26 January 2008

Light and Airy? Success!

If I had ever intended for this blog to about my jewelry shops, I was clearly delusional. It seems lately that everything revolves around food.

And this post will be no different.

Lately, Saturdays seem to be devoted to stretching my culinary skills. Today I wanted to really challenge myself. The moody, unpredictable souffle was calling my name. I researched some simple cheese souffle recipes, and picked up my ingredients during my weekly trip to the St Lawrence Market here in Toronto. Sharp cheddar and mildly nutty Swiss Cantenaar cheese. Eggs freshly laid no more than 2 days ago.
I followed the first half of the recipe, which involved making a pretty basic cheese sauce. The second part was a test of will. I had 2 egg whites that needed whipping to stiff peaks. I considered pulling out the Kitchen-Aid, but it seemed a little excessive, and given the small quantity of liquid, it seemed unlikely that the whisk would immerse all the way to the bottom of the shallow pool. I have, hidden somewhere an old fashioned hand-mixer. It seemed like too much effort to find all the pieces, and my cheese was waiting to congeal. Instead I used the as-old-as-time-method: bowl and whisk. It took great effort and caused much bicep pain, but after an eternity passed, I had my egg whites standing tall with stiff peaks.



I added this to the cheese mixture, poured into my souffle cups, placed them gingerly in the oven, and tiptoed away. Twenty minutes later, dinner was on the table. Well, after a few quick photos for posterity's sake. I probably should have just rushed them to the table, because after the impromptu photo shoot, one souffle was slowly starting to deflate. No matter, by that time, I was ready to eat it.

Prior to baking:


After baking, and before slowly sinking back into itself:


Now... one quick word so that it doesn't seem like all I do is eat, and that this blog still has some relevance in regard to my crafting.
I hit a milestone on etsy the other day. 50 sales! Whoo! Not a huge milestone, but one that I am nonetheless quite proud. I had seemed to stall in sales after Christmas, and I thought that I was going to end January with 0 sales. As it turns out, on Monday I am sending four pair of earrings to France, one to the US, and one cross the city. And I will clearly need to be adding some earrings to my shop again soon. So stand by, plenty more to come.

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