So, I finally tackled that thing I’d been putting off, the one I just called the ‘marcelle provencial’ project in my head. It started simple enough. Found this old, stained index card tucked away in a box of my mom’s stuff. Looked like my grandmother’s handwriting, kinda shaky. All it said at the top was “Marcelle Provencial” and then a list of ingredients. No real instructions, you know? Just stuff like “tomatoes,” “good oil,” “herbs,” “pastry.” Classic.
I figured, why not? Let’s give it a shot. Went out to gather the bits and pieces. That was the first hurdle. What kind of tomatoes? Which herbs exactly? Provence is big on herbs. I just grabbed what looked good at the market – some nice ripe tomatoes, decent olive oil, rosemary, thyme. For the pastry, I just used a standard recipe I knew.
Getting Started (The Messy Part)
Okay, the first attempt was, well, let’s be honest, a bit of a disaster. I basically chopped everything up, chucked it in the pastry shell, and baked it. The result? Soggy bottom, kinda bland filling. Looked nothing like the vague picture I had in my mind. Felt pretty stupid, staring at this sad little tart thing. Almost threw the card out right then.
Here’s what I think went wrong initially:
- Rushing the whole process.
- Not pre-baking the pastry shell. Rookie mistake.
- Being too random with the herbs.
- Probably using the wrong kind of tomatoes, too watery maybe.
Taking a Step Back
I let it sit for a few days. Cleaned up the kitchen. Thought about my grandmother’s cooking. She was never fast. Everything took time. Maybe that was the key. And maybe “Marcelle Provencial” wasn’t a tart name, but just her nickname for this specific way of doing things, her ‘Provencal way’. Who knows? She wasn’t exactly Marcelle, but maybe it reminded her of someone or someplace.
So, I decided to approach it differently. Slow down. Be more deliberate. I remembered she used to let tomatoes sit out to concentrate the flavour sometimes. And the pastry definitely needed blind baking.
Round Two (And Three, and Four…)
The next weekend, I tried again. Carefully salted the tomatoes and let them drain a bit. Blind baked the crust until it was properly golden. Layered the ingredients more thoughtfully this time, adding some thinly sliced onions I thought might work. Used a specific mix of Herbes de Provence instead of just random sprigs.
And you know what? It was way better. Like, actually good. The crust was crisp. The flavours were much brighter. It still wasn’t some mind-blowing revelation, and I’m still not 100% sure what the original on that card was supposed to be like, but it felt like progress. Real progress.
Since then, I’ve made it a few more times. Tweaking things slightly. A little garlic here, different cheese sprinkled on top there. Sometimes it’s better, sometimes it’s just different. It’s become less about perfectly recreating some lost recipe and more about just the process, the tinkering. It’s kinda relaxing, actually. The latest version is sitting on the cooling rack right now. Still not ‘perfect’, whatever that means, but it’s mine. And it tastes pretty darn good.
