History Week Part Four: The Big Guns

Okay, enough fooling around everyone, it's time to get back to work. The winds are blowing, the days are shortening, and everyone is feeling a bit haunted by their own personal stack of unattended cookbooks. Right? That seems pretty universal. That's why characters in horror movies are always having anxiety dreams about recipes they can't finish. It speaks to all of us. I figure Cookbook #93 should prove appropriately hefty and serious for this dreary October day: Mastering the Art of French Cooking (Julia Child with Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle, 1961). Provenance: Mom. Previous recipes on this blog: none. Reason for putting it off until the very end: oh, I don't know, you guys. Guess it's just so obscure. Such an original and unprecedented project to tackle. Boldly going where no blogger has gone before I'M NOT EVEN GOING TO JOKE-LINK YOU KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT MERYL STREEP IS INVOLVED FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS BUTTERY.

Sigh. Anyway, here we go, into the abyss! I would like to begin by registering a complaint.

Why is the Soups chapter--the first and arguably (by me) most important of all the chapters--the only one that doesn't have each recipe broken out in the Table of Contents? Why do I know exactly what page to turn to for Brown Sauces or Clafoutis or Scrambled Eggs or (of course) Brains but soups are just lumped together in one big uncelebrated pot? What's the big idea? Why is this book so well-respected? Why did I just realize mid-rant that it isn't organized by recipe but rather by general technique and therefore it does kind of make sense? 

Okay, I realize it's possible that I woke up on the mildly troublesome side of the bed this morning. I am applying a traditional balm of caffeine and simple carbohydrates to the irritated area. Fingers crossed, here we go! Soupe aux Choux (Cabbage Soup), from the murky and mysterious depths of the Soups section:

I almost always like recipes that use "peasant" as a descriptor. Or "rustic." I also hate shirts with collars and wearing shoes. Hmm. At any rate, this was a very satisfying bowl of soup. Or, rather, a very satisfying 18 bowls of soup. It was a big pot of soup.

Oh, I know what will make me feel better! Gâteau à l'Orange et aux Amends (Orange and Almond Spongecake)! I feel strongly enough about this recipe that I'm linking to someone else who had the energy to transcribe it!

The absence of embellishment on this cake makes it seem like a reasonable thing to have on a weekday morning night. Also, it is delicious. For real. I forgive you for the Table of Contents thing, book.

I also made this very impressive-looking Poulet Rôti:

I realize there's nothing actually impressive about roasting a chicken, unless you count the trussing. Fortunately, we have the internet to mock show us what to do! Watch out though, I found my chicken to be about thirty times more slippery than the chicken in the video. Only explanation.

Verdict: not sure my two cents are required regarding one of the most famous cookbooks in the western world. It's good! There are recipes in it! Recommended for: "the servantless American cook," it says so right there on the front page.

As previously noted, we took the girls camping last weekend so that they could explore new and exotic types of dirt.

Also not sure I conveyed the genuine plotting involved in Ivy's first grand theft Gator attempt.

Fine, we gave up trying to talk her down. It's actually in our garage right now. Good luck finding anything in there, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department!

Gone campin'

And now you are UP TO DATE

SUPER SOCIAL FOOD LEAGUE UPDATE: October finds us three strong (welcome, Emily!) and checking out Garrido's, purportedly for tacos although only one of us actually ordered tacos (good thing you joined the team, Emily!). You may notice that even though my company was very charming and attractive, I did not take any pictures of them. This is because I am just using them for picture-taking access to their food. Look how much pretty food I have to show you now!

Oysters Bocaditos on yucca root chips.

Coffee-marinated steak and caramelized onion salad with fresh corn.

Ceviche del dia.

Pork carnitas tacos.

Imagine how great it will be when there are a dozen FL members and I badger them into all ordering different things. I will catalogue every dish in Austin. No one can stop me. Ahem. Along those lines, here is a:

BLOGGERS IN TOWN UPDATE: Saturday night I went to Home Slice Pizza, aka House O' Transcendent Aromas, with Donna, Kammah, Maryann, and Shalini. They were charming and attractive. I...did not take any pictures of them. Let's call it a theme, yes? I DID take pictures of the pizza. Oh mercy, the pizza.

"White pie with spinach." Translation: "Cheeeeeeeeses, so many cheeeeeeeeeses for yooooooooooou."

"NO ONE TOUCH IT YET" I barked joked. Haha. I'm fun.

"Sausage, ricotta cheese, and roasted red pepper." Translation: "What even happened back there? I think I passed out."

And then I took home all the leftovers and everyone was very nice about it. Probably because they saw the gleam in my eye indicating that resistance would be...you know, not futile exactly because I'm pretty confrontation-averse, but certainly more trouble than it was worth.

LADY BIRD JOHNSON WILDFLOWER CENTER FALL PLANT SALE UPDATE: One downside of using a giant trough as a swimming pool at home is that your children will grow up thinking that giant troughs are swimming pools.

Aside from that distraction, the girls proved they were ready for some hard, and frequently unnecessary, work.

We were definitely getting that empty wagon up the trail.

We rewarded their efforts with some time in the butterfly garden.

Judging by his calm reaction, I assume it wasn't the first time someone has screamed "FUH-FWY FUH-FWY!" at him for ten minutes.

PINTEREST RECIPE UPDATE: I also rewarded my garden-workers with the following orange-hued meals, of which I would recommend any and all:

Sausage and white bean stew with Swiss chard.

Panisse with garlic-ginger sauce.

Sweet potato and caramelized onion shells.

Butternut squash and chicken mash.

Okay girls, seriously. It's time to go.

The seven year glitch

This post is about my lobster-slaying supervillain origin story.

2006: It begins.

No, it's not. It's about my honeymoon. More accurately, it's about my seventh anniversary, which was on Monday, and how I tried to mine pictures of my honeymoon for ideas about how to celebrate and kind of failed all over the place.

We spent a week or so driving to various B&Bs in New Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont because even when I was 26 I was 70. I know for a fact that we spent a great deal of our trip consuming food, because Dan was thoughtful enough to take several extremely flattering pictures of his new bride confirming as much.

I mean, honestly. What kind of a person--

Okay, maybe we were meant to be together.

But out of an entire weeks' worth of delicious foodstuffs, there were only two items that I could summon the ambition to make uglier versions of: broiled grapefruit and apple cider donuts.

That is barely a celebratory breakfast! Those donuts aren't even off-putting enough to join the Pantheon of Hideous Donuts! And for some reason I couldn't come up with aaaaaaaanything logical or theme-y or even appetizing for dinner, so (this is where things really break down) I made...copper pennies. Because the traditional seventh anniversary gift is copper? (Buries face in hands.)

No offense carrot salad, but you are what failure looks like.

My theory is that all my cells have now regenerated since my wedding day and the new ones are incapable of sophisticated theming. These are dark days, friends. Not, like, August-dark, but pretty sad all the same. I think I'll just go watch Exit Through the Gift Shop with Ivy again.

Tag.

The weekend I left my house multiple times

It's rare that I spend an entire weekend eating out, but sometimes there are very important occasions to celebrate and there's just no getting around it. Also, I don't know if you've ever noticed this, but restaurants are awesome. Just between you and me I'm starting to think that cooking every meal is for suckers. YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST.

Occasion number one was a great excuse for me to feel pretty old dive into some Mexican food: the 10th anniversary of Emily and Garrett's first date/our first double date with them me meeting Emily!

I'm wearing a Tulane shirt because I was trying to approximate what I wore ten years ago. Emily looks nice because she is an adult.

We went to the very same El Arroyo that we did that fateful Saturday long ago. It was basically the same experience if you don't count the fact that four children with an average age of 2.75 kept pestering us for some reason. I had the Plato Ligero because I'm trying to keep it, you know, ligero these days.

Soooort of.

And the big kids picked up the check, which I thought was really nice of them.

Solid move, guys.

Of course, it's not a party without ice cream and cow sculptures and fruitless attempts to wring adorable memories out of said cow sculptures. I didn't exactly hit on "adorable" (eye of the beholder!) but I did capture...um...whatever was happening at this moment:

Feels like the two families are maybe staring in different movies here.

Also caught this conspiracy in action, although I'm not sure if the conspiring parties were Cash and Anna or Anna and her ice cream cone.

Seems like trouble either way.

After that it was time for a weekend visit from my parents and trips to Torchy's and Lucy's Fried Chicken in a celebration of... living in Austin? That's as good a reason as any! (No, it's not, don't care, tacos and chicken for meeeeeeeee.)

The fact that I can order a fish taco for breakfast pleases me immensely. Thank you for understanding my needs, kind taco vendor.

I don't really want to tarnish the following images with my imperfect words, but I will say that normally I don't find fried chicken to be worth the effort it takes to eat it but I will make an exception for this particular chicken any time and I mean any time.

As in, if you show up at 3:30 am with a bucket of this chicken I will sit up in bed and eat it.

And then I will say, "Thank you for the chicken, did you remember to bring me some Sweet Tea Pie?" because I'm pretty direct at 3:30 in the morning.

Sorry, Weight Watchers! Guess I'll just have to keep paying you...wait a minute.

Anna handled the Moon Pie with the solemnity it deserved.

Respect.

Along with my 10th Friendiversary and day-long Living Near Restaurants Is Great party, this weekend boasted an extraordinarily important holiday: National Coffee Day.

Ivy knows what I'm talking about.

I was so teeming with nervous energy moved by the occasion, I deigned to step back into the kitchen and whip up some Banana Coffee Oat Muffins with Chocolate.

That was a super good idea.

I was also pleased to note that my children are right on trend.