Tuesday, September 24, 2002

Here I am at last Saturday.  Soon I will catch up to myself, and then the Julie/Julia Project will perhaps be fun again, for me and for you. Eric’s folks were coming over for dinner again that night.  Eric had left me alone to go watch the requisite Aggie game at the requisite sports bar in Manhattan.  I had charged him with bringing back squab, and his father with finding some celeriac.  I would do some of the never-ending housework and cook. I felt from the beginning that this day would turn out fine, though I tried to suppress the thought on grounds that it would hopelessly jinx it.  After all, what the hell do I know about squab?  I dimly recall an unfortunate episode nearly a decade ago when I tried to make a meal for my new boyfriend Eric composed entirely of recipes from “Like Water for Chocolate” – ye who think my insanity is new-found will hereby be enlightened.  I think I remember squab coming into the picture.  I know I remember rose petals, bought from a bin at the Seven-Eleven.  And, yes, it’s coming back to me now, I think I asked my brother to take a taste.  I recall clear as day the stricken look on his face, not so well the details of the slobbering emotional breakdown it triggered.  But at the end of the evening, I am absolutely sure, Mr. Gatti’s pizza was prominently involved.  So I couldn’t get cocky here. I was all alone in the house with the cats and the quiet of a Saturday on Jackson Avenue.  I put in some music on the new stereo system – the stuff Eric very justly can’t stand, Mandy Patinkin, Iris Dement.  I made the excellent executive decision to alternate cooking and cleaning duties, rather than trying to make a whirlwind cleaning effort followed by desperate last-minute kitchen preparations.  So after I’d cleaned the (very scary) upper cabinet in the closet and stowed some Christmas ornaments, I made the dessert, Crème Plombieres Pralinee.  This is a caramel almond cream, a kissing cousin to the chocolate cream I had attempted Saturday last, with disastrous results.  This time, though, I was calm, I had rum, and there was no chocolate to burn.  I arranged the ladyfingers in the bottom of the serving dish – they are more octogenarian biddy fingers at this point, but I figure stale is not a problem – and sprinkled them with rum mixed with coffee I bought at the diner downstairs.  Then I set some milk on to simmer and while that was happening beat egg yolks and sugar “to the ribbon,” which I have now definitively defined for myself as, you know, this stage where the egg starts looking different and doing this ribbon thing (I said “define” not “describe.”)  I poured in the hot milk – probably not as slow as I should have, I have problems accomplishing “droplets” with a whisk in one hand and a pot full of hot liquid in the other – and beat it in .  I managed not to turn the yolks into scrambled eggs – so far, so good.  Then I poured that mixture into another pot – again, Julia and her many pots – and brought that up to a boil, stirring.  It thickened up nicely, just like it was supposed to.  I removed it from heat, stirred in some vanilla and butter.  I beat the egg whites – I was able to get them really really fluffy without them doing that thing where they sort of separate.  I think it was Julia’s illustration of how the peaks of the meringue were supposed to look on the beater that helped.  I’d always looked at the peaks in the bowl.  This isn’t all that fascinating, I guess.  But it was a nice little discovery for me. Anyway, I folded the egg whites into the milk mixture, and folded into that some pralin I’d made a dog’s age ago, back when I was making the crème brulee.  It all looked like I imagined it ought to look, puffy and like it might not wind up being soup.  I stuck it in the fridge. I got my clothes out of the suitcases and hung up.  Finally. Next on the cooking end were the mushrooms for the Coquelets sur Canapes, Roast Squab Chickens with Chicken Liver Canapes and Mushrooms.  I cleaned and quartered a pound and a half of the mushrooms – plain white button jobbies from Western Beef – Dean & DeLuca might not approve, but JC certainly would be okay with it.  I went ahead and cooked them, sautéing them in butter with shallots and garlic.  Then while I was at mushroom duty, I figure I’d do the slicing for the Potage Veloute aux Champignons, Cream of Mushroom Soup.  I used to really hate mushrooms.  It’s a good thing I got over it, I guess. I folded the towels and sheets and oh-so-neatly arranged them in the ugly-ass homemade shelf unit that had been left behind at the apartment and that I had dragged into the closet.  I rolled up the towels, Martha-style.  I folded the fitted sheets on our big dining table that now in our new place we can leave both leaves in all the time.  I felt so homey I could puke.  I continued with making the soup.  It was getting on in the afternoon now, about 5:00, and it was alarming how the day had gone by, but I managed not to panic.  Everything was going fine.  I sautéed onions in butter, stirred in flour, then beat in hot chicken stock, and threw in some parsley, bay, and thyme – no, sorry, still no thyme, oregano instead – and the stems from the mushrooms.  While it simmered, in another pan, I tossed the sliced mushroom caps with hot butter and lemon juice, then cooked them slowly, covered, for a few minutes.   I strained the stock, put it back in the pot, added the mushrooms with their juice, and let it all simmer.  There, basically, I had soup – all that was left was some filliping at the end.  I took it off the heat. I attempted to tackle the hoary mess out on the landing.  I soon determined that I’d rather be cooking.  At a little after six Eric and his Dad came in, earlier than I’d expected them, bearing squab.  I was putting the potatoes on to boil for the Pommes de Terre a L’Huile, French potato salad.  Evidently, it was National Squab Day – Eric had had to use all his powers, all his skills, to nab these.  All his money, too --  $12 a piece?!!  For a puny chicken?!! Eric’s father insists they are pigeons, not chicken.  I don’t much like the idea of eating pigeon, frankly.  But he threw forty bucks at the bill, so I guess I’ll get used to it. Two of them are still frozen, so I put them in a bowl of water.  Cold water, not hot or lukewarm.  Apparently the butcher had some very specific instructions about this.  Seemed to think these babies are delicate.  Joann, Eric’s stepmom, calls, and she’s still in Bay Ridge, just about to get on a train to come to our place.  I don’t have the heart to really be honest about how long it’s going to take her to get here.  When she hangs up I drain the potatoes and, while they’re cooling, mix up the vermouth, wine vinegar, lemon juice, mustard and olive oil for the dressing.  Then the potatoes are cool enough to handle, I slice them and then toss them with the dressing.  Potato Salad: done. Reading the recipe, I realize I forgot to blanch the bacon for the squab.  I feel the briefest stab of panic, but get over it and put on (another) pot to boil. It seems like everything is taking forever.  The water takes forever to boil.  The butter I have to clarify to make the canapés takes forever to melt.  The squab takes forever to thaw.  I’ve done all the prepping I can do, and now I’m just waiting for things to happen.   They all happen at once, of course.  One minute I’m standing there staring at some not-boiling water, and the next I’m throwing bacon into boiling water, answering the door for Joann, carving ice out of chicken innards – time’s a-wasting, the delicate pigeons will just have to tough it out – chopping up squab livers, frying bread with the crusts cut off in clarified butter.  It’s going all right, though.  We sit Eric’s folks in front of the TV to watch an old episode of The Sopranos while I finish up.  At this point we’re being pushed a bit by the elders’ schedule, they being natural early-to-bedders who in addition have a long trip home.  I put butter, tarragon and salt up the squabs’ bums, rub them with butter, drape them with bacon strips, and stick them in the oven.  I turn on the heat to bring it back up to the simmer.  First course in fifteen. The damned soup takes FOREVER to heat up.  Eric guesses that the pot must have been made in Colorado.  Har dee har har.  The squab are going to be done soon; we’re going to have like five minutes to eat the soup.  Once it finally gets to a simmer I beat it gradually in to a mixing bowl with beaten egg yolks and cream.  Put that back into the pot to simmer a little more.  Stir in the inevitable butter.  Serve.  Try to avoid sounding like a drill sergeant as I heard everyone to the table and tell them to eat up. The soup is super yummy.  Nothing unusual – it tastes like Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup, only really really good.  It would probably be even better with exotic hand gathered wild mushrooms selling at $23 a pound at Dean & DeLuca. Fuck Dean & DeLuca.  Everybody likes it well enough for seconds – except me of course, I’m dashing into the kitchen to get ready for the second course.  How in God’s name do people do multicourse meals?  This is French Cooking for the servantless American cook, remember?! I take the squab out of the oven, transfer them to a hot platter.  I turn on the broiler.  Eric’s folks go back to The Sopranos while I heat up the mushrooms, broil the canapés smeared with a mixture of liver, bacon and port (sorry, no optional fois gras this time…) and boil down the squab juices with port.  It all takes a little longer than you’d think, but I manage to get it done with no disasters.  A canapé goes on each plate.  A squab goes on each canapé.  Mushrooms get arranged around, and potato salad, which doesn’t really go with this meal, truth to tell, but what was I supposed to do, it was the next recipe in the book? comes to the table in a separate bowl.  Holy shit.  They look great.  I’m talking fancy-pants French cooking here, honey.  And it was a snap.  I sit at the table, utterly exhausted.  Everyone else looks as tired as I am, though what the hell for, I’ve got no idea.  We’ve none of us eaten squab before (repressed rose-petal fiasco aside.)  It’s awfully good.  Doesn’t taste like chicken at all.  The meat is very, very dark, like venison, but it isn’t too gamey.  The breasts are a little dry, but the port reduction sauce solves that problem nicely.  The canapés are intensely liver-y; they’d be too much on their own, but paired with the meat and mushrooms, they’re great.  And of course there’s the medieval thrill of eating a whole bird in mixed company, the civilizing gesture of knife and fork soon abandoned by all of us but  Joann, who soldiers politely on with utensils.  The potatoes are nothing really unusual, and they don’t really go with the rest of the meal all that well, but they’re cooked al dente, and their slight crunch and light flavor are refreshing.  And the best part is, I can sit back knowing the dessert’s all done and someone else has to do the dishes. We eat dessert out of coffee cups while watching yet another Sopranos episode (we’re a sad, obsessed lot, I know it.)  It’s a good kind of dessert for that sort of thing – simple, custardy, not very refined.  The pralin is sprinkled on top, sort of like sprinkles on ice cream.  It’s sweet and light and –huzzah – not soup.  This French cooking thing really seems to be a full time job.  But man-o-man, it’s a job I’d sure love to get paid to do.  Especially on days like this.  Sorry.  Nights.     3:36:57 PM    comment []