QUOTE : Saturday, I slipped out to the farmers' market. Waiting for me were crates of pears in shades of green, gold, and rose. I fell in love.<br />I brought home a flat of Comice pears and placed them on my dining room table. I pulled out a chair so that I could look at them at eye level.<br />Pears.<br />Pear cake, pear sauce, caramelized pears, baked pears.<br />Pear tart. Everybody liked tarts. I could flavor it with vanilla for depth, lemon zest for brightness, and cardamom as a surprise. I could make it as a galette, a free-form tart, and use a buttery puff-pastry crust.<br />If I wanted to get my hands into food, puff pastry was a good place to do it. The process of making the laminated dough, folding butter into already buttery dough over and over---depending on your mood, it could be hypnotically soothing or mind-numbingly tedious.<br />It sounded perfect.