Thursday, July 03, 2003

For a split second when I woke up I didn’t know what had happened.  But quickly I put the pieces together: there was my husband on the couch beside me, moaning piteously; the lights blazing; a glimpsed pile of dishes in the kitchen; a slight headache and, when I raised my fingers to my temple, the smell of cigarette smoke.  I gazed at the telltale yellow stain on my forefinger and whispered, “Em!” Yes, it was another night of Em-inspired sin last night.  We were, actually, relatively even-keeled, actually, the crashing-on-the-couch at the end of it notwithstanding.  Eric, however, might disagree; the first words he uttered when I awoke him from his fitful slumber so he could crawl into bed were “That Emily…”, and his tone, I must say, did not suggest abiding affection.  He is now puking his guts up in the half bath.  I place the blame for this, however, squarely on his “Powell Stomach,” and the attendant failure to get a doctor to fucking fix it.  No, the sins that Em visited on me were not primarily alcohol- or smoking-related; they were, rather, gustatory.  And again, to be affair, the blame cannot really be put to her.  The plan had been to make the roast pork and the beans for the cassoulet and the Souffle Demoule aux Macarons, and then to eat leftovers for dinner.  Well, it turns out that we had in the refrigerator only pig fat, not pig rind (skin) in the fridge, which put a kibosh on the beans.  The pork we went ahead and roasted, but as far as the soufflé goes, all I managed was to pestle up some toasted macaroons and butter puff pastry biscuits to approximate the macaroons I can never find, and (sort of) coat the mold in caramel.  I was using caramel I had made many moons ago, and that had been sitting in the fridge ever since, and it’s true that the kitchen was quite warm.  But I blame (not Em but) my mold for the fact that the caramel keeps shrinking away from the sides and edges of the pan, refusing to coat it thoroughly, and for the fact that even after a night in the fridge it’s still tacky to the touch.  See, I’m using my charlotte mold, which is metal, even though Julia calls for a porcelain one.  But what am I supposed to do, buy a different flavor of mold every time I make a soufflé-like dish?  Because let’s face it, I’m not much going to be making soufflés once the Project’s over, I can hardly bear to make them now when I’m on deadline.  So, the caramel wasn’t hardening, and Em was here and, well, she hasn’t seen any of season three Buffy, and “Beer Bad” was next in the line-up, and what could I do? So not much progress.  Which means, mucho project today.  I’ll be getting off work early, because the Powers That Be at the LMDC (ah, rhyming) aren’t devils, even if they do get the devil his coffee, and after the massive trip to the butcher and a couple of glamour treatments, it’s time to make the cassoulet.  And the soufflé.  And, I don’t know, Domino’s for dinner?   7:55:33 AM    comment []