October 27, 2002
New York City Dinner Party, Part Two
I went over to Elizabeth's apartment for dinner on Friday night. Elizabeth, you may recall, cooked a cake for the Queen Mother's 100th birthday. I saw pictures of the cake. It was shaped like a tower and it was carved with ornaments and decorated with pastry roses and forget-me-nots. (The Queen mother apparently handed out forget-me-nots to the soldiers in the second world-war) The cake is spectacular - it stood nearly three feet tall. In one photo Elizabeth stands next to the cake with the other chefs in the palace. There's a hat rack in the corner, and on the rack a bowler, the signal to the staff that the queen was in residence.
I have been pleading with Dave to get me invited over for dinner, and tonight was the big date. When I arrived they were cutting potatoes and working on a carrot soup.
How to make a vanilla souffle
1) Use a copper bowl for whisking the egg whites. The copper oxidizes, it unfolds the smallest parts of the eggs and leaves the window open so the song birds can fly in. Whisk the egg whites in the copper bowl until you can see the reflection of Theseus in it. Tell him to stay away from Amazonian women. Then place the egg whites and the copper bowl to the side.
There is something about watching someone who really knows how to cook go at it in the kitchen. The week before the dinner party, Elizabeth and Dave stopped by my house and I was working on a gravy for some chicken. Elizabeth took a look at the recipe and started showing me how to make it work. "Don't be afraid of the flame," she instructed, "cook the shit out of it."
I followed her advice, and it worked. This is better than Food 911 I thought.
"That's a roux, she explained." I had no idea, but since then my cooking has improved. Just 'cause I know how to cook a roux.
In the kitchen Elizabeth is spectacular and also unassuming. You can watch her measure the ingredients and whisk the cream and slice the oranges and it makes perfect sense. It's like watching somebody juggle or jump a horse - like watching a marble roll down a hill or a loon diving for fish on a lake in the late afternoon. She has little things to show you and once you know them your life will have quantitatively improved for it.
2) The sugar you use has long strips of vanilla living in it and at night you can hear flocks of it singing a low, soothing ballad over the treetops. Sprinkle a line of vanilla sugar along the threshold of your home and nothing bad will ever cross in; it will fill your house with song.
Before we ate Dave asked me what the best restaurant I have ever been to was, and I confessed that I don't think I've ever really been to a great restaurant. I went to Cafe Georges in Paris, which was supposed to be pretty good, but since I didn't know what too order I ended up with something small and weird and tasteless. My parents and I rarely are out as a kid, and when we did they had exactly the same thing - Dad: scampi; Mom: anything with rice (which she always choked on, scaring the crap out of Dad and me) So this dinner was probably the best food I have ever had. I couldn't begin to tell you what it was. I could say it was mashed potatoes and beets and steak but that lacks the poetry of the meal. It was the kind of meal where everyone at the table was taken to some other place for a while. We ate in silence. Well, everyone but me. I couldn't help myself--I was humming.
3) When you whip the sugar and the milk the whisk should move so quickly it will appear to be spinning the other direction. You will know that the whip is ready when you can build landscapes of blown-glass cathedrals with the wisk. When this happens, whisper a silent lullaby and place the whipped mixture in the refrigerator.
After the entree, I watched as Elizabeth and her friend prepared desert; a vanilla souffle. It was a simple thing to do, she explained. But watching her do it was like having one of those dreams where suddenly you can read French or write the most beautiful poem and you're convinced that when you wake up you will be fluent or write it down and it will be simple, and then you forget it when your eyes open. But it's worth it just for the dreaming.
4) When you combine the ingredients you should be able to smell the transfer of heat between them. The sound will be like listening at a distance to two crowds meeting in a square in Sienna on the day of the Palio - a mix of violence and joy. When the ingredients are mixed the bowl should hum quietly. Place the bowl in the oven.
After dessert we all gathered our coats and our umbrellas and headed out into the rain; tired, satisfied, alone in our thoughts, floating down to earth.
