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DilemmaJuly 07, 2007 Why, you ask, have I been out on the deck, with a ball of something in my hands and a blue bowl in my lap? Whew. I never thought you'd ask. Last night I decided to make a quiche. I'd already had supper, but I was thinking ahead: one quiche = six meals. I got as far as mixing the dough for the crust and putting it in the fridge to chill for an hour. I've been making quiche since almost as long as the Moosewood Cookbook had been out; that's where my recipe came from. ("Originated" might be a better word. My recipe has morphed in several directions and back again, but the original is recognizably Moosewood.) My quiche is pretty good but I've never taken one to a potluck because my crusts are so ugly. Not only ugly but frustrating. They'd rip into strips when I rolled them out. The dough I laid in the pan was never close to round, and it would almost invariably tear during the transfer. I couldn't figure this out: I was following the directions, facrissake, wasn't I? Well, yeah, except for the one about chilling the dough for an hour before rolling it out. What possible good could that do? After moving into this oven-graced apartment, I resumed quiche bakery. Since I'd forgotten some of the details, I consulted the recipe and noticed that bit about chilling the dough. I'm pretty sure I did it by accident, like the phone rang or Rhodry wanted to go for a walk. Wonder of wonders, the dough rolled out easily, into an almost perfect circle that survived transfer to the pie pan in one coherent piece. Sometimes I remind myself way too much of my father. True, I was just ignoring the directions, whereas he never would have read them, but it's still pretty scary. So last night, shortly after I put the dough in the fridge, I realized that I was going to fall asleep before the quiche came out of the oven, so the dough chilled for 13 hours instead of one. Too much of a good thing may be wonderful sometimes, but too much chill turns a ball of pie crust dough into an unrollable rock. Which is how I came to be sitting on the deck incubating a dough ball. Accelerated warming didn't seem advisable: the outside would cook while the inside stayed cold. I'm here to report that the warmth of two human hands combined with the warmth of the sun did the trick in about 20 minutes. The dough rolled out great. The quiche is about to come out of the oven. Tomorrow's my father's birthday but that has nothing to do with it.
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