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Lemon Tarts: The Kids Are Alright
By Ivy Knight
Some of the formidable expert panel, left to right: Noah Walsh, Noah Wahlen,
Sofia Walsh (front), Cecilia Walsh, Alec Jolley and Will Jolley.
After the hangover from the sausage competition cleared I thought something summery, light and non-alcoholic was in order so I decided to have a lemon tart competition next. Apparently, if you've tasted one lemon curd you have not tasted them all. I've been told by some very annoyed pastry chefs that every pastry chef's lemon curd is different, so I wanted to put that to the test. Amuse Bouche offered their beautiful patio to host the event so all I had to do was find some judges and competitors.
Now, from the beginning, I've tried to ensure that no one takes these competitions or themselves too seriously, so I needed judges who'd be willing to dive right in and pig out on lemon tarts until finally picking one they liked, not the one that embodied the perfect marriage between curd and crust. Who cares? Do you like it? Great, shut up about it.
So, I decided to have some kids be the judges.
Kerry and I don't have kids, nor do very many of our friends. My Gap ad-worthy nephews, Cal and Lawson, are far away in P.E.I. while Kerry's nieces and nephews are all grown up including one, Stephen, who is a few years older than me (what can I tell you? Big Catholic family.). The kid I see the most often and feel the strongest bond with is Jimmy, the little comedian on crutches from South Park. Maybe it's that down-turned mouth of his but I think he looks a lot like me, very much.
The only problem with wanting kids to judge this competition was in finding them. Not an easy task if you don't know any. You can't just walk up to children in the park and invite them to something like this. They've been warned since birth not to take candy from strangers and I'm sure tarts would be slotted in that category as well.
Then I remembered a few chefs and a certain editor I knew who had kids. These kids probably ate foie gras-stuffed beignets for breakfast and had oysters Rockefeller for lunch - surely they could handle some lemon tarts.
Expert judging in action! Noah Wahlen, Max Cutrara and Alec Jolley hard at work.
Close-up of Sloane Cutrara contemplating mouthfeel. The line up of five tarts.
I invited a number of parents but many were unable to attend as we had scheduled the competition on the one day Amuse Bouche could squeeze us in - Father's Day. Thankfully a number of dads thought it would be a great way to spend their day. So, Canoe Chef Anthony Walsh, came with his wife Susana Arevelo and their three children, Noah (9), Cecilia (8) and Sofia (3). Cowbell chef Mark Cutrara and his wife Karin Culliton showed up with Max (8) and Sloane (5). Drake server Dan Wahlen came with his son Noah (7) and my editor Malcolm Jolley and wife Apple Newton-Smith arrived with the final two judges, sons Alec (4&1/2) and Will (2&1/2).
Before all this happened I invited a number of pastry chefs to compete, because of Father's Day I worried that I wouldn't be able to get anyone but thankfully David Chow from the Drake, Stephanie Pick from Queen of Tarts, and two teams from Vertical were able to make it. With Bertrand Alépée's entry from Amuse Bouche that brought us up to five different tarts. I figured five tarts, even bite-sized ones, would be more than enough to satisfy the sugar cravings of our darling judges.
Now, you can't just invite a bunch of kids to eat sweets and then boot them out, you have to entertain them somehow, which is where Kerry came in. Kerry had recently finished writing and illustrating a hilarious book called Pictures of Food so I asked him to do a reading of it for the judges before the tasting began. The night before the event we did a run through of the book to check the time, we didn't want the reading to be too long for little attention spans. As Kerry read, some passages made me wonder if this was suitable fare for children.
On Veal: "You kill the baby and butcher it, then pound it's flesh until it is thin. Then fry it up and put it in a sandwich."
On Lamb: "Lamb, like veal, is best eaten while still a baby. As we know now, baby animals are not only very cute, but tender and delicious as well. Once a lamb grows up it gets tough and cranky. It is called mutton and is less desirable. Which would you rather eat?"
Pictures of Food author Kerry Knight and his lemony-dressed assistant.
Father's Day arrived bright and sunny. Kerry and I had a quick bout of rapid fire cursing to get it out of our systems before we were forced to censor ourselves in front of the kids, then we headed over to Amuse Bouche to help set up the patio. When we arrived we were greeted by Sarah Lyons, Bertrand's wife, who had already set up the patio, so we relaxed until people arrived. Soon the tarts started showing up... Wait: I'm going to digress here. This whole double-meaning of the word tart has been driving me crazy. Like just now I wanted to continue that sentence "Soon the tarts started showing up" with "but we told them Amuse Bouche wasn't that kind of a place, sent them packin' and waited for the pastries to arrive". But what if an innocent child sees that and says "what is she implying here mommy?" and then the parent has to explain that the word tart is a quaint, old-fashioned, Brit word for hooker! Then this seemingly innocent article about competing pastry chefs turns into a touchy talk with your kid about doing it. Gross. Okay, enough with the digression let's get back to the article.)
Sarah popped the tarts on to platters and gave them a number from 1 to 5 to disguise their identity. I grabbed Chef Anthony and Malcolm and read them the veal passage from the book but they didn't think it would be a problem for the kids.
Once our guest list had arrived we sat the kids down and Kerry began to read while I did my best Vanna White holding up the illustrations and pointing. I don't think the kids really got it but the adults sure got a kick out of it.
Karin told me later that her son, Max, re-named one of his stuffed animals 'codfish' that evening after learning that word and some falsehoods about fish from "Pictures of Food", such as: "Fish are infamously stupid, possessing the tiniest brains known to humanity." And "The oceans and rivers and lakes are full of fish, so we will never ever ever run out!" (Funny, Max may now own the only codfish left in Canada)
After the reading we rushed the platters of tarts out to the patio and the kids attacked. Dan made sure they knew to keep track of which tart was their favourite during the mow-down. This prompted a popular response amongst our judges, along the lines of "I'd better try that one again, I can't remember whether I liked it the best."
Then suddenly black clouds rolled in and it started to rain. The Amuse-Bouche awning was no match for the downpour so everyone grabbed some tarts and headed inside to vote.
Before the deluge...
To give you an idea of how diverse a selection we had let me tell you what the competitors brought. Giacomo Pasquini (Vertical) brought a simple lemon tart topped with pink sugar (he stained the sugar with Amarena cherries) and black salt. The salt gave it an unexpected complexity and I wondered what the little judges would think of it. Stephanie made her tart rectangular and garnished it with a miniature lemon formed out of modeling chocolate and tiny rosettes of Italian meringue. Bertrand bruléed the top of his tart and snuck a chocolate surprise into the centre.
Ivan Loubier, also from Vertical and formerly of Didier, made a lemon pistachio tart with strawberry meringue. "The crust was a basic pate sable with ground pistachio, filled with a simple lemon curd and topped with a meringue made with strawberry caramel." He told me. Finally, David Chow brought a tried and true lemon meringue tart that was sweetness and light made edible. Aside from the differences in garnishes and pastry, the curds were also unique, one sweet and creamy while another was more acidic. One soft, almost runny while another was more toothsome, each one was an individual.
Time to vote, I collected the adult votes for the People's Choice and Dan collected the judge's votes. Malcolm voted for his son Will, who was happily covered in lemon curd, saying "I think he liked the rectangular one the most, the others he just licked out the lemon, but that one he ate the pastry too."
Dan and I tallied the votes and announced the winners:
Judge's Choice - David Chow, Drake Hotel
People's Choice - Giacomo Pasquini, Vertical
Then it was time to get those children home so they could have their sugar high in peace. It was a beautiful day, filled with sugar and pastry and the laughter of children.
[Photo credit: Julian Katz.]
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