Tuesday, April 01, 2003

April is the cruelest month for the determined anti-Alice contingent.  I had asked Eric to pick up some artichokes, thinking he’d get the usual enormous monstrosities our crappy Astoria grocery has, which are perfect for trimming down for the hearts.  But instead he brought home tiny, lovely globes, beautiful jewels smaller than my fists.  I should have given up and prepared them in some lovely Roman fashion, but that wouldn’t be a contribution to the Project.  So I went ahead with the Fonds d’Artichauts Mirepoix, Buttered Artichoke Hearts with Diced Vegetables.  Ms. Waters would be turning over in her grave, if she had one.  Trimmed the artichokes, rubbing with lemon all the way, simmered them in a blanc made of a flour paste, water, lemon juice, and salt for twenty-five minutes, then drained them and ran cold water over them.  When I tried to scrape out the choke, that’s where I got into trouble.  The hearts were so tiny and delicate, they fell apart at the smallest over-application of pressure.  And when I got them all cleaned, they made for a pretty sad little pile of teeny-tiny artichoke hearts.  But no matter.  I sautéed up three tablespoons each of minced celery, carrots, onions, and ham in some butter.  Added the artichoke hearts, covered, and stuck in the oven for fifteen minutes. The rest of the meal was (non-J/J) simplicity itself.  Salted and peppered a chicken, stuck a lemon up its bum, stuck it in the oven.  Sliced some small potatoes in half, coated them in olive oil, tossed them in alongside.  But oh, one cannot truly appreciate the miracle that is a ventilation hood until one has recently returned from Houston -- where, true enough, one set the fire alarms going with the smoke from the lamb, but where the hood prevented the problem from ever becoming a miasmic horror – and tried to roast a chicken and some potatoes at the old familiar oven in the Long Island City apartment where the smoke detectors have long since gone without batteries due to the regular occurrence of precisely this sort of miasmic horror.  I could no longer make out the far end of the apartment through the haze.  The cats meowed piteously like Kate blowing on her whistle amid the frozen bodies floating in a post-Titanic sea.  I’m sure we’ve sliced a couple of years off our lives. But roast chicken I don’t have to fiddle with?  Priceless. The artichokes were excellent.  This is something I would serve to guests with great pride, and probably something that you could get away with using jarred artichoke hearts for.  The ham got all brown and crispy in the butter, and it plus the brighter tastes of the vegetables gave the artichokes a real sense of self.  Which is good for us, since there was only one pitiful little serving for each of us.  The potatoes and the chicken, being not Julia creations, were simple, and a relief for that.  I don’t know what was wrong with me last night.  After being very sure all day and evening that I was going to be moderate in all things, I wound up eating like three servings of chicken, opening a second bottle of wine, and smoking three cigarettes.  Jesus, what the hell is wrong with me?  At times like this it is comforting to know that three hundred and forty years ago our man Pepys was going through the same thing.  “And I find reason to fear that by my too sudden leaving off wine, I do contract many evils upon myself.” My kind of guy, that Sam.   7:37:49 AM    comment []