Tuesday, March 25, 2003

Today I went to the doctor, and then decided to have a salad. Yes, it’s official.  After more than six months of neatly avoiding a scale, it is at last my sad duty to report that, contrary to our fondest hopes, The Julie/Julia Project is definitively not an effective weight loss program.  Or weight maintenance program.  The bright side is, if you’re just coming off a debilitating bout of consumption, this might be just the thing for getting the meat back on your bones. And now here it is, ten minutes to midnight, and I’ve just finished my Gratin de Quenelles de Poisson (Fish Quenelles Gratineed in White Wine Sauce), having made certain to fit in a complete nervous breakdown along the way.  So the cycle continues. It was just one of those Mondays.  Actually, it was a very particular Monday – “Julie the Inept Day.”  So far it’s just recognized around the office, but I’m thinking our Commander in Chief will be taking it national pretty soon here.  There’s nothing like a staff meeting bright and early on a Monday morning, and the attendant lectures on contracts, procedures and invoices, to make one (me, anyway) feel like a fish out of water, i.e., choking to death.  Unless, of course, it’s being asked to spend the day doing background checks on people when one has no idea how to do it.  Anyway, yadayada, the point is, I was sort of a mess when I got home.  My brain was chanting “Domino’s… Quick Wok… Domino’s… Quick Wok…”, but I began, slowly, with the aching slowness of the deeply self-pitying, to get to work on the Quenelles. Quenelles are basically just gnocchi with fish in them, and if I had been in some other state of mind, would not be just all that hard.  But I was in that state of mind.  I began by trimming the halibut – Eric had bought steaks, with skin and bones, rather than filets, and in my attenuated state, I could not help thinking it was all part of his sinister plan to slowly drive me mad, so he could check me into the nuthouse and be done with me.  When that was done, I dumped the fish bones into a pot (so here I turned Eric’s vile intentions to my own advantage) with some wine, water, sliced onion, mushroom (jesus, I must be exhausted, the only word I can think of is “stalks”, I know that’s wrong,) and lemon juice, and let it simmer for stock. Then I tried to grind the fish up in my food mill, because it was what I had, and Julia specified that an “electric blender is not suitable.”  Well the food grind had no discernible effect upon the fish.  I got just a bit hysterical then, so Eric sat me down in front of the TV, where Julia was on.  (On tempering chocolate: “You don’t have to understand how it works, you just have to do it.”  Hee!)  Watching her made me cry at her wonderfulness, and then I felt better. Back into the kitchen, where the stock was done, and where we decided that while an electric blender might not be suitable, a Cuisinart most certainly would be.  It turns out Eric had broken my Cuisinart – dark times for the kitchen appliances at the old Powell abode --  by dropping it on the floor, and the Off/Pulse button now works only with some encouragement.  But work it does, and and in a jiff the fish was, you know, mushed up.  On to the pate au choux.  I brought a cup of water to the boil with four tablespoons of butter and a bit of salt, then quickly beat in a cup of flour.  I continued beating that over high heat for a minute or so, until the dough was getting a bit dry.  Then I beat in two eggs and two egg whites, one at a time, and turned the stuff, which pretty satisfactorily looked like pate au choux, into a mixing bowl.  I mixed in the fish with, um, my fingers.  Also some salt and pepper and nutmeg.  Stuck it in the fridge to “chill thoroughly.” While I was waiting I did my Canadian Air Force Workout.  Gee!  I’m sure to be a supermodel in no time! Once the quenelle mixture was chilled (it being now something after ten o’clock,) I heated up some water mixed with some of the fish stock to almost simmering.  I place two spoons in a mug of water, took out the quenelle stuff, and got to work making little dumplings to dump in the almost simmering water.  (Dump… Dumplings!  I can’t believe I never made the connection!)  This is kind of fun, actually, kind of zen.  Scoop up some of the mixture in one of the spoons.  With the bowl of the other spoons, smooth and mold the mixture into a little robin’s egg shape, then nudge the tip of the spoon into the bowl of the first and flip the dumpling into the water.  This goes remarkably smoothly.  Soon I have nearly two dozen little dumplings poaching gently away.  I let them poach for fifteen minutes or so, until they’re swelled and floating, like little bloated dead bodies, if it’s close to eleven at night and that’s just the way your mind’s working.  I took them out with a slotted spoon and let them drain on a towel.  Next the sauce – another basic béchamel.  Make a roux of five tablespoons butter to seven tablespoons flour.  Pour in 1 ½ cups milk mixed with 1 ½ cups fish stock and brought to the boil.   Beat for a minute over the heat until quite thick.  Pour in cream a tablespoon at a time – Cream.  Crap!  I was supposed to beat some cream into the quenelle mixture before I shaped and poached them. Well, it’s too late now.  And I’m past caring. Anyway, I beat in the cream, and some salt and pepper and lemon juice.  When it tastes good, I pour a bit of it into the bottom of a casserole dish.  I lay the cream-less quenelles on top, then pour on the rest of the sauce, sprinkle with swiss cheese, dot with butter, and stick under the broiler for ten minutes. Eric’s made a salad of Praise-Alice mesclun, mushrooms and green onions.  That, with the quenelles, is dinner. It’s actually pretty damned good, even if I did fuck it up.  Definitely tastes of fish, but not in a bad way, and it’s puffy and rich and creamy.  Next up is Fish Quenelles with Oysters, I’ll have a chance to redeem myself on the Cream-Quenelle front. And here we are at midnight.  And I have to go to bed.  Now.  Really. 7:39:10 AM    comment []