of puffs, education, and the old days

There WAS a time, many years ago, when education was very different. We took classes like penmanship, and citizenship, and things like that. And then there were the gender based classes. If you went to public school, at some point, probably in 7th grade or thereafter, the boys took "shop," and the girls took "home economics." In shop, you probably had some beer bellied teacher with tenure who was really useless, but they couldn't get rid of him, so you did things like poke under the hoods of engines, or "learned" how to use power saws, that kind of thing. Go and see the movie "Grease," and you'll get a feel for it. Girls got to learn how to make clothes, how to iron, and how to cook.

I went to private school. I didn't get that choice. I was taking spirituality and "Jesus and the Christian Community" and things that were "relevant for the contemporary christian."

Right. My gay brothers will tell you, almost to a man, that they wanted to take home ec. And then there were the girls, and my mom was one of them, who wanted to ditch the aprons with lace on them, and get their hands under the hood of a car and replace fan belts . Law suits, and arguments, and Title IX, were all necessary to make the changes that allowed people to take what they wanted. So girls could get their hands dirty, boys could make yeast dough, and we could all do what we wanted . It came too late for my mom, who was actually accepted at a school for mechanical tradesmen, when she used her first initial on the application form, but was sent home when she showed up in her coveralls for the first day of class. I have a lot of issues with my mom, but on this one, all I can say to her, from here to heaven is "YOU GO GIRL"

Well, after all that fighting, and all those battles, know what? No one takes these classes anymore. I'm not sure if we lost anything when penmanship and citizenship were dropped, but maybe we did. We DID lose something when we stopped learning how to fix leaky pipes, and how to sew. Now they are "arts." Then, they were "trades." Things change.

Why this digression? Well, one of the things that girls learned how to do, almost right away in home ec, was how to make creampuff shells. Now, it seems to be a lost art. And I intend to revive it. Because if you can make these, and you CAN make these, you have a world of goodness in front of you (and I'm NOT kidding about that).

Cream puffs are made from what the French call "pate au choux" or "cabbage paste." How they ame up with this name, I dn't know. They say it's because when the paste bakes up, it looks like a little cabbage.

I have NEVER been able to figure out the French. Go and check out www.davidlebovitz.com for a more thorough discussion of figuring out the French, and let me end this by saying that when I bake them, they've never looked like little cabbages.

Anyone who took, and remembers, home ec, is going to remember this basic recipe. It's what you use for creampuffs , eclairs, a dessert called "Paris Brest," something called a croquembouche, and also for a savory called gougeres. So, it's "versatile" (and NO, for you pigs out there, that does not mean "it's a bottom. " Can't we leave filth out of the kitchen? No. Oh. Ok).

Anyway, here's how you do it. It's very easy. I promise. You need a cup of water, a stick of unsalted butter, a cup of flour and four eggs. You also need to preheat your oven to 425, and get a baking sheet with some parchment on it.

Put the stick of butter and the cup of water into a BIG pot (you're going to do some mixing here, and it's going to be a bit messy). Bring this to a boil, and simmer it, until the butter melts. When that happens, take it off the heat, and then take your cup of flour and add it ALL AT ONCE (very important), and then stir this together. You're going to get a golden colored lump around your spoon. When you have that, break in the first egg, and stir. You're going to be convinced you did something wrong, because your dough is going to break up into shards, and just look like a mess. That's what it's supposed to do. Put some elbow grease behind it, and combine that egg. Then do it again. And repeat until you've used up all four eggs.

I'm not going to lie. It will get harder, with each egg. When you're done, you'll have this gooey, thick, yellow colored mass.

We're going to come back to this in a minute, but first, we're going to make cream puff shells, or eclair shells. Take that covered baking sheet, and start scooping out big tablespoons of the stuff and separate them. You can probably get about 25 on the sheet, in six rows of four (or, four rows of six if you're horizontally inclined), and then sneak one more in there somewhere. I use an ice cream scoop and I dip it in water occasionally, because the dough sticks. You do that for creampuff shells. If you want to make eclairs, and you have a piping bag, hey, don't let me stop you from squeezing out cylinders of whatever length you like. If you despair at the use of pastry equipment, as I do, either stick to creampuffs, or use two tablespoons and then gently work them together (don't worry about the looks. With eclairs, you're going to make a chocolate glaze and fill them with whipped cream. Who's gonna look?). Put the sheet in the oven, at 425, for fifteen minutes. Then reduce the heat to 350 .

For how long? Now this is an interesting question. Normally, I let it go for another thirty minutes, but that can be too long, if the oven is too hot. I made a batch this weekend and they were done in twenty. Keep your eye on them. You will see bubbling as the butter cooks and then it will stop and then the puffs will crust up nicely and turn brown. That's what you want.

"Conventional wisdom" says to leave these in the oven and let them cool there. Following conventional wisdom, I have always burned mine. So I get them out of the oven and let them cool on a table top.

Now, if you want to make a savory, like gougeres, then when you make the paste, stir in a cup of grated cheese, maybe more if you like a really cheesy flavor. Gruyere is classic, parmesan is nice, so is pecorino romano, use whatever you like. For me, I add fresh ground pepper, or even cayenne pepper. And then you have a nice little snack with drinks.

If you make the regular, dessert type of puffs, for either creampuffs or eclairs, you have a whole bunch of options. Whipped cream sounds good, doesn't it? If you fill them with ice cream, and cover them with chocolate sauce (traditional), or a fruit compote (not so traditional, but sure is good), you have profiteroles. Traditionally, you make one of those things that I have to admit is crucial but I hate making, and that's pastry cream, and you flavor it with something and fill the shells with that. This is, in fact, how you usually get cream puffs , i.e, filled with pastry cream. Eclairs seem to be filled with whipped cream more often than not.

Now, here's an idea as well. Why fill those very neutral tasting shells with sweet stuff? Does anyone still make shrimp salad? Well... Or chicken salad. Or even tuna salad (does anyone make rEALLY GOOD tuna salad anymore?). I've done all of these, for simple lunches. You'll also occasionally encounter crab meat, in a cream sauce, in the shells. Of course, you have to do that as close to service as possible, because the shells will "sog out" if you do it ahead of time.

You can also do something called a "paris brest," but this is hard. In paris brest, (named for the train on which the dessert was first made: between Paris and Brest), the pate au choux is baked in the shape of a ring. It's then split, and filled with a praline based cream.

Too much work for me.

So, too, with croquembouche, which is usually done at Christmas. In a croquembouche, you fill the puffs, and then you use caramel to stick them together, in a long, tall tree shape. Guests pick off the puffs and help themselves.

My view on that? Pour the caramel over individual shells and leave the shaping alone. Again, too much work.

My favorite way to eat these? Well, with sweets, I fill them with lemon curd (I'll give you the recipe soon), and put some stewed berries - huckle or blue - over them (this, incidentally, is how my friend Michael got his nickname Huck: from that dessert). Savory wise? I could eat gougeres all day.

Ok gang, it's a long blog but you've been "enabled" to make a lot of goodies. Now as my old buddy Richard Sax (miss you Richard, very much) wrote 'GET IN THERE AND COOK"