Friday, January 17, 2003

Wow.  Talk about democracy in action.  The people have spoken, and they have said, “Buy a Rice Cooker!”  Never let it be said that I am not responsive to the will of the public.  One rice cooker, coming up. But first I may need to buy a new pair of jeans.  These I have seem to have shrunk in the dryer. L’il Julie’s gone and grown up (out).  It’s not so much the Boeuf a la Catalane (Beef Stew with Rice, Onions & Tomatoes) we eat at eleven o’clock at night as it is the vodka tonics and three thousand crackers smeared with cream cheese and roasted raspberry-chipotle sauce (roasted raspberry-chipotle sauce is like Mike Herman in eighth grade who literally made girls melt into puddles in the hallways when he walked by; I am absolutely helpless when faced with it) consumed during the making of it, and the milano cookies eaten out of the bag when it’s done.  Not to mention the nutella on French bread I’m seriously considering eating when this post is done.  My own damn fault, I’m the first to admit.  You’ll see no suing of Pepperidge Farms here. So the husband sent me an email Thursday afternoon telling me Em A.W. was coming over for dinner.  Em!  I said great, but I’d need to change dinner plans, since the fish soufflé I was planning on making might not be really filling enough for three.  I said “I can make this here beef stew.  But we won’t be eating until late.” “Em doesn’t have to be at work tomorrow,” replies the husband, “Beef stew – bring it on!” So I do.  I get home around seven o’clock and get to work.  Chop some thick-cut bacon into lardons and brown it in olive oil.  Take it out.  Em A.W. shows up.  Em!  Brown some stew meat in the bacon fat and olive oil.  Take it out.  Mix Em and myself a gimlet, because the husband Eric forgot to buy tonic, and is out now trudging through the cold to the deli under the train tracks, which is the only deli that has tonic.  Brown sliced onions.  Take them out.  Saute some rice.  Pour in vermouth. Oof.  Didn’t take out the rice.  I scooped it out with a wooden spoon and stuck it in a cup.  Then I put everything -- except the rice -- that I’d taken out of the pot back into it.  I poured in beef broth to cover, salted and peppered, and added thyme, saffron, a crumble bay leaf, and – Oof.  No garlic.  How in the world did that happen?  Had to make do with garlic powder, at which Eric threatened to rebel, because Eric was raised by a bunch of commies that never had no truck with good old American staples like white bread and granulated garlic and Mr. Gatti’s pizza.  Get over it, Eric. Then I stuck the whole thing in the oven for an hour.  We watched some “Joe Millionaire” – reruns of “Joe Millionaire”, mind you.  I never claimed I was not pathetic.  That Joe Millionaire, though – he’s gonna be a stah!  I peeled tomatoes while we watched. Eric starts asking when dinner is going to be ready about fifteen minutes after I stick the meat in the oven. “Not for awhile yet.” “Really?”  [Long, sad face.] “I told you we’d be eating late.” “Yeah….” [moment of silence.  “Joe Millionaire.”  Husband perks up.]  So when’re we eating?” When the stew’s been in there for an hour, I take it out.  All the liquid’s evaporated and it’s sort of this stuck-on mess.  But I add some more beef broth when I stir in the chopped tomatoes and all is well again.  I stick the stew back in the oven for another hour and a half. “We almost ready to eat?” “Nope.” “Really?” “Yep.” “Oh.”  [silence]  “So, uh, when’re we eating?” I’m married to a twelve-year-old. At an hour and a half I take the pot out again.  I stir in the rice and let it simmer on the stove top for twenty minutes.  I stir in a cup of parmesan cheese.  My hungry husband has made us a salad.  We eat. This should have been the perfect stew.  The flavor was fantastic, even with the granulated garlic.  But damned if that rice I bought at the Queensborough deli isn’t defective.  I mean, yeah, I screwed up with the rice and had to scoop it up out of the vermouth, but why that should make it not cook at all I don’t know.  It made these hard little pellets in the stew that very nearly ruined the thing.  I’d like to point out that a rice cooker would not have helped me here. When we’re done – poor Em even has seconds, trooper that she is – we stand around in the kitchen awhile while Eric briefly contemplates the preposterous notion of washing the dishes, and eat Milano cookies.  Damn you, Em, and your milanos!  And then, in the immortal words of Samuel Pepys, “So to bed.” Next time we’re using real garlic, homemade beef broth, and rice that hasn’t been sitting around in some scary bodega waiting around for ten years to be bought up by a streetwalker looking to whip up a home-cooked meal.  Now that’ll be a stew. [Book Alert: MtAoFC has suffered a terrible blow.  Our most, um, rubenesque cat, Maxine (and I so don’t know how to spell that word – sorry) had an unfortunate incident whilst using the Book as a loveseat, which resulted in the wounding of her pride and the much more considerable wounding of the Book.  I suppose we knew something like this would happen.  The Book is strong, though – I have faith it will recover.] 7:58:19 AM    comment []