Thursday, May 15, 2003

I thought it was a fluke, but on Wednesday for the second time in a row I bought six veal scallops for about ten dollars.  I’m suspicious.  This meat is so cheap I can’t help thinking I’m not paying for fully tortured baby cow.  Maybe I would like tortured baby cow better. Not that the Escalopes de Veau a l’Estragon was bad; it turned out fine.  For the second time in a row I managed not to horrifically overcook the meat, which is pretty amazing in and of itself when the meat is so very thin.  And after browning the meat – which I did better this time, I guess on Sunday I was feeling hurried and didn’t let the oil and butter get hot enough, or something – it’s simplicity itself.  Saute some minced shallots in butter.  Deglaze the pan with vermouth, throwing in a good little bit of tarragon – I used my fancy dried stuff, which is very, one might even say too, fragrant – while you’re at it.  Throw in some meat glaze diluted with water and boil down.  Put the veal back in the pan, salt and pepper it, let it cook covered for a few minutes.  Swirl in some butter and some parsley and that’s it.  Eat it with some green beans and rice while watching West Wing.  That’s what we did.  I had wanted to make wax beans, now that I know what wax beans are – pretty little purple stripey things – but now that I know what they are I can never find them.  It’s extremely infuriating.  So, green beans. It was a very good meal to make while sitting around the kitchen with Em A.W., knowing that tomorrow I must arise at 5 to go to yet another fricking board meeting (or not so much go to it as go near it – help my boss-person get herself together, then stand outside the door of the conference room peering in at a bunch of old white men around a table, so people see me peering and think I’m interested, this is my life.)  Simple, fast, almost like a regular weeknight meal and not a deathmarch.  And the veal was good – the tarragon in the brown sauce made it taste rich and green and tobacco-ey, or maybe the tobacco thing was just the Pavlovian response I get whenever Em’s around, though this time, thank jesus, she didn’t have any damned cigarettes.  But I don’t know, I sort of find veal scallops to be boring, a little insubstantial.  Which may be the reason I ate about two hundred and fifty crackers smeared with cream cheese and raspberry-chipotle sauce.  I deserve my fat-pig status. And West Wing was good –bunch of actors acting the shit out of the last Sorkin script.  Can’t fucking believe they brought in John Goodman two minutes before the end of the season.  I’d like to think next season will be good, despite Aaron Sorkin’s departure, but I’m not such a cock-eyed optimist as all that.  And I’d like to think Aaron’s going to go out and create the next Sports Night, but I fear he’s just going to sit around and do some more coke and shrooms.  Ah well.  Such is the tragedy of life. So now, work.  Christ.  And you know that thing that happens where you get this faint whiff of a smell somewhere on you, but you can’t find the source?  Your clothes don’t smell stale, your pits don’t stink, your hair is fine.  I smell like someone smeared Burger King special sauce on my bra or something, and it’s driving me crazy.  Not the best way to go into an 8 am meeting surrounded by aged and powerful bureaucrats. Sharing… lovely….   6:34:49 AM    comment []