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Making Pasta
Pasta making-side bar.
You don’t have to be a chef to make pasta – in fact, it is child’s play. My grandchildren love making pasta in my tiny kitchen. (I have noticed, however, that in their minds, the more flour strewn around, the better, as far as they are concerned.)
There are many types of [...]
C’est Fromage Comte Cheese worth the fare to France
Foodies, of which I am one, pride themselves on knowing the newest thing. Many times, ironically, these are age-old products that are just coming to the attention of communities beyond their own. I first heard of Comte cheese when I was given a sample at a local [...]
Pasta
Recently I went to dinner with a friend who instructed the chef not to serve her anything white – no white bread, no white pasta, no potatoes, no rice and no cream. She would eat butter. I don’t know if this is, in fact, due to an allergy, or is a self-imposed way of dieting [...]
Hot Chocolate Soufflé
Adapted from Nathalie Dupree’s Chocolate Soufflé
Serves 4 to 6
Soufflés are not difficult to make or magical, but they seem that way to the uninitiated. Guests are always thrilled by them. The trick is to avoid overcooking them as the bubbles will burst and the soufflé will fall. An undercooked soufflé, on the other [...]
19th Century Chocolate Soufflé
Circa 1886
Alice Prescott’s Chocolate Soufflé
Cocoa makes a particularly light chocolate soufflé. It may be served with chocolate sauce and whipping cream. The base may be made several days in advance.
Butter and sugar 6-8 ramekins, depending on size
1 cup whole milk, heated until small bubbles form around the outside edge of the pan.
2 [...]
Melanie’s Cheese Souffle
Serves 4-6
This dish is deliciously light and yet filling. It is perfect with a mixed green salad for an easy, dainty lunch. Nutmeg enhances the dish, but be sparing as it can also dominate.
I usually mix Compte, a type of gruyere cheese and Parmiagiano Reggiano cheese for a delicate soufflé, or a robust [...]
Fear of Falling
Over the holidays, our teenage granddaughter, Rachel, wanted to make a cheese soufflé like the one we enjoyed together in Paris in one of our favorite small restaurant. It serves cheese soufflés year-round as if they were shrimp and grits. And believe it or not, as I showed Rachel, soufflés are nearly as [...]
Terry Thompson’s Bread Pudding with Two Sauces
Serves 10 to 12
This is the best way to use up old or practice biscuits.
The peach sauce calls for frozen peaches because fresh peaches turn brown easily, but you can substitute fresh peaches by slicing and then poaching them before adding the other ingredients. The bourbon sauce is equally [...]
The Perfect Biscuit
Many years ago I embarked on my own search for the perfect biscuit. I tried recipes from cookbooks and sampled the tried-and-true techniques of old friends. I judges the biscuits, awarding scores of 1 to 10 based on color, fluffiness, moistness, crispness of exteriors, and so on. Shirley’s recipe comes as close to [...]
Biscuits
My first biscuits were hard little rocks of dough that were capable of breaking teeth. I had grown up with my mother’s – who pulled out a box and added a little milk or water to the contents before diffidently throwing them in the oven. They were fine, but rarely did people lie in bed [...]
September 18, 2009
This morning I saw Carolina Gold harvested, the dew still on the ground. Some people want gold metal, I wanted to see the Gold of novels and books, the heart of the culture of the state of South Carolina for centuries. One look at the field of rice makes clear the reason for the name,Carolina Gold. The most coveted and sought after rice of those centuries is golden, riding on a sea of tall green stalks. The rice’s gold signifies it is the right time to start to dry the rice. The stalks are removed with a hook (a scythe) leaving a foot or so of stubble that will be turned back into the ground later. The sheaths of rice are then spread on top of the stubble to dry before being collected. At one time it would have been harvested starting at four in the morning, to beat the heat of the day, after a cold breakfast. 
August was the usual time in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, according to the meticulous records the planters kept – detailing dialing weather and rainfall, among other things. Thomas Jefferson loved this rice, his favorite among 98 varieties he collected. (Stories abound about people coming up to him and slipping rice into his pockets. Finally the planters had to tell him to stop sending new varieties – they liked what they had.) The fields have been flooded with fresh water and drained three times. Now it is up to the sun. At Middleton, historically dressed workers scythe the tall grasses that were formerly worked by slaves. 
Charleston, once the richest city in America, had a population that was more slaves than whites. When South Carolina was at its richest, the rice most plentiful, the economy collapsed with the aftermath of the civil war. Makes me think about the adage about riding high before a fall. Feels similar to the economy’s collapse last year.
Demonstrations will be held the next two Saturdays at Middleton. Contact them for more information.
