Charlotte Au Chocolat Quotes

“But worse, it was a new apartment. We both knew that, in New England, old was better. Old was cozy; old, like our farmhouse, like the Pudding, had magic and charm.”
― Charlotte Silver, Charlotte Au Chocolat: Memories of a Restaurant Girlhood

“I am waiting for one season to end and another to begin and for the menus to change--- for soft-boiled eggs and fiddlehead ferns in spring; for lobster claws cracked open and bathed in hot lashes of nasturtium butter in summer; for baked apples in thickened pools of heavy cream in fall; and finally for winter, season of prime rib and potatoes gratin, caviar and sweetbreads, and chocolate, chocolate, chocolate.”
― Charlotte Silver, Charlotte Au Chocolat: Memories of a Restaurant Girlhood

“When I was a child, charlottes--- French desserts made traditionally out of brioche, ladyfingers, or sponge and baked in a charlotte mold--- were everywhere. Charlotte au chocolat wasn't the only variety, though being chocolate, it had the edge on my mother's autumn-season apple charlotte braised with brioche and poached in clarified butter, and even on the magnificent charlotte Malakoff she used to serve in the summer: raspberries, slivered almonds, and Grand Marnier in valleys of vanilla custard.
But it is charlotte au chocolat, being my namesake dessert, that I remember most, for we offered it on the menu all year long. I walked into the pastry station and saw them cooling in their rusted tin molds on the counter. I saw them scooped onto lace doilies and smothered in Chantilly cream, starred with candied violets and sprigs of wet mint. I saw them lit by birthday candles. I saw them arranged, by the dozens, on silver trays for private parties. I saw them on customers' plates, destroyed, the Chantilly cream like a tumbled snowbank streaked with soot from the chocolate. And charlottes smelled delightful: they smelled richer, I thought, than any dessert in the world. The smell made me think of black velvet holiday dresses and grown-up perfumes in crystal flasks. It made me want to collapse and never eat again.”
― Charlotte Silver, Charlotte Au Chocolat: Memories of a Restaurant Girlhood

“The charlottes cooled in their tin molds while she squeezed lemons and crushed strawberries to flavor her Sicilian ices. The juices trickled into the rectangular tins she stored them in. Then she split off a sheet of foil and smoothed it out on top of the tins; the foil crackled beneath her hands.
Later on, the names of the desserts she made got printed in dark green cursive on the backs of the menus: Raspberry Fool. Queen Mother's Cake with a shot of Rum. Mocha Ice Parfait in a Bitter-Chocolate Tuille. And, of course, Charlotte au Chocolat.”
― Charlotte Silver, Charlotte Au Chocolat: Memories of a Restaurant Girlhood

“When I was a child, I associated my parents with individual flavors. It was the same way you might filter someone through a prism of color--- thinking of some people in blues, other people in reds--- but instead of color, the sensation I latched on to was flavor. My mother's flavors were always those of the desserts she made--- suave caramels and milk chocolates and the delicate, utterly feminine accents of crystallized violets or buttery almonds. But my father's flavors--- my father's flavors were something else altogether. They were subtle and elusive and melted on the tongue only to vanish before you could place them. Dark, adult flavors, and slightly bitter: veal carpaccio. silvery artichokes. And, most of all, mushrooms: chanterelles, chicken of the woods, and--- my father's favorite mushroom of all--- trumpets of death.”
― Charlotte Silver, Charlotte Au Chocolat: Memories of a Restaurant Girlhood

“The martini glass teetered on the edge of the tray. When my waiter handed me the glass, the darker pink of the liquid splashed onto the lighter pink of the tablecloth. Maraschino cherries rimmed the orange slice floating in the center and the grenadine tinted the ice cubes pink.”
― Charlotte Silver, Charlotte Au Chocolat: Memories of a Restaurant Girlhood

“On a typical night at the Pudding, I might order an appetizer of shrimp rolled in brown-butter bread crumbs on skewers, so the oil wouldn't spread on your hands. For an entree: squab with black lentils and bacon, only in the pink light of the dining room the lentils weren't black, but blue--- a deep, inky blue. And for dessert, I might ask for my favorite treat: candied violets on a lace doily. My teeth cracked open each crystalline blossom, and I could smell the sheets of wax paper they came in mingled with the sugar.”
― Charlotte Silver, Charlotte Au Chocolat: Memories of a Restaurant Girlhood

“Kitchen people understood that food didn't have to be gourmet to taste good, and that sometimes gourmet food didn't taste good at all. "Kiwis are a soulless fruit," my mother once said when she saw them in a fruit tart on the Ritz's dessert tray. "Don't ever use sun-dried tomatoes," my father told his staff. "They'll take your magic powers." Even junk food could be better. Once, for Jake's birthday, the staff laid out his favorite foods--- frozen meatballs and Twinkies--- on brass serving plates in the dining room. When they sliced the Twinkies horizontally to expose the cream, even my mother admitted they made an attractive dessert.
At staff Christmas parties we served junk food, too: sour-cream-and-onion potato chips, chicken wings, and hot dogs, and for dessert more Twinkies. The rest of the year I never ate food like that, and by the holidays Cotswold tarts and melon wrapped in prosciutto bored me. In my black velvet dresses, I gnawed on fried drumsticks, with a napkin stuffed into my lace collars to catch the crumbs. "I'm not whipping up any foie gras for you tonight, kiddo," said Carla, who, in her olive-green T-shirt and holding a beer, looked the same as she did behind the line. "Fend for yourself.”
― Charlotte Silver, Charlotte Au Chocolat: Memories of a Restaurant Girlhood

“Meanwhile, on Dudley Road, stalks of rhubarb grew behind the blue-painted shed and roses bloomed on a bush above the cellar window. The swing set creaked. The stones in the garden path wobbled underneath my feet and there were pink sprigged cushions on the white wicker chairs on the porch. Inside, everything was pink and green, green and pink: the walls in my bedroom the color of the center of a raspberry thumbprint cookie, the floors the color of the sliver of green in after-dinner mints; the floor in my parents' bedroom the same, and the walls a smudged baby pink.”
― Charlotte Silver, Charlotte Au Chocolat: Memories of a Restaurant Girlhood

“My mother I associated with the softer, smoother flavors of the desserts she made, and with the landscape of our farmhouse--- especially with the garden she loved, the pink and lavender candy-land of geraniums, peonies, and sweet peas.”
― Charlotte Silver, Charlotte Au Chocolat: Memories of a Restaurant Girlhood

“White wrought-iron chairs scattered with blowsy cabbage roses. Robin's-egg blue porcelain cake stands, dotted with strawberries as small and red as lipstick kisses. Green-stemmed stools with speckled pink seats.”
― Charlotte Silver, Charlotte Au Chocolat: Memories of a Restaurant Girlhood

“The rest of life was just waiting, waiting to go back to the Pudding. It was as if the lights were always on at the Pudding and off everywhere else.
But those lights were soft, and the gentle, impressionistic shadows they shed on the dining room were always in the most delicate palette of peach, rose, and pinkish cream.”
― Charlotte Silver, Charlotte Au Chocolat: Memories of a Restaurant Girlhood

“Once upon a time, my father told me, fine dining meant baked lobster and cocktails. Not all restaurants could be counted on to have wine lists. But at Peasant Stock, they made osso bucco and cassoulet, and for dessert things like macaroon soufflé with apricot-brandy sauce. They never served ice cream, but some far more fascinating item called granita, in potent infusions of espresso or huckleberry or blood orange.”
― Charlotte Silver, Charlotte Au Chocolat: Memories of a Restaurant Girlhood

“Adults didn't like maraschino cherries; nobody ate them but me. "Never give Charlotte just one cherry in her Shirley Temple," everybody said. "Make it at least five or six." But I tired of cherries, just cherries.
So after a time, lemon, lime, and orange twists snaked around the brims. Dollops of Chantilly cream floated like water lilies on top of mint leaves in the fizzy pink water. The bartenders dipped sugar swizzles in grenadine overnight so they would look like pink rhinestones, capped cocktail straws with berries they had rolled in honey, and looped lemon peels around the stems of martini glasses. Everyone on the staff called those ones "Bondage Shirley Temples," and then they would wink at one another.”
― Charlotte Silver, Charlotte Au Chocolat: Memories of a Restaurant Girlhood

“To me, nothing showed how much times had changed more than the disappearance of the charlotte au chocolat. (It still appeared at weddings and special events, but was no longer available on the regular menu.) This came about when my mother stopped baking the desserts herself and hired a procession of young pastry chefs. These pastry chefs had gone to culinary school, and apparently they didn't understand charlotte au chocolat. It was an old-fashioned dessert, whose beauty spoke for itself; it didn't need any frills. But the pastry chefs liked embellishing desserts with frills now: star-shaped cookies and chocolate cigarettes and spun sugar that looked like golden spiderwebs. Now, whenever I ordered dessert, I chose from clementine granita with red-wine-poached pears, almond cake trimmed with candied orange rind, or triple-crème cheesecakes, soft and dripping with huckleberry sauce. Charlotte au chocolat was gone.”
― Charlotte Silver, Charlotte Au Chocolat: Memories of a Restaurant Girlhood

“His cuisine struck me as delicate, for the Pudding, which had always been known for its delicious but none-too-daring gentleman's club cuisine, the richer, the better. Gus's dishes included dabs of steak tartare placed on top of thinly peeled cucumbers and studded with quail eggs; poached sea bass on top of a scoop of asparagus puree; potatoes mousseline whipped so smooth you could not detect even the flecks of pepper.”
― Charlotte Silver, Charlotte Au Chocolat: Memories of a Restaurant Girlhood