Tuesday, November 3, 2009

The adventure begins

After watching Julie and Julia, I become enamored with Julia's MTAOFC and HAD to prepare the Boeuf bourguignon. I had lost my copy of THE BOOK, so I found the recipe on-line and bought everything on Monday afternoon. Beginning at 6 pm, I was finally sitting down to dine at 10:30 that night with a wonderful helping of BB and a couple of glasses of 2004 Sterling SVR. It was heaven! Anything that good should be rated either "R" or "NC17"!!

From there I made Coq aVin and then the Julia-- Chocolate and almond cake....all in the same week. The CAV was good, but not world class and the cake was good but not good enough to make it twice. But they were both very labor intensive, so I stepped back for a while and stuck to my Southern Fried Chicken with a nice Grand Cru Chablis and Creme Brulee. Both are simply 'to die for', so I felt better after having two 'OK' courses from MTAOFC.

My Creme Brulee will blow away every restaurant CB that I have ever had, and I have had many since it is my Fav. The tricks are to not precook, strain the final mix through cheese cloth before pouring in the ramekins, and using 1/2 and 1/2 instead of heavy cream.

All of this drivel just reflects my Life Philosophy which I adopted after 55 years of involuntary servitude... a life sentence without parole. When I finally had the jailer evicted, excised my ball and chain, and obtained my freedom, I realized that I had not lived at all, just existed. So today, I live to eat... drink the best bottle of wine in my cellar, enjoy every minute of my day and night, and have my friends tell me that I have become a Hedonist. While some would consider this label as being critical, I find it quite complementary.

So it is back to the engineering world and writing epistles for the masses of new engineers.... sort of the 'Gospel according to Me'.