It all started about 7 years ago when a client sent a Harry & David gift basket to the office where I worked. It arrived while I was on my lunch break so the basket was picked over by the time I got back. The bag of Moose Munch was empty, there were no more truffles to rifle through, and the crackers and cheese were reduced to crumbs. All that was left were D'Anjou pears.
Now, if you’ve ever gotten a Harry & David gift basket, you’d know that some pears are plain and the others are wrapped in gold foil which means absolutely nothing. But me, a not-so-fancy person who had never been on the receiving end of a Harry & David gift basket, assumed that the pears wrapped in gold foil like a candy bar were covered in chocolate or something fun like that. I was wrong. I went back to my desk, unsheathed the pear from its golden foil wrapper only to discover that inside was just another regular pear.
Foiled again.
I was snackish, so I decided to just eat the damn pear, and it was in that moment that I realized that I really love pears. They’re softer and sweeter than most apple varieties and juicier too. My absolute favorite part is when pears get so juicy you have to kind of vampire suck the juice out while you’re taking your first bite, otherwise your face will get all sticky.
I ended up keeping the basket of pears in my office and ate one every day until they were gone. To my delight, the pears just got sweeter and juicier the riper they got. Since then, I’ve been hooked!
Pears defy fruit logic. They’re super juicy and can get really soft, but they’re also fibrous, which can sometimes make them feel gritty. But it’s that juicy fibrous combo that actually makes pears the perfect fruit for baking and cooking. They can withstand heat and, though they maintain their integrity, their juices seep into what they’re being baked into.
The flavor of pears is also quite subtle - a sweet, citrusy, and lightly fragrant like that of an apricot or persimmon without the intensely astringent tannins. This makes them a perfect playmate with other ingredients who complement, amplify, and play off of the pear’s flavor.
Which is why for the past few months I’ve been pairing pears in my baking, combining them with aromatic spices, nuts, and other sweets!
Here’s one of my latest pear recipes, but stay tuned, because I’ve got a Chocolate Hazelnut and Pear Olive Oil Cake recipe in the works!
Honey Cardamom and Pecan Pear Tarts
Ideally you’d make these with puff pastry, but all I had on hand was some left over phyllo dough which was still delicious. They turned out to be nice and flaky. The recipe is very flexible considering that the honey, cardamom, and vanilla bean mixture along with the maple syrup are just drizzled on top of the pear tarts to your liking. This recipe is portioned to make 8 tarts. You can watch a video of the recipe here:
Ingredients
1/2 teaspoon cardamom
1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste (or vanilla extract)
2 tablespoons of honey
4 pears
1/4 cup of maple syrup
1/3 cup of chopped pecans
1 sheet Puff Pastry (or Phyllo Dough)
Pear jam or another fruit preserve
Directions
Preheat oven to 400°F. In a small bowl, add cardamom and vanilla bean paste to the honey and stir. Set aside for later.
Cut pears in half. Remove seeds. Slice pear halves into thin to medium slices. Keep pear halves together because you’ll fan them out on top of the puff pastry later.
Cut puff pastry into 8 rectangles.
Without cutting all the way through the puff pastry, cut another rectangle about 1/2 inch around the inside of each pastry. Place pastries onto a baking sheet.
Spread pear jam in the center of the puff pastry rectangles. Fan one half of the sliced pear on top. (You can also arrange pear slices to your liking)
Brush the tops of the pear tarts with the maple syrup. Sprinkle chopped pecans on top of tarts.
Place the baking sheet with pastries in the oven and bake at 400°F for 20 - 25 minutes, or until edges turn golden brown.
When they’re finished baking, and while they’re still hot, drizzle the honey, cardamom, and vanilla mixture on top of each pastry. Allow the pastries to cool and then enjoy!
For more recipes head to my blog!
FEATURED:
Beer brings people together, but these fresh brews bring people together around a cause. Triple Bottom Brewing is a woman-owned, fair chance brewery creating job opportunities to those in need. For my latest segment with WHYY’s You Oughta Know, I sit down with owner Tess Hart to discuss how Triple Bottom Brewing is having a positive impact on Philadelphia and beyond.
PUBLISHED:
I’ve been on the grocery store beat for Billy Penn, highlighting new grocery stores that are not only bringing fresh food to Center City but also breathing new life into historic buildings. First up, a new Giant Heirloom Market now inhabits the halls of the iconic Strawbridge & Clothier. They’ve transformed the old Food Hall into ‘Tap Hall’ where you can serve yourself beer, wine, and even mimosas from a wall of taps next to the legendary wild boar statue.
Then, Vincent Finazzo of Riverwards Produce shared his story with me about the new Riverwards coming to Old City. He talked about what it’s like running a hyper local grocery store and why he prefers to bring his grocery store to a historic building on Bread Street. It was tricky to figure out what the gorgeous warehouse was, but a group of history fanatics and I worked together to deduce that it was built as a forge around 1913.
SEEKING:
As you might have figured out by now, I’m a huge history nerd. One of my favorite things to do is to research the origins of different ingredients and dishes. So - what are the foods that define your home town, city, or region? What’s the dish that unites locals?
READING:
Have you ever heard of The Bechdel Test, that scale that measures how much women talk about men in TV shows and movies? Well, it’s named after a real person, Alison Bechdel, and she’s an incredible cartoonist who has published thought provoking graphic novels such as Fun Home. She recently published a new graphic novel called The Secret to Superhuman Strength, a memoir / transcendentalist exploration that dives into how Bechdel used fitness as a means of meditation and finding her flow state.
WATCHING:
Dead malls have interested me for a few years now. There’s just something about the sudden rise and fall of these cathedrals of commerce that’s equally amusing, nostalgic, and sad.
Jasper Mall is a documentary that follows a year in the life of a dying mall. Throughout the film you meet store owners who reminisce about their time working there as they prepare to leave for their next retail venture. You get to know regulars who use the mall as a social hub. And you also follow an ambitious mall owner who tries to pull all the stops to bring this mall back to life.
COOKING:
For a quick lunch or bite to eat, I’ve been going hard on this NY Times Cooking TikTok on egg rice. It’s simply two fried eggs cooked with some soy sauce and sesame seed oil over some rice and topped with some seaweed (today I used an avocado instead).
I love pears, was munching on a sweet and juicy Bosc pear while I was reading your newsletter. Red pears are my favorite, but honestly, they all so good. I prefer them to apples.
As far as history goes, I'm working with Burlington County on reviving the seed history there. I'm Library Seed Bank on Twitter, we follow each other. South Jersey has an interesting seed history, and I use the seed libraries that I have to connect the public to it.
February 2nd I'm launching a public research project in Burlington County with a series of workshops at the Burlington County Agriculture Center into the Johnson & Stokes Seed Company that was in Mooerstown at one time.
My personal work is on Jersey tomatoes, and I have brought three varieties back to South Jersey, and I'm bringing back two more this year to Burlington County County.
My mission is to raise the Jersey tomato to the iconic status it deserves.