Voisins/Amis

Just a quick shoutout to Mohamed and Héloise, neighbors from the next building over, and their kids Mehdi (7), Nahel (3), and Tilal (10 months) who just left after a delightful mid-afternoon goûter (snack). We first met at the pot in the courtyard in September; since then Maggie has done a bit of babysitting for Mohamed and Héloise, and they've generously lent us DVDs from their impressive collection. In an exciting development, Mohamed and Mehdi (avid gamers both) have promised to help me improve my French video-game vocab by playing Assassin's Creed and Call of Duty on their new Alienware computer.

For the first course of our goûter, we enjoyed galette des rois (#4 for us since Christmas Eve). Enfin (at long last) I found the fève (plastic figurine, in this case Asterix), thanks in part to a new tradition we learned about. Apparently it's the job of the youngest person present to get under the table and determine the order in which slices of galette are handed out. Tilal was too young (speech is an important part of the tradition) so Nahel did the honors.

The second course was another quince apple tart that we made fresh this morning (pictures forthcoming on flickr). The amuse-bouche (wordreference.com translates it as appetizer, but I think of it as anything that comes between courses) was chocolate-peanut-butter cookies (thanks to Eden and JP for bringing the peanut butter chips!).

The boys were a little scared of Panda at first, but eventually warmed to her. Tilal spit up a little on the rug, but it was no biggie. Mehdi and Nahel ate about 30 cookies, but weren't interested in taking a doggie bag home. They probably figured that since we live just across the courtyard from the them (literally), there's plenty more where that came from. And they're right.

Tomorrow: Matt arrives!

/kwɪns/

The night we ate sausage soup, our guests mentioned they had recently made some delicious quince-based treats. Quince? We had never heard of it. Was it an animal, vegetable, or mineral? Turns out, it's a fruit! We didn't have to wait too long to try them for ourselves as our generous guests gave us an entire bag of them the very next day!

Quince may be hard to find in your local U.S. farmer's market due to its susceptibility to fire blight. If you do find some, I wouldn't recommend eating one raw, as you might not like how it tastes. These tough and high-pectin fruits are ideal, however, for poaching or roasting, and they are often used in jams or preserves.

After some deliberation and an equipment-related delay (we didn't have a sharp enough knife to make it through the quince and had to go out and get one), we decided to start our quince adventure by following David Lebovitz's Rosy Poached Quince recipe.

After the poaching, we blended the now-soft quince pieces with a bit of the poaching juice to make this purée:

Then, we used this recipe to make quince paste, or membrillo, as it's called in Spain. It's a fragrant and slightly sweet jam-like paste that's supposed to be best when paired with Manchego cheese. (We still haven't tried this combination yet, but as I made 10,000 pounds of paste, I'm sure we will in the not-too-distant future.)

We then took David's suggestion to reduce the poaching liquid to a jellied state. Unfortunately, I think we went a little further than required and ended up with something a bit more like quince taffy.

It all worked out in the end as we enjoyed the bright, powerful taste of a few reserved poached quince slices and the quince taffy on top of vanilla ice cream. The next night we devoured some extremely good quince crêpes.

Most recently, the quince paste found a home in this utterly divine quince and apple tart. (Thanks to the kitchn for the filling recipe and smitten kitchen for the tart shell recipe.)

We still have a few tons of quince paste in the fridge and freezer. Any suggestions on what to do with it?