A couple months ago, while recovering from back to back carpal tunnel release procedures, my mother and I went to see the movie Julia & Julia. I was so enamored with the movie that I decided that I must have Child’s cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking. I waited and waited and finally ordered it from Borders. Hey I had a coupon so I couldn’t resist.
It’s the fanciest cookbook I’ve ever had. I didn’t even put it down in the cabinet with my extensive collection of southern, church cookbooks (you know the ones with Bettie Lou Sessor’s roll recipe and Hilda Coulthard’s fried chicken recipe and Tucker Wyatt’s deer barbecue?) because it just seemed to exist on a higher plane. It’s a hardback with a book jacket for God’s sake. It’s not a GBC-bound, typewritten bunch of heavenly, hillbilly recipes from a bunch of little, old, church ladies who keep jars of bacon grease in their kitchen cupboards. This is Julia Child...world famous chef and former spy!!!!!
In case you haven’t figured it out yet, I do live alone. Well not exactly alone. My two dogs do allow me to live in their house. However, I do like to cook and I loooooove to eat so every now and then I like to cook something really good. I’m not big on eating out and I eat so much convenience-type food that it’s sort of sad. So this weekend I decided to break out my new cookbook and pay homage to Julia! I worked my ass off to cook something that only I would eat. No visitors…nobody else…just me.
On Saturday I decided to tackle beouf bourguignon. This is just a fancy beef stew made with a few simple ingredients but it took for-friggin-ever!!! First you have to boil bacon, then fry the bacon, then cut up the beef into cubes, then dry the beef with papertowels, then I thought to myself, “Self, what the hell have you gotten yourself into????”. It went on and on and on….
Then I looked at the recipe and noticed that in order to make this recipe correctly, you had to make 2 additional recipes. Oh no you di-unt!!
One recipe was for pearl onions. Okay I’ve only ever seen pearl onions in martinis. Never knew anyone would ever consider cooking them and adding them to a dish. I looked in 2 different stores and all I could find was cocktail onions. Damn it!!! I just settled for a regular onion cut into chunks. I’m no purist….an onion is an onion and if you disagree…well…you can go to hell. The other recipe was for mushrooms…that one was easy so no bitching about it. I considered that a small victory.
In the end it was really, really good. Was it worth cooking and slaving for probably 3 hours (not including the cook time of 3 hours)? Um…hell no! I was only making it for myself and I’m not difficult to impress. From now on if I’m craving beef stew, Chunky has a very nicely flavored, canned variety that I can open and warm in about 5 minutes.
On Sunday I made Potage Parmentier. Well ain’t that fancy?? Let’s see…it’s potato and leek soup. That’s about as fancy as well…as fancy as potatoes and onions!! I love potato soup so I made it following the recipe very closely. By the time it was finished it looked like well like potatoes and onions. That’s not soup!!! You cook the potatoes and leeks in water than mash it up then add either a little butter or a little cream. Hell, I’m southern. I added a lot of cream and a lot of butter. I then said to hell with Julia and tossed in some rosemary too. Julia’s recipe…bluck…my version…delish and much easier than my normal recipe!!!!
That being said, I made 2 excellent dishes this weekend and tons of leftovers. So why did I bring a frozen, low-cal pizza for lunch today??????
Chick out…..
It’s the fanciest cookbook I’ve ever had. I didn’t even put it down in the cabinet with my extensive collection of southern, church cookbooks (you know the ones with Bettie Lou Sessor’s roll recipe and Hilda Coulthard’s fried chicken recipe and Tucker Wyatt’s deer barbecue?) because it just seemed to exist on a higher plane. It’s a hardback with a book jacket for God’s sake. It’s not a GBC-bound, typewritten bunch of heavenly, hillbilly recipes from a bunch of little, old, church ladies who keep jars of bacon grease in their kitchen cupboards. This is Julia Child...world famous chef and former spy!!!!!
In case you haven’t figured it out yet, I do live alone. Well not exactly alone. My two dogs do allow me to live in their house. However, I do like to cook and I loooooove to eat so every now and then I like to cook something really good. I’m not big on eating out and I eat so much convenience-type food that it’s sort of sad. So this weekend I decided to break out my new cookbook and pay homage to Julia! I worked my ass off to cook something that only I would eat. No visitors…nobody else…just me.
On Saturday I decided to tackle beouf bourguignon. This is just a fancy beef stew made with a few simple ingredients but it took for-friggin-ever!!! First you have to boil bacon, then fry the bacon, then cut up the beef into cubes, then dry the beef with papertowels, then I thought to myself, “Self, what the hell have you gotten yourself into????”. It went on and on and on….
Then I looked at the recipe and noticed that in order to make this recipe correctly, you had to make 2 additional recipes. Oh no you di-unt!!
One recipe was for pearl onions. Okay I’ve only ever seen pearl onions in martinis. Never knew anyone would ever consider cooking them and adding them to a dish. I looked in 2 different stores and all I could find was cocktail onions. Damn it!!! I just settled for a regular onion cut into chunks. I’m no purist….an onion is an onion and if you disagree…well…you can go to hell. The other recipe was for mushrooms…that one was easy so no bitching about it. I considered that a small victory.
In the end it was really, really good. Was it worth cooking and slaving for probably 3 hours (not including the cook time of 3 hours)? Um…hell no! I was only making it for myself and I’m not difficult to impress. From now on if I’m craving beef stew, Chunky has a very nicely flavored, canned variety that I can open and warm in about 5 minutes.
On Sunday I made Potage Parmentier. Well ain’t that fancy?? Let’s see…it’s potato and leek soup. That’s about as fancy as well…as fancy as potatoes and onions!! I love potato soup so I made it following the recipe very closely. By the time it was finished it looked like well like potatoes and onions. That’s not soup!!! You cook the potatoes and leeks in water than mash it up then add either a little butter or a little cream. Hell, I’m southern. I added a lot of cream and a lot of butter. I then said to hell with Julia and tossed in some rosemary too. Julia’s recipe…bluck…my version…delish and much easier than my normal recipe!!!!
That being said, I made 2 excellent dishes this weekend and tons of leftovers. So why did I bring a frozen, low-cal pizza for lunch today??????
Chick out…..
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