My Inner Julia

I loved the movie Julie and Julia--the story of Julia Child's life bracketed with the story of Julie, a writer living in New York in a job she hates but blogging about things she loves.  Her love is Julia Child, and she determines to cook all the recipes in the famed French cookbook in the course of a year--she is successful, despite her small kitchen, hateful job, and stress on her marriage.  It occurred to me that I could also attempt the art of French cooking, and put the effort on my own blog among my other adventures.

So here we go!  I selected these three recipes  to tackle:  cotes de porc poelees, les haricots beurre, and carottes etuvees au beurre, which sound very fancy but which are translated to fried pork, beans in a butter sauce, and carrots stewed in butter.  Butter has been quite the theme this evening, and I have no regrets about that.  My choices reflect the gadgets I have available in my kitchen, the selection of food in my southern Illinois grocery store, and the season.  It is SUMMER, dadgummit, and I'm still clinging to August like a spider monkey, so a light, summery dinner it will be!

It's like a calculus textbook.  Numbers and math and weird instructions.

Here are my assembled groceries.  Nary a carb because butter might as well be its own side, and it's still bathing suit season.  I started by frying my pork chops in vegetable oil until it was time to start a reduction sauce featuring butter, garlic, and sauvignon blanc.  They have to simmer on the stove until the outside is seared, and then they are popped into the oven to finish baking--I really need, as it turns out, a casserole dish that can switch from stove-top to oven without changing pots; I lost some of the sauce in the process.  Oh, well.  Then the carrots had to be scraped and chopped to boil in water, butter, sugar, salt and pepper until the sauce boiled down and the carrots get tender.  Then the green beans--this time, green onions, chicken stock, salt and pepper--and butter!  Timing, as always, is the key to success, so I had mapped out what to start when and, for the most part, it worked out!  The beans took longer than I wanted to get to a good boil, but whatevs.  It was fine.  My kitchen was a fine mess of wrappers and spoons and ALL THE THINGS.  But also it smelled pretty good, so there's that.

In process!  Chops in the oven.

And here's the plated finished product!  I didn't invite people over because I was really worried that I might fail quite spectacularly here, and I didn't want to torture my family and friends with burnt or raw or mushy or bland food, but as it turns out, I should have invited over lots of people!  It was good--savory and light but not bland at all!  Next time there's an occasion, I will make exactly this in the summer, and I might even give Julia's boeuf bourguignon a shot this winter.  I have found that if you have all the pieces ready to go when the recipe calls for them, follow the math, and let the science of food do its magic, the dish will turn out.  Hm.  If only life worked out like that.  :-)