spring, and souffles!

"Souffle," according to various sources, is French for either "to blow up" or "to puff up." Culinary interpretations often seem to favor the latter. Me, I prefer the former, more explosive option. As we learned in class yesterday, a properly made souffle can get some serious vertical height. Check out the before and after photos of this strawberry souffle...

With yesterday's lesson, I finally conquered my fear of being pulling a Sabrina and producing souffles as flat as Audrey Hepburn's. (Though if I were really like Sabrina, I'd be in Paris, so I don't think I'd mind too much.) The ovens were on, and all of our souffles rose beautifully. In addition to the pretty pink strawberry ones above, we also made a dark chocolate, more cake-y version, and a bechamel-based souffle with spinach and a cheddar sauce.

Though all these souffles had different bases and flavorings, every souffle must be baked a la minute, or right before service. This is because the meringue that gets folded into the batter at the last minute can deflate before baking, and once baked all souffles have a tendency to collapse as the hot air inside cools down. The structure of the souffle isn't firm enough to support its newly acquired height, so it eventually caves in on itself. Moral of the story: eat your souffles fast!

Souffles aren't the only things popping up around here, which is how I know it's finally really truly spring. The vernal equinox isn't officially until Friday, but I saw my first flowers this past weekend so I'm counting spring as sprung. Tucked away in Central Park, some brave patches of snowdrops and crocuses are peeking through, vividly purple and white against the brown of woodchips and tree trunks. Of course, this being New York, almost all of the flowers had telephoto-wielding tourists clustered around them. Go in the middle of the week and maybe you can have them to yourself.

The weather hasn't quite come around to the idea of spring yet, but I've decided to take the tack of dressing for the weather I want, not the weather I have (isn't that what they say about jobs and how to succeed in the workplace?) My sandals got a few funny looks on the subway this morning, but my toes felt great. Here's hoping the sunshine catches up with us soon.