Betty Lives!

The New Settlement Cookbook

1954

Twenty years ago this month I traveled to Paris for the first time. A string of fortuitous circumstances led me to the home of Madame Isabelle DuPasquier where I lived joyously - with a view of the Eiffel Tower out my window - for five months. Isabelle has four wonderful sons whom I know well and with whom I have been honored to celebrate various marriages and the arrival of many children. Over the years they have welcomed me into their homes and we have come to consider ourselves family. Sadly, I have had almost no occasion to welcome them in New York; Very few of Isabelle’s extended clan have visited. Until this summer. Almost twenty years to the day from my arrival in Paris Anne-Sophie, the daughter of Isabelle’s oldest son who I have known since she was six months old, came to stay with us in Pennsylvania. She is a beautiful, gentle, intelligent girl and when I watched her playing with my children I was so moved. When she left on Thursday night to go back to New York I cried and I’m sure the poor child thinks I’m nuts. But it’s hard to explain to a 21 year-old the meaningfulness of one chance meeting on a hot August day in Paris that has lead to 20 years of love shared. And how lucky I feel.

While with us she had some funny observations. Bucks County is apparently “not really the country”. I know what she means. In France when you talk about “the country” you’re not talking about a place where you can get in the car and be at a Giant supermarket in 10 minutes. On fat people she had this to say: “I’m sure we have some in France, but they don’t go out.” She was also amused by the local agricultural fair where I had promised her nothing but sheep, pigs and tractors but where they also happened to have a booth selling hot tubs. And Oxyclean.

She loved picking fruit with us and before she left we made special fruit tarts in her honor. The recipe comes from The New Settlement Cookbook and it was straightforward enough even for me, a committed non-pastry cook. First, make cookie dough (2 TBl butter, 1/2 cup milk, 1/2 cup sugar, 2 1/2 cups flour, 1 tsp baking powder, 1 egg). No problems here except that the house we’re renting doesn’t have measuring cups so I had to use a tea cup (which I’ve heard is exactly 8 oz) and hope for the best. They were very sticky when I rolled them out and difficult to transfer to the baking sheet but other than that they were fine. Then I made pastry cream (3/4 cup sugar, 1/3 cup flour, 1/3 tsp salt, 2 eggs, 2 cups milk or cream, 1 tsp vanilla). I didn’t have vanilla so I flavored the cream with orange peel instead. Other than that no changes. It is significant to note that “directions” in this book are often just one or two lines and there isn’t a lot in the way of cooking times or temperatures either, they just assume you know. I guess I got lucky. The only newfangled thing I did was to paint the cookies with a little melted chocolate because they just didn’t seem sweet enough. Then I spread them with the cream and let the kids go crazy with the berries.

I have to say I did not love the cookies-as-pastry-crust thing.  I prefer a crisper shell. But you can’t really go wrong with a cookie/chocolate/cream/berry combo so they all got eaten. Anne-Sophie, who is extremely polite and would never have said otherwise, claimed that she like them too.