Chocolate Mousse

When I was growing up, I was fairly well-known amongst friends, teachers and family members for my catagorical lack of organizational skills. I forgot my books at school at least once a week and my homework at home even more often. I never knew where my socks, papers or headbands were, and my closet was an atrocious mess, but as long as the floor of my room was tidy, no one ever bothered me about it, so I just let it get worse. In the fifth grade, I took a study skills class, which I found to be completely useless, mainly because I didn’t ever sit down and study, especially considering the fact that my desk was nearly always completely covered in papers.

It didn’t get any better in high school. I routinely nearly failed room inspections and would end up shoving things into my closet to clear space so that I wouldn’t get a fire hazard note yet again. I still get made fun of by my college friends for the day one of them walked in on me napping, curled up in a ball at the foot of my bed because it was so covered in stuff.

It took Paziols–and a houseful of teenagers and children–for me to become obsessive… and obsessive is what I have become. I can’t stand to leave the kitchen dirty for even a moment. I am constantly gathering papers and stacking them, making piles and calling kids to come collect their things. I remind myself of my mother… it makes me shudder to remember how much I hated her telling me to “pick up that fuzz… what do you mean you don’t see it?” but when one of the girls creates a lake on the kitchen floor after flipping over one of the dishwashing basins, I realize why she acted the way she did.

One of my co-workers, the Marseillaise, told Anne-Marie that our heads work differently. “You’re spiderwebs and brainstorms,” she said. “Emily is Excel spreadsheets.”

It’s strange to look back and wonder what twelve-year-old me would think of my organization now: my color-coded lesson plans and divided binders and endless categorized lists: a pantry inventory, a menu plan, a weekly tabulated shopping list keyed carefully into Google Spreadsheets, printed, and marked up with multicolored highlighters. Even I find it strange, and I’m the one staying up until three in the morning making all the lists.

I think what shocks Anne-Marie the most, though, is the way that all the organization gets left at the kitchen door: once my plans are made and my lists double-checked, I leave them on the table and make my way into the kitchen, where there are no recipes and no rules. Chocolate mousse is made à l’arache: when the egg whites fell, we just whipped up some more by hand. When the chocolate separated, we beat it into submission. And when there were no clean spoons to be found, the bowl was licked in a very creative, outside-the-box sort of way.

It may make me insane when the kids forget to turn off the lights or leave the bathroom door opened to air it out after a shower. The Country Boy may have to come calm me down as he laughs at me when I come back to the kitchen after having left it immaculate to see a pile of dirty dishes where there were none. But there’s something about watching kids work their way through something–even if it’s not the way I, or any self-respecting cook, would have done it–that makes a little bit of disorganization worth it.

Chocolate Mousse

1/2 tasse crème entière
400 g. 70% dark chocolate, chopped
6 tablespoons butter
4 egg yolks
10 egg whites plus 4 egg whites (you may not need the extra four)
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla sugar
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa
1/4 teaspoon salt

Over a double boiler, melt the cream and chocolate together. Remove from heat and mix in the butter. Set aside.

Beat the egg yolks in a bowl. Slowly add the chocolate mixture to temper, then beat to combine.

Beat the egg whites into submission. Carefully fold in the sugars, cocoa and salt. Add 1/3 of the egg whites to the chocolate mixture and mix well. Carefully fold in the remaining whites. If the whites have fallen too much after the addition of the sugars and chocolate (which may happen if you have small helpers), beat the extra four egg whites into submission and fold them in.

Distribute into individual cups or ramekins and chill at least an hour before serving.

Allow your helpers to lick the bowl with reckless abandon.