Was off-line all weekend due to my upstairs neighbors frying their DSL modem. Fortunately, I was well-supplied with reading material and cooking projects to help stave off the more pronounced effects of any latent withdrawal symptoms (although I did manage a brief visit to the local public library branch to check email on Sunday).
My assignment for Saturday was to provide a hot meal for my new-parent-friends Ida and Yellow Dog. After mulling over several possibilities, I finally elected to go with a cassoulet, a traditional French peasant dish; essentially a "chili" (slow-cooked beans and meat), but an inimitably Gallic version in execution and presentation.
I used a variation of the recipe from the Julia Child's, "The French Chef Cookbook", but deliberately set about making a half-sized portion, since it was pretty clear the first time I made this several years ago that I'd need a casserole dish roughly the dimensions of a football stadium to hold the contents of the full batch.
Now, the great thing about cassoulet, aside from being one of the most indisputably delicious meals I've ever eaten (even the canned version I bought in Paris many years ago was amazing), is that it allows for a versatile assemblage of ingredients, mainly predicated on what types and cuts of meat are used. The traditional recipe calls for lamb or mutton as the main ingredient, but any combination of meats will do (although apparently almost all cassoulets use an abundance of pork products). I elected to go with duck (fairly common), along with turkey (dark meat), bacon, ham, and kielbasa (again, some sort of pork-and-garlic sausage is considered de rigour). Basically, you cook most of the meat in one pot, letting all the flavors blend together, while the beans, along with a few vegetables, an herb packet, and the bacon and ham cook in a separate pot. Once all the meat has been cooked down, skinned, deboned, and drained of excess fat, and the beans are just slightly undercooked, you spread alternating layers of beans and meat in a casserole dish, add sufficient liquid to just cover (first using all the meat juices, then however much bean juice is required to round that off), throw some bread crumbs on top, dribble some melted butter over that, and cook it for an hour and a-half until it's all bubbly and forms a nice brown crust.
Doesn't sound too tough, eh? Well, the real secret is to do the prep cooking one or two days ahead in order to allow maximum absorption of all the flavors, then do the final baking stage right before serving. And of course, as with similarly prepared dishes, it just seems to get better with age. So, I did Phase I Friday evening, before heading off to the theatre's late night cabaret, and finished things up Saturday afternoon.
And here's how it turned out:
Keep in mind, that's a four-quart baking dish filled to the brim - comprising half of a normal recipe.
After that, it was simply a matter of scooping a generous portion of the finished product into a plastic container and tossing it into a paper bag, along with some salad fixings, and a couple of creme brulees I'd made earlier in the day (and don't let the frou-frouness of creme brulee fool you for a second - anyone who can boil water, beat egg yolks, and safely utilize a blow-torch can make it), then schlepped everything over to Chez Ida-Dog.
When I got there, Ida met me down at the front door, explaining on the trip up four flights of stairs that this was only her second or third trek down from the apartment since arriving home, because um, er - apparently it takes a while for things to "get back to normal" after child-birth, and um, ahh - walking up-and-down stairs hinders that process.
Inside their cozy apartment, now filled to the gunnels with all manner of yet-to-be-used baby accoutrements, baby Nora was sleeping peacefully in the arms of her Auntie Erin - so cute!
I didn't stick around long, just enough to get a good first-hand look at the new kid - lot of hair on that new kid! - impart a couple of instructions regarding the assemblage of the salad, and then headed home to finally get a taste of some yummy beans-n'-meat concoction.
Mucho on the news front, but have been tres busy, hence just now getting around to posting.
Dale was released from hospital on the 26th, and if his subsequent blood tests show good results, they expect he'll be released to go home on the 3rd. I had initially planned to drive them back to Longview, but unfortunately, my boss isn't going to be back from vacation until the 4th, so no chance to clear the extra days off, and in any event, I'd just have to turn right around and come back the next day anyway, as I've got New Parents dinner duty on the 5th (Ida and Yellow Dog birthed their wee bebe on the 22nd (Nora Somerville Jorgensen, born 12/22 at 12:22 p.m.), and an Equity Membership Meeting on the 6th.
On the theatre side of things, I've temporarily resumed by recently divested PR position, as the person who had intended to take over the slot found she was in over her head, and so I'll be handling the reins again until a suitable replacement steps forward.
Also, we've been slogging away trying to get Phase I of our sound mitigation project completed, and I'm proud to say that, as of 5:00 p.m. today we are a literal hair's breadth away from finishing Phase I-A (installation of the first layer of cotton insulation, along with the 2x4 framing needed for Phase II, which will involve installing two layers of sound-deadening hardwall), and even managed to make a tiny start on Phase I-B (second layer of cotton insulation). It's been a dirty, back-breaking task; after pounding nails, hammering wood cross-bracing into position, and screwing it into place all Thursday and Friday evening, and all day today, I finally hit a wall around 4:00 p.m. where my upper arms went into muscle fatigue to the point that I could no longer hold a drill over my head steady enough to fit the bit into the screwhead. Even as I type this I'm actually supporting my arms against my rib cage; when I stop, they instinctively fold up towards my chest, as if the upper half of my body were attempting to curl up into a fetal position. In addition, I started getting leg cramps from packing a tool belt laden with about 30 pounds of tools, screws, etc., but, due to a thoughtful Christmas gift - thanks Dad, the money was well-spent - the new belt made the process part of the job easier, even if it exacted an unanticipated toll on the Ole' Bod. But despite the aches-and-pains, BenLau and I raced through the last three 36-foot sections in record time, and we are now literally only six pieces of wood from finishing this first step. Fortunately the second half of Phase I will entail far less sheer brute force, so tomorrow we'll be back at it for a few more hours trying to get as much done as we can.
Unfortunately, I don't think we're going to get I-B finished by then as planned, which means we have to try to squeeze out another day or two somewhere in our insanely busy production schedule over the next couple of months to get it done, before we call in some actual professional dry-wall installers (or, barring that some Union stage carpenters) to do the second half of the project in March.
Oh, right. And we've got our monthly late-night cabaret coming up in a week, so we have to clean up the huge mess, and get the space ready to greet the public by next Friday.
But, that can wait. Right now, I'm going to take a long, hot shower, in hopes it will relax my arms (and hopefully clear some of the recycled blue jeans out of my lungs) enough to fix some dinner.
My friends Ida and Yellow Dog are about to have a wee bebe (the official due date was the 7th, but they're expecting it to be more like the 15th, which I'm also rooting for, since it will make it easier for me to remember, seeing as that's also my Pop's birthday), and yesterday they threw open the doors to their newly-settled apartment for a baby shower.
My other friend (and Ida and Yellow Dog's downstairs neighbor) Brynn acted as social director. When I asked her a few days ago whether I could contribute anything in the way of snackages, she replied "bring sandwiches". So, I scanned the Evite list to determine the number of potential attendees (this is the way such things are determined in our bright, shiny, internet-enabled future), I came up with a rough number of about 100 servings - that's a LOT of "sammies" my friends.
Fortunately, sandwiches require very little in the way of cooking, just a sufficient level of organization and prep-work. So, after a late night/early morning to bed after Friday night's Spin The Bottle (another rousing renditionof our annual "60 Seconds Max" showcase), I was up at the crack o' 8:30 (thanks cats!) to prepare 100 sandwiches of various varieties:
- 12 peanut butter & jelly mini-bagels ('cause don't all kids love PB&J?) - 20 cucumber & butter on white (crusts removed, of course) - 24 turkey and cranberry sauce on multi-grain - 20 meatloaf and mustard on potato bread - 12 mini quesadillas on home-made corn tortillas - 12 mini "salsadillas" on same (for my lactose-intolerant & vegan friends, of which apparently there are quite a few)
Now, mind you, these were all half to quarter-sized sandwiches, so it's not quite as daunting as it sounds, although any project of this level is a challenge in my "Barbie Dreamhouse" sized kitchen; just finding room in my Incredible Shrinking Refridgerator" was problematic. But, the extra half hour of unsleeping proved crucial, as I had everything cut, sliced, spread, assembled, plattered, baked, and foil wrapped in plenty of time to allow for showering, dressing, and lugging it all down to "Red Dwarf" in time to make the 1:00 p.m. start.
And from all perspectives it appears to have been a smashing success. I & YD have a fantastic aparment overlooking CapHill's Volunteer Park, with a picture-postcard view of Mt. Rainier out the kitchen window. The place is rather intriguingly laid out: except for the living room, there's narry ten feet of continuous wall space in the entire place, which branches out into unexpected turns and oddly-shaped rooms, sort of like it was designed by a very tall rabbit, or perhaps prairie dog. Even so, it's remarkably light and airy, and even though the climb up three flights might get downright annoying (although certainly a great way to keep the calves toned - and I don't even want to think about how people get their furnishings up and down the narrow staircases), once you get there, it's utterly charming. Plus, it's a two bedroom, so they have a separate nursery all set up and ready for action (it was give a pretty thorough test-run yesterday).
Oh, and they have a rooftop deck one flight above with a 360 degree view of the surrounding neighborhood. Um, yeah.
One important realization that came to me during the course of the afternoon: man, has my extended social circle suddenly gone "baby crazy". Of the roughly 40 people who showed up during the course of the afternoon, and out of about a dozen married couples in attendance, there were something like eight or nine kids, ranging in age from about five I believe down to a three month-old, if I heard correctly. Most of the little ones were less than a year old, so this has in fact been a fairly recent occurance for many of them.
And there are more on their way, literally any day now. I know they can hardly wait, and the rest of us look forward to saying "howdy" to the little gal or fella, whichever it turns out to be (they know, they just haven't made it public, although I have it on what I consider good authority that Ida's physical attributes are apparently "telling".)
So, welcome to the world whoeveryouwillbe - you're joining up with some good company.
