The Pastry Princess Blog: SHF #34 -- Local Sweets

It’s that time again…our monthly sweet indulgences with Sugar High Friday, the event started by Jennifer of The Domestic Goddess, and to my horror I almost missed it. This month, Johanna of The Passionate Cook is hosting and she’s given us the opportunity to prepare a dessert that features our own personal Local Sweet Specialties.

NYC is a city rich with culture and local specialties, and living here has endowed me with many luxuries. Perhaps my most appreciated is the bountiful Greenmarket. Always blossoming with the ripest produce, perkiest flowers, and freshest meats and cheeses, the Greenmarket was founded to preserve farmland by helping growers sell directly to consumers and bypassing the crippling middlemen. I frequent the Greenmarket, always swinging through on my way home from work or some other place, but as much for the sake of the atmosphere as the food. Eager shoppers explore new produce, inspecting round apples for bruises, sniffing fuzzy peaches or squeezing plump sun-ripened tomatoes. People stop and they chat with the farmers. Or perhaps just bask in the sun while waiting for friends.

Cooking from the market beguiles me. I buy what looks good, seldom bringing home more than two or three days’ worth of ingredients at one time, and figure out what to cook afterwards. It’s inspiring, challenging and very satisfying. Eating local builds community. And local food just tastes better.

On this particular trip, I went in for apples, but came out with pears. Bosc pears. And rosemary. And honey. Growing up, I never used to like pears. I thought they lacked flavor. But that was only because I ate them too crisp claiming mushy fruit made me sick. Now years later, full of fragrant, succulent juicy nibbles, a perfect pear is a treat to be savored.

I’m not sure how many people would consider a pear a delicacy, but I wanted to preserve the beauty of this fruit with a simple preparation. Whenever the breeze grows slightly stronger and slightly colder, I am flooded with visions and scents of the baked apples and ice cream my dad and I used to relish such crisp evenings. The memory of this dish inspired me to create a newer version with pears. So tonight, as a kind of transitional dessert, I made rosemary & honey roasted pears to celebrate the arrival of fall. These are served warm, bathed in honey with rosemary and cinnamon, and topped an optional (but indisputably delicious) spoonful of whipped crème fraiche and drizzle of balsamic.

So, with juices running up my sleeves and dribbling down the sides of my mouth, I bid you good eating.