Monday, May 12, 2003

“It’s an absolute circus around here, what with the camera crews and the gaffers and the make-up artists and the million-dollar book contracts.  Celebrity is sooooo tedious.” Ho HO.  But seriously, we did have two distinguished members of the press over to dinner on Sunday.  And since said members of the press persuaded me to start cooking dinner at the ungodly hour of 2:30 in the afternoon, and since the presence of said members of the press resulted in some highly unorthodox eating patterns, I thought it would be pushing the limits of coyness to neglect any mention of them.   You know, despite mountains of evidence to the contrary, I still can’t shake a movie & TV-induced phantasia of the “Reporter” – a tough cookie, loud, pushy, not entirely trustworthy.  So the prospect of having them in the house – other than Helen, of course, and Eric sometimes – gives me pause.  But they were lovely, actually.  E., particularly, who does the food-writing beat, was smart and funny and actually knew a lot about food, and was down-to-earth enough that I didn’t mind having to talk to her as if I had a brain while cooking and being photographed.  She wound up pretty much entirely making the green beans, and, as is vital to winning the affections of Powells everywhere, she brought a bottle of Long Island rose wine, which was loverly.  She even managed to engage Eric in conversation, and Eric prefers to hide under the bed when unknown guests arrive.  That’s not to say there weren’t some snafus.  First of all, there are a few things that make cooking with me a less than photogenic experience: a) I can’t really cook that well, and b) I have no sense of timing whatsoever.  I had made the base for the Souffle a l’Orange before the photographer got to the house, so we’d be ready to throw it in the oven when he got here, because we were trying to get a shot of that and the Escalopes de Veau a la Crème.  The base was just like the base for the Souffle a la Vanille: mix together three tablespoons with a bit of milk to make a paste.  Beat in more milk, and sugar.  Beat it to the boil, and boil for a few seconds until it get thick.  Take it off heat, and beat in four egg yolks, one at a time. (This was when I knew for absolute sure that E. and I were on the same wavelength, because when I started separating the eggs, doing it the way I do it ever since (I’m embarrassed to admit) Nigella Lawson hepped me to the technique, by slipping the egg into my hand and tossing the yolk back and forth between my hands until all the white has streamed away, she asked spontaneously, “Have you seen ‘The Hours?’” -- and not only did I know exactly why she asked that, not only did we agree that the scene with Meryl separating eggs was the only good part about the movie, but I actually knew what she was going to ask about a second before she asked it.  It was eerie.) Anyway, so I beat in all the yolks, and a tablespoon of softened butter, and scraped down the side of the pan, and dotted the stuff with more butter, and there we held steady until the photographer arrived.  In all of this, the only difference between this and the previous soufflé was that for part of the sugar I used two crumbled-up sugar cubes that I’d rubbed on an orange.  E. asked if the oranges were organic, and we commiserated about the surely ineffective technique of rubbing sugar cubes basically on wax.  But the sugar cubes smelled a little orange-y after, so maybe it wasn’t totally pointless…. (Another thing I noticed about having someone in the house who actually spends a lot of time thinking about and writing about food is that they’re so very observant.  E. noticed, among other things, my fancy Scharffenberger chocolate, my crappy Krasdale vegetable oil, and the discrepancy between the kitchen appliances I have received as gifts (running toward the All-Clad and the Cuisinart) and the kitchen appliances I’ve bought myself (running toward the Rubbermaid.) But when the photographer came, that was when I turned into a moron.  I should have started the soufflé right away but I didn’t, I started with the veal.  I browned the scallops in butter and oil, set them aside, threw in some minced shallots for a minute, poured in some beef stock (actually my oh-so-impressive “meat glaze” diluted with water) and some vermouth, boiled that down, poured in some cream and some cornstarch mixed with water, let that simmer until thick.  Browned some sliced mushrooms in another pan in more oil and butter, dumped those into the cream sauce, put the veal back in, and that was that done.  All of this the photographer dutifully photographed, much of the time while balanced over a searing hot oven that had been preheating to 400 degrees for half an hour or more.  It was only then that I started beating the egg whites, five of them, in my KitchenAid, and folding them into the base.  I was getting a little tight for time here, because the photographer had another shoot to go to, something about “family disco,” which made us all shudder, and the soufflé was what he really should shoot, but he wasn’t going to have time.  But instead of just giving in to the inevitability of it, I poured the soufflé stuff in the charlotte mold that I’d coated with butter and a layer of sugar, and went ahead and stuck it in the oven, turning the heat down to 375 degrees when I did it.  And then the photographer was taking pictures of the Escalopes de Veau a la Crème, with the green beans E. had steamed, and then he was taking pictures of me with the soufflé, and by the time he left the soufflé was half done and we wouldn’t have time to eat the veal and the rice and the green beans first, so I went ahead and sprinkled some powdered sugar on top of the soufflé, which was lovely and browning and poofy, and then – FUCK – then I realized that I had not done the other thing that I was supposed to do to make the soufflé Souffle a l’Orange, which was to stir in some vanilla and Grand Marnier into the soufflé base just before I folded in the egg whites.  Fuck. What all this meant was that a) we had to eat dessert first; b) the dessert was fucked; and c) the veal, when we did eat it, would be cold. But with E.’s help, all wound up more or less right in the end.  We covered over the veal and set it on the stove top.  We warmed up some of the schmancy toffee sauce dear reader April gave me, and drizzled it on plates in a very Martha fashion, and when the soufflé came out it was beautiful, and we scooped it up on the plates and ate it beneath the fuzzy lilac chandelier, and it was very, very good, better than the last one even if, technically speaking, it was not Souffle a l’Orange, I think because I cooked it a bit longer.  It tasted, E. noted, like a challah French toast souffle.  The granulated sugar I’d lined the charlotte mold with gave the greatest little crunch to the outside, it was good. Then we ate the Escalopes de Veau a la Crème, and that was good too, the veal not overcooked, and the sauce, as sauces made with reduced meat glaze stock and wine and cream and shallots and mushrooms tend to be, was excellent.  And green beans and rice and all was good.  There was good conversation about the idiocy of banning French food and how bitter and neurotic I am and – here’s the brought hint I’m dropping out into the cyber-ether here, to see if the gossamer thread will catch – how mutually beneficial it would be if Fresh-Direct.com would work out a special deal for me, even though as a general rule they don’t deliver to Queens, because for God’s sake their warehouse is like three blocks away, I see their trucks walking home from the subway, and surely some plugging from the Julie/Julia Project would do their profits good.  And the rose wine was excellent, and a good time was had by all, and if this is celebrity, bring it on, baby!   7:28:59 PM    comment []