boulangere

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• Boulangere icing a cake (as per usual); her Cappuccino Cheesecake, a finalist in the contest for Your Best Coffee Recipe.

One anticipates elegant simplicity from a cook with a French name that translates to an essential aspect of quotidian life: "baker." And, like the starter of a great loaf of bread, boulangere has a knack for consistently producing delicious and delightful boulangerie: Put Some Spring in Your Bread; Cream Scones, Sweet or Savory; Power Bread ... there you have it.

Nevertheless, this Montana-based culinary veteran (a chef and caterer -- she's a pro) is no stranger to the worlds of savory and unleavened. In fact, twisting a classic or two has led her to some real home-cooked brilliance (and her winningest recipes): her Cappuccino Cheesecake, a salute to coffee and the vintage dessert, is divine, unexpectedly nuanced and subtle. Her Winter Spring Summer Fall Chicken Mousse reinterprets sophisticated French technique for, literally, year-round cooking.

Perhaps most of all, we love boulangere's narrative recipe-naming style: obviously, the simple recipe of egg, tomato, herbs, and cream that she entered in this week's contest for Your Best Dirt Cheap Dinner should be called Use the Good China Eggs, Homage to Richard Olney. Then there's My Sister's Famous (well we love it) Tartar Sauce -- nothing like a little honesty and a teaser that makes you want to give the dish a shot. We do and have yet to be disappointed!

See boulangere's profile page and fan her here.

Read her profile Q&A below:

• What is the strangest food you have ever eaten?
  Lima beans - my mother terrorized us with them. They were like eating cooked chalk.
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• What do you cook when home alone?
  I could eat pasta every night, but I'll also put anything I can get my hands on into or on top of bread
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• Your most treasured kitchen possession:
  A good sharp knife
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• Your ideal meal:
  One eaten with a good book and without a cat on the table
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• Something you'd like a chance to eat or cook:
  I'd love to learn to roll sushi
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• The number of bottles of wine you own:
  Usually 3 at a time
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• The ideal number of guests for a dinner party is:
  6
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• Kitchen pet peeve:
  I'm working on being generally less peeved. It's a work in progress.
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• Your favorite cookbook:
  With spring on the horizon, I'm spending time with The Herbal Kitchen by Jerry Traunfeld, very smart, gentle guy with an exquisite palate.