Toast

If At First: A Ricotta Tart with Pine Nut Praline and a Warning

I found this recipe on Nick Malgieri's website. I have seen quite a few recipes for this traditional Italian ricotta-pinenut tart-some with the pinenuts encorporated into the pastry, some in the topping. This is a sweet version, but I have seen savory versions with spinach- and I must say they look nice too.

Mario Batali says that you will find a ricotta pinenut tart in virtually every bakery in Italy-it is a traditional classic. He suggests that a slice with a glass of wine in the afternoon is the way to go, and I am inclined to agree, now that I have ahem, calmed down. It is lush and creamy, not too sweet, and has nice little bursts of flavor and texture from the peel, caramel., and pine nuts.I liked it, and my friends did too.

I've been looking at all these recipes for awhile, deciding which to try. The arrival of a Mother's Day gift including a glorious immense bag of pine nuts tipped the balance in favor of this recipe, which carmelizes and highlights the pinenuts. It is the creation of Jo Bettoja, an American cooking teacher, author, long time resident of Italy, and friend to Mr. Malgieri. I have adapted this only very slightly from the recipe on the website, for your convenience, in case you decide to make it- which course of action I cautiously recommend, as explained below.

Caramelized Pine Nuts
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
3/4 cup (about 3 ounces) pine nuts, lightly toasted

Dough
2 cups all-purpose flour (spoon flour into dry-measure cup and level off)
1/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, cold, and cut into 10 pieces
2 teaspoons finely grated orange or lemon zest
4 large egg yolks
2 tablespoons milk or water

Ricotta Filling.
2 pounds whole-milk ricotta
1/2 cup sugar
2 teaspoons grated orange zest
4 large eggs
Caramelized Pine Nuts (see above), chopped into 1/4-inch pieces

One 9-inch round pan, 2 inches deep, buttered

Caramelized pine nuts: Butter a jelly roll pan. Mix the sugar and lemon juice in a medium saucepan and stir. Cook over a medium flame, stirring with a metal spoon, until the sugar starts to melt .Decrease the heat to low and cook until it is a deep amber color. Immediately stir in the pine nuts and pour the mixture onto the buttered jelly roll pan. Let the nuts cool for a few minutes. When they are firm, but not hard, loosen the caramel from the pan with a wide spatula and turn it over to prevent sticking.

When it is firm and cooled-chop it up with a large knife. You can store it in an airtight tin, if you like.

The dough is easiest to make in a food processor, so I will give you those directions. You can make it by hand, though. I did, my processor having recently given up the ghost (Shortly after I made this tart, I gave in and got a new one on sale- a nice little 7 cup Kitchenaid with an additional small bowl and blade): Combine the dry ingredients in the work bowl of a food processor fitted with the metal blade. Pulse several times to mix. Add the butter and pulse about 10 times to mix the butter in finely. Add the orange zest, yolks, and water and pulse repeatedly until the dough forms a ball. Invert the dough to a floured work surface and carefully remove the blade. Squeeze the dough into a disk, wrap it in plastic, and refrigerate it while preparing the filling. You can put this in the fridge for 2 days before proceeding, or freeze for a couple of months..

Preheat to 350F.

Filling: Put your ricotta in a large mixing bowl and beat it smooth with a large rubber spatula. Beat in the sugar and orange zest. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, beating smooth after each addition. Stir in half the chopped pine nut caramel.

Remove the dough from the refrigerator and gently knead it on a floured surface until it is smooth. Place it on a floured surface. Flour the dough and roll it to a 13-inch circle. Transfer it to the prepared pan. Press the dough well into the bottom and sides of the pan. Use a bench scraper or the back of a knife to sever the excess dough at the rim of the pan.

Pour the filling into the pan and smooth the top. Sprinkle with the rest of the pinenut praline. Use a table knife to loosen any dough on the side of the pan above the filling and turn it down over the filling.

Bake the tart until the dough is baked through and the filling is slightly puffed, about 45 minutes.
Cool the tart on a rack, wrap the pan in plastic, and chill. Thoroughly. Well. I mean this most emphatically, as you will see.

To unmold the tart, for serving, warm the bottom of the pan over low heat for a few seconds. Invert the tart to a rack and remove the pan. Replace the pan with a platter and invert the whole stack and remove the rack. Obvious alternative-springform pan. I used a deeper, smaller pan, more like 7" at the bottom, and a bit wider at the top, aiming for a taller tart, which I hoped would look impressive. It is certainly tall. If you do this, it will take longer to bake and set, of course-in my case, over an hour. Stoves vary wildly, too.

Warning: I do like it tall, but it is a bit tricky to handle this way. In fact, you are looking at my second tart. I was impatient, and didn't let the first one chill properly. It was pretty when it first came out, but slowly, slowly cracked, quivered and collapsed into a trainwreck/ mudslide before my eyes. I reacted to this baking disaster with all the aplomb of a disappointed toddler. Be glad you were not there to witness the event. After I hastily reassembled my persona, the blubbery mass, studded with caramelly nuts, was delicious served in bowls- so I knew I had to try again. Stubbornly, I used the same deeper, smaller pan.

In retrospect, a picture of the first tart, fully collapsed, would have been good here. It didn't occur to me at the time. After the cave-in of the tart, and my personal disintegration, I was way too giggle-ridden to operate a camera. Anyhow, I had the hiccups.

Rushing the Pie: Pre-season Strawberry Rhubarb

Well, I don't live in California, and I have a way to go before the local fruit is ready. I've been pretty good about this all winter...it's not usually that hard. I don't like supermarket strawberries anyway, and there have been plenty of pears, and gorgeous citrus to placate me. I have my preserves from last summer; they are not totally gone yet. But I also have lovely, snowy lard I rendered for my rilettes project, and I've been wanting to try a butter-lard piecrust. I have a birthday pie to make for a friend.

I just didn't feel like making another pumpkin pie or a custardy one. And much as I love a lemon tart-I make them all the time, and wasn't in the mood. So I went to the store and bought some strawberries and rhubarb. Rationalization: The potato-y qualities of the steroidal supermarket berries are mitigated by cooking, and the store-bought rhubarb is just fine, usually.

I made the crust from 2 cups of flour ,a pinch of salt, 3 quarters of a stick of butter, and an equal amount of lard. I processed these in the cuisinart, in bursts, until it looked mealy. I added icewater in a stream, while it was running, just until it clumped-into the fridge to chill for just over an hour, before rolling out. (Have I mentioned recently how I love my little bargain basement pastry marble? It is amazing how much easier rolling out pastry can be.)

The filling was made of one pound each of strawberries and rhubarb, cut in chunks, 1/4 cup sugar, 1/4 "brownulated" sugar, a generous sprinkling of cornstarch, and a tsp of cinnamon. I took shuna's advice and just gave the rhubarb a sponge bath before cutting. I did not want it to go watery, and so did not wash it after cutting. I glazed the top crust with beaten egg-yolk for color and shine.

The pie baked for 20 minutes at 400F, and took over an hour after that at 350F to finish and get golden. The fissure you see occured when I stuck my thumb in some scalding overflowed juices, and plonked the pyrex pie pan back down hard. I now have an unsightly bandage on my thumb, as I cannot find any bandaids of the correct size and shape to protect my free-form abstract-expressionist blister. Sigh.

Pie Analysis/Wrap-up

The verdict on the crust: Best texture of all pie crusts made to date. Thin, tender, flaky. Taste is very good, not as wonderful in this department as all butter crust, however. All aspects considered, though, this is my favorite of all piecrusts I've made-especially for a 2 crust pie (vs. open tart). Definitely will not go to all lard-I need some of that buttery flavor.

Verdict on the pie as a whole: Very good. Much less runny than prior rhubarb pies-cooked for a long time, but rhubarb kept some shape. Thank you, shuna. No more washing cut up rhubarb for me. Not a lot of strawberry taste, but it was yummy because the rhubarb was very good. However, with rhubarb, a second, firmer fruit is needed to give the pie body. Next time I make this, if there are no real strawberries, I am going to use pears instead, and ginger instead of cinnamon.

Paula Wolfert's Prune and Apple Tart with Filo Rosettes

It is difficult to come up with a title for this lovely dessert which doesn't make it sound chef-y and/or fussy. Ms. Wolfert calls it a "Prune and Apple Pastry Cake", but to my mind there isn't anything very cake-like about it. It is really more of a pie. The only thing which makes it a little tricky, is that it requires 30 "prunes in armagnac," which must be made at least 2 weeks earlier. It is terribly pretty, without looking excessively shoppy or done up, it smells heavenly, and is a dreamy combination of flavors and textures. I would feel happily spoilt if someone made one for me.

I have been fooling around with prunes according to PW's recipes in her splendid new edition of The Cooking of Southwest France, for some weeks, so I actually had the prepared prunes in the house. I had some friends coming to dinner, and an otherwise easy menu: Pork Rilettes on toast and some olives (already made), My mother's party chicken dish with roasted veg (easily assembled), salad (ditto), and crusty bread (bought). So I had time to do this tart, and I was not sorry I did.

Whenever I make a PW recipe, I try to follow it exactly the first time. This takes a certain amount of discipline, as ideas come to mind while cooking, and they always seem brilliant at the time. But her recipes are very carefully thought out and planned to lead to particular flavours and textures. I like to get an idea of exactly what something is supposed to taste like, before I vary it in any way. So I tried to adhere as much as possible to her directions, and I was very pleased with the fragrant result, with its crisp, soft, and chewy textures, and exotic not-too-sweet- sweetness.

If you would like to try this, and it is really not terribly hard- just needs a little planning- you will first need to make some prunes in armagnac. The recipe for these (and directions for making prune and armagnac icecream!) can be found on Paula Wolfert's website. You will also need some prepared filo dough, unless you are a strudel maker. PW recommends purchasing a thicker-than-ordinary-filo strudel type dough, if possible. Though I live in a smallish and provincial city, I am lucky enough to live near a Turkish deli (Turquoise, on Murray Ave, here in Pittsburgh), which stocks a thicker "country style" filo-8-10 sheets to a pack. But PW says you can use standard filo too.

This is what you need for the tart (minimally adapted):
apples (I used Pink Ladies) 2 1/2 lbs peeled , cored and sliced
sugar 3/4 cup plus 2 tbsps
lemon zest 2 thin strips
a vanilla bean, split
prunes in armagnac 30, in 5 tbsps of their syrup
melted clarified butter 1/3 cup
orange flower water 1/2 sp
armagnac 2 tsps
strudel or filo leaves, thicker "country style" filo, if available.
confectioner's sugar or sanding sugar

Preheat the oven to 400F. Get a 12 to 15 inch quiche or pizza pan ready, buttering it lightly all over.

First, cook the apples with the sugar, vanilla, and lemon zest in a heavy pot, over a low heat, until quite soft. Set aside to cool. Cut up the prunes and put them in a bowl with 1/4 cup of their syrup. In a third bowl,mix 2 tbsps of the butter with the remaining 1 tbsp syrup,1 tbsp sugar, the orange flower water, and the Armagnac. Arrange these bowls in your work area, with the rest of the butter in a fourth bowl with a pastry brush.

Unwrap your filo leaves and cover with a damp towel to keep moist. Brush the first leaf with butter, fold it in half length-wise, and butter both sides. Set it in the pan, with one short end at the center, and the other hanging over the edge. Do the same with the next leaf, and overlap it,and the rest of the leaves, each just slightly over the preceding leaf, moving spiral-fashion round the pan, so that the entire bottom of the pan is covered and flat, and leaves hang over the outside all around. There is an excellent line drawing in the PW book, which is very much clearer than this wordy explanation. The overlap in the center is thick, while on the outside, the leaves just touch.

Now, arrange the cut-up prunes in a 10" circle in the center. Drain the apples, and place on top of the prunes. Sprinkle the orange-flower mixture over the exposed inside of the leaves. Start with the last leaf added and flip the bottom over to the top side. Roll it loosely, like a crepe-paper rose, and set the rosette atop the fruit. continue around in order, setting the rosettes on top pf the fruit loosely, to more or less cover the entire top. Work quickly, and handle the leaves lightly so that they do not dry out, or tear. You can push them around quite easily to cover the surface, so don't feel you have to pull hard on the filo!

Sprinkle and drizzle the remaining butter over all, and dust with the sugar. Set in the oven, bake 12 minutes and turn the heat right down to 350. Cook another 20-30 minutes or so until golden. Set on a rack to cool, and sprinkle with some more sugar. When cooled, sprinkle with a bit of confectioner's or sanding sugar.

This is a pretty pastry, and it smells even better than it looks- very souk-y, fragrant and mellow. Also, it tastes just fine.

Raised Cabbage Pie

If you are just going to have a quick supper, before or after you go out, it is nice to have something simple you can serve at room temperature, with a beer or a glass of wine and a salad. This is a pretty elegant alternative, I think, and not too fussy to make. It would make quite a classy picnic in better weather, and I intend to take wedges to work for lunch. It could easily be the major part of a party-ish lunch for guests, including vegetarians.

From Moscow, via Massachusetts, and adapted from Nick Malgieri's Baker's Tour, Pirog Kapustoi was fun to make, and I think it looks damn cute, too. NM notes that it can also be made with a flaky pastry, if you prefer, rather than the raised dough. I really like the raised dough with a savory pie, though. I've got my eye on another recipe from the same cookbook, which has a brioche-like dough, and a cheese/ham/pea filling. It's a little more of an undertaking, but I think I'll give it a try, too. If you would like to make this freeform cabbage pie, you will need:

Raised Crust

warm water one cup
dry yeast 2 1/2 tsp
unbleached APflour 3 cups
salt 1 tsp
unsalted butter, melted and cooled 3 tbsp

Filling
finely shredded cabbage-pref savoy 1 1/2 lbs
salt 1/2 tsp
unsalted butter 2 tbsps
1 clove garlic, minced
sugar 2 tsps
hard cooked eggs, chopped 2
tarragon, to taste

Cover a cookie sheet with parchment, and make the dough:

Pour the water into the bowl of an electric mixer, and whisk in the yeast. Add flour, salt and butter, and stir with a rubber spatula. Mix, with dough hook, on lowest speed for 2 minutes. Cover and let it rest 10 minutes. Then, mix on medium speed for 3 to 4 minutes, til smooth. Plop into a buttered bowl, and flip it to butter all sides. Cover and let it rise til doubled, about an hour.

Toss the cabbage with salt, and wring it out to get as much moisture out as possble. Melt butter, add cabbage, tarragon, garlic and sugar, and cook down, stirring until cabbage is wilted and reduced, and fairly soft. Cool. Fold in chopped eggs. Preheat oven to 400F.

Divide the dough in half. On a floured surface, roll the dough to a 10" disk, handling as little as possible. If it is resistant, let it rest a bit before trying to extend it further. Transfer dough to parchment covered pan. Spread filling on dough, leaving an outside border of one inch. Grate fresh black pepper over all.

Now, roll out the 2nd half of the dough as you did the first. Brush the outer rim of the bottom crust with water. Fold the top crust in quarters. Set it over the filled bottom crust, with the point in the center of the filling, and unfold neatly. Press around the edges firmly, and roll both crusts in toward the center 1/2". Squash the edges together with a fork, to seal. Cut several vent holes in top crust. Brush all over with water, and bake about 30 minutes, until it is a nice golden color. Cool on a rack, and serve at room temperature.

I added the garlic and tarragon, which I love with cabbage, thinking that the seasoning in the original was a bit subtle for my taste. Even with these additions, this pie benefits from being served with a sharpish sauce, or something pickled. I served it with a sourcream/horseradish mixture; something mustardy would also be good.

Three Rivers Lemon Tart

You may not remember the saga of my little Meyer Lemon tree at the office, with its one heroic lemon. If you are interested, you can find it here. I am delighted to report that this good sized lemon has actually ripened. So , while the bent and straining 18" tree recovers from it's outsize burden, I'm going to make something of my one fruit citrus crop.

Back when I first posted about my indoor lemon-of-the-north, I made a lemon tart recipe that has been a standard with me, and a much favored dessert. I made it with some inferior store-bought puff pastry, and some supermarket meyer lemons and it was very nice anyhow. But I have been looking around for something that only needs one lemon, so I will know that I am tasting the Pittsburgh Lemon when I try it.

I was tickled when I saw that this week's NYTimes Magazine featured lemons and some good sounding things to do with them. Although I have a few bones to pick with foodwriter Amanda Hesser from time to time , we agree entirely on the importance of the lemon. Like Ms. Hesser, I believe that the lemon is a sparkler and a "desert island" item. Food, drink, seasoning, preservative,gelling agent, antiseptic, perfume-there's nothing else quite like it. There are a number of recipes in the article I intend to try-a lemoncello, a Babbo vinagrette, and the chicken, all appeal. (Although for lemon chicken it's hard to beat just roasting a bird with a couple of morroccan-style preserved lemons and some garlic inside.) But none of the recipes were one-lemon items, so they must wait.

In the end, I decided on a slightly adapted version of the one lemon tart from Dorie Greenspan's Paris Sweets, a favorite collection of French desserts. This recipe is from Rollet-Pradier, a Parisian patisserie and tea shop, and it uses every scrap of the fruit, except the seeds. Just the thing for my treasured and cossetted lemon. If you would like to make it too, this is what you need:

1 partially baked 9" tart shell (which I made from ordinary all-butter homemade pastry)
1 "average" lemon, washed and dried (average refers to size...mine was average in size only, I was sure)
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1 1/2 tbsps cornstarch
1 stick unsalted butter, melted and cooled.

This is what you do:
Preheat oven to 325F. Line a baking sheet with parchment. Put the partly baked shell, in its tart pan, on the sheet. Slice the lemon and remove all seeds. Put in food processor with the sugar and puree thoroughly, Pour in a bowl, whisk in the eggs, then the cornstarch, and finally the butter. Pour into crust. Bake 20 minutes. Turn oven to 350 and bake until bubbly and browned, about 20 minutes more, per Ms. Greenspan. Mine took more like 40 minutes, but my oven is cranky. Cool to room temp, remove from pan, and devour with like minded lemon aficiondos.

Call me crazy, but I may go so far as trying to plant the seeds, which I have not yet thrown out.

Mincemeat Plan

If you would enjoy some fragrant, spicy mince tarts for the winter holidays, and don't want to buy your mincemeat at the Giant Eagle or a place of that ilk, now is a good time to put up a few bottles. After an unusually hot summer here, we are finally beginning a crisp fall, and the smell of this stuff burbling away stove-top seems to fit in with the change nicely. Since part of the goodness of this item will be the saturation of the other ingredients with the rum, it is a good idea to plan for some time on the shelf soaking it up. If you don't use all your mincemeat this year, it will still be good next year-or a quart bottle would make a generous gift.

This recipe makes three quarts, and is vegetarian (no suet), so that vegetarian kin will be able to participate in end product eating. Also, as you may have deduced, it is a partial answer to the pleasant problem of my endless half bushel of green tomatoes. Thus far, these guys have been turned into both jam and pickles. This is absolutely it, the end of the line for the green tomatoes. There were three tomatoes left, which got fried up for breakfast, and they are done. I know I have said this before, and have already used the word "finale" in a green tomato context. But now there are none left, so I truly must stop posting about green tomatoes, unless I take a purely theoretical approach.

This stuff does need to be processed in a boiling water bath, requires a fair amount of pre-chopping, and cooks for about an hour and a half before you bottle it. It is, nonetheless, really pretty easy. You need not hover over it constantly as it boils down; you can do something else close by, and check on it from time to time. It won't need a close eye and constant spoon until it is nearly ready. It doesn't have to jell like jam; you just want it thick and brown- very little liquid should be left. All you need to do is to put the following ingredients in a good sized (at least 5qt) non-reactive pot:

2 qts. of diced (1/2" or so) green tomatoes
8 medium apples, stems removed, whirred in a food processor, skin, pits and all, and reduced to smallish rubble
1 lemon, skin on, also whirred in a food processor
1 orange, skin on, coasely chopped
2 cups mixed raisins
2/3 cup dried cranberries
1 cup dried cherries
3-4 cups dark brown sugar
2/3 cup cider vinegar
2 tsps ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground allspice
pinch ground cloves

Cook it for about an hour and a half, until it is thick, dark, and has very little liquid. Add 1/4 cup of rum and cook a few minutes more. Ladle into 3 sterilized quart jars. Cap with 2 piece canning lids, and process in a boiling water bath for 20 minutes. Cool overnight and check the seal. Place on pantry shelf. Hum to yourself and gloat.

n.b. My definition of "pantry" includes any place where preserved or long life foods are gathered on a shelf, waiting to be chosen. Maybe, in another life, I'll have a separate larder. But I consider myself fortunate to have a dark corner of my rented kitchen furnished with some wire shelves.

Dinner for R's Birthday Part I I: Prune-Plum Tart

Once again, I am mixing up the order of a series of 3 posts about a dinner party with the dessert, this time, in the middle. This is not because of any wish to be contrary, but because the dessert is generally complete before anyone arrives. So it's easy to photograph ahead. Just so you know.

This dessert is not a birthday cake, per se. But I think it is charming, and it is easy and of the season. It looks dark and sticky, because it is. The Gourmet Cookbook,where I found it, notes that this would be a satisfying project for a beginning baker, because of its simplicity. I would qualify that , saying that for pastry, it is very easy indeed. But if you want to talk really easy, and good, there are any number of excellent cakes that are even simpler. This would include the one I'm making next. (Link at the end, read on.) I added the glaze, because I thought the homemade preserve would make a nice one. (Also, I was on a roll with this concept, after success with an orange almond cake glaze.)

This tart is made with italian-style prune plums. I was inspired by the raptures of my child, the redfox, with respect to the neglected, oft-ridiculed and entirely fabulous dried plum, a/k/a the prune. The prune type fresh plums have been especially good of late, even the supermarket ones. It may be that like grapes for wine, plums intensify in flavor in a dry growing season. Don Kretschmann, the farmer behind my CSA Farmbox, opined that this may be the reason that the tomatoes here in western PA have been so particularly good this year. (Last summer, which was rainy, the tomatoes were less stupendous.) Perhaps, if dried, these plums would make exceptional prunes. In any event, I got these tasty prune plums right at the old Giant Eagle. I had a hard time not eating them all up fresh. This is what I did with them:

A day ahead I made the tart shell and macerated the plums. I put the tart shell, covered, in the freezer, and refrigerated the plums in a ceramic bowl.

For the tart shell you need:

1 stick plus one tbsp good unsalted butter, chilled, and cut into cubes
1 1/2 cups flour
1/4 cup sugar
pinch salt
pinch grated lemon zest
3 egg yolks (my eggs are small, 2 extra larges would work)

Put everything but the yolks in a food processor and process in short spurts until it is about like oatmeal in texture. Add eggs and process just until it starts to clump. Remove pastry/dough in handfulls (handsfull?). Smear each handful across a clean surface (I used my big cutting board) with the heel of your hand, and then gather the lot up into a flat disc. Place the disc inside a 9" loose bottom tart pan, and spread the dough out evenly across the bottom, and up the sides. Bring it up a little bit higher than the pan sides. Chill, wrapped, until ready to bake. (I froze mine.)

For the filling you need:

about 26 little italian prune plums- halved and pitted
1/2 cup sugar
2 tbsps of cornstarch
squeeze of 1/2 lemon

Mix this up gently in a ceramic bowl. Crumple up some parchment paper, dampen and cover bowl with the paper, resting gently on the fruit. Refrigerate overnight.

Preheat oven to 425F. Arrange plums in pastry shell, skin side down, slightly overlapping, in concentric circles. (If you overlap them, when they shrink, they will still cover the whole tart bottom.)Pou all their juices and sugar over them. Put in oven for 25 minutes. Turn down to 375, cover loosely with foil, and cook for another 40 minutes or so. Remove from oven, to a rack.

Optional but very nice: Heat a jar of plum jam. If it is homemade plum jam with gewurtz and vanilla, that can be a plus. I think it would be pretty hard to find a plum jam that was unacceptable, though. In general, my plum jam consuming experiences have been very good indeed.

Pour about 3 tbsps of the liquified jam over the warm tart, and brush it over the plums with a pastry brush. This tart will look very wet when it first starts to cool ,even if you don't add jam, but it thickens and shines up nicely in the 2 hrs it takes to cool completely. After that you can take the sides off the pan to serve. Some creme fraiche is a good gilding for this lily. Very nice with coffee. Some port would not have been amiss. It is very prune-y tasting stuff, and I'm all for that.

Soon to follow (though in life it went before): Wild Mushroom Lasagna.

Next week when it's my turn to make Friday night dinner, I'm going to look for some more of these fine prune-plums, and make my daughter's plum cake for my friends. I will, however, beware of contact with the "Heat Bombs of Death." Let the plums continue....