A Lovely Day

Well, I was going to start this entry, but then I decided that I really need to go and get a nightcap sort of beer. Don't anyone go away. I'll be right back.

Ahhhhh. Gulp. Burp. Gulp again. Aaaah. There.

I had more damn fun today. Sarah and I went out to see our friend Zen (well, that's his name, for heaven's sake) in Theater for the New City's summer traveling show in Washington Square, and it was just terrific. Zen (David "Zen" Mansley, to give him his actual full nice name) is a truly WONDERFUL actor, set designer, costume designer and an all around lovely madman. He is, of course, yet one more of the cast of that horrible Richard III and also did the costumes for that, and I adore him, and the show was great.

And yesterday I went off (in the middle of the damn monsoon) to see my pal Zorikh (yes, yes, another one of the Richard cast) at his birthday open mike deal in the East Village. He's wonderful too.

Anyway, Sarah's and my friend Seth turned up in Washington Square just as the show was ending, and we were wandering back toward our place looking for somewhere to sit outdoors and have a drink, when I (clever, clever girl that I am) said "Well, shit. We have A. a front garden, B. chairs, and C. a nice RiteAid with really cheap beer. Let's go home."

Which we promptly did, and had a wonderful time talking about art and politics and sex and all kinds of good shit, and general stuff...at which point the kids decided to go grocery shopping and came back and cooked me a WONDERFUL dinner. Happiness is food that I didn't buy, didn't cook, and didn't have to clean up after, which tasted just terrific. Pork chops and potato pancakes and green beans and glazed carrots (my recipe - I taught the grasshopper well)...yummy lovely.

Now I am about to begin planning something that frightens me to death. I owe Saint Tiger Lily and the Boss a meal, God knows, after all the time I've spent chowing down with them. But, to be perfectly blunt, cooking for the Saint lady just fucking TERRIFIES me. I mean, she does all this honest to God stuff that involves sourcing rare vegetables and all like that...and I tend to go and buy some supermarket chicken and sling it in a pan with some wine and garlic and cross my fingers.

So I have decided that I am going to make the supreme sacrifice (after their wedding when they've calmed down somewhat) and some day in November I am going to haul out my copy of Mastering (oh, ye of little cooking...I mean the first volume of Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking) and spend the day which it requires to make her full dress Boeuf Bourgignon.

Now, I do not embark upon this voyage lightly. I mean, ANYBODY who knows what a stove is can make beef stew. Beef, vegetables, some wine, throw the lid on the pot, and that's the end of that.

But Julia's requires the marination of the meat. Followed by the careful proper searing of the meat. Followed by the careful addition of the stock and wine. And then you have to get out two more pans because the last additions are the separately brown braised onions and the (also separately) brown braised mushrooms. Every now and then I think it would be a great idea to have nice hot from the oven homemade bread to go with this...then I hit myself over the head with a saute pan and come back to my senses and serve some nice potatoes. And some salad. And what I'm going to do about dessert I do NOT know, because I normally don't serve it. (I usually have nice fresh fruit in the house, which does fine.) But I may just do something madly crazy, such as a chiffon pie.

Hey. Can we say, in great big capital letters: SHOWING OFF.

Well, hell. Why not? (I'm intimidated by the Saint's cooking, OK?)

So I just put this missive through good old spell check. What on EARTH are they thinking? For Bouef, they gave me beef, beefy, buff, all of which make some sort of sense...and then they get deeply creative and gave me Boru, who happens to be Brian Boru, a tenth century Irish warrior. Eh? But that last one of the list really gave me pause... it was bf. What?

Then I went on to Bourgignon. I got: Burgeoning, Bulganin,Bargaining, Beginning, and Bludgeoning. I can see most of those, but as far as I know (and believe me, I KNOW), Bulganin is not a word. Do they perhaps mean Bulgarian? Wait. Let's try this.

I met the Bulganin in the cafe.

Yup. According to Spellcheck, Bulganin is a word. Who knew?

So according to Spellcheck, what I'm going to be making for Tiger Lily and the Boss is bf Bulganin. One sincerely hopes they enjoy it.

Love, Wendy