What is Everyday Food?
Hint: you don't eat it every day
On Thursday, April Baer of Michigan Public’s Stateside, invited me on the show to talk all about Cheese Soufflé and everyday foods. Listen HERE and tune in regularly for really incredible reporting on all variety of topics (often with a Michigan focus).
An everyday meal is, at its worst, ho-hum but nutrient dense enough to get you to the next thing. At its best, an everyday meal is simple enough to be prepared with confidence and is the conduit for the heartbreaking beauty of living life.
This is the food I’m the most interested in— Wednesday night dinner; Saturday morning breakfast. The meals that are unremarkable in their ubiquity but offer a chance for truly luxurious living in small, regular doses.
Exhibit A: Cheese Soufflé
Soufflé is decadent in flavor, ephemeral in texture, and despite its fickle reputation, not hard to make. It’s a couple basic techniques— thickening with roux, separating eggs, whisking the whites long enough, then folding them in without deflating the tiny bubbles. Deborah Madison makes it in a large baking dish instead of fussy ramekins; now I do too. What a revelation. This simple change took soufflé out of the dusty culinary school cannon and into my monthly repertoire.
Now soufflé is what we make when we don’t have a ton in the house but want a really good dinner. Usually made with oat milk, because we rarely have cow’s. Generally made with a handful of leftover cheese butts from appetizer hours gone by, grated and tossed together. Always served with a huge salad loaded with crunchy mix-ins and tossed in an intensely bright dressing to contrast the soufflé’s almost lewd lushness.
Annie Dillard has a famous quote, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” An everyday meal is just that.
Cheese Soufflé
3 Tbsp butter
¼ cup all purpose flour
1 ¼ cup milk (oat milk works fine as a sub)
4 oz or 1 cup cheese (tend to use a Swiss style like gruyere, comte, cupola, or a mix) shredded
4 eggs, separated
Heat the oven to 375F
In a saucepan, melt the butter, over medium heat, until foamy
Add the flour and cook until toasted and nutty, about 1 minute
Add the milk and whisk to incorporate the roux
Continue cooking the milk until it thickens and bubbles slightly
Remove from the heat and add the cheese then the egg yolks
Whisk the egg whites to firm peaks
Fold one spoonful of the egg whites into the cheese sauce to lighten the mixture
Continue with the remaining whites until there are no streaks of white left but without overworking the mixture
Pour the mixture into a 9x9 inch baking pan and bake until the center is just set, about 35 minutes
Winter Salad
4 oz greens (salad greens, spinach, arugula, radicchio or a mix)
2 oranges, segmented or cut into pinwheels
1 head crunchy vegetables, sliced thinly (I used purple cauliflower and fennel found at Trader Joe’s)
1 lemon, zest and juice
Olive oil
Combine everything together and toss with a couple pinches of salt and several turns of black pepper
Serve immediately
