Jenny McCoy's Fresh Fig Tartlets with Goat Cheese & Red Wine Syrup

This past Spring I wrote a blog series for the Southern Foodways Alliance called "Give Me Some Sugar" on Southern women pastry chefs. Among the list of talented women I spoke to were Virginian-turned-New Yorker Christina Tosi of Momofuku Milk Bar, Phoebe Lawless of Durham's Scratch Bakery, and Dolester Miles of Birmingham's Bottega, who recently wowed attendees at the SFA 2013 Symposium with her toasted cornmeal pound cake. One chef I sadly missed is Jenny McCoy. Jenny comes from a long line of Alabama natives, and along with her work in pastry and teaching at the Institute of Culinary Education, she's also a writer, contributing to Serious Eats and The Huffington Post. She also just released a beautiful new cookbook Jenny McCoy's Desserts for Every Season.

The book is arranged seasonally, with the likes of Meyer Lemon and Pistachio Tarts and Moonshine Eggnog in the Winter, Rhubarb-Rose Water Crumble & Cherry Cola Sorbet in the Spring, and Peach and Sweet Corn Ice Cream Cake in the Summer. For Autumn, Jenny is sharing with us her Fresh Fig Tartlets with Goat Cheese & Red Wine Syrup. She says that the recipe came about when she was baking for the 10th Anniversary Celebration at Craft in New York City. When she and pastry chef Claudia Fleming couldn't agree on a dessert, they let guests create their own in a dessert buffet of tart shells, fillings, and fruits. Figs with goat cheese cream and red wine syrup was her favorite combination.

But as they say in Reading Rainbow, you don't have to take my word for it! Find that fig tart recipe below, and check out the cookbook, and Jenny's website and twitter here and here.

PieLab

Nothing-In-The-House hopes to take a trip to this combination pie shop/design studio in the next year...

PieLab from PieLab on Vimeo.

"Pie + Conversation = Ideas / Ideas + Design = Positive Change"

Find out more about Greensboro, Alabama's PieLab here.

Pies for Social Change: Georgia Gilmore and the Club From Nowhere

Here at Nothing-In-The-House we get very excited about ideas and examples of food (particularly pies, of course) and community and food as an agent for social change, especially through a re-purposing of domesticity. Georgia Gilmore was a Civil Rights hero who put these ideas into practice, starting "The Club From Nowhere," a group of women who baked pies and cakes to raise money for the 1955-1956 Montgomery Bus Boycott. Mrs. Gilmore also opened her Montgomery, Alabama home kitchen as a meeting place for activists like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., providing them not only with a safe space to convene, but nourishing them with delicious home-cooked meals.

Check out this story about her and the Club from Nowhere, done by the amazing Kitchen Sisters in their Hidden Kitchens series. GO GEORGIA!