Welcome Guest Blogger Audra!

Audra learnes some new tricks in the Kitchen.

tarts- above and below.

So the other night, some night previously this week, I'm not sure which as I was as alert as a comatose tortoise, I made tarts at the O'Willard's. I shouldn't say "I" did. All I did was unwrap hundreds of caramels, drop all the wrappers in the floor and make horrible faces while swallowing a cosmopolitan. But Robyn had "work" to do, so I was assigned to entertain Ginnie by making dangerous mistakes in the kitchen. Brett came along, and after we hassled the harried hateful parakeet, I went into the kitchen with Ginnie and Brett settled down to hassle Robyn.

On this particular evening the task at hand was to create two apple based desserts. I remember nothing. But for the sake of explaining the lovely pictures Robyn took, I will try to come up with something. The first dish was supposed to be apple bars. I peeled-WASHED-then peeled four apples, sliced them up and put them somewhere. Ginnie made some mash out of splenda, wheat flour (which I clearly remember one should never use), NO EGGS (which I clearly remember because I love to break eggs), and potentially some vanilla. I didn't see too much of what my mentor was up to as I was engrossed in unwrapping a 14 oz. bag of caramels. Then we put them in a pot on the stove and I stirred them up while they melted. Brett recommended putting a bit of water in the caramels to help them liquify faster. They looked like a liver before we happened upon that solution.

Then Ginnie put the stuff she made in the bottom of the dish, the apple slices went on top of that, then the caramel. I think. I then had the responsibility of mashing it together. Looked like a big muddy footprint. So we cooked that, printed off recipes for the tarts that were our next project, and managed to forget all about what we had in the oven until Ginnie commented offhandedly on the odor of burning popcorn. So we took it out. Only about 1/16 of the dish had turned into a tire.

The rest of it was quite good once Ginnie wrestled it out of the dish. She recommends using Pam or buttering the dish if you try this. For the tarts, I made dough. Which you make, and then wad up, wrap in that clear bendable stuff that keeps things fresh and stick in the fridge. Ginnie recruited one of her drinking glasses to serve as rolling pin/cookie cutter and I made tart crusts out of that dough after it chilled. Once again, I was not privy to the actual cooking going on by Ginnie.

I made crusts, then wandered away to flirt with Ned while she slaved on. We filled the crusts, cooked them, took them out, tasted them, and decided unanimously that they were TERRIBLE. So Ginnie got out a basin of lard, some gallons of brown sugar and perhaps an egg or two. She melted that all together and ladeled it over the tarts. Robyn and Brett thoroughly enjoyed them. Oh- we ate our desserts very daintily off of special shoe dessert plates. Oh no- we decided against the shoe plates and went with the ice cream plates so Brett would not feel too prissy.

Anyway, I very much enjoy cooking with Ginnie. Robyn amuses me when she wanders in and says something condescending and completely uninformed about the recipe. :) And we decided to open a bakery, Ginnie and I, called Lard Ho's.

(Audra and Brett are staring in Stage I theatre Company's Production of Tick...Tick...Boom! along with the awesome Durron Tyre- I saw it on opening night and LOVED it - please get your tickets today!)