Monday, October 21, 2002

Sometimes, in the war between Nutella and writing, Nutella wins.  This morning the prospect of some Nutella on French bread has lured me to the waste of several minutes.  That, plus my Carmela shirt – Carmela Soprano has the very same one, and I don’t know how to feel about that -- has these very annoying French cuff sleeves, that it took me like five minutes to get fastened.  So once again I find myself blogging on the fly.  And there’s quite a bit of food to get to.  So without further ado: Salade de Boeuf a la Parisienne (Cold Beef and Potato Salad.) This is what we had Saturday night.  There were some dicey moments there when I almost gave in to the enticement of fast food, but that’s where living in Long Island City comes in handy, because Long Island City doesn’t have those schmancy amenities like decent pizzerias, and as much as I didn’t want to took, I more didn’t want to leave the house, so Salade de Boeuf a la Parisienne.  All this is is leftover beef from Pot au Feu, marinated in a simple vinaigrette, with red onions (also marinated), lettuce, tomatoes, and French potato salad.  Also there was supposed to be hardboiled eggs in it, but what can I say?  I guess I haven’t gotten around my boiled egg phobia yet, and I just didn’t have the strength Saturday to work on that weakness.  So no hardboiled eggs.  It would have been pretty good, except the lettuce, which Eric bought from our closest grocery, a frightening place that goes by the name of C-Town, was oddly bitter.  As Eric pointed out, this recipe hardly fulfilled the Frenchie philosophy of messing with crappy food until it tastes great.  This was more in the “great ingredients treated with respect” school, and some good lettuce would have made a difference.  Which brings me to Sunday.  Sunday I spent a good part of the day getting my hair done – Eric doesn’t understand spending a good part of the day getting hair done, but Eric would never follow a hairstylist faithfully from the East Village to his new digs in Inwood, roughly an hour trip by subway from Long Island City.  Anyway, by the time I got home it was already nearly four, and there was still shopping to do, not to mention the dropping off of laundry.  Och!  We did it all, going to a grocery store near Eric’s work, which, while not frightening, is not the best-stocked joint you’ve ever seen.  I bought, for the evening’s meal, the only steaks that like kind of sort of like filet mignon, in that they were smallish and roundish and had no bones in them.  I had picked up artichokes and asparagus in the city, and already had potatoes on hand, so that made me more or less ready.  I was going to be making Tournedos Henri IV, also known as Filet Steaks with Artichoke Hearts and Bearnaise Sauce.  This is one of those deceptive recipes that looks reassuringly short and to-the-point, until you examine the ingredient list and realize that it refers to five other recipes, and that often those recipes refer to other ones too.  I am sometimes chided by people who chide people for such things – hi, Mom! – for being such a messy cook, my filthy and broken cookbooks being the primary evidence of this failing of mine.  I have been given Lucite cookbook holders and other devices to help with this.  But when you have to flip between eight different pages for a single recipe, I ask you, what good do Lucite cookbook holders you? The recipe called for buttered whole artichoke hearts, buttered asparagus tips, and potato balls sautéed in butter.  In theory, this is good because all the vegetable are included.  In reality, of course, what it means is that I have to make buttered whole artichoke hearts, buttered asparagus tips, and potato balls sautéed in butter.  First I did the preparation for the asparagus, which entails breaking off the ends of the asparagi, then cutting off the top inch and a half, then tying those tips into bundles, which is crazy but whatever, and then dicing the rest of the stalks.  I will confess to not shaving off all the little perfectly inoffensive scales, because, I mean, come on.  I boiled the stalks, then the tips, then drained them and plunged them in cold water to set the color.  Then I went after the artichoke hearts just as I had the first time, only now that I knew what to expect it wasn’t quite the thrill it had been before.  Artichoke hearts – been there, done that.  The last step on those was, after the choke and all the leaves had been removed, I was to bake them with butter under a round of waxed paper for 20 minutes or so.  I did a little space- and dish-saving here by dumping the asparagus into the same pot about ten minutes in.  The potatoes got whittled into little rounds somewhere in there, too.  I am frightened to say that I’m getting pretty good with whittling potatoes into rounds, but what I really need is a potato baller.  A potato baller sounds like a nasty epithet for an Irishman (or, as Eric points out, a woman with a thing for Irishmen, but that seems rather an obscure epithet to me), but I think it’s just like a melon baller: a little scoop device.  Whatever, I don’t have one.  Those got dried in a towel and sautéed in clarified butter.  (Did I mention I clarified some butter?  Well I did.  Don’t ask me when or how; I can’t remember.)  Also sautéed in clarified butter were some canapes – read, Wonder Bread cut into rounds with a cookie cutter.  Lastly, I did the steak.  All that happens with the steak is that you sauté it in butter and oil for a few minutes on each side until it’s done to medium rare, then set it aside while you cook down some Madeira wine and beef stock in the pan. Oh, and fuck, I made béarnaise.  Again.  To put the meal together, what you do is put a canapé on the plate, top it with a filet, top that with an artichoke heart, and fill the artichoke heart with béarnaise.  The asparagus and potatoes go on the side.  It’s all very impressive looking. Too bad the steak sucked.  And I do mean sucked.  It was so tough I nearly lost a husband to it.  I guess that’s what you get when you buy steak from a crappy grocery in Long Island City.  And I am not at all convinced by the canapé theory.  Perhaps using something other than Wonder Bread would help.  Everything else was good, though – I’m becoming a big fan of artichoke hearts, and asparagus baked in butter ain’t bad either.  The potatoes were probably a little underdone, but boy howdy, they were round. So speaking of spending ungodly amounts of money… the rest of this week is more or less same old, same old for the Julie/Julia Project, but next week is looking to be the first wave at Normandy.  I’ve got both Lobster Thermidor – finally, a chance to kill a creature myself before I eat it! -- and Tournedos Rossini, which involved both fois gras and truffles. God help me. 8:04:21 AM    comment []