3
" The gallettes were darker, a nut-brown from the buckwheat flour, and folded from a circle into a square, with the savory toppings peeping through invitingly. Rosie saw what looked like goat cheese on Yumi's plate. And maybe ratatouille on Marquis's. And over on the plate between her and Henry- ugh, a fat yellow egg stared back at her. Rosie still hadn't forgiven eggs for the whole omelet debacle.
"It's called oeuf miroir," Henry said, poking the yolk with his fork almost reverentially, as Marquis and Yumi debated whether or not they should wait for everyone to get their food before they started eating. Yumi, her cheeks full of goat cheese, was firmly on the side of not. "It means egg mirror. Or mirror egg. I think. It looks kind of like a mirror, yeah? And then there's ham and Gruyère underneath. Here, you can have the first bite."
Rosie loved Gruyère. The flavors exploded in her mouth. Buckwheat flour was a revelation- nuttier than she'd expected, not like a nut, really, but she couldn't think of any other way to say it. It had a subtle flavor all its own, crisp edges from where it had been seared on the hot pan, and a perfectly soft, almost spongy texture within, where the Gruyère melted into the salty ham, and before Rosie knew it, she'd eaten three bites. "
― Stephanie Kate Strohm , Love à la Mode
4
" For our first course, we have a play on biscuits and gravy, a classic Southern dish that's also popular in the Midwest." Chef Laurent picked up his fork and cutter into the biscuit. "Here, we have a miniature biscuit topped a boudin blanc sawmill gravy and a poached quail egg."
Chef Martinet poked at the quail egg until the yolk burst. Probably looking for egg flaws. Rosie decided to just keep talking. If she kept talking, she wouldn't be thinking about what they were eating.
"I first had biscuits and gravy at the restaurant where my mom works."
"Your mother, she is a chef?" Chef Laurent asked. He was going back in for another bite. That had to be a good sign.
"No. She, um, manages the store... at the restaurant... where she works." No matter how much time Chef Laurent may have spent in Ohio, Rosie was pretty sure he hadn't experienced a Cracker Barrel. But he nodded like a combined restaurant and gift store was nothing out of the ordinary. "I put my own spin on sawmill gravy by using boudin blanc instead of breakfast sausage to incorporate some of the flavors I've discovered living here, and I kept the biscuit small and used a quail egg to keep the portion appropriate for a first course."
"The biscuit is excellent," Chef Laurent said. "Fluffy, light, buttery- it is everything a biscuit should be. I should tell Marcus that this exactly the kind of appetizer he should serve."
He must have meant Marcus Samuelsson. Rosie felt her hopes start to rise.
"For our next course, we have a burger topped with Gruyère and caramelized onions on a brioche bun. "
― Stephanie Kate Strohm , Love à la Mode
5
" Up next," Henry said, "we have a play on steak-frites. Steak-frites was the first French food I ever had, at a restaurant down the block from ours, back home in Chicago. My dad took me there." Henry remembered the first time he'd been there, squeezing into the tiny tables, the rare steak and the crisp fries, the smell of garlic and butter, the sense that food could transport you far from Damien Avenue. "I've put my own spin on it by using a bulgogi marinade and kimchi butter on the steak, and instead of fries, those are deep-fried batons of garlic mashed potatoes."
This was one of his favorite kinds of dishes. From the outside, it looked like a traditional steak-frites, with its melting pat of butter on top, and fries that were thicker than usual but still shaped like fries. But then you started eating, and the flavors were different, and the fries were a totally different texture than what you were expecting. "
― Stephanie Kate Strohm , Love à la Mode
6
" He opened the small brown bag and held it toward her, and she could smell the butter. Notably, though, there was no grease soaking the bottom of the bag, like when Mom brought home donuts. She peered in.
"I think it's a croissant. And a chocolate croissant. And some kind of roll. And some other thing I didn't know what it was."
"Chausson aux pommes," Rosie said, pulling it from the bag. She was pretty sure anyway- it had the distinctive half-moon shape, and the slashes on top let her see a peek of what looked like apple filling.
"What's that?"
Rosie stilled as Henry shifted closer to her. He was just looking at the pastry, and she knew that, but still. He was close, and he smelled warm, and sleepy. And male.
"It's kind of like an apple croissant," she said, ignoring the rapid rise of her heartbeat. "Or an apple strudel. An apple turnover, I guess."
"Try it."
"You should have the first bite. You got it."
"I insist," Henry said, and he wouldn't take it from her. So she bit in, and the pastry flaked instantly, then yielded into sweet, soft cinnamon apples. It was so good that she had to imagine this would be the best thing she'd try today. But then Henry was grinning, chocolate smeared on his face, and he passed her the pain au chocolat, and she thought that had to be the best thing. But then the classic croissant was so perfect, each layer of lamination distinct, and then the brioche was dangerously rich, yet so light at the same time, and the éclair's filling was perfectly smooth, and the baguette made Rosie rethink what, exactly, the stuff she'd been eating for the last sixteen years was, because it couldn't possibly be bread, not like this... "
― Stephanie Kate Strohm , Love à la Mode
7
" As Rosie expected, Chef Petit said they were starting with pâtisserie. Specifically, with classic French tarts, and today, with the tart shells. With the three most widely used different kinds of crust.
Finally, something Rosie knew! Her hand shot in the air, and Rosie noticed that the only other person in the room with his hand in the air was Bodie Tal. But Chef Petit must have recognized her, too, because he called on her, not Bodie. And she felt like Hermione, rattling off the differences between pâté brisée, a standard, unsweetened dough for sweet or savory fillings; pâté sucrée, a sugared dough achieved by creaming the butter and sugar; and pâté sablée, a crumbly, delicate, almost cookielike dough, sometimes enriched with almond flour. Ten points to Rosie! She felt flush with triumph. Finally, she wasn't an idiot.
"Excellent," Chef Petit said genially, and he began two expound further upon what Rosie said.
"What a bloody showoff," Priya said, teasing. Rosie bumped her with her shoulder.
Chef Petit wrote the ingredients for pâté brisée on the whiteboard, informing them that they'd be making all three doughs today, then setting them in the fridge to chill until tomorrow- all crust, no matter what you did with it, was improved by a good chilling. Tomorrow, they'd do quiche, and tarte au citron, and a fresh fruit tart with crème pâtissière, and they'd move on to puff pastry and tarte tatin, and Rosie could barely restrain the shout of joy that threatened to erupt from her chest. But she restrained it, and moved through the kitchen as sedately as possible, collecting her ingredients and measuring cups. "
― Stephanie Kate Strohm , Love à la Mode
8
" Cannelés," Rosie said. Little cakes with a dark, caramelized exterior. They had the shininess of a perfectly glazed donut, and even though Rosie had never had one- you had to have a special pan to make them, a cannelé mold- she knew the inside was supposed to be like custard.
"Exactement!" Chef Petit said proudly. "You have had before?"
"No," Rosie said, at exactly the same time Bodie said, "Yeah, of course. With Dominique Ansel." Good gravy. Of course Bodie was running around eating cannelés with the man who invented the Cronut. His real life was her Instagram feed.
"Please, try." He shook the basket at them. Rosie grabbed one eagerly- it was warm, but not hot. "Cannelés are from Bordeaux, not Paris, but I thought, why not try?"
Rosie bit into hers and felt the slight crispness from the caramelized sugar on the exterior give way to a soft interior that was, yes, almost exactly like custard. She could taste vanilla- real vanilla, she had no doubt she'd seen flecks of vanilla beans- and the richness of eggs and milk, and oh, it was just so much better than she'd expected it to be. The contrast between inside and outside was unreal, like a magic trick- a pastry with a secret. "
― Stephanie Kate Strohm , Love à la Mode
10
" By the time Rosie struggled to sit up, Henry sat in front of her with a pink pastry box. He lifted the lid, and Rosie peered inside to see the tiny apple rose tart, the "petals" impossibly thin, caramelized and shining with a dusting of sugar.
"It's a rose- get it?" Henry said, and Rosie felt her breath catch in her throat.
"It's beautiful." Carefully, Rosie lifted the tart out of the box. "Look at how thin the petals are- they must have used a mandoline. And the bake on the bottom is so even. It's hard to be so accurate with something so small."
"Are you going to analyze it or eat it?" he joked.
It looked delicious, but she almost didn't want to eat it. Henry had gotten her a rose, something far more beautiful than any flower could ever be. She wished she could keep it in her room forever, but that was part of the magic of food. It didn't last. It couldn't. Each bite was only a moment that transformed into a memory. "
― Stephanie Kate Strohm , Love à la Mode
13
" It was quite a cake. Three layers of cake interspersed with layers of jam and frosting- no, not frosting, lemon cheesecake, according to the caption- and topped with pickled strawberry icing and a ring of what looked like crumbled cookies.
"It's- it's Christina Tosi, isn't it?" she asked shyly. "The exposed sides of the cake. That's her thing. And the milk crumbs on top. I recognize them, from the Momofuku Milk Bar cookbook."
Henry looked closer- she was right. They weren't cookies.
"Milk crumbs?" he asked, trying to imagine what a milk crumb could be.
"They're made with milk powder and white chocolate. Really good. You're not supposed to eat them on their own, I don't think, they mostly go in or on other things, but they're so good I always save a few to snack on. What flavor's the cake?"
"Strawberry lemon. "
― Stephanie Kate Strohm , Love à la Mode
15
" For our first course, we have Italian beef mandu," Henry said, gesturing to the plate with the two little dumplings and the dipping sauce. Boy, now he really felt like he was on Top Chef, explaining his menu to a panel of judges. He half expected to look past Chef Laurent to see Tom and Padma. "Mandu is a traditional Korean dumpling. I wanted to make a dish that reflected my Korean heritage and the place I'm from- Chicago."
"Chicago!" Chef Laurent exclaimed. "Excellent food city. You get your deep-dish at Lou Malnati's, I hope?"
"Yes, Chef," Henry said. Obviously. "I incorporated the traditional flavors of an Italian beef sandwich into the meat in the dumpling filling and made a giardiniera dipping sauce. Giardiniera is a Chicago thing- pickled vegetables," he said quickly, answering Chef Martinet's confused expression. "
― Stephanie Kate Strohm , Love à la Mode
16
" My mom hates to cook," Rosie said. "But every time she's had to go to a potluck, she brings one thing. A trifle she makes, with brownies and pudding and candy and whipped cream." Rosie had plated her dessert into two glasses- she was pretty sure they were champagne coupes- and the two chefs poised their spoons at the rim of the glasses. "This is my version of my mom's trifle. Made with moelleux au chocolat, chocolate mousse, vanilla whipped cream, and chocolate feuilletine between each layer."
Rosie loved moelleux au chocolat. The internet seemed to translate it as molten chocolate cake, but every moelleux au chocolat Rosie had had in Paris wasn't like a molten chocolate cake at all, but like the richest, fudgiest brownie on the planet. Which made it the perfect base for her trifle. And then the feuilletine, Rosie thought, would give the same crunch as a Kit Kat. "
― Stephanie Kate Strohm , Love à la Mode
17
" Next to the gallettes with their savory fillings, and even the banana-Nutella crêpe with its seductive chocolaty drizzle across the top, and especially next to whatever monstrosity Henry had ordered topped with three scoops of vanilla ice cream, the crêpe au sucre Rosie had selected certainly looked plain. It was a slim triangle dusted with sugar, but Rosie swore the sugar was sparkling in the dim light of the restaurant. She cut a tiny triangle off the tip and took a bite. Now this, this was everything. It was simple, but in the way that reminded Rosie that sometimes the simplest things were the best. The crêpe was golden and buttery and the caramelized sugar crunchy before it dissolved instantly, melting on Rosie's tongue. It couldn't be anything more than butter, sugar, flour, and milk. And yet... those simple ingredients were transformed into something transcendent. And that, Rosie thought, was exactly the power of cooking. "
― Stephanie Kate Strohm , Love à la Mode
19
" Another had more kinds of flour than the whole baking aisle at the Walmart back home- she saw all-purpose flour, cake flour, bread flour, pastry flour, doppio zero flour, and something darker, probably buckwheat. Rosie wished she could run over and open the tubs, and rub the flour between her fingers. She'd never seen or felt doppio zero in real life, but knew it was supposed to be the secret to tender pasta. Next to the flour was something she wanted to explore even more- sugar. Granulated sugar, caster sugar, confectioners' sugar, pearl sugar, cane sugar, demerara, turbinado, muscovado, light and dark brown- Rosie's mind boggled at the possibilities of all the different things she could make with these sugars, how each choice would fundamentally alter the nature of whatever she baked: change the crumb structure, the color, the texture, everything. "
― Stephanie Kate Strohm , Love à la Mode
20
" I don't want to give up my prime position over here by the cookies," she shouted back.
"Are they good? The cookies?"
"They're great!" This was the loudest conversation Rosie had ever had about cookies. "Really good, tight crumb structure. You can tell the butter is high quality. And each cookie is so consistent. And the piping!" She picked up another one, aware that she'd already eaten way too many of them but was probably about to eat another. "The piping on the front is beautiful, but the frosting still tastes good."
"Thank you." He grinned.
"Did you make these?" Rosie asked, surprised.
"Yeah! I love Halloween."
"You love Halloween."
Rosie couldn't believe he'd made all of these. Firstly, they were so identical, they looked like they'd been made by a machine. But what she really couldn't believe was that Bodie Tal was exhibiting the same level of Halloween enthusiasm that Owen had abandoned several years ago because he'd decided he was too old for it.
"Halloween is the best holiday ever. Costumes? Sugar? The sick orange-and-black color scheme? What's not to like?"
Rosie laughed as he reached over her to grab a cookie and took a bite. She could smell his aftershave, again. She took half a step back.
"Do you think they're too salty?" he asked, chewing.
"No, the salt cuts the butter. You need it to balance the richness. You did it perfectly, actually. "
― Stephanie Kate Strohm , Love à la Mode
