Puff Pastry & Home Improvement

I awoke this morning thinking about puff pastry.

Puff pastry, for those of you who don't know, is one of those amazing French inventions from the 18th century. It is indispensable even in the 21st. We usually buy it in the frozen food section, though 2 small sheets for almost $4 is a rip-off. Once, I managed to score a restaurant-box of 25 16" x 20" sheets for about $55 at Sysco in NY. It lived in my big basement freezer for over 2 years, ready for quick desserts or appetizers, a party on short notice, a cooking class where I could demonstrate why everyone needs puff pastry in the freezer at all times. It also had the bonus of parchment paper between each sheet, so I didn't have to buy that for baking either.

Making it from scratch however, is something out of literature, like spinning straw into gold or the umpteen labors of Hercules. In culinary school, we once spent a day making puff pastry on giant stainless steel tables, interminably encasing pounds of butter in pastry dough, rolling and turning, folding and chilling, then rolling and turning, folding and chilling again. And again. And yet again. By the end of the day, I was convinced of the absolute wonder and necessity of buying it in a box at Sysco or the grocery store, whatever the cost.

The results of all that rolling and turning and folding and chilling is a marvel too. Within a few hours, the number of alternate layers of butter & dough increases geometrically, so by the end of the day, you have what is known in French as "mille fuille," or "thousand layers."

When the cold dough is put into a hot oven, the water inside the butter turns to steam, lifting the layers and puffing the dough. The result is heavenly--the base for fragile, brittle, buttery Napolean pastries, filled with cream and chocolate, or shaped shells to be filled with savory fillings like herbed mushrooms or sauced seafood. Or my favorite quick dessert, slapped in a pie pan, filled with fruit, with the rectangular corners folded over toward the center, when puffed up and fanned out and sprinkled with coarse sugar, made for a faux pie crust that was more elegant than the same old crust that everyone else made.

So why in the world am I waking up with thoughts of puff pastry? Was I folding and rolling it out in my dreams? Not the most perceptive of humans, I'm missing the symbolism here.

We have spent the last two days working on the floor of the loft, getting it ready for the carpet installers on the day of my surgery. My hands are sore from ripping up the nasty old water-damaged carpet and the disintegrating pad that sifts a sand-like substance on the floor. And the floor is rotten in spots too. It was never built right to begin with (like the rest of the house). Particle-board floors were a bad idea, even 20 years ago. But because we waited too long to begin this project, there is no time to replace it all, just enough time to patch the particularly bad spots. Once the pad is pulled up and the "sand" vacuumed, then all the staples have to be pulled out with needle-nosed pliers. Hence, sore hands. And sore tempers. Bill knocked a hammer down the HVAC vent yesterday and I was sure the swearing could be heard halfway down the mountain, perhaps even in town. I had to resist the urge to laugh out loud. What else can you do but laugh?

So that's where our lives are today, somewhere between the sublimity of puff pastry and the absurdity of a hammer stuck down in the heating vents.

Today, when the floor is finally done, (and perhaps, with luck, the hammer retrieved), I will pack a bag for next week's medical follies. Life goes on, as they say.