Cooking is unlike quilting or knitting, at least for me, in that you can't approach it with sadness or negativity and expect to feel better after the experience. Tonight for dinner I made Deb's Cauliflower Cheese Soup (p. 13) which featured a white sauce that could make me take back every nice thing I've ever said about white sauces, and resulted in a broken cheese-and-cauliflower mush.
But before I started in on making dinner, I visited My Favorite Quilt Shop in Elkton, MD, which had announced it was going out of business on New Year's Day. While it is always pleasant to purchase fabric at 50% off, I consider this shop one of my favorite places. I have never taken a class anywhere else, never having liked any class or assortment of people quite so much as I did the classes and people at My Favorite Quilt Shop. This closing also comes on the heels of the announcement in November that my favorite far-away quilt shop, Generations in Pottstown, PA is also closing. Apparently I am not spending nearly enough money!
On New Year's Day, feeling rather pleased with ending 2013, which hadn't been treating me as kindly as I would have liked, I checked my email and had first the happiness of getting an email from a quilt shop, then the disappointment of reading this news. The first day of their closing sale was last Saturday, but I couldn't bring myself to go. Instead, I puttered about at home working on some already in-progress quilts, which of course made me feel better, because quilting is a much more healing type of hobby than cooking is (apparently).
Today I still didn't want to go but shored myself up with thoughts of buying some fabric at incredibly low prices to take to QS Pharma's Craft Club's MLK day pillowcase-making event next Friday. Upon arrival I discovered that there was a significant reduction of fabric, but I still managed to snag a few good fabrics for pillowcases, and a bit of Halloween fabric just for me. I talked with the owner for a bit, but left with a feeling of sadness that this would be the last time I ever shopped there.
And then I came home to the soup. First I broke up most of a head of cauliflower (until it became so much cauliflower I became leery of adding any more). I added onion and the leftover chicken broth from Cheeseburger Soup (exactly the right amount of both onion and broth!). Then I set into the white sauce, which proceeded to take forever to thicken even a little bit. And when I say forever, I mean a half hour. Eventually I decided a slight thickening would have to do and added the shredded cheese. Now, to be fair, I used reduced fat cheddar, which must have a higher melting point than regular cheddar, because it struggled to melt into the sauce. I added the other spices, then poured it into the cauliflower/onion mixture and lowered the temperature.
What I ended up with was a bowl of something that had very good spice and flavor... if you could get over the sight and texture of a broken cheese sauce. My sadness had somehow ended up cooked into the soup! I can't help being reminded of an episode of Better Off Ted in which the lab grows artificial meat:
Still, the spices included were excellent and I think they may be worth trying in a macaroni and cheese. If I ever make this one again, I will use my tried and true white sauce recipe and full fat cheese, as the good lord intended. And, I will prepare it only on the happiest of days.
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