the great pastry awakening

It was a pleasure for me to witness, in the past week, my husband get bitten by the pastry bug. He has made three free-form tarts in one week (peach, plum, and pear). A week ago he had never made any kind of pastry. Now, behold the glory above! There are still a few glitches to work out--particularly figuring out how to keep all the juice from leaking out all over the baking pan and hardening into an impenetrable black glaze. The only other drawback is that his cooking urges strike later in the evening so the final product emerges from the oven after my bedtime. Which means I wake up to a messy kitchen. But it's worth it to enjoy such a treat!