Thursday, August 07, 2003

Last night we ate almost like normal people.  Except the butter habit dies hard.  We had fettucine alfredo with Julia’s canned mushroom solution tossed in.  Julia’s mushroom solution is to sauté some minced shallots in butter for a couple of minutes, toss in a couple of tablespoons of Madeira and the drained mushrooms and a bit of salt and pepper and cook a couple of minutes.  It was the most difficult part of the meal, only because I have my microplane, which makes grating 12-dollar-a-pound parmigiano reggiano a breeze.  Just tossed the cheese and the mushrooms and oh a stick of butter with some fettucine and that was it.  Still ate at nine o’clock, somehow; this seems to be a genetic pre-disposition, and nigh-on impossible to alter.  Bag salad on the side.  For dessert, Clafouti aux Poires, or Pear Flan.  That’s how Julia describes all the clafoutises, as flan, but it’s really almost nothing at all like any flan I’ve ever had.  I continue on not being much impressed with pears.  I picked some pretty red ones this time, that seemed good and unblemished and firm, but when I peeled them their flesh seemed too soft and characterless.  Anyway, I sliced them and let them soak in cognac and sugar until I was ready to bake them.  The batter was made the same way, with the drained cognac from the pears, milk, sugar, eggs, vanilla, a bit of salt and flour.  I didn’t do the trick with setting the batter a bit in the bottom of the baking dish over a flame, because I’ve run out of fireproof baking dishes.  I guess it’s time to make another Republican dessert run.  So I just poured in the batter, dumped in the pears, and baked it for an hour. It came out alright, I guess.  Like I said, still not a pear convert.  They kind of taste like bananas, not a selling point.  And of course, the dessert isn’t quite as pretty when it doesn’t have the lovely cherries. I’ve been thinking, and while I still like Clafoutis for our dog’s name – my mother thinks it would be better suited for a bloodhound than a greyhound – I am concerned about having the name shortened to anything that sounds like “Foodie.”  I was thinking this after visiting a chat thread somewhere and stumbling upon this conversation about “Ways to Tell if You’re a Foodie.”  Stuff like “You spend fifty bucks on olives,” or “You have ten varieties of sugar in your cupboard,” or “You bring your own salt to restaurants.”  And you know I can see doing these things, I guess, but it seems that it isn’t the sort of thing you’d want to brag about.  Which is why I dislike foodies.  Which is why I don’t want my dog named after one. Tonight, Eric’s Spicy Thursday.  We will not have many more of these, so we’d better enjoy it while we can.   Ooh and hey hey!  Check it out....  I haven't been able to listen yet, because my computer sucks, so many apologies if I sound like a moron, but Chris and I had a great time doing it.... 7:19:45 AM    comment []