At some point when it hit me that, to borrow a phrase from Louis XIV, "my family c'est moi," I also realized that the formative moment when I grew up and became a mother apparently occurred in the wrong century.

In family albums from the 1930s, '40s and '50s, the "tribe" always seems to be made up of uncles and aunts and grandpas and grandmas in black and white, surrounded by a throng of little children with golden hair and coal-dark eyes that are wide open to the new world into which they were born. One of the adults in the photograph will look after the children, make sure they drink water and eat a slice of bread with butter or a blintz with jam, and have them lie on the cool floor during the hottest hours, with a book of fairy tales during the afternoon rest time. And I'm envious. Envious of the tribal atmosphere, of the full life that it sometimes seems can only be really expressed in a still photograph, of the open field that stretches behind them, of the bales of hay, the checkered dresses of all the little girls that were sewn from a single curtain and which flap in a breeze of simplicity - and of the knowledge that in a family, there are always more active participants than the mother, father and children: the members of the nuclear family.

Luckily, one of my daughters mistakenly brought home from the grocery store a container of sweet cheese for Shavuot, which had a recipe for blintzes printed on it. I immediately put together the batter - flour, milk and eggs - as if I'd been making my famous blintzes for years. Within minutes, I'd happily fried a copy of my grandmother's traditional pancakes. They didn't come out quite as thin as hers, mine were a bit plumper, but they were still good enough to serve as exhibits for the defense (mine). Exhibit No. 1: Twelve plum blintzes.

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"As with crystals that are being formed, one small and good thing leads to another small and good thing" - the chef's words from before he left in the morning rang in my ears, like in all of those parent-teacher meetings when I was always described as the girl who "had potential." I immediately thought of the Raymond Carver short-story collection "A Small, Good Thing," and then, as if having struck upon the solution to the riddle, pounced on the strawberries I'd bought at the market and dragged home in a cart so full I looked like a homeless woman. I looked at them and just knew that if I didn't redeem them at that very moment, they would die tomorrow in rot and agony.

"I remember," I said, and hung up.

I moved the jar of bay leaves, which almost fell from its shaky spot, and kept going - this time to make my refrigerator-drawer soup, in which whatever is available is welcome. I poured water into it in small dribbles. Every time it started to seethe and boil, it got a cup of cold water on its head and came back to its senses. When the soup quieted down I prepared matza balls from an instant mix (which I buy without the chef knowing) and tossed in some of the small sticky balls. It's a small act of rebellion that I learned way back in preschool: to have matza ball soup when there is no connection whatsoever to Passover.

At noon a large and yellow anise bush entered the living room, followed by a mop of curly hair. "You brought me flowers just in time," I told him. "The bouquet's a little big; it looks like it would make a good camouflage for a soldier in enemy territory, but thanks." The chef gave me a look that said "soon you'll see what will come out of this," and started right away preparing an almond dough for an apricot tart.

My jam came out great and Curly said: "You're lucky, because the way you made it, it shouldn't have come out so well, but it's perfect."

So in the end I also had an extended family around me, though admittedly it was a very alternative version. Because the uncle gave his attention to the vodka and the aunt tried to be nice and kept saying to me with a consoling look, "Why don't you come to us for a little while? The house is empty."

A flaky dough is the ugliest of all. Until it is baked, that is. Then its thousands of crumbs come together in one special consistency that comes apart and dissolves in the mouth, leaving behind a trail of almondy and buttery pleasure.

Almond dough:

285 gr. butter at room temperature

150 gr. sugar

100 gr. ground white almond powder

1/2 kilo white flour

2 lightly beaten eggs (organic is best)

1/2 tsp. salt

grated peel of 1 lemon (yellow part only)

Keeping the mixer on low-to- medium speed, add the flour in three parts. Each time the ingredients seem to have all come together, stop the mixer right away. Don't be tempted to add a few more seconds, "just to be safe." Your senses haven't misled you. The dough is ready. "Just a few more seconds" and the dough will lose its flakiness and become too elastic. Better to leave a few little bits of flour that haven't completely mixed in than to lose the flakiness of a dough that was processed too much.

Divide the dough into three equal parts. Shape each one into a ball with minimum kneading; wrap in plastic cling wrap, and press down hard to flatten a little. Refrigerate for two hours. Each ball is sufficient for one 24-cm. diameter tart. The dough can stay in the refrigerator for up to 24 hours, or in the freezer for two weeks.

For the next step, you will need:

a 24-cm. tart pan, or 24-cm. aluminum ring, at a height of 3-cm.

rolling pin

1 dough ball

butter to grease the pan

flour for dusting

baking paper

100 gr. dry beans

Dust the work surface and the rolling pin with flour. Remove the plastic wrap from the flattened dough and roll it out into a circle that is about 32-cm. in diameter and 0.5 cm. thick (that is the perfect thickness for the tart supposed to hold filling). Spread the dough in the pan, the edges will stick up a little over the sides. Even them out.

Using a sharp knife, make several slits in the bottom of the dough; these will keep it from rising above the pan during the initial baking phase, albeit not completely. The solution: Place the pan, uncovered, in the refrigerator for about half an hour.

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius, using both the upper and lower heating elements. Remove the pan from the refrigerator. Place a square of baking paper over the dough and spread the beans out in a single layer; they will act as a weight to keep the dough from puffing up too much. The beans heat up right away and rapidly convey the heat of the oven to the dough.

Place the pan in the bottom third of the oven and bake for 15 minutes.

When finished baking, the dough has just begun to turn brown. Remove it from the oven and let cool for about 15 minutes at room temperature. Pick up the baking paper by the corners; carefully remove it and the beans from the pan. The dough has already taken shape and its first flakiness is set. Any filling you put on it, even if it contains a large amount of liquid, won't affect the texture as long as both are baked again together.

Apricot jam:

Apricot jam is one of the most splendid things with which to fill such a dough. Its deep, balanced flavor lends the resulting tart an exciting taste and its colorful sheen makes it perfect for glazing.

1 kilo fresh, pitted apricots

900 gr. sugar

In a heavy, 24-cm. pot, mash the apricot halves with the sugar until you get an orange "mud" and the sugar has mostly dissolved into the apricot juices.

Turn on the heat. Over a medium-high flame, bring to a boil while stirring with a wooden spoon. This should take about four minutes. Skim off the foam and lower the flame to medium. Simmer for about 20 minutes, uncovered, stirring from time to time. After 25 minutes the jam is ready. Turn off the heat.

Almond cream:

Almond cream is a kind of liquid marzipan that will turn into a cream during baking, and serve as a basis for the raw apricots baked with it.

60 gr. butter at room temperature

75 gr. white sugar

1/2 cup ground white almonds

1 egg

1 egg white

In a food processor, combine the butter and sugar until the texture is smooth. Add the almonds and process for another five seconds. Add the egg and the egg white. Combine until smooth.

Assembling and baking the tart:

the flaky dough in the pan

the almond cream

a little apricot jam

600 gr. fresh apricots, pitted and halved

Heat up a little jam. Brush the apricots for the last time with a thin coating of jam. The tart now looks like it's blossoming and sparkling with flashes of orange.