Friday, October 25, 2002

Eric’s Spicy Thursday this week meant Eric’s Spicy Barbecue, or rather, Spicy Barbecue Eric Rode the 7 Train to Retrieve.  It was indeed spicy, and it was pretty much the real thing – smoked brisket and links from Pearson’s Texas Barbecue, the only pit barbecue place in the five boroughs.  Well, aside from Blue Smoke, the ridiculous new Danny Meyer restaurant, but do I want to eat $30 brisket in a stunning architectural space over an elegant New York jazz club?  I don't think so. So anyway, Eric got this barbecue (which comes with this strange barbecue sauce, nice and vinegary, but with an earthy flavor almost like Chimayo chiles), but the place didn’t have any potato salad, and Eric really wanted potatoes, so he went into a nearby deli to get potatoes.  While he was there, he picked up a box of Joy brand (“A Real Joy To Eat”) frozen Kashmiri Dum Aloo, or potatoes in authentic spicy sauce.  The novelty of Indian frozen dinners apparently appealed immediately and intensely to my dear husband.  He could not wait to get the tray in the oven. So that was our dinner, and except for the fact that the instructions on the dum aloo box lied, and the tray almost melted in the oven, it was all pretty damned good.  The barbecue really was not at all unlike barbecue, and was actually spicy.  The dum aloo, while obviously not the traditional brisket accompaniment, was not half bad.  To tell you the truth, it tasted just exactly like every Indian dish you ever got at Indian Row in the East Village.  But here’s the thing.  Eric’s Spicy Thursday is supposed to be a time for me to reflect meaningfully, and here I was again doing anything but.  (We watched the last episode of the third season of The Sopranos, the famous “Jackie Junior Gets It” episode.  But anyway….)  And there are things upon which to reflect.  I have now completed, I think it’s 103 recipes, in just under two months.  Which means I’m more or less on track.  Except it’s only going to get harder here on out.  I’ve got lobstor thermidor coming up next week – the other day, when I was making the tuna, that next recipe kept throbbing off the pages at me like a terrible, inevitable future.  “The lobsters are done when… the long head-feelers can be pulled from the sockets…discard sand sacks in the heads, and the intestinal tubes…rub lobster coral and green matter through a fine sieve….”  And after that there’s beef bourguignon, and leg of lamb, and calves’ brains.  What is this thing I’m trying to do?  How will I ever survive it?  Is the Julie/Julia Project killing me? But no.  The Project isn’t killing me; the soul-sucking government job is.  This French cooking thing would be a snap, otherwise.  So I guess I know what I have to do.  It’s a tough job, and dangerous, but it has to be done. I will obviously have to rig the lottery. Everyone, by the way – thanks for all the great comments.  I will indeed be picking up some kick-ass tubes of tomato paste, stat.  8:04:11 AM    comment []