Serenity & Spice

It’s Girl Scout Cookie Season! During these few months out of the year, it’s the only time we can stock up on all of our favorites. Buying multiple boxes of each as to ration them until next February. You probably still have some Thin Mints leftover from last year in the back of your freezer. No? Just me?  Starting with this post, I am going to be doing something different. I will be creating original or adapted recipes for my delicious enjoyment and hoping you enjoy them too. This month, I am all about Girl Scout cookies. Below, you can find the recipe for Thai Chicken Fingers made with Do-si-dos . I hold a special place for Girl Scout Cookie Season as I was a Brownie when I was a kid. The first journal I ever got was as a reward for my cookie sales. It was white with the Girl Scout symbol on the front and a gold lock. I was so excited. After I filled in the first couple of pages, I loved what I wrote so much I showed everyone. Obviously, at age 8, I didn’t understand the concept of a

 “A woman happy in love, she burns the soufflé. A woman unhappy in love, she forgets to turn on the oven.” - Sabrina (1954) Sabrina is probably one of my favorite movies. It stars Audrey Hepburn at the beginning of her career after winning the Oscar for Roman Holiday . It was also the first film she worked with Hubert de Givenchy for her costumes. It was a partnership that lasted decades.  This film is the other reference I think of when I think of soufflés. As a lovesick teenager, I loved this movie. I always dreamed of going off to Paris and coming back as a better, more cultured version of myself. However, I didn’t go to Paris; I went to Iraq. It proved to be a far dirtier personal transformation.   Hepburn plays the titular character as the daughter of the chauffeur to a wealthy family on Long Island. Her whole life, she had been in unrequited love with the younger son of the family, David, played by William Holden. To help her move on, she gets sent off to culinary school in Par

 "I did make you a soufflé, but it was too beautiful to live.” - Clara Oswald, “Asylum of the Daleks” Doctor Who Why make a soufflé? Why make two soufflés? They are notoriously temperamental, and I have never made one before. Julia Child called them the "epitome and triumph of French cookery." Master those, and you can conquer the world.  As per a previous blog post , when it comes to a recipe rooted in classical French cuisine, I have discovered that it's best to first consult Julia before Pinterest. I have a feeling this may be my first attempt at what I assume will be many. I will start with probably the most basic of basic: soufflé au fromage or cheese soufflé.  When I think of soufflés, the first reference that comes to mind is Clara from Doctor Who played by Jenna Coleman. The impossible girl who is obsessed with the impossible recipe. When we meet her in “Asylum of the Daleks,” she's baking a soufflé for what we can assume is the hundredth time while trapp