Hooray for soufflé

Readers: I am proud to present my very first guest post, courtesy of my sister, Kristy.

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Earlier this year, my favorite new friend and co-worker Lydie invited me to dinner at her house in Connecticut. We picked an icy Friday night in February, and hopped on Metro North after work for the hour-long train ride up to the burbs. By the time we got to Greenwich it was already 7:30pm, and I wondered what tricks Lydie might have up her sleeve to serve dinner at a reasonable hour...

As it I was to learn, cheese soufflé is an excellent main course for just such an occasion. Lydie quickly handed me an apron and put me to work as her sous-chef. I had never tried to make a soufflé--although I have eaten many of Sipi's outrageous chocolate soufflés at Etats Unis over the years--and it was much easier than I thought. Soufflés are known for being temperamental since they can literally flop in the oven, but they don't need to be perfect to be tasty. And you don't need to be brave or professional to give it a shot.

I was surprised that Lydie's recipe was straightforward and called for very simple everyday ingredients including eggs, milk, cheese, butter, and flour. The preparation was even easier with a Kitchenaid mixer and two sets of hands. Our dish was in the oven within 20 minutes, and about an hour later…voila! The finished soufflé was fluffy, savory, and delicious - it was a huge hit. Lydie's full dinner included a salad to start, crusty bread, broccolini dressed with lemon juice, brownies for dessert, and several bottles of red wine. All told, it was a perfect menu for a perfectly easy dinner party. I could't wait to serve my very own soufflé the next time I was cooking for guests.

At the beginning of the summer, I invited Loren and Kate over to commemorate the Farewell episode of the Oprah Winfrey Show. A special occasion called for a special dish! I had saved this recipe for a Cheese and Herb soufflé in the Wall Street Journal and bought myself a large porcelain ramekin at Williams-Sonoma for a more dramatic presentation. Note that baking time for one large soufflé is about 60-70 minutes. I served this with an asparagus, prosciutto, and burrata salad and a loaf of pancetta bread from Eataly. We also went through our fair share of wine and kleenex that night...

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Cheese Soufflé with Garlic and Fresh Herbs (adapted from the Wall Street Journal 5/7/11)
Serves 8
Softened butter and grated Parmesan cheese to prepare the molds
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 cloves minced garlic
6 tablespoons flour
2 cups boiling milk
1 tsp plus one pinch fine sea salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
1/8 tsp nutmeg
6 egg yolks
10 egg whites at room temperature
1 tsp cream of tartar
1/3 cup finely minced chives
1/3 cup minced Italian parsley
6 oz coarsely grated Gruyere or a combination of Gruyere and grated Parmesan

1. Butter 8 individual 1 1/4 cup soufflé molds or ramekins. Dust with Parmesan and place on a baking sheet.
2. For the soufflé base, melt the butter along with the garlic in a medium saucepan. Cook for one minute, stirring. Stir in flour and continue to stir over moderate heat until butter and flour foam together for two minutes without browning. Remove from heat.
3. Off heat, add boiling milk and beat vigorously with a whisk until well blended. Add 1tsp salt, peppers, and nutmeg. Return to heat and boil, stirring, for one minute. Sauce should be very thick. Remove from heat.
4. Off heat, add yolks, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Correct seasoning. Seasoning should be strong as the upcoming addition of the whites will dilute flavor.
5. To finish the soufflés: Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
6. Whisk egg whites with a large pinch of salt and cream of tartar. Start beating on a low speed and raise the speed gradually as the egg whites mount. When soft peaks form, stir one quarter of the beaten whites into the soufflé base followed by chives, parsley, and all but three tbsp of the cheese. Then fold the lightened base into the remaining whites.
7. Ladle equal amounts of the soufflé mixture into the eight prepared molds, place them on a baking sheet, and sprinkle the remaining three tbps cheese over the tops. Place on the middle rack of the oven. Lower the heat to 375. Bake 20 minutes or until risen and set. Serve right away.

Hurricane watch

As if Tuesday's earthquake wasn't excitement enough for New York City, we now have this to look forward to:

Yes, months after breaking an 86-year record for its snowiest January ever (a total of 36" of snow fell in January alone), weeks after its hottest day since 1977 (it got up to 104 in Central Park on July 22nd), and days after its rainiest day ever (7.7" of rain recorded at JFK on August 15th), New York City is preparing for a rare direct hit from a hurricane sometime tomorrow morning. As a result, the city has literally ground to a halt. Service on the entire subway and bus system was suspended indefinitely at noon, several low-lying neighborhoods have been under a mandatory evacuation order since 5pm, and Mayor Bloomberg is telling us all to stay indoors until tomorrow night.

Even though I stopped by Fairway before work yesterday, I decided to go back out this morning for a few last-minute hurricane provisions in case we really are stuck at home for the next 24 hours. Still-groggy from last night's pre-storm celebrating, I was not prepared for the mayhem I encountered as rabid upper westsiders stormed the few local stores that opened this morning.

Whole Foods at the Time Warner Center, which had stayed open all night, hit its maximum capacity of shoppers at 9:45am and was turning people away in advance of an early closure. Fairway, which is open all day even on Thanksgiving and Christmas, closed its doors at 10am. Which prompted Citarella, pictured above, to get so crowded that a line formed just to get in the door!

Thankfully, with my sister's help, I managed to get all of the ingredients I needed for chili (organic ground beef, assorted bell peppers, crushed tomatoes, red and black beans, corn, and onion) - that seemed like appropriate hurricane fare - and the marinara sauce I plan to make tomorrow, and get home before 11am, where I've been loafing around, closely following the local news coverage, ever since.

Once the hurricane moves out of the area, I would not be at all surprised if locusts started raining down or a wave of plague swept the city. In the meantime, Shun Lee is open for business and even delivering food tonight because nothing, not even Hurricane Irene, comes between a New Yorker and Chinese food.

Tasti-D-what?

I was walking past Tasti-D-Lite over the weekend and noticed a very strange sign in its window. Tasti-D-Lite, NYC's famous purveyor of dairy-based soft serve frozen deliciousness, is now serving soup. Soup at Tasti-D-Lite!? What is the world coming to?

Tasti-D-Lite became a household name in the mid-1990's, in my household at least. I do not think it's an exaggeration to say that I ate it every day during high school. In fact, there were three locations within a few blocks of my childhood home, and I had copies of their calendars listing the daily flavors offered at each in our kitchen so I knew to which location to go on a given day. My mother and sister were also huge Tasti-D-Lite addicts and we usually had plenty of Tasti-D-Lite in our freezer for the odd night when one of us didn't feel like walking over to an actual shop.

Buying Tasti-D-Lite was not an entirely pleasant experience. Most of the stores were poorly-lit holes in the wall and the line to order often snaked out the door and down the street. The women who worked there were unfriendly and unhelpful more often than not. And yet I kept going back for small servings of french vanilla, angel food cake, rice pudding, apple pie, coconut, cake batter, and strawberry colada -- all smothered in rainbow sprinkles and/or granola (which was a perfect compliment to apple pie).

By the time I graduated from college, my Tasti enthusiasm had waned, and I don't think I was alone -- Tasti locations were harder to find and the lines had gotten much shorter. Fast forward another ten years, and Pinkberry is the popular new kid on the low-calorie frozen dessert block. Still, there are a few stores around, including the "flagship" store on 60th and Broadway, which never has anyone in it and where a 4-ounce serving now costs at least twice what it did in 1997. Turns out that Tasti was acquired by a private equity firm in 2007 and is currently being run by the former CEO of Mail Boxes Etc. I can't imagine that adding hot soup to the menu of a dessert shop is a good idea, but maybe that's what it takes to transform Tasti-D-Lite into a 500-franchise brand. I doubt it.