Transubstantiation, cont'd

Today was a quiet milestone in my time as amateur chef: it was the first time I ever made good old-fashioned New Orleans style roux.

Having eased my way into the world of temperamental flour-based sauces with a recent foray into homemade béchamel (which I suppose one could argue belongs within the roux family), I didn't feel too intimidated... though I do admit, at one point, to frantically, mid-stir, instant messaging a fellow New Orleans expat and pleading for him to tell me when it was supposed to be done. The final product looked like thick chocolate fondue and tasted like smoky heaven, so I believe I can say with some modicum of confidence: mission accomplished. Tomorrow, we'll see how the gumbo turns out.

Though I'm usually a spontaneous throw-shit-together kind of cook, I definitely feel that there is a time and place for fussy dish babysitting. I'm especially enamored with time-consuming stirring processes, which always put me in the meditative trance of a Shakespearean hag contemplating the future in her roiling cauldron. Conveniently, stirring also tends to be the catalyst for certain brands of alchemical magic -- hard grains of rice suddenly softening, plumping, drawing warm, rich moisture into their naked hulled bodies; mealy flour and shimmering oil fusing into one paste-thick composite, passing through various stages of darkness, from vanilla creme to caramel pudding to full-on Hershey's; stratified layers of liquids and solids succumbing to Brownian motion and condensing into a hearty stew.

When I was in 6th grade, I wrote a story about the accidental creation of the world by two ur-Beings experimenting with a soup recipe. Clearly, the magic of métissage, in the best sense, has never worn thin. What was once handfuls of discrete substances has become a gestalt of colors, textures, and flavors, with only a teasing hint of the elements it has absorbed. And although I might know some of the basic science behind it (about as much as Alton Brown has ever taught me) I still prefer to see that split second -- when rice turns to risotto, flour and oil to roux, chocolate and hot cream to ganache -- as a dash of otherworldly charm in our otherwise quite charmless universe.