Love In The Time of Cauliflower
I looked down on the proudly proffered plate, and everything on it was white.
In my salad days, I was green of judgment. Also, a little bit of jealousy.
Put these two together and you have a recipe for radically ill-thought-out life changes.
Suddenly, everyone in my Wall Street, dance-around-the-purses girlfriend gang was getting married. I was like a hungry child in Les Miserable-era Paris, nose pressed up against the window of a festive pastry shop at Christmas-time, fogging up the glass with my neediness. In those far off days, this was simply what one did.
When the dashing Englishman dashed into my life and offered me his hand, I grabbed it before the merry-go-round could whisk me around once again.
But let’s go back a minute.
It was my first-ever dinner in England, at the home of a good girlfriend’s parents.
She had dined at my New York City table multiple times during her Morgan Stanley-financed month in NYC. These trips were meant to help us work more efficiently together on the byzantine process of settling international bond trades. Now it was my turn to head over the pond and learn about the workings of the London office, and she was excited to return my hospitality.
That first dinner was excellent, a tasty welcome to England, but it was hard not to notice that everything on the plate was, well, white. Poached chicken, boiled potatoes, and something called “cauliflower-cheese.” Comfort food par excellence to be sure, but at that point I wasn’t in need of any comfort.
Who could have imagined that 24 hours later, I’d meet the man who would become my husband. It took him only two weeks—and a handful of dinners in France—to capture my heart. Because my heart, you see, wanted so very badly to be caught.
I spent the next seven years as an English housewife, during which time I ate a great deal of white food. In those days, instead of writing cookbooks, I merely admired, collected, and cooked from them. My brown-haired, blue-eyed British boy—a euro-bond trader—was supposed to be the great love of my life; I naturally assumed that this rather staid, but comfortable life would take place in Europe.
Because no one ever gets married to get divorced. But life has a way of throwing curve-balls, and if you’re not careful one of them will hit you in the head and knock out all your teeth.
That’s what happened to me, but by that time we were living in Spain, my blue-eyed boy having been unceremoniously fired by Mother Morgan, divested of all his offshore bonus’, and reduced to a mass of pale English mush. A bit like cauliflower-cheese, really.
Now, I write cookbooks for a living, and no good food (especially a vegetable) is banned from my table just because it is white. In the way a good dress can be brought out again a decade or two later, shortened, re-accessorized, appreciated anew; so too cauliflower can come to my table once again. And, yes, emphatically, with cheese.
Especially when the most pressing need for many of us in these dark days is for comfort. And lots of it.
Consoling, Creamy, and EASY Cauliflower Purée
(Adapted from my book The Low-Carb Gourmet, Ten Speed Press)
Serves 6
* 2 small cauliflowers (1 1/2 to 1 3/4 pounds each), thick stalks and leaves discarded, separated into rough, lime-sized florets with about 1 inch of the stem attached
* 1/2 cup heavy cream or Crema
* 7 ounces young Manchego or Gruyere cheese, grated on the large holes of a box grater
* Fine sea salt and ground white pepper
Snipped chives (optional)
In the top of a steamer set over simmering water, steam the cauliflower florets for 20 to 25 minutes, until completely tender.
In a large food processor, combine the steamed cauliflower and cream; purée until completely smooth. Transfer to a warm bowl, fold in the cheese, about 3/4 teaspoon salt, and several generous shakes of white pepper. Serve immediately or transfer to the top of a double boiler set over barely simmering water and hold for up to 30 minutes. (Or, cool, cover, and refrigerate for up to 6 hours; warm gently in a double boiler.)
If the uniform whiteness is really too much for you to bear, scatter with a few snipped chives.
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Tidbits For The Week of November 25, 2024
Brigit’s What I’m
CURRENTLY LOVING ➡️ The blessed rain returning life to our summer-parched earth in Paso Robles. THINKING ABOUT ➡️ Using the Condizionale tense in Italian to describe things I should be doing. Or should have done. Ah, hindsight. And guilt. LISTENING TO ➡️ "Don't Be Cruel," by Billy Swan. (This one's for That Awful Man.)