Crowded around a lunch table on a Friday afternoon last fall, men and women displayed the smiles of young children, licking a luscious chocolate sauce from their fingertips while enjoying the crisp, creamy flavor of homemade profiteroles in honor of Quail Hill Farm director and organic farmer Scott Chaskey, whose birthday was the cause for celebration.
From this moment, a cookbook was born.
Artist Sydney Albertini, whose husband Jerome took on an apprenticeship at Quail Hill last year after his family fell in love with the community-supported agriculture organic farm in Amagansett, prepared the delicate pastry for the farm’s weekly luncheon for apprentices and their families. The crowd’s reaction to the dessert inspired Albertini to give the farmers something to look forward to every Friday after lunch, resulting in the creation of her cookbook, “French Fridays at the Farm,” which will go on sale locally this fall to benefit Quail Hill.
Albertini, a native of France, used seasonality and the regions of France as the muse for her culinary offerings, starting with profiteroles and Paris, as the dessert is the epitome of the simple, yet sophisticated cuisine of her native land, and a dessert she personally enjoys on her own birthday.
From there she took Quail Hill farmers — and now cooks at home — to Brittany for Far Breton, a personal favorite of Jerome’s, a custard prune dish with pastry crust that is quintessential to that region, and often enjoyed at breakfast, lunch or dinner.
“Instead of a croissant, that is what they have there,” said Albertini. “It is in every bakery.”
Continuing south, Albertini’s book lays out the preparation for several classical French desserts like tarte tatin, an upside down, caramelized fruit tart often made with apples but easily enjoyed, she notes, with other dense fruits like plums or apricots. She celebrates winter traditions with mousse au chocolat and almond macaroons before treating readers to the spring-inspired Gateau Aux Mures, a blackberry tart enjoyed last weekend at the Common Table, the annual summer fundraiser for Quail Hill where Albertini’s cookbook debuted.
For Albertini, the creation of the cookbook was not born in her wish to become a celebrated author, but in her support for the farm where she and her husband, along with their three sons Ace, Zed and Neo have found a sustainable home. In that way it is similar to their native lands of Corsica and France where they thrive on seasonal produce and the pastoral landscape of a community organic farm where family and food are first and foremost.
While the book is focused on pastry, Albertini said she sourced as much as possible from the local landscape, including berries and rhubarb from the farm and completed her list of ingredients through the farm’s own source of organic ingredients, which it is able to purchase through a cooperative.
Albertini’s commitment to supporting Quail Hill began prior to the cookbook. While her children plucked vegetables from its farm, she designed a t-shirt for their 20th anniversary last year. When the concept of a cookbook emerged this year, she knew immediately it would be her offering to the land, and people, that have helped her family sustain their way of life.
The first copies of the book were presented to those who supported the farm, as chefs and patrons, at last week’s Common Table dinner, but she hopes the second publishing will be available at local booksellers, like BookHampton, and retailers like Cavaniloa’s Gourmet Cheese Shop in Sag Harbor – places where shoppers appreciate not only a good product, but supporting a vital organic farm on the East End.
“It’s a small, easy-going thing,” she said. “It will be affordable.”
Albertini’s love for organic cuisine was derived not only from her native culture, but with an adoration for the color and life found in “not being afraid to try new things.”
“All of that makes me want to document life,” she said. “I see it as a jumping off point. I would like to do a cookbook every year to benefit the farm.”
Outside of plans to spend the next five years documenting the chefs who enable the Common Table dinner, Albertini hopes next year to present a cookbook dedicated to living off the farm’s winter share. Having already survived on root vegetables and sparse produce available in the off season, Albertini knows the challenge is possible and, like French desserts, hopes to open the larger East End community to what is possible.
“My cookbook writing is a way to document life,” she said. “That is what I do. The farm is the best life, the best place for our kids to run around and learn about life. It’s the place where, as an artist, I see amazing colors, the pairing of a deep purple eggplant and wildflowers.”
Gateau Aux Mures (pictured above)
If you do not have time to make pastry, Albertini suggests using a dufour puff pastry, which she calls “no less than perfect.”
Crust: 3 cups flour, ½ cup sugar, ½ tsp. baking powder, a good pinch of salt, ¾ cup cold vegetable shortening, cut up, 3 tbsp. cold butter cut up into small pieces, 4 or more tbsp. ice water
Filling: ½ cup sugar (mix brown and white), 1 ½ cup flour, pinch of salt, 1 ½ cup sour cream, 6 eggs, 7 cups blackberries
For Crust: In food processor, blend flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Add shortening and butter and blend until a coarse meal forms. Add water until ball forms. Wrap dough and refrigerate a minimum of 30 minutes. When ready to roll out dough, line a large and deep (2 ½ inches) cast iron skillet or other pie dish. Do the same with dufour pie-crust.
Pre-heat oven to 350.
Whisk sugar, flour and salt in a medium bowl. Whisk sour cream and eggs in a large bowl and add the dry ingredients. Fold in berries with the care not to mash them.
Pour mixture into crust and bake for at least one hour and a half. Let cool on a rack for 30 minutes and serve.
