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“But it turns out it gives it that really kaç golden, toasted look.”įor just her and Millman, the recipe makes a lot of soup. “It’s gross, right? I hate mayonnaise,” Gay says. But the real finishing touch is applied to the outside of just one of the slices of bread, across which she spreads a small knifeful of mayonnaise.
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Any cheese will do - though Gay favors a combination of Gruyère and Cheddar Jack, which melt well and taste good together - and just before the sandwich comes out of the pan, she’ll sometimes add slices of tomato or pickle, the tanginess of which cuts through the fat of the cheese. The grilled cheese she prepares to go with it is also pretty simple and easily adaptable. “It’s fairly easy to make,” she says, “but it makes you feel reasonably fancy.” Gay likes to use onions of different varieties to keep things interesting and, in a departure from Steinhauer’s rendition, she sometimesadds fresh basil, oregano and garlic for some extra zhuzh.
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She was drawn to the oniony flavor of the recipe, which was adapted by the Times reporter and cookbook author Jennifer Steinhauer from one used by the upscale Washington, D.C., diner Ted’s Bulletin. (“I was like, ‘Since when do I use the phrase “cozy soup”?’ That’s when I knew I was old.”) Gay discovered her preferred recipe for it on The New York Times Cooking app a couple of years ago when she was cold and looking to warm up with a “cozy soup,” she says. Homemade tomato soup is another relatively new favorite. Gay still doesn’t consider herself a huge admirer of most bisques and bouillons, but she occasionally craves thematzo ball soup - emphasis on the fluffy matzo balls - that her wife, the designer Debbie Millman, learned to make from her grandmother. “And it was so exquisite, I just thought, ‘Maybe I should give soup a chance.’” “I didn’t want to try it, but it was one of those tasting menu restaurants,” explains Gay, who lives in Los Angeles. She can pinpoint the moment she first tried a soup she enjoyed straightaway: it was an “indescribably beautiful” butternut squash creation, she says, every spoonful more rich and layered than the last, at the restaurant Mélisse in Santa Monica, Calif. It was years later that Gay, now 47, recognized the dish as a delicacy. Still, on New Year’s Day, their parents would always make soup joumou - a hearty, traditional Haitian dish of squash, beef, potatoes, other vegetables and herbs. For most of her life, the idea of “a hot, savory liquid,” the author says, simply didn’t hold much appeal and, growing up in Omaha, she and her two younger brothers tended to avoid it.