a little bit more … love.

Once in the oven the show you’ve been preparing starts.  Slowly your butter melts, causing steam and soon the pastry is rising and the perfect golden crust is formed.  For some bizarre reason the hours spent making it is forgotten.  I, for one, am always left in awe of the beauty of simply flour and butter and love.  This is my reward for a day spent with my lover.

This is also the reason why my relationship with Pastry works.  Yes, I put in time and effort and love, but I am always, always rewarded.

My Parisian born lover and I will continue our love affair for years to come, because pastry is exactly that… love.

Lady Liezl

PB & ...anything!

Yes – believe it! The same genius people who brought us chocolate, also brought us this ground-breaking ingredient: Peanut Butter.

The Aztecs were the first to roast and crush this nut, releasing its beautiful oils and pungent aromas. Since then, it has spread over the world – much like you would spread it over your sandwich: smoothly. It is known in every country, used for a variety of dishes, from Asian Satay Sauce to American Resse’s Peanut Butter Cups and everything in between.

Whether you call it ‘monkey butter’, ‘pindakaas’ as they say in the Netherlands, or ‘Katjiebotter’ as I do – I personally think it’s on the Top 10 list of Best Culinary Creations EVER.

 It should win an award for making my toes curl with happiness, even whilst my tongue is working hard to scrape this ultra creamy, sticky-smooth substance off the roof of my palette. A lot of people find this sensation unpleasant, but to me – it is something that rewards my patience once I taste the sweet nuttiness....

the taste of Earth itself.

 Aside from that, it is jam-packed with protein, monounsaturated fats (which can actually lower your cholesterol levels) and the antioxidant Resveratrol – also found in grapes, or red wine.

Apparently, Hemingway ate his peanut butter sandwich with thick slices of onion. Elvis preferred slices of banana and crispy bacon. Talk of eating it with mayonnaise, Marmite, pickles or even olives have reached my ears – me? I love the traditional PB & J: with some tart homemade apricot jam – my mouth puckering at first with the slight sourness of the apricot skins, then the pleasant sweetness of it all....and then Mr. Peanut strides in with his suave and dominating presence.

 

Whether you eat it on a slice of toast, on a celery stick, with an apple or with a spoon out of the jar – you cannot deny, what would the world be without it?

 

Imagine peanut butter, swirled with cream cheese, swirled with Nutella.

Did you just have a foodgasm?

I know I did...

 

Elsebe Cronje

Jelly Beans

The small, sweet, colourful bean treats that makes most bellies ask for more.

The origin of jelly beans is unknown. However it is said that Turkish delight was the start of the jelly bean.  One of the earliest references that have been found is from Boston, with a candy maker by the name of William Schrafft. He urged everyone to send jelly beans to the soldiers that were fighting in  the Civil War at the time.

And by the 1930’s jelly beans were part of Easter. Due to the shape it was seen as an egg.  As well as a treat that took the nation by storm and was sold as penny-candy.  And so, jelly beans worked their way into politics, holidays, music and slang.

They were sold colour by colour to fit the appropriate holiday. Songs were written about them and how they were used in slang. (When a young man dressed smartly in the 1920’s).  Jelly beans could be seen though out every room in Ronald Reagan’s time at the White House. It’s said that he started eating them to stop smoking.

The Beatles made the following statement after being through by jelly bean one to many: “We don’t like jelly babies, or fruit gums for that matter, so think how we feel standing on stage trying to dodge the stuff, before you throw some more at us.”  

Then came Jelly Belly! Which was also the first jelly bean in outer space.

Traditionally the centre was uncoloured sweetened pectin, and only the harder outer shell was coloured.  By the third and fourth generation, the centre was also coloured and flavoured.  The flavouring was also used in the shell to create an explosion of flavour.  The Jelly Belly Company used real fruit juice and natural flavours.

And after that jelly beans just grew bigger and better…

Or smaller and more scrumptious

-Lize Buitendag