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Love à la Mode

Book by Stephanie Kate Strohm · 15 quotes · French, Butter, Dessert

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Love à la Mode Quotes

“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.”

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“Hoping to ground herself, Rosie closed her eyes and thought of butter, the way other people probably pictured relaxing tropical idylls. Her favorite thing in the world was creaming butter and sugar, watching the way two disparate ingredients come together to form something new. She could picture it in her mind, back in the kitchen at home: the soft pale yellow of the butter, the old wooden spoon, and the cracked brown mixing bowl. Butter was magic. The starting point for cookies and cake and pie and muffins and everything good.”

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“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...”

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“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.”

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“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.”

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“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.”

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“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.”

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“She hoped Dad would have liked this burger. No, she knew he would have. Even if he would have raised an eyebrow at her choice of cheese. American cheese was specifically engineered to melt, Ro, he used to say. Rosie grinned at the memory, remembering how it felt to stand barefoot in the grass in their backyard, hands on her hips, asking her father to use some other kind of cheese as he manned the grill. And maybe American cheese did melt really well. But she'd never been a Kraft Singles kind of girl. And she knew that Dad had loved that about her, too. Just like he'd loved everything about her.”

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“And then Henry saw it. The tart. It was small, so small it could fit in the palm of his hand, and filled with some kind of fruit- apple, probably, or maybe pear or some kind of stone fruit- but the fruit was sliced so thin that Henry couldn't tell what it was. Each slice was arranged like the petal of a flower, so that the tart looked exactly like a rose. A buttery, sugary, edible pastry rose.”

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“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.”

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“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.”

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“The nest is made of butter-poached mushrooms," Hampus was saying. Henry had been so busy fuming he'd missed Chef Martinet's first bite of Hampus's dish: creamy scrambled eggs spilling out of eggshells inside a nest that was, apparently made of butter-poached foraged mushrooms. It looked so much like a real bird's nest Henry could hardly believe it was mushrooms. "In Sweden, we like our scrambled eggs very, very creamy," Hampus continued. "I have added a simple salad of foraged dandelion greens to offset the richness of the dish." "This is inspired," Chef Martinet said. "You have made the mushroom the star.”

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“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.”

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“We're making profiteroles." Profiteroles. Little cream puffs filled with vanilla ice cream and drowned in thick chocolate sauce. "Ha! I knew it!" he said triumphantly. "You already look ten times better. There is nothing as satisfying as making choux pastry." It was exactly what she was thinking. Choux pastry was literally one of her favorite things to make in the whole world. But she didn't tell him that. Instead, she grabbed an apron from a hook on the wall and tied it on. Together, they melted the butter with water in a saucepan, then added the flour, stirring with a wooden spoon until it pulled away from the sides and formed a ball- that was Rosie's favorite part, the way it came together like that. There was something so satisfying about it. Then they scooped the choux into bags and piped them into little circles on a baking sheet, competing to see who could do it better- Bodie was faster, but Rosie was neater.”

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“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.”

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