Does anyone want to take this Tart home??

An intriguing kitchen encounter. A very dodgy cookbook. Friday night. A brand new flan tin. Oslo Court. Mood lighting. Tart tartine. What a brilliant way to end a fuck all week. I pacify my already growling stomach with the grapes and Camembert I cunningly brought along as Sonia makes me a much needed chai. I'm beyond impressed at her choice of a tart tartine for dinner and her newly acquired collection of posh accouterments (dinner was delayed due to belated realisation of a missing flan tin for her choice of main course.... resulting in a mad dash after work). For a woman who doesn't cook, you can't fault her ambition! I've worked in a commercial kitchen and I'd never invite people over on a workday and bake a tartine! Fools go where angels fear?
A-ha! She's got ready made pastry! Why didn't I ever think of that?? Apparently, it's angels who go where fools fear to tread! Unfortunately, the roll of pastry resembles a nightstick, and my knowledge doesn't cover optimal defrosting methods for puff pastry. Still, we deliberate over options, and decide to risk the microwave for an experimental zap. Hmmm - a glimmer of success... we peel off a layer as far along the solid mass as possible and pause for another confabulation. Right, executive decision. Decapitate the pastry, and stick the rest back in to the microwave. One final iteration, and we have pliable pastry. Chuffed with our escapade, we take a little snack break and quaff the rest of the wine. Uh-oh. Her rolling pin is sneaking around somewhere in the kitchen... plan B. Call Dimple, wake her and get her to bring hers. I leave Sonia to deal with a piteously moaning Dimple who is recovering from a Friday post lunch work related alcohol overindulgence, and polish off all of Sonia's grapes. Small consolation given the pathetic knives I have to choose between to hack my way through the onions and tomatoes!
The rolling pin arrives with much fanfare; well a shriek I let out at the unexpected jarring of the bell that rudely interrupted my assessment of Sonia's baingan frying (this book is so dubious, it actually says to fry multitudinous slices of aubergine in 1 tbsp of oil... and get this, 'in the remaining oil, fry the peppers'.....!!! obviously, any knowledge of food is deemed unnecessary by the purveyors of bad taste). The aroma of the begun bhaja sends Dimple into ecstasies of anticipation of Bong food, which are unceremoniously destroyed by Sonia. Sean snuffs around the house looking for a light switch. Mood lighting apparently isn't his thing.... any more than a tart tartine is. We eventually get around to the filling... hang on a sec. Rice??? We're filling the tartine with rice? Who wrote that book?! Dimple exhorts me to add more rice..'that won't be enough for 4 of us.. aur daalo'. For the love of God! What are we making here, Biryani? Sonia panics as well - the 19 inch flan tin rendering the contents of the pan Lilliputian, and I shut my eyes and keep stirring as the rice piles on. As Dimple polishes of a bag of crisps with Olympian dedication, Sean gestures to a sheaf of basil and asks if that's enough while moaning on about daal chawal. I'm just glad I had a head start with half a wheel of Camembert. Dimple insists the book doesn't mention a temperature for the oven (not surprising given she's reading off the recipe for timbales!).
Finally, we're ready for the pastry. The pastry we all forgot about. Sweatily goopy in it's lonliness. A few dabs of flour... but wait, we have logistic meltdown. A 2'x3' kitchen is no place to roll out anything to cover a 19' tin! We improvise. Leave the pastry in the 3 bits we'd zapped them in, we'll just stick 'em together over the flan. Except, the pastry fights back. Sean's now discreetly whispering at Dimple, before turning to me desperately miming, 'where is the light switch?'. Sonia assumes my eye rolling shrug is for the pastry. Eventually, we manhandle it into submission, and thrust it into the oven before it has a chance to retaliate. Onto the salad (naturally, at Sonia's, nothing is simple, and there's a dressing that needed to be beaten, Halloumi grilled and grapes washed).
25 minutes later, it's a miracle. The pastry is golden brown, and the tart begging to be devoured. The table looks sophisticated, the diners, hungry. Dimple cuts the tart into quarters.... somewhat nonplussed when we point a single piece is bigger than her face. The flipping of the tart on my plate leaves me with what resembles dinner hastily brushed past by an absent minded dog. We get Sonia's picture perfect, complete with the fetching salad on the side. Bon Apetit! I have to admit, it's not bad. Weird, but not bad. A bit like eating dinner and dessert at the same time. The rice bit is tasty (Dimple sheepishly admits we might have gone overboard...!), like an anglicised bisi bele bhat, and the pastry, is well, pretty good pastry. A tad surreal, not to mention heavy, but we manage to demolish more than half, as I pick off the random veggies from Dimple's plate. Naturally, as a vegetarian, she doesn't like aubergines, peppers or olives...... Sean, sportingly chomps down his piece before asking if there's any plain rice, dahi and achaar.... Sonia is gracious enough not to whack him with the flan tin, and we settle down to the discovery that you get 25% off on your council tax if you live alone, as we dip spons into a fudge brownie that makes your teeth hurt.
Not sure if Sonia's plaintive, 'Does anyone want to take this Tart home?' was Freudian or not, gales of laughter not withstanding, we thought it appropriate to leave it for her to mull over for breakfast. Next time, we're going to try a quiche....