Wednesday, February 26, 2003

I’m sorry.  Every day I say, “Tomorrow I will be scintillating and brilliant.  Tomorrow I’ll knock everybody on their ass.”  But I just can’t be scintillating before 6am.  I can’t.  Sometimes we have to accept our limits. Tuesday Dinner: leftover lamb, Choux de Bruxelles a la Crème, and Gratin de Pommes de Terre Provencal. The brussels sprouts (sorry, aside here, but I hate how my spellcheck automatically capitalizes the Brussels (see?) in “brussels sprouts,” and then I have to go back and fix it manually, because I don’t like capitalizing “brussels sprouts,” it seems weird, hell, I don’t like capitalizing “god”) are briefly boiled, then chopped up coarsely.  Then cook them a couple of minutes in a hot pan with butter, seasoning with salt and pepper.  Pour in the cream, bring to a simmer.  Cover and cook ten minutes or so.  And there you have brussels sprouts with cream. I’m pretty amazed the Gratin de Pommes de Terre Provencal even got made.  Even as I was peeling the tomatoes, squeezing out their seeds, slicing them, I was thinking, “I’m not really going to make this, not tonight.”  Eric was peeling potatoes, I was mashing anchovies, garlic, dried basil and thyme and salt and pepper and olive oil all together while some sliced onions were cooking with olive oil over low heat on the stove, and I was imagining that at some moment soon I would just stop, crash out on the couch or better yet fall into the sweet oblivion of sleep.  And yet somehow I tossed the tomatoes with the onions, sliced the potatoes.  I spread a quarter of the tomato mixture into a casserole, followed by half the potatoes, half the anchovy mixture.  Tomatoes, potatoes, anchovies.  Tomatoes, a sprinkling of grated cheese, a dab of olive oil.  Stuck it in the oven for forty minutes.  Eric said everything was good.  And maybe it was; I seem dimly to recall it.  The brussels sprouts in particular seemed to go nicely with the lamb.  Actually, the potatoes did too.  It was just that the potatoes and the Brussels sprouts (okay, I give) didn’t really go with each other.  Or maybe my taste buds become unreliable after eleven thirty at night. I know I was supposed to go over proportions for the gnocchi I made the other night, but it’ll have to wait until tomorrow because I’ve run out of time.  I have to go to work, unless someone wants to come by and shoot me in the leg or sideswipe me with their car. 6:12:32 AM    comment []