Sunday, April 20, 2003

I learned a disturbing fact about Emily A.W. Friday night.  This fact may so change the impression she has made on my readers that I hesitate to record it.  The sad truth is, Em runs.  And not just when she’s being chased.  She ran all the way from her apartment in Greenpoint, in fact.  I know, I know – I was shocked too.  But since, as she quickly pointed out, she jogs bearing cigarettes, I am reassured that she has not gone over irretrievably to the dark side.  That plus the fact that she always amiably waits until 12:30 to be fed, given sufficient vodka tonics and a good movie, or even just any movie, on the DVD player.  Friday night was Moussaka, and a long night it was. I got home early, though not as early as I would have if some asshole at our office hadn’t decided to schedule a 4:30 meeting.  Imagine scheduling a 4:30 meeting on Good Friday.  As Eric said, “Dude, Christ is RISING.  You can’t fuck with that mojo!”  I can be very defensive of my religious freedom when getting time off work is concerned.  Anyway, I got home around 5:45, after stopping by the Broadway Panhandler in Soho to get Eric an anniversary present – a cast iron deep-fry set for the new culinary mission he is embarking upon.  Where, by the way, I got to experience a classic asshole New Yorker.  The fucking woman was torturing this poor clerk – “That is not a frittata pan, that’s a crepe pan,” she carped, as he held out to her something that might or might not have been a frittata pan, but certainly was NOT a crepe pan.  Being superior is great, especially when you can bitch about the ignorant bitch with the clerk when checking out.  “Wow, she was charming!”   Nothing like sympathizing with folks in the service industry to make you feel kind and virtuous.  Anyway, so I got home before Eric, who after all had to buy all the groceries.  I started the brown sauce, browning carrots, onions and the lamb bones I’d reserved from the boiled lamb earlier in the week in lard and oil with, making a roux with the oil and flour, stirring in beef stock and vermouth, parsley, bay leaf and thyme.  I washed dishes until the hot water ran out.  Then I lay down on the couch.  It was the first time I’d lain on the couch, doing nothing, for a long time.  I realized there is nothing much better in the world than lying on a couch with my shoes off, my feet aching from a day in uncomfortable shoes.  Seriously. Anyway, so when Eric got here, the cooking really began.  I started up the tomato sauce – cooked some simmered bacon in butter and oil with diced carrots, onions and celery, stirred in some flour, then some stock.  Jesus, flour and stock, flour and stock, blah blah blah.  Anyway, then stirred in some canned crushed tomatoes, a bit of salt and sugar, some garlic, parsley, bay leaf and thyme.  This set to simmer, alongside the brown sauce, for a good long time.  I sliced the eggplants in half lengthwise, rubbed them with oil, salted them, I lined what would have been a charlotte mold, had I had forty bucks to spend on one at the Broadway Panhandler, but what was in fact just a casserole dish, with the eggplant skins.  and stuck them in an oven for half an hour.  Em came.  Em had cigarettes. I minced up mushrooms in the cuisinart, squeezed the liquid out into the tomato sauce, sautéed them with some minced shallots in olive oil.  When the eggplants were done roasting I scooped out the flesh.  Half of it I chopped up relatively fine and mixed up with the mushrooms.  The other half I kept in big long strips and sautéed in very hot olive oil until browned. Forgive me if I’m getting terse here, this was two nights ago now, and we’re watching “The Ten Commandments,” which is a movie that has the capacity to impair one’s communication skills. I beat some chopped-up lamb from the Gigot l’Anglaise, three eggs, salt, thyme, pepper, rosemary, garlic, tomato paste and some of the brown sauce into the eggplant-mushroom mixture.  I layered this mixture with the browned eggplant, a bit of one, bit of another, until I’d used all of both bowlfuls of stuff.  Lay the remaining eggplants on top.  Baked the casserole, in a larger roasting pan full of boiling water, for oh say an hour and a half. This all took a good deal of time.  Luckily we had “Young Frankenstein” to keep us company, which while not as great a movie as I had remembered, certainly did have Madelaine Kahn in it, God bless her soul, and Eric had never seen it which was a travesty.  So a good time to be had by all.  And the moussaka, when at last we ate it at 12:30, was well and truly good.  Thy eggplant, thy long baking, thy seasonings and thy garlic, all are good and true.  Fucking Charlton Heston.  The point is, the moussaka was fabulous.  And I believe twill serve well as leftovers. I gotta tell you, I’m tired and there is much yet to be told.  But now, I must sleep.   9:59:52 PM    comment []