Let’s hunker down together for the last few weeks of winter. March will be here on Saturday, and I am hoping there has been enough leonine weather behavior lately that we can just segue into a mild and picturesque spring. Let the lambs gambol! Let the robins gather and sing their springtime anthems. In the meantime, let’s eat.
There are many schools of thought (and even more recipes) about beef stew. Every family does it differently. It is a good and hearty meal to have bubbling away on the back burner; fragrant and fortifying. Julia Child’s famous Boeuf Bourguignon might be a little daunting, as can be seen in the fey (and much admired) Nora Ephron film, Julie and Julia. Lots of steps, lots of prep work, lots of cooking time – for a meal that gets consumed in a flash! You have barely ladled the chunky, meaty morsels into a pretty antique porcelain soup plate, just scraped the knob of sweet Irish butter across the hunk of artisanal French bread, and had your first sip of perfumed red wine – when the meal you have labored over for two days is but a memory. Poof!
My mother watched Julia Child on The French Chef on PBS, back in the old days, on the black and white Zenith console TV in the living room. She kept many little three by five notecards to remind herself of some Julia witticism or a helpful kitchen technique. This must been the time when my mother suddenly decided to add red wine to her stogdy winter staple: beef stew. Otherwise, the fanciest she had ever gotten, cooking-wise, was when she bought a garlic press and introduced her WASP-y family to the flavors of Continental cuisine. Julia Child then brought us into the vibrant 20th century world of the global kitchen. Good-bye Jell-O molds! So long to Velveeta! Howdy, La Tarte Tatin. My mother never got to level of Pâté de Canard en Croûte, probably because the butcher she patronized up the street would never have stocked duck, but her curiosity and appetites were whetted and our meals certainly became more flavorful.
I haven’t had a chance to recreate many of Julia Child’s recipes. I dip in and out of Mastering the Art of French Cooking from time to time – when I want something ceremonial or mind-blowingly impressive. Boeuf Bourguignon is not a recipe to be entered into lightly. However, given a couple of snowbound days and a well-stocked kitchen it is a good way to while away the hours.
Be sure you have wine, bread, a small salad and then whip up a batch of Julia’s favorite brownies while waiting for the snowdrops to bloom. Spring is just around the corner!
https://www.food.com/recipe/best-ever-brownies-from-baking-with-julia-child-99113
https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/beef-bourguignon-recipe.html#
https://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/boeuf_bourguignon/
And if you would like to addle your sad winter-tinged brain with more possibilities and permutations – here are 42 recipes from the clever folks at Food52, who had a contest for the best beef stew recipe ever. This should keep you in the kitchen and away from onerous snow shoveling duties for a little while!
https://food52.com/contests/109-your-best-beef-stew
“If things start happening, don’t worry, don’t stew, just go right along and you’ll start happening too.”
-Dr. Seuss
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