Friday, May 15, 2009

Cauliflower and trends

For many years, cauliflower was almost absent from restaurant menus and I cannot say that I, personally, found it ravishing despite my husband's love of his mother's Viennese cauliflower soup. In recent weeks, it has shown up in several restaurants that I have visited. In two of them, Arqua, an excellent, twenty-year-old Italian restaurant in the bowels of New York (see my travel notes) and a small, local restaurant it was offered as a starter. At Arqua it made light and good salad. At the local it was roasted--but, unfortunately not cooked all the way through and served with an aioli--potentially a good combination.
I had realized that I could love cauliflower soup when I ate a chilled version with caviar at the brilliant Joel Robuchon's late restaurant in Paris. You can try my imitation in my book, Soup A Way of Life. I was happy to read in an article by Ray Sokolov in The Wall Street Journal about Robuchon's newest cauliflower soup invented at his restaurant in Las Vegas.
Also, various cauliflower soups--usually hot--have been showing up.
This is not I major trend; but its is interesting to see it resurrecting this plebeian, cabbage family, vegetable that has the advantage of being in expensive--of course, not with caviar.

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