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Recipe: pear ice cream and wine poached pears

It’s the right time for pears. I enjoy pears, but the fruit carries some baggage for me. In Chinese, the word for pear is a homophone of the word to split or to leave. My grandmother and mom never allowed splitting a pear between two people (for fear that you would be separated). However, splitting among three or more is okay. I never quite understood all of it, but they scared me so much with their superstitions that I follow it (and many others) to this day. I even consulted with my grandmother to find out if it was okay for us to share a pear with the dog. She gave it some consideration and concluded that yes, it was okay, since the dog is part of our family and that makes three.

About nine years ago, I was in Argentina for field work and the whole team was in camp together for one night. We usually paired off and only met up in town for supplies, downloading data, and meeting with local geologists. Ben and I dropped by a grocery store en route to camp and I picked up some ingredients for dessert to follow the asado. I made poached pears in red wine sauce and served it with vanilla ice cream (which I kept cool by tying the carton in a plastic bag and chucking it into a freezing cold stream on a leash). It was suprisingly good, but I think everything tastes better in the backcountry. Seeing pears on sale at the store stirred up those old memories.

First I made some ice cream – pear ice cream. Now with my copy of The Perfect Scoop in hand, I dabbled with DL’s pear and pecorino ice cream. Fruits like pear and lychee have such subtle and almost flowery flavors that they beg to be made as ice cream.

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Recipe: triple fudge kahlua torte

Jeremy’s birthday was over a week ago, but he was away at two meetings and I was visiting my nephew for his eighth birthday. Since Jeremy and my birthdays are nine days apart, we decided we would celebrate later, when we weren’t so short on time and money. We both tend to be fairly unsentimental about these things, so that worked out fine.

But… I did promise I would at least make him a special dessert. I asked what he would like and as usual, Jeremy couldn’t make up his mind. He’s so easy going that it is downright frustrating at times. I found a recipe in an old issue of Chocolatier which I modified somewhat, but it contains several of Jeremy’s favorite components such as chocolate cake, booze, espresso, and chocolate.

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Recipe: peach-raspberry galette

Peaches were on sale at the local Safeway when I passed through on Sunday. These aren’t the kind of peaches that are juicy and make a mess down your shirt when you bite into one, but they looked good enough for some fruity ideas.