Author: Julie Powell
Quotes of Author: Julie Powell
It had started so well. The night after I wrote my first-ever blog entry, I made Bifteck Sauté au Beurre and Artichauts au Naturel- the first recipes in the meat and vegetable chapters of , respectively. The steak I merely fried in a skillet with butter and oil- butter and oil because not only did I not have the beef suet that was the other option, I didn't even know what beef but . Then I just made a quick sauce out of the juices from the pan, some vermouth we'd had sitting around the house forever because Eric had discovered that drinking vermouth, even in martinis, made him sick, and a bit more butter. The artichokes I simply trimmed- chopping off the stalks and cutting the sharp pointy tops off all the leaves with a pair of scissors- before boiling them in salted water until tender. I served the artichokes with some Beurre au Citron, which I made by boiling down lemon juice with salt and pepper, then beating in a stick of butter. Three recipes altogether, in just over an hour. book-quotejulie-powellfrench-cookingbutterOnce the leeks and potatoes have simmered for an hour or so, you mash them up with a fork or a food mill or a potato ricer. All three of these options are far more of a pain in the neck than the Cuisinart- one of which space-munching behemoths we scored when we got married- but Julia Child allows as how a Cuisinart will turn soup into "something un-French and monotonous." Any suggestion that uses the construction "un-french" is up for debate, but if you make Potage Parmentier, you will see her point. If you use the ricer, the soup will have - green bits and white bits and yellow bits- instead of being utterly smooth. After you've mushed it up, just stir in a couple of hefty chunks of butter, and you're done. JC says sprinkle with parsley but you don't have to. It looks pretty enough as it is, and it smells glorious, which is funny when you think about it. There's not a thing in it but leeks, potatoes, butter, water, pepper, and salt. book-quotesouppotatojulia-childFor nearly a week I neither cooked nor grocery shopped. Instead, all of our various families took Eric and me out for Mexican food, for barbecue, for beignets. We ate cheese biscuits with Rice Krispies, and spiced pecans, and red beans and rice, and gumbo, and all those other things that New Yorkers would turn up their noses at, but New Yorkers don't know everything, do they? This is what Texas, and family, are for. book-quotesouthern-cuisinetexans