Grapefruit Tart

I have been cooking alot. It is not particularly easy with a baby, I will need to stir something continuously and then Byrd needs something and I end up leaving the stove and coming back with Byrd in one arm. I made a grapefruit tart yesterday. I think I would prefer a lemon tart, but grapefruit sounded interesting. I have already made lemon custards, why not make grapefruit? When Byrd is asleep I am free to do anything, I get stressed out by the options, forty minutes, what do I do? I often want to: eat, sleep, shower, pee, read, write, clean, and cook. I try to stick to writing, stave off hunger with a bite out of the cheese block in the fridge. But sometimes when I have been trying to finish putting together some ingredients and Byrd goes to sleep I just want the peace of finishing while reading the instructions carefully. Last night, driving to my Husband's bosses house with Byrd in the back, the tart crust with a big rift zone through it up front so I could make sure it doesnt fall apart any more, and the other two containers of topping parts in the back, I wonder what the hell I was doing. I had in the last hour remade the crust to make up for the long crack, been just short of enough dough for the edges, while that was baking I reheated the custard in the hopes that it would set better. I stirred it continuously since Byrd was asleep, and then I put the custard in the freezer in the hopes that it would be more solid. At the last minute I decide the cracked but full crust is the better option, I have refit the pieces so that it looks complete.
I am trying to be a successful scientist, I am trying to be a successful writer, why the hell am I trying to make a grapefruit tart? I ask myself. I just thought it would be neat. I never knew before that tart crust uses powdered sugar and egg, unlike pie crust that has no egg and uses granular sugar. Now, and forever, when I eat pie crust or tarts I can imagine what went into the matrix, when they taste differently I will have a deeper understanding. My hands and tongue now both have a language to understand crusts.
I am driving and that is when I realize this is a language, I am learning the language of food and cooking. The thrill at knowing tarts use powdered sugar reminds me of how I felt when I took a botany class and suddenly sidewalk weeds had identifiable characteristics, palmate leaves or single leaves, leaves arranged in a whorl, leaves arranged opposite and decussate. These characters of plants are a language for family of origin, for climate, for landscapes. And food, it is a landscape I spend much of my day eating, thinking about, shopping for. After college I was taken with the idea that I did not know where food comes from. I wanted to work on farms. I went to Italy for three months as a WWOOFer. I learned about hazelnuts, cheese, sheep, cows, pigs, olives, grinding polenta, I wondered through open markets, I saw skinned whole goats, live octopus, fresh sardines, entrails, fresh fried calamari in paper cones, olives not yet brined, dried hot peppers. I realized that to really run a farm you live the farm, there is no vacation, no weekend. The food is fresh and good, but the difference between just ground polenta and ready to go in a tube polenta may be more emotional. I am disapointed when I realize that even the difference between just made and month old ricotta is subtle.
So how does this food language fit into my world now? I appreciate and graviate towards local and organic. I like to cook. I am frustrated at myself when I use free time to explore cooking instead of writing or working sometimes. I am frustrated when we spend money to eat out and I realize how fancy we could eat at home for so much less. But it is the exploration that counts, the experience, the leisure, the tasting things I would not think of, exchange of ideas. This food language is not part of my career, but it is at the intersection of my animal self, my artist self, and my scientist self. Perhaps articulating myself with citrus and egg yolk, artichoke hearts and home made mayonaise, perhaps this conversation between my mind anticipating texture and flavor and my hands whisking, chopping, perhaps this is a way of being present.