Thursday, February 13, 2003

Pursuant to my previous contention that my lifestyle consists of an inordinate amount of heavy lifting, I wish to submit as evidence the load I carried last night on a commute home from the Whole Foods Market on West 24th Street in Manhattan:             Bag #1, containing:             1 Leg of Lamb (4.5 lbs)                                                      1 Muscovy Duck (5 lbs)             Bag #2, containing:            7 Russet Potatoes (5 lbs)                                                      1 box beef broth, organic                                                      2 large carrots                                                      3 large tomatoes                                                      1 ½ lbs green beans                                                      1 head garlic                                                     Cheddar cheese                                                     Small container, Dijon mustard             Bag #3, containing:           1 bottle cheap red wine                                                     1 bottle cheap tawny port             Bag #4, (splitting), containing:                   1 pair knee-high black boots, retrieved from cobbler                   2 pair stockings, in original Hanes© cardboard sleeves This is for me a load on the heavy side of the normal range.  I ask you, is this any way to live?  I carried it all on a forty-five minute, rush-hour commute, including one train transfer at 42nd Street Times Square, on an evening when I had been urged by coworkers not to take the subway at all – friends of friends in the know had received “tips.” The Julie/Julia Project with Small Pox.  That should be a hit. Once home – och, home, don’t even get me started, I could rant for an hour about the state of, say, our telephone cords – I got started on the Gigot a la Moutarde.  Eric was at a basketball game with some friends from his work, which I had declined to attend – I’m sorry, Jarret, this was in no way to suggest that I didn’t wish the pleasure of your company, I simply cannot abide sporting events.  Eric at a mall?  That’s how I am at sporting events.  I break out into hives.  It isn’t pretty.  Anyway, it would give me plenty of time to finish the leg of lamb, which would be nice.  I got home at 8 and got right to work. Is it the act of an insane person to start a leg of lamb at 8 o’clock on a Wednesday night?  Especially when said person has not managed to hang up her clothes or put her shoes away all week?  I leave that question to the professionals and stick with what I know – culinary derring-do.  I proceed with the Gigot a la Moutarde.  Not a difficult recipe, particularly, though of course it takes some time.  Mix up half a cup of mustard with two tablespoons soy sauce, a mashed clove of garlic, a teaspoon of ground rosemary, and ¼ teaspoon powdered ginger.  Slowly beat in two tablespoons of olive oil.  Smear the stuff thickly on your piece of lamb and let it sit for as long as you can.  JC says several hours.  I didn’t have several hours, but I figured I could let it sit until 9:15 or so.  While it was sitting I began to prepare the Puree de Pommes de Terre a l’Ail – Garlic Mashed Potatoes, to all you non-Francophones out there.  Which I’ve already made, so no progress on the Project here, but it is what JC suggests with the lamb, and I remembered them being really good.  Start by briefly boiling a head of garlic, the cloves separated.  Actually, you’re supposed to use two heads, but I had stupidly only got one.  After they’ve boiled, drain and peel them.  Cook them slowly in butter for twenty minutes or so. While that’s happening, I wash some dishes that Eric left in the sink from the night before.  Which Eric deserves to leaves some dishes in the sink, he has too many dishes to wash as it is, it’s perfectly comprehensible and doesn’t make me resentful at all.  Not.  At.  All. I prepare the green beans.  I was originally going to make Harticots Verts a la Provencale, green beans with tomatoes, garlic, and herbs, but this was another recipe I’d already done and fuck it, I’ve whipped my ass quite enough in the interest of food for the day, thank you very much.  Plain old green beans will be fine. At nine o’clock I get a call.  “Guess what I’m doing,” says my husband. “What,” I cleverly riposte. “Staring straight at Joe Millionaire.” It was true – Joe Millionaire was at the Knicks game.  He was roundly booed by all attendees.  I think a member of Bon Jovi was there too.  Eric was going to be home around 10:30, he said.  Which would work out nicely – the roast was four and a half pounds, I’d stick it in at 9:30, bring it out at 10:15, let it sit a bit, and have dinner right on time.  Lovely.  When the garlic had cooked its twenty minutes, and was all soft and light yellow, I put in two tablespoons of flour and let that cook for a couple of minutes.  Beat in a cup of boiling milk, let that simmer a minute.  Mushed the stuff through a sieve, and put the puree back in the little pot.  I had a pot on for the potatoes, and in another I was boiling the bones from our last leg of lamb for some stock.  I had another pot on to steam the green beans.  The pot with the garlic puree I set aside – on the burner that doesn’t work. Have I mentioned to you that one of my burners doesn’t work?  Well, it doesn’t.  That’s pretty amusing, don’t you find?  Makes this whole thing all the more piquant, doesn’t it? Aside from that, though, I was doing all right.  The lamb went in the oven, I was waiting for the water to boil for the potatoes.  I spoke with my mother on the phone awhile, until the battery on our cordless phone died.  Oh, have I mentioned that our cordless phone is rotary.  Yes, Ladies and Gentlemen, a miracle of technological innovation.  I try to switch phones, thus having to deal with the broken phone cord I swore I wouldn’t mention.  I briefly consider hanging myself with it, since it’s good for nothing else. All of a sudden I am very, very tired. I boil the potatoes.  While that’s happening, Eric comes home, earlier than I’d expected.  He says the house smells good.  I don’t know, and I find I don’t care. At 10:10 I check the lamb.  Either my meat thermometer’s broken, or it’s not nearly done yet. I drain the potatoes, and push them through my potato ricer back into the pot.  I stir them around over the heat to dry them out. I steam the green beans, and then put them in a pot, toss over heat to evaporate the water, and toss with butter.  I set them aside and hope they’ll stay kind of warm. At ten-thirty I check the lamb.  Er, not done yet.  Not nearly done. I sit and read my silly book.  Eric reads something, probably one of the damn ocean of magazines he’s got laying around the house, we’re drowning in New Yorkers here and he’s bitching that we don’t take the Times Literary Supplement.  At ten-forty the lamb still doesn’t seem entirely done, but the delicate balance of my fear of underdone lamb and my fear of overdone lamb is tipped by my imminent collapse.  I take it out.  While it sits, I finish the potatoes – reheat the garlic puree, beat it in to the pureed potatoes, thin out with cream and season with salt and pepper.  I cook down the juices from the lamb with a cup of lamb stock – it makes a very little bit of gravy.  We eat.  The lamb, I must say, is very, very, very good.  I could get used to this lamb stuff, and the implication that goes along with regularly eating it that I must be rolling in money.  The mustard paste definitely is wonderful, and besides the taste makes for a nice browned crust.  The potatoes are also wonderful, though I should have used two heads of garlic (I write the next morning, as the cats quail before the horror that is my breath), and it’s too much goddamned trouble for garlic potatoes. I immediately collapse.  Eric follows quickly behind, sadly too incapacitated to face the eternal mountain of dishes. Which is fine. Just. Fine. 6:37:40 AM    comment []