It's New Year's Day, 2010. A new decade, in a new century, in a new millenium. In 1910, it was still shocking to see a glimpse of stocking. Now, we see a whole lot MORE than we'd like to on television and out in public.
What did I do today? I am cleaning my office (sort of) and I made Potage Celestine from Julia Child's second "Mastering the Art" cookbook. This is a leek-celery-rice based soup that is thickened with potato puree and milk. You can make it relatively low fat, but it is best served with a nice pat of butter on top. I chose to rice the potatoes using a vintage Mouli Mill that makes a fluffy, light potato and avoids the glutinous mess that whipped potatoes can become. The soup, however, was pureed with a stick blender before adding the potato-milk liaison. Julia suggests serving with a beurre compose more or less with fresh herbs into butter pats, and I think a chiffonade of fresh tarragon, chives, sage and chervil would have taken this soup to new heights. I used parsley and it was ok. Chives would have been better yet. But I'm not growing any at the moment.
This is an inexpensive soup (2 leeks, a bunch of celery and a carton of organic chicken broth, milk, 4 potatoes and some butter.) It could be made lower fat by sauteeing the vegetables in bouillon powder and a touch of oil. It can adapt to vegan, even, using soy milk and veg broth. But I prefer the classic.
