Part 2 of Olivier’s tray: Chocolate-Coffee Mousse Pie & Apple Tarts

by Amy

You were a moth  

Brushing against my cheek

in the dark.

I killed you,

not knowing

you were only a moth,

with no sting.

The setting is familiar. We’re at the Bistro. Yolande, Jane’s niece, has just walked in and Clara decides to pay her respects. Everyone is cringing, snooping, and observing. Silence rules. Yolande is playing up to the scene. She wipes her dry eyes with a paper napkin and her acting is superb – although she didn’t convince the many people who had truly loved Jane and remembered what her relationship with Yolande had been like.

“I’m the official caterer for the disaster that’s about to happen. I can’t imagine why Clara is doing this, she knows what Yolande has been saying behind her back for years. Hideous woman.”

Why does Clara do it? She’d been planning a ritual, in Jane’s honor, when…

“Clara had spotted Yolande and her family arriving at the Bistro and knew she’d have to say something.”

It doesn’t say why. So we are left, like Olivier, wondering. I can empathize, though. I tend to also be the kind of person who always feels like she has to say something. And I often find myself, in the aftermath, feeling as Clara did after her interaction with Jane’s niece:  stupid, stupid, stupid.

“When she’d gone over to speak with Yolande, Clara had known this would happen. Known that Yolande, for some unfathomable reason, could always get to her. Could hurt her where most others couldn’t reach. It was one of life’s little mysteries that this woman she had absolutely no respect for, could lay her flat. She thought she’d been ready for it. She’d even dared to harbor a hope that maybe this time would be different. But of course it wasn’t.”

Clara’s one of those rare people that knows how things are – or can be – but still nurtures hope that things might be different. She doesn’t act on the (very high) probability that she’ll get hurt. She acts on the unlikely chance that this time, maybe this time it’ll be okay.

I wonder why nobody stopped her. I understand why Gamache wouldn’t. He was in the middle of a murder investigation and this was a perfect opportunity to observe the suspects. But why didn’t anyone else stop her? They just stood back and watched. I’ve been stopped before. By a whisper. A look. A nudge. An elbow. A little kick… No one stopped Clara.

I wonder if any of them had tried before, in similar occasions, and realized it couldn’t be done? I wonder if they understood the importance and were hoping against hope not that Yolande would be different ( I think only Clara would go that far), but that Clara would finally stand up for herself (I think Clara only really begins to do that in A TRICK OF THE LIGHT).

Regardless, it feels real. Doesn’t it? Louise Penny knows her characters. As Marilynne Robinson says in her collection of essays, WHEN I WAS A CHILD I READ BOOKS:

“There is a great difference, in fiction and in life, between knowing someone and knowing about someone. When a writer knows about his character he is writing for plot. When he knows his character he is writing to explore, to feel reality on a set of nerves somehow not quite his own."

I think part of the beauty in Louise Penny’s books is that she knows her characters and writes real ideas through fiction. I believe that fiction is, in a way, real. Fiction, as all art, is an interpretation of reality as seen and experienced by the author. Authors are able to put themselves in others’ shoes and write characters that make us feel along with them. And Penny excels in this art.

I can easily imagine myself in the Bistro. I’d probably try to stand next to Olivier so I could eat all of the dessert options on his tray. I probably wouldn’t stop Clara either. I probably would have watched, silently (or whispering to Olivier – or maybe Gabri. I’d love to hear Gabri’s take on the scene). Then I’d probably tell myself, I knew it! when Yolande, true to character, put Clara down. I can also imagine myself in Clara’s shoes, knowing something must be said (although I ask myself, WHY?) and being disappointed when the response wasn’t what I’d hoped for. 

What I cannot picture is being in Peter’s shoes. If I were Peter, I’d be standing next to Clara. I’d be squeezing her hand. I can understand – even applaud – that he felt Clara had to stand up for herself. He couldn’t – or maybe shouldn’t – do it for her. He wasn’t even available for moral support, though. He wasn’t beside her. And I think it’s interesting that, once hurt, Clara’s first reaction is to want Jane back. She’s surrounded by friends but none of them, not even her husband, can fulfill that role in her life. I think Myrna will, eventually, to an extent. But for now, it’s a Jane-shaped hole.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid. […] She wanted to run to Jane, who’d make it better. Take her in those full, kindly arms and say the magic words, ‘There, there.’”

Libby did an incredible job of making mille feuilles, meringues and little custard tarts. I made pie and little apple custard tarts – which were, in reality, an improvisation using left-over bits from a lemon meringue pie recipe. The pie was a dark chocolate coffee mousse pie which was so incredibly good I made it twice in as many weeks.

Chocolate Coffee Mousse Pie

Ingredients:

Crust

-          1 package of 200g of graham cookies (or similar)

-          100g grams of softened or room temperature butter

Filling

-          4 egg yolks

-          6 TBS of sugar

-          1 cup of heavy cream

-          200g of dark chocolate – chopped in big bits

-          1 TBS instant coffee

-          4 egg whites

Instructions:

Crumble the cookies and use a blender or a food processor to turn them into a flaky powder. Add butter and smash with your fingers until it’s the consistence of crust. Spread it on a pie pan and bake for about 10 minutes. Let it cool. You can always buy the ready-made kind (which we don’t have here), but this is so easy to make I think it’s worth it.

For the filling, beat the egg yolks with 4 spoons of sugar (I used 2) in a mixer until it doubles in volume and becomes a bit lighter in color. Set aside.

Heat the cream in bain-marie (I just put a glass bowl in a pan with 2 inches of water in it over the stove top. I improvised a bain-marie since I didn’t have the “proper” pan). Add the pieces of dark chocolate and the instant coffee powder and mix until you have a smooth cream. Add the egg yolk mix and mix well. Set aside.

Mix the egg whites and then add 2 TBS of sugar. Add this to the cream, but only fold it in gently without mixing much. The beaten egg whites are what will give it the airy mousse consistency. Pour this cream over your crust and place it in the refrigerator. Once it is firm (4 to 5 hours later), enjoy!

Apple Tarts

I used left-over pie crust dough and placed it in muffin tins. I baked that for about 10 minutes.

I mixed the juice of two lemons with 1 can of condensed milk to make the tart filling. It’s the same idea for the filling I usually use for lime meringue pie. That’s all you have to do. Mix them and place it in the fridge and it's the perfect consistency. I frequently use this also as a form of custard to serve with fresh fruit. It’s always a hit.

Then I sliced apples – thin slices covered in lemon juice so they wouldn’t brown – and placed them on the filling. I added a sprinkle of brown sugar.  I then placed them in the oven just long enough so the sugar would melt a bit and the apple slices would bake. These were sooooo good. Well, tastes vary. My husband thought it was too tart and not sweet enough. I thought it was just right. 

Except for the quote from Marilynne Robinson's WHEN I WAS A CHILD I READ BOOKS, the other quotes are from Still Life - pages 104 to 106 in the paperback version.