Soufflé and Snow

I had my first taste of an Illinois blizzard yesterday. It started snowing when I arrived at work, and by 9:30 there were 9-inch drifts forming between the cars in the parking lot. It was beautiful, at least when I was looking out of a window at it all. Little did I know that I was about to get the best workout I’ve had in a long time.

After work, I managed to get my car out the parking lot without incident, but got slightly stuck when I stopped to help an older female employee remove a four-foot (no exaggeration) pyramid of snow off the top of her car. Upon arriving at my apartment, I found deep drifts covering the parking lot entrance; I had to dig my car out three times just to get to a parking spot. My apartment has never felt so delightfully warm and cozy as it did then.

Alas, it was not meant to last. I was called away by a very lonely (and hungry) Inga. I’ll tell you more about her in my next post. So I packed up some cooking supplies, put on my black marshmallow parka (which makes me look like the Michelin Man’s evil twin), and wrested my car from the snow once more. Arriving at Inga’s, I planted my car in a snowdrift in front of her apartment and waded to her door. One dinner and four shoveling sessions later, I was able to make it home.

Good gracious, I haven’t seen this much snow since my family and I were snowed in at a lodge in Yellowstone Park. It is beautiful and all that, but extremely inconvenient. I can only hope that my poor car will forgive me for all of the strain it has experienced in the past 24 hours.

In other news: I made my first soufflé (Roquefort and parmesan) on Sunday, and it was nothing short of sublime. I was so nervous about whether or not it would rise that I spent a good portion of the time crouching in front of the oven and staring at it through the little window. I’ve never had a soufflé before, so I wasn’t entirely sure what it would look like, but it all turned out perfectly. I’ll have to try a chocolate one sometime this week.