Sweat Shop

Gainesville

Alas, no rain this afternoon, so we had a hot muggy evening, just the thing you don't want when making and serving a complicated Beef Bourguignon. Bill wanted to do a few errands this afternoon, and since one of them was to pick up a new UPS (battery backup) for my computer, I felt duty bound to go along. Alas, this left me just two hours to put it together, and that was cutting it a little to close.

I doubled the recipe (which was for 2 -- couldn't see all that work for something that might not be enough). It called for rib-eye steak, and the only stuff I could get was thin sliced. Lots of trimming involved. It called for thick sliced bacon, which meant a new pack, and had to process and freeze the rest. I couldn't decide which LeC pan to use-- the biggest sauce pan was too small, the big guy way too big. Started with the sauce pan, but as soon as the bacon was in it, I knew it was too small. Shifted to big guy. Did a lousy job of browning the meat, since I didn't have a complete mis en place ready, but was doing it as I went. The mushrooms were too big-- I shoulda cut them all in half instead of just one or two of them. I didn't "sweat" the veggies (carrots, celery) properly, again with trying to chop herbs and measure brandy, broth, open wine (and swill some of it to calm my nerves), etc. The worst mishap was pulling the pearl onions out of the freezer, only to discover I'd picked up some with "real cream sauce!" in a ready-to-mike pan. Not only did I have to thaw them, I had to rinse all that lovely real cream sauce off them and let them drain. They seemed partially cooked, so I held them back from the sweating. In the end, they didn't get cooked enough, and there weren't enough of them. Once I got the thing in the oven, it became so hot in the kitchen I had to go change into minimal clothes to keep from dying. Last minute tango to get shirataki noodles parboiled, buttered and parslied, parsley and lemon zest prepared for the BB along with a last minute splash of wine vinegar, and a pre-fab Asian salad put together.

It was good, but ya know, for that much work, it shoulda been great. Bill thought it was a nice treatment for that kind of meat. Me, slapping a rib-eye on a grill, or even in a frying pan with some Greek stuff, or Diane stuff is much better and easier by a factor of 10. Maybe I'd have liked it better if it were freezing outside. And I'd had three hours and not made all those mistakes. Ah well.

And then there was the massive clean-up. Once again, the magic of the timer ("I'll work on this for 15 minutes, then take a break") made it possible to get the kitchen back in fighting shape. Just in time to play Bar Maid.

My little digital weather gizmo sez it's 38.3 degrees in here. I say it probably needs new batteries.

Yesterday's storm gave us 3 inches of rain in less than an hour. Tonight the frogs in the sinkhole across the street are in the loudest voice I've heard them all year. It must look almost like a pond again to them.

I haven't moved my two little hobbits a single yard further into Emyn Muil. Instead, I'm reading Jane and the Ghosts of Netley. I'm annoyed, because I have seen the spoiler title of the next one in the series: His Lordship's Legacy. I do NOT want the gentleman rogue to die, dammit.The frisson there is a large part of what makes this series so much fun.

Apologies, Sandy-- Twitter has been erratic the past few days, and I missed your tweets about pique-nique food. Sounds like it was successful and fun. I'm reminded of Mom putting on a taco feed for high school friends, back when nobody knew what the frak tacos were! We had to give them instructions on how to make them. Anyone else remember this particular party? There have never been tacos since, even in Mexico, that could match the ones Mom used to make.

Public School starts tomorrow in Wisconsin-- first time ever for Ben, next to last time ever for Julia. Good luck to both of you. And to you, Marty, the mom who has to juggle them both!

Last round coming up. The house is haunted by the ghost of sauteed minced bacon.