Tuesday, May 20, 2003

So it’s five-thirty in the afternoon, I’m at the office, and I have to get home by seven to meet the network news crew, after stopping DDD (Grocery of the Beast) to try to get wax beans, because I can’t find those motherfuckers anywhere.  I have marked my prompt five-thirty absence on my boss’s calendar.  Now she’s still in a meeting, and I still have to give her some contracts, which are Very Important.  I’ve had them ready for her for hours, but she hasn’t had the time to look at them.  At 5:31, I’m logging off my computer as she comes out of the conference room.  “Where are the contracts?” “Here you go.” “Where’s the cover letter?  Legal was drafting a cover letter.” This is the first I’ve ever heard about this. All of Legal is in a Very Important Meeting.  I cannot get through.  This fucking life of mine makes me want to throw Vice Presidents through 20th story windows into big gaping construction pits.  The boss then wants two copies of the contract, not one.  First I’ve heard of it.  I begin to cry in earnest.  The printer inexplicably stops taking my calls.  No matter how many jobs I send to it, it just keeps reading, serenely, “Ready.”  I beat it half to death, to no avail. I leave at six.  I am strongly considering never going back. DDD does not have wax beans.  Of course.  I wind up spending closed to ten dollars on potatoes and green beans. I get home precisely three minutes before the network news crew does.  Those minutes are spent answering a solicitation call from Fleet and cleaning up vomit that Maxine deposited on the kitchen floor upon my entrance. No matter.  It’s seven o’clock, and I am making Cotes de Veau aux Herbes On TV.  Maybe.  It nothin’ don’t happen and the creeks don’t rise. I’m supposed to pretend the news crew isn’t there.  I get wire with a mike, as does Eric.  I peel potatoes; Eric trims green beans.  We chat about What We’re Going to Eat Tonight.  We chat about The Blog.  I can tell that Eric’s having Michal Husain withdrawal.  He opens a bottle of wine. It’s the weirdest thing.  I can only assume I’ve been blessed by the news crew’s presence because I’m a foul mouthed hysteric with misanthropic tendencies who happens to cook.  But with the mike on and the camera reverently filming me peeling potatoes and grabbing shallots off the top of the refrigerator, I suddenly grow a civil tongue.  I am serene; I cook with a minimum of fuss.  I feel like I’m on Food TV, and I find it surprisingly boring.  I cut up the potatoes, heat up some olive oil until it’s quite hot, throw the potatoes in.  I dry my big beautiful Food TV-looking veal chops on paper towels, and throw them in a skillet of hot butter and oil.  I brown them on both sides, salt and pepper them, and set them in a casserole.  I put some more butter in the skillet the chops cooked in, throw in some minced shallots and garlic, let that cook a minute, throw in some vermouth, thyme and basil, let that cook too, scrape up the juices, pour it over the chops, pour a bit more vermouth into the casserole for good measure, bring it to the simmer, cover, stick it in the oven.  Too easy to even talk – or blog – or have a film crew over – about.  Good thing my hanging rod in my closet collapsed, scaring the sound man half to death and making a very impressive mess that now brings me to the brink of suicide every time I think about it.  Otherwise it’d just be too boring. We have dinner on the table before 8:30 – Cotes de Veau aux Herbes (Veal Chops Braised with Herbs), Haricots Verts a l’Anglaise (Buttered Green Beans) and sautéed potatoes.  The veal chops, I must say, were very impressive and TV-ready.  An inch or more thick, nice and brown, with a sauce over it that I’d made by boiling down some cream in the braising juices.  They were arranged just so on the nice oblong platter Mom got me in New Zealand.  As Eric said while I was arranging the chops on the plate, out of camera range – though never out of mike range, we’re like Joe and Sarah sneaking off into the woods here – “It’s a Potemkin Julie/Julia Project.”  Because Julie don’t use no fancy plates and actually serve things at the table.  What can I say?  I’m a media whore. For dessert I made Souffle Rothschild, which is soufflé with kirsch in the base and kirsh-soaked glaceed fruit layered in the soufflé.  I did not like it – it tasted too much like alcohol, and the glaceed fruit was rubbery and disturbing.  However, Eric liked it, and I managed to get the film crew to taste some of this stuff, and they were evenly divided between the pro- and anti- rubber contingents.  So whatever.  We managed to consume two bottles of wine, and it turns out the producer is a Buffy fan, so all was well. Now if I could just work on doing this for a living, I’d be set – I’m sure I could figure out, with time, how to make it not boring.  Perhaps we could start by showing me kicking my cats when they won’t shut up in the morning and I’m in a foul temper about all the fucking dishes and the clothes I can’t get to because they’re buried in an avalanche of closet hardware, and my husband’s a lazy bastard and I have to go to this fucking job I hate where I just might decide to shoot somebody today. That wouldn’t be boring at all, would it?   8:16:34 AM    comment []