Wednesday, December 25, 2002

I’m all distracted by the newest addition to our extended family – the Dog Formerly Known as Abby, a really, really, really ridiculously good-looking black standard poodle, a gift to my mother and the new lady love of her golden retriever Tyler.  So may my readers and Julia forgive me if I have been remiss in my cooking and postings.  Being back in Texas is of course fabulous – driving a real car on real highways, shopping in grocery stores that accommodate shopping cart, blue jays and grackles, Mexican martinis and good salsa.  Even if our initial Tex-Mex experience disappointed – Trudy’s is much better at the liquid side of things – I am thrilled to be back in the land of people who really eat.  And I did do a bit of the old Project.  Namely, for Christmas Eve dinner, which we made for eleven aunts and uncles and cousins, not a few of whom most likely think their crazy Yankified niece has completely dropped off the deep end with this here “blog” nonsense.  I was in charge of the Veau Prince Orloff and the Champignons Farcis.  Everyone was very excited about the prospect of a veal roast – as well they should be, at $15.99 a pound.  I don’t know what I’ll do when I’m back in Long Island City, attempting to function out from under the auspices of my kind parents.  I’m going to have to take out a loan for groceries.  Veau Prince Orloff is an absurd recipe.  What you do is this.  You roast the veal with some vegetables and bacon.  You save the juices.  We did this the night before, and then left the roast – slightly overdone, I think, as I so often do with Julia’s meats – sitting on the counter.  At around five o’clock Christmas Eve morning Tyler the Dog started barking (this was before DFKA had made her surprise appearance), and because my parents’ next-door neighbors are crazy litigious lunatics, I went ahead and got up to let him in.  Then I lay in bed for fifteen minutes considering just how much Tyler would like the eighty-dollar roast sitting on the kitchen counter.  So I got up again and moved it.  Then I went back to bed again and worried for awhile about all the stuff I had left to do to the veal, even if the dog should happen not to eat it.  Then I gave up and got up. You make a Soubise, which is a bit of rice briefly boiled and then cooked slowly with some butter and a lot of sliced onions for forty-five minutes or so.  (The water from the onions is sufficient to cook the rice, which I wouldn’t have thunk.)  Then you make duxelles -- minced mushrooms sautéed with shallots and butter.  Mom thought I’d gone plumb crazy when I started squeezing the minced mushrooms in one of her tea towels. You make a veloute sauce out of the veal juices and some milk.  A cupful of that gets beaten into the soubise, and then the soubise gets runs through a sieve-slash-Cuisinart-if-you-happen-to-be-sane, which I decided to pretend to.  Then you combine that with the duxelles, and cook it a bit, thinning it out with cream.  In writing this, I realize it doesn’t sound like such a lot of trouble as all that.  But you can trust me – it was a pain in the ass.  Took all morning and into the afternoon.  Also produced a hell of a lot of dirty dishes, which my mother, being my mother, patiently washed.  Which made me feel guilty, because that’s what Christmas is for.  Somewhere in here I also made the Champignons Farcis, which sounds sort of Middle Eastern, but isn’t.  You toss mushroom caps in butter.  (Mom had something like fifteen pounds of cleaned mushroom caps after an aborted attempt at stuffed mushrooms from an earlier party.  Terribly convenient.)  Saute onions in butter, then add shallots and minced mushroom stems  (again, previously done by Mother, the Unwitting Sous-Chef.)  Pour in some Madeira and boil it down.  Mix with breadcrumbs, Swiss cheese, Parmesan, parsley, and some whipping cream.  Spoon this filling into the caps, then sprinkle with some Swiss cheese and melted butter.  Again, not a terribly difficult recipe, but one with some little niggledy steps.  I set those aside to bake just before serving. I thinly sliced the veal, then stacked it back together, smearing mushroom filling on each slice.  I throw some cheese into the veloute, then pour it over the veal.  The veal now looks like some kind of wet beige footstool.  I sprinkle some more cheese on top, and some melted butter, arousing the horror of my mother, who even as Texan cook is capable of being horrified by the hideous quantities of fat I have taken to using.  That will get thrown into the oven right before dinner. We then sit around for a good long while waiting for my father and brother, who have mysteriously disappeared.  Aunts and uncles arrive.  My mother is getting antsy.  The aunts begin to grill me – where’s your father?  What’s he bringing home?  But my lips are sealed. DFKA shows up.  Extended and unceasing chaos ensues.  At some point we manage to eat. The veal is, as you might guess, rich enough to incite intestinal torsion.  Very good.  Overdone, I think, but really, when you’ve got that much shit on it, what does it matter?  The mushrooms also are good.  The mushrooms and the veal go rather oddly with San Antonio squash, cornbread dressing, turkey and pecan pie.  But no matter.  Dinner was served a little before three.  We leave the table at five.  We spend some quality time watching Tyler the dog try to hump the Westminster quality standard poodle.  Tyler is besotted.  He kisses her feet.  I kid you not. By seven at night, between the food and dog,s I’m about ready to crash out entirely. Christmas day.  You may be surprised to hear that I get some kitchen implements.  Including an ice cream machine. Eric gets a Cajun cookbook for Eric’s Spicy Thursday.  DFKA has a name.  It is Vivien.  For her official AKC name I’m plugging for Vivien’s Fifth Day of Tanqueray.  No one else seems as thrilled as I am. Radio silence will most likely resume until Sunday or Monday.  Until that time, enjoy your holiday weekend and eat very, very well. Merry Christmas to all and to all a goodnight. 2:48:07 PM    comment []