TARTES de LUNE

I love travel blogs. I love to see the places people choose to visit, to see, to immerse themselves in, far from home. It’s wonderful to see what they choose to do and see and buy when they’re on their journeys, and I especially love the ones which visit cooking stores and food shops and the open markets with their arrays of vegetables and fruit and flowers and herbs arranged in those fleeting still-life bouquets.

I’ve looked with tongue-curling envy on all the lovely boxes from Laduree’ and Fauchon, their jewel-box presentations of chocolates and pastries and small, perfect creations of sugar and cream and cake. I especially enjoy the photos of all the luscious pastel macarons, set like precious stones in the velvet of the distinctive boxes, carried gently home for another sweet taste of the trip.




We purchased these in a quaint little shop on our travels; the colors were intriguing, and the creamy ganache smooth as baby-skin. They’re called Tartes de Lune---round and luscious--- one softly tinged with essence of orange, one with the crisp tang of lemon, and the third, scented with delicate vanilla.

I’d never seen a pastry quite like them before, save for their more robust chocolate brethren, but they have a second layer of the fluffy mousse, sandwiched with another of the tender pastry rounds. We’re looking forward to trying them for dessert this evening.

Their scent is enticing, their demeanor, lovely still perfection. Their blush of color, smooth and shining, with the creamy interior cushiony and lush, all belie their humble origins and their purveyor’s plebeian atmosphere. Far, far from Paris, I admit, but so aptly OURS, so perfectly ME, that I find them charmingly alluring and simply delightful in their humble way.

TARTES de LUNE:

From the famous patisserie and purveyor of all things delicious and enticing: THE SMOKEHOUSE, in Pine Apple, Alabama.