I just finished the mise en place for a spinach & gruyere soufflé, and was trying to remember the last time I made one. They have fallen out of my regular rotation, but for no good reason. They're delicious and so easy.

What are some favorites?

I like a plain old shallot/gruyere cheese souffle for savories. And I once made an orange/Grand Marnier souffle for dessert that should have been the cover shot for a cookbook or maybe a porn flick. Should have taken a picture, myself, because I've never found the recipe or duplicated the success since then.

My favorite, though, was making a straberry souffle for my then-four-year-old, because we had a Babar book in which one of the Babar offspring saves the day by making a strawberry souffle. Not one of the real Babar books, one of the kids piggybacking on the father's success. But the souffle came out well, and I served it with a Creme Anglaise. The boy was utterly unimpressed, the punk.

Life would be better if there were more souffles.

Soufflés have an excellent ratio of labor to impressiveness. It wasn't from Mastering the Art, was it?

Very sharp cheddar, a little bit of good ham and a sprinkle of cayenne makes a good combination. I like to make this individually, because it's a little heavier than a simple cheese soufflé.

Topknot, or not?

Spinach with smoked gouda.

Unfortunately, because I tend to make two-serving souffles, the calculations involved in halving most recipes take souffles out of my repertoire.

But, I am heading to the store; maybe I should add eggs to my shopping list?

I started making the corn souffle recipe from the Fannie Farmer Cookbook when I was a teenager. It's my favorite souffle recipe. I even bought a souffle dish to have the proper equipment to make it. That has to be the oldest piece of my own cooking-related equipment I have. I believe it was one of the first purchases I made with my Strawbridge and Clothier charge card.

OK, that's lots of extraneous information, but my first efforts at souffle were successful with that recipe, which gave my cooking confidence an early boost.

I always come back to Julia Child's basic souffle recipes; never had a failure. Some of the best savories have been "clean the refrigerator" souffles with whatever leftover cheeses, veggies, and ham or bacon are in the larder. A memorable sweet souffle used pureed macerated dried apricots...fantastic.

"Favorite" would be a strong word to apply to it, but when I was little and my mother did not feel like cooking, we'd be fed soufflé and green salad for dinner. Tuna soufflé. Using canned tuna (it was the 60s).

It almost certainly was, but I tend to riff a bit and I can't remember how I did it.