Have you heard about Julie & Julia? Well, PBS is doing God's work and offering full episodes of Julia Child's The French Chef. All this week, we'll be excerpting from a few of our favorites. Today, cheese soufflé!
Behold: classic Julia! The drama! The showmanship! The voice! The collar! In this case, we have both the foil varietal that allows M. Soufflé to puff up with maximum elan, and the glorious 70's specimen around Madame Chef's neck. You can imagine thousands of burgeoning gourmets rushing off to yellow and lima-hued kitchens to produce equally spectacular brunches for their guests, sweating with anxiety and fear, and hoping everyone has enough amaretto sours that they won't notice how late the meal is.
If you're new to the land of Julia, this is a perfect example: classic cuisine, common-sense advice, and a whole world of un-self-conscious weird. To those of us who grew up with PBS in the background, there are few things more comforting than the aggressively cheerful theme, that triumphant warble, the mix of competence and mishap, and the sense that, in 30 minutes, Julia will be sitting down to a butter-laden specialité and all will be right with the world.
Julia Child The French Chef (1972): Cheese Souflee [PBS]