WE’VE been married for over two years now and it still shocks me just how incompatible my husband Z and I are with regards to food.
I love to eat. He doesn’t.
Food makes me happy. He just wants to get it over and done with.
I like roti prata kosong. He must have his with egg.
I like my pasta tomato-based. He hates pasta, but if coerced, goes for carbonara.
I can finish an entire durian by myself. A mere whiff gives him a headache.
I think it’s offensive to add Maggi chilli sauce over fried rice. He thinks it’s haute cuisine.
Recently, he stunned me when he said, “I don’t like tarts.”
What? How can anyone not like tarts? What’s not to like? I love tarts. I love how, when you take a bite, your tongue twirls around the creamy filling and your teeth hits an occasional crack of pastry. I love how it’s gooey and crusty at the same time. If it’s a fruit tart, even better. I love how the fruit adds mushiness to the whole shebang.
When I first saw this recipe in Allysa Torey’s More From Magnolia, I wanted to make it straight away. It has all the great stuff that I love – sugar cookie crust, filling made of cream cheese and heavy cream, and peaches. The recipes calls for fresh peaches, which is seasonal (I wanna make it now!) so I substituted them with canned ones. Besides, I don’t care too much for fresh peaches. I unashamedly declare that I’m a huge fan of canned peaches and other sugar-loaded, chemically modified fruits (especially lychees, longans, and – right on top of my list – rambutans stuffed with pineapple! Is anybody with me?)
Anyway, this tart was a breeze to make. And when I took my first bite, the crust was so light, crumbly and unbelievably good that I could enter it in some competition. The filling, though, was a little too cream-cheesy for me. It was so rich it kinda left skid marks on the way down my throat. (But my mum thought it was perfect). Still, a good attempt, I thought.
Dutiful wife that I am, I broke off one chunk and offered it to Z, who was messing around on his laptop as usual. He swooped it up in one mouthful, paused, pause some more, then scrunched up his shoulders like he was half tickled, half doing the electric boogaloo.
“No good?” I asked.
“I don’t like peaches.”
What? He doesn’t like peaches too? Good grief. This relationship is probably surviving on good looks and humour alone. It sure ain’t the food, man.
Crummb 
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