{"id":152039,"date":"2012-05-24T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-05-24T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gracious-khorana.45-76-20-142.plesk.page\/ricotta-blueberry-tart-with-honey-lemon-lavender\/"},"modified":"2023-06-26T17:13:58","modified_gmt":"2023-06-26T17:13:58","slug":"ricotta-blueberry-tart-with-honey-lemon-lavender","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/localmilkblog.com\/2012\/05\/ricotta-blueberry-tart-with-honey-lemon-lavender.html","title":{"rendered":"Lavender Ricotta & Blueberry Tart"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"blueberry<\/a><\/p>\n

I love a strange bird. He dislikes bacon, strawberries, popsicles, hollandaise, whip cream, stone fruits, pears, apples, and mushrooms. He also dislikes blue jeans, the internet, and suntans preferring instead tailored slacks, Romantic poetry, and pallor. Not wanting to misrepresent him or engage in hyperbole, I asked,\u00a0\u201cSo, do you really hate all<\/i> stone fruits?\u201d<\/p>\n

Silence.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know peaches, apricots, nectarines, plums\u2026fruit with a pit, a stone.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh. Yeah, I\u2019ve heard that term before. My grandmother uses that kind of talk\u2026 and yes, I hate all of the things you just mentioned.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I\u2019m not misrepresenting you when I say you dislike blue jeans, the internet, and suntans?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo. I hate all of those things too. This is good, that you\u2019re writing this. The internet should know that I exist. That I\u2019m out there. And that I threaten to destroy it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHahaha,\u201d I thought. \u201cHe hates all the things!\u201d Alas, he wouldn\u2019t get the joke.\u00a0So, Internet, you stand warned.<\/p>\n

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\"blueberry<\/a>
For all his aversions, he loves kale, eggs in any form, stinging nettles, sweet potatoes, pungent cheeses, and blueberries. He very much likes blueberries, regarding them as the superlative<\/i> berry. I, however, disagree. I don\u2019t dislike blueberries per se, but I\u2019ve always found them to be a bit of a bore. I\u2019m a raspberry sort of girl, yet I\u00a0turn down the corner of every blueberry recipe I read.\u00a0This collection of blueberry tarts, pies, galettes, ice creams, muffins, scones, preserves, and cakes dwarfs my collection of raspberry recipes because, you see, they are a collection of love songs, mine being a kitchen sort of love: a milk spill tea leaf affection, dusky blue and sweet.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Food dislikes and likes have been a source of\u00a0discord, real<\/i> discord, in previous relationships. I had a hard time abiding picky or what I regarded as pedestrian eaters. One man preferred fast food hamburgers and chicken fingers to all other foods, and another was always wanting quite literally meat and potatoes, yet another had a penchant for Lean Cuisine and ordering chicken teriyaki when we went out for sushi. All of this drove me to very genuine frustration. Now, of course, I know that it wasn\u2019t their food preferences that bothered me. We were ill suited, and my love was the selfish sort that resents giving, conceding, and compromise of any sort. Even the sort of compromise that is going for Thai when I want Italian.<\/p>\n

\"blueberry<\/a><\/div>\n

In telling contrast, I haven\u2019t cooked a mushroom since we began seeing one another, I rarely fry bacon, and I\u2019ve made a blueberry tart today. And I haven\u2019t resented any of it, not at all. Bacon and strawberries are obvious sacrifices, but it should be noted that I absolutely adore mushrooms.\u00a0Saut\u00e9ed in butter and wine, they were a childhood favorite, an early sign of culinary\u00a0tendencies. \u00a0This is how I know my sentiments are real: eschewing mushrooms, bacon, and strawberries and amassing a collection of blueberry recipes without vexation.<\/p>\n

\"tart<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Homemade ricotta<\/a> leftover from the weekend was, I knew, starred to become a tart filling, as I love nothing more than whole milk ricotta with ribbons of sourwood honey swirled in it. I eat it like ice cream with a spoon. After considering various flavor combinations I decided to make a ricotta tart\u00a0with honey, lemon, and lavender, all of it topped with fresh blueberries. I tried to write a song once, I guess it was a love song. It began with the lyric \u201clavender and honey, loss and misery\u2026\u201d I never got any further than that. I\u2019m not, it turns out, a songstress. Most of my relationships prior didn\u2019t get much further than that either. I have been, until now, unlucky in love. I suppose that makes me most especially grateful, leading me, starry-eyed, to effusively bake with blueberries. I leave you with my version of a love song: bursts of violet fruit & bright citrus with floral whorls of honeyed lavender in curds of creamy homemade ricotta punctuated by buttery flakes of tender pastry crust.<\/p>\n

After he ate it, he praised me: \u201cYou did a good *%#!ing job, woman. Well done, you.\u201d Oh, love.<\/p>\n

\"pastry<\/a><\/div>\n

The recipe. I used Thomas Keller\u2019s Buttery Pastry Shell <\/a>as my base. I\u2019m obsessed with it. I had, shall we say\u2026difficulties with pie crusts when I first attempted them. This was the first crust I was successful with and it\u2019s so good for both savory and sweet fillings that I use it for everything. You make it in a stand mixer. I know, right? Stupid easy. Buttery. Flaky. I mean, it\u2019s Thomas Keller. I used this recipe<\/a> to make the ricotta cheese.<\/p>\n

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