The Peel Party

We had about 4 flavors of tarts at this point, which was our target…the caramel apple, the chocolate caramel pecan, the raspberry white chocolate, and the chocolate espresso pear. I made up about 5 or 6 dozen of these in little tartlet pans and packed them up with some platters for a friend of John’s studio party. We were of the first ones there, and I was so nervous plattering the desserts, but I got through it, and then laid a stack of hand cut business cards in front of the desserts before heading to the wine table.

One of the studio partners at the time, Tia, came over and talked to me, gushing a bit on the beauty of the desserts, but almost too much so. I smiled courteously, and gloated just a bit with a touch of “I know I’m good” pride, as she continued to spew off ideas for how to sell these and make tons of money. I started to think I was about to be pastry-famous, the sort of fame John wanted for me, that we would be waved into a restaurant.

Throughout the evening, various people commented on the desserts, and I tried not to hover around the dessert table too much, so people wouldn’t feel totally obligated to comment. I didn’t necessarily need comments, but I guess I liked them just the same. One thing that was interesting was the mixed results of the caramel apple tart…most people loved it, but hated that it dribbled down their chin. The other tart that seemed to get a mixed result was the chocolate espresso pear, but it was dark in the space, and my thought was that people couldn’t really see what it was. People who tried it seemed to like it, and I knew that my coworker Darwin had told me that that was the best thing I had ever made. So I was unphased by the mixed response to that tart.