Wednesday, December 11, 2002

So this is fun.  Y’all will like this. Disaster is always amusing. Boeuf Bourguignon (attempt #1) So I got home last night and got started on this while Eric shelled a mess of peas.  This is all for Wednesday’s dinner, which we preparing mostly in advance, being that our guest… wait for it… Judith Jones, senior editor at Knopf and the woman responsible for getting MtAoFC published way back when, is ninety or so, and not used to eating ten at o’clock at night.  (I know, I know – not all that exciting.  I perhaps played it up too much.  Next time I’ll try for Demi Moore, because wouldn’t she make a fascinating dinner companion.  Or David Strathairn – if you’re out there, please know you’re always welcome.)  Boeuf Bourguignon is pretty fun to make, as it turns out, and not as horrifically complicated as you’d think.  I start by chopping up a chunk of slab bacon into lardons, first cutting off the rind.  At least I cut off what I think is the rind.  It can be hard to tell.  Anyway, this I simmer in water for ten minutes, while slicing up a carrot and an onion.  Once the bacon has simmered, I drain and dry it, then brown the lardons lightly in oil.  You will note that for much of this dish the technique is just exactly like Coq au Vin (see below).  Then I removed the bacon and began browning the stew meat.  So far so good.  I browned the meat in small batches, and had to add more oil a couple of times.  It took a long, long time.  Sometime during the course of this, Eric ordered pizza – from Domino’s the only single pizza place that will deliver to us, I mean aside from the one beside the pick-up point for the Riker’s Island bus, which makes pizza of a distinctly and uniquely unsavory character.  We ate it.  I watched some “24”, which, you know, “bored now!” but whatever.  I had a couple of vodka tonics.  Maybe one might better say “a few.” After all the meat was browned, and after I browned the carrot and onion, I put the beef and bacon back in, and tossed it with a little salt and some flour.  Then I stuck it in a 450-degree oven for 4 minutes (not three, not five, but 4.  Got it?).  I tossed it, then put it back in for another 4.  Then I took it out and poured in three cups of red wine, beef stock to cover, tomato paste, garlic, bay leaf, and the bacon rind.  I brought it to a simmer on top of the stove, then stuck it back in the oven, which I’d turned down to 325 degrees. This is where things begin to fall apart.  Because, see, the boeuf bourguignon is meant to cook three to four hours, and it was already after ten o’clock.  So I figured.  I sit around and drink another vodka tonic and wait.  Only it turns out drinking vodka tonics is not the best idea when sitting around waiting for your beef to cook.  I began to get very, very sleepy, very, very quickly.  Oh, that’s okay, I thought.  I’ll just get up when the alarm goes off and take it out.  I got ready for bed and lay down on the bed.  I woke up at four o’clock in the morning. The boeuf bourguignon was toast. Well, that of course was when I knew I would not be going to work tomorrow.  Which is great and all, only I got up with some more of the terrible stomach cramps that had been plaguing me at work the day before, and which I had assumed was just my stomach telling me that works sucks the big one.  So now I actually am sick.  But the show must go on.  Today, boeuf bourguignon, the triumphant second attempt.  What’s it they say?  Three times a cha--. Oh. Nevermind. 8:42:59 AM    comment []