"madeleines" news and stories

The subject is madeleines, so let's get the inevitable Marcel Proust mention out of the way. While it's fascinating that the taste of these delicate little cakes jogged the memories of the melancholy Frenchman in Remembrance of Things Past, what's more intriguing to me about Proust is that he wrote in bed to shut out the world. I love fat, light and spongy madeleines, but this was a more useful writer's lesson. There's even a reconstruction of Proust's cork-lined bedroom at Paris's Musée Carnavalet.

But back to tea cakes. Blogger Tracey's Culinary Adventures turned to chef Marcus Samuelsson and his latest cookbook, New American Food, for this recipe for the buttery shell-shaped French cakes, made lively with lemon juice and zest. They're perfect to include on a tray when you're lying in bed in the afternoon with a pot of tea and a notebook that you may or may not write in.

For more recipes from Marcus Samuelsson, visit Kitchen Daily.

Become a member of the Slashfood Flickr pool to get a shot of having your photos featured in Feast Your Eyes.

Last spring, I took a class about the theory of the narrative in short stories and writing. One of the books we read in pursuit of learning about different styles of narrative flow was Marcel Prout's Swann's Way. That's the book in which the narrator describes in great detail the way in which the taste of a madeleine takes him back to a particular experience from his childhood. The night we discussed that section of the book, my professor brought madeleines and tea to class and now I can't see madeleines without thinking of that moment.

These are a particularly lovely version of the madeleine. Big thanks to Angie for adding this pic to the Slashfood Flickr pool.

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I started reading blogs sometime around the beginning of 2003 (looking back, it seems inconceivable that there was ever even a time when I wasn't reading blogs, so thoroughly have they become part of my life). One of the very first food blogs I discovered and read consistently was 101 Cookbooks. Heidi's writing, creative recipes and gorgeous pictures kept me enthralled and I still shout a little internal 'yay!' when a new post from her pops up in my RSS reader. When her book, Super Natural Cooking, came out I tried to hold out for a major gift-giving holiday, but didn't last a week before placing my order.

I think the picture (that you see above) that she posted on Tuesday of a pan of madeleines, some of the molds empty and all the cookies flipped to show off their ridges is just gorgeous. I admit that my fascination with her (actually, her friend Lanha's) madeleines might have something to do with the fact that I read Swann's Way last semester for my Narrativity Theory class and so am very conscious of the madeleine's ability to evoke a taste memory. Proustian references aside, this recipe confirms what my next kitchen tool purchase will be. The only question is, do I buy the classic size, or the mini?