Tuesday, October 22, 2002

True to my word yesterday, this week so far is proving to be a bit of the same old same old.  Which of course is par for the course with Julia.  She lulls you into a comfort zone before hitting you over the head with a live lobster.  And maybe next week I’ll be ready for it.  This week, I find myself groping for all the comfort I can get.  Last night was Poulet Saute a la Crème and Haricots Verts a la Crème; or, All About the Cream.  After Sunday’s meal, reading about which inspired my mother to begin again her campaign to Stop the Julie/Julia Project, it was a snap – just a good weekday dinner, only worse for you.  The chicken was browned in butter and oil, then sprinkled with salt, pepper and thyme, covered, and cooked under low heat for 10 minutes or so.  The green beans, meanwhile, were briefly boiled in salted water.  When the chicken was done, I took it out and put it on a plate in the oven – (where, by the way, I discovered last night’s steaks.  Ah well.  They hadn’t been any good, anyway….) – and poured most of the fat out of the pan.  I sautéed some shallots in the remaining, then cooked that down with some vermouth.  Then – and this is really the only place where Poulet Saute a la Crème differs at all from plain old Poulet Saute – I poured in some cream and let that boil down a little.  Meanwhile, I tossed the green beans in a dry pan to evaporate the water, then tossed them with butter and salt and pepper.  Then I poured in oh, say, a cup of cream, and let it boil away for a few minutes, until the beans were tender and the cream reduced.  That was the theory anyway, though for some reason the cream didn’t want to reduce too much.  Oh well.  I like cream not reduced just fine.  Right before serving, I stirred some butter into the chicken’s cream sauce, and some parsley, and sprinkled parsley over the green beans too.  There was nothing complicated about the meal, unless you count the slight dread of death by salmonella inspired by the somewhat underdone chicken thighs.  Eric had made rice, the better to eat more cream sauce.  Everything was good, and I had seconds even though I’ve sort of made a pact with myself not to eat seconds these days.  The only other food-related anxiety in my head these days is this: why aren’t we eating the orange Bavarian?  It’s more than a week old now, and soon we’ll have to throw it away, and we haven’t eaten any of it since the night I served it.  Why?  It was good – I thought so, at least.  Maybe Julia’s got us so doped up on cream and butter that our bodies are actually refusing dessert.  That does seem unlikely, doesn’t it?  7:23:39 AM    comment []