Style Junket

I just received my December copy of Real Simple magazine in the mail today and sat down to leaf through quickly.

I came upon an advertisement in the mid section of the magazine entitled “Cook up the perfect Movie Night”. In short, it was an ad to purchase the Julie & Julia dvd, invite a few friends over and cook a recipe or two from

Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child.

I am not always ahead of the curve but this time I was!  I had a dinner party Saturday night which was planned about a month ago.  My brother- in- law, Tim (an excellent cook) and myself decided to cook from his copy of Julia’s cookbook, Beef Bourguignon and serve it up as dinner. Our plan was to start early in the afternoon as we knew it would take some time. We shopped separately as there were numerous ingredients.

Try shopping for a 6-oz chunk of bacon and I don’t mean sliced bacon in a package. I went to 3 stores and ended up buying thick sliced bacon in a package. The wine that flavored the meat was important and Tim spent quite a while discussing the proper wine with his local merchant. Needless to say, the recipe took us all afternoon (over 4.5 hours). I won’t bore you with all of the details, but let me say if you don’t have more than one oven and more than one Dutch oven and less than 6 sticks of butter, do not even attempt this one.  We now know why Julia, from time to time, took a generous swig from the wine bottle  that she used in her receipe! In true Julia style, Tim and I did the same.

With cherished cookbook on my cookbook holder, it took two of us to read and read over again each detail of the recipe.  Our aprons were soiled with wine and butter. The kitchen was sooo hot with the oven at such a high temperature. Pots and pans were stacked everywhere. But we finished in time to get hor’doerves in the oven as our guests arrived.

With 3 delicious bottles of appropriately French red wine, we sat down to eat.  Between the aroma of the dish and sounds of delight from our guests, we knew we had accomplished something rare. It was the BEST beef bourguignon ever!!! Every bite was scrumptious and sooo good.

Would I do it again? Oh, Yes but not anytime soon.  Should it have been in a magazine entitled “Real Simple”, absoulutely not.It was a lot of work, expensive,  and fattening as hell. However, It was so delicious it was worth it.Thank you, Julia.