A Dish Fit For Judith Jones

Ok, last post from last weekend. This one covers cooking dinner. I had been planning on trying Boeuf Bourguignon for some time. I confess, it was because I wanted to see if I could cook it like it was cooked in the movie Julie & Julia. It was a true experience! One that I will savor for a long time!

Truth be told, the length of time it took to properly prepare this dish is one of the things that I found exhilarating, instructive, and inconvenient all at the same time. This dish doesn't start with cooking. It starts by finding all the appropriate ingredients. I'm happy to say that I was able to find everything I needed for this dish from Walmart. From the chuck roast to the beef stock to the shallots and pearl onions, Walmart had it all. I hope that's a portent of things to come as I continue to explore Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

One thing I hope does improve is the cost. The total cost of cooking boeuf bourguignon is nearly prohibitive. I think I spent nearly $50 in ingredients. I ended up buying two chuck roasts to get the 3 lbs. of beef I needed. Then there was the wine, the vegetables, the spices, the broth, and one or two non-food items. Now, to be fair, some of that stuff I'll be able to use over and over like bay leaves and thyme, but at $2.50 a bottle for spices it was still expensive. I'm not even counting my lovely, new french oven, which was over $70 by itself, but it was completely worth it!

And so was cooking this dish. All the time, the money, the experience... Let me talk about the time a little bit more. Once I had all the ingredients in hand, it was about a five hour process. The first thing I had to do was clean the roast. Initially I had a three and a half pound chuck roast, but it had a bunch of junk that had to be cut off. My first chuck roast ended up being two and a half pounds. Bummer. I had to buy a new one to get the last bit of meat I needed, and of course I only needed about half a pound. Cleaning the roasts took a little time. All the white connective tissue and fat had to be removed. It would have ruined the stew otherwise. That took about half an hour to 45 minutes. I cleaned one before I went to church and subsequently to Roanoke.

Herein was the stumbling block to our glorious concoction. At this point in the timeline, I needed about four and three quarters more hours to finish. I should have opted to cook immediately instead of taking time to go shooting. As it was we took an hour and a half to indoctrinate H3 into the gun culture (which we did marvelously), so we didn't get cooking until 4:30 in the afternoon. Dinner occurred at 8:45 that night.

The next nearly five hours were glorious. I had at my disposal some of the best cookware made, superb ingredients, and some good assisting. I was moving around the kitchen, slicing vegetables, sauteing meat and vegetables, cutting, braising, slicing, in short cooking. Real cooking. A real dish. Jen, Misty, and eventually Herman peeled my pearl onions. That would have taken forever to do, so I'm glad they could do that. I made the lardons and sauteed the beef while they did that. Once the beef was done I sliced up the vegetables. It's amazing how just slanting a carrot by 45 degrees can make it look ten times better than just plain old boring roundels. I sauteed all that then roasted the beef in the oven a little. Having done that, I put in the wine and the beef stock.

Oh! What a smell there was in the kitchen when I put that wine in. The recipe calls for three cups. I put in a whole bottle, which is slightly over three cups. I must say, at this point, I was kinda questioning Julia. I've had wine before, and the thought of having a whole bottle in this dish was staggering. I think it was the smell that really made me question it. To say that it smelled winey doesn't do it justice. I could just imagine taking a bite and tasting nothing but wine--not my idea of a good dish. But, this is a place where a little faith in Julia is called for, so I pressed forward.

I might mention that it was at this point in the recipe that I made a little mistake. I put the wine and beef stock in the french oven, and put the whole thing in the oven. Trick is, I didn't put the vegetables in. I should have. The reason I didn't is because I failed to realize that Julia didn't specify using a skillet in this recipe. Everything was to be cooked in the french oven. I wasn't doing that, and I missed that step. As a result, our vegetables were al dente and not cooked all that well.

The rest of it was well cooked. Once the meat was simmering away in the oven (for two and a half hours) I did the supporting recipes. Boeuf Bourguignon calls for two supporting recipes in Mastering: sauteed mushrooms and pearl onions brown braised in beef stock. The mushrooms were easy enough. A little olive oil and butter, and they sauteed up in about ten minutes. I served a few to my waiting eaters to curb appetites. They were well received except by poor Jen (she doesn't like mushrooms). I set those aside and did the pearl onions next. All I can say about those is, oh, dear God! I sauteed them for ten minutes, then simmered them for forty minutes in beef stock. When they were done, they literally melted in your mouth! I couldn't wait for it all to come together.

But, waiting was all we could do at this point. I had all the vegetables done and ready to go, but the beef was still cooking in the oven. It was about another hour and a half before everything came together. Misty had to leave and put her baby to bed. Really wish she could have stayed, but we all knew Jacob had to go to sleep. We had hoped that Herman's kids could have stayed for dinner, but we kept having delays, and H's ex wouldn't hear of waiting for her kids. H and J ended up pulling out some pizza rolls and green beans to feed the kids quickly. They left about fifteen minutes before our stew was done.

Down to the three of us now, I pulled the stew out of the oven and simmered the sauce down a little. We were all anticipating the stew--it smelled like a little piece of heaven! When it came out and I was simmering it, I didn't detect any but a faint hint of wine. And once all the vegetables were put in, there was absolutely no problem whatsoever. We couldn't wait to eat!

And eat we did! Everything about that dish was wonderful! The meat was falling-apart tender. The pearl onions were delectable. The broth was a wonderful beefy-hint-of-winey flavor, and even though the vegetables weren't all the way done, they were still good. Jen liked it so much she was even eating the mushrooms, even though she can't usually stand them! At this point I should know never to doubt Julia. She was right about the biscuits I did, and she was right about this dish. Julia Child spent over eight years writing this book, and it's a tribute to her that dunderheads like me can make a dish as awesome as this! Thanks, Julia!

A Different Kind Of Class

Do you ever get that deer in the headlights feeling? I did. Two weekends ago I showed Herman the starter rifle I had for his son, little Herman (who I will refer to as H3). Herman was excited, and so was Jen. They both want H3, and eventually all their kids, to know about guns, how to shoot them, and how to handle them safely. I'm all for that! The deer in the headlights feeling came when Herman called me up and said, "Hey! When are we going shooting this weekend?"

To be sure, I don't remember telling him that I would go shooting with him the next weekend when I showed him that rifle. I had intended to find a time when he had the kids so that we could have a leisurely day of shooting. As it was I had church commitments, the jewelry party, meeting with Lynn, the photography class, and my first serious cooking attempt all planned out. But I like to shoot, so I worked it in.

Right after the photography class I grabbed all my stuff and hightailed it for Roanoke. On the way he called and started vacillating on shooting. He wasn't sure it was worth the time or the shortness of the day due to our planned cooking (I said I'd do my cooking up there for them). We went back and forth on it for awhile, but eventually decided to proceed with the shoot as planned. When I got to their house, I offloaded all the groceries and cookware, picked up Herman and H3, and zoomed up to the range.

Herman and Jen are lucky! They've got a nice range not more than ten minutes from their house. It is called Quail Creek Shooting Range. It's a nice outdoor facility that is run by, as far as I've seen so far, nice and competent guys. We checked in and paid, and we took two rifles out to the benches and set up H3 to shoot his first real gun!

When we got out to the benches, I let Herman do all the teaching. H3 is Herman's son, and Herman is ex-Marine, so I deemed it fitting that father teach son, not father's friend. It's tradition, and what am I going to teach an ex-Marine rifleman's son about shooting? Herman knew what to teach and how to teach it. I just pulled out my lever action .22 and plinked away.

The gun I brought for H3 is a little single-shot, bolt action .22, a Crickett rifle. They are small and made for kids. It was just the right size for H3. I fired it once to show Herman and H3 how it worked (and to make sure it worked). After that it was all Herman's show. He walked his son through the basics: never point a gun at anyone, always keep the gun pointed at a safe place, down range at the range, don't play with loaded guns, make sure to follow the range officer's instructions, never shoot unless he, Herman, Jen, or myself are around. After the basic safety, Herman showed him how to hold the gun, how to load it, aim, cock it, and put the bullet on the target. It was art in motion watching father and son having their first shoot.

It's something I kinda wish my dad had done for me. My dad had, at one time, known about shooting and did some recreational shooting. But in 1965 my dad was went to Vietnam to be a forward air observer. After four months in country, in a no-kidding real-shooting war, his days of firearms were over. I can't say as I blame him for not wanting to relive that, but I also feel like I missed out on something we could have shared. More's the pity.

Herman and H3 won't have that regret, and that warms my heart! H3 took to that little rifle like it was his best friend. Before we were done, he was asking Herman, "Daddy, can I have my own gun?" The answer to that will be, "Later son, when you're a little older." H3 is only seven years old right now, but I think he will be perfectly fine with guns. I didn't see him do anything wrong or unsafe. He is a well-behaved and well-disciplined youngster who looks out for himself and his siblings. If he continues in that behavior I would have no problem getting him his own gun.

I was a little afraid I might not get that rifle back! H3 became quite adept at using it. After Herman loaded and cocked it the first time, H3 would grasp it, pull it into his shoulder, squint down the barrel, and squeeze that trigger. His first shot, naturally, was nowhere on the paper. That's ok! It will come with time. It didn't take long before H3 was pulling that bolt open, putting the next round in, and closing that bolt all by himself, and quite well, too. The only thing he had trouble with was cocking the rifle. The Crickett is manually cocked by pulling back on the cocking piece, and it takes some effort to do it. H3 was able to do it about half the time. The other half Herman would pull it back for him. Eventually he was able to put together a respectable group at seven yards (hey! we started out slow!).

The target I was shooting at had nice, ragged holes at the center of my targets, plus one hole dead center for my last round. (I was shooting kneeling with the rifle on the bench). Not quite a hard feet to accomplish, but I had lots of fun. We took the targets down. H3's will get framed at some point. When we got back to the house we, of course, showed Jen my target with the nice, tight groups, and told her it was H3's. Then we showed her H3's and told her it was mine. She didn't buy it--she always knows when Herman and I are full of it. Not that it matters anyway. She was just as happy as we were.

All in all it was mission accomplished on several fronts. We had fun. We taught another kid how to shoot. And we strengthened a bond between father and son. Pretty good for an afternoon's work!

Our First Photography Class

Yizong is all excited about teaching photography. He came to me and asked me to help him put it together. We both selected pictures from our respective collections, both good and bad, to use as examples. We talked about what we would cover. Yizong wants to get into talking about the equipment so badly he can taste it, but I insisted that we teach the basics first. Things like what makes a good picture and why. He came around quickly, and we put together our topics.

Putting together the class, on the other hand, wasn't nearly as easy as planning it. I had no idea who the target audience really was. At first I thought it was only the youth group. Yizong said that it was for the entire church. Either way the material would be the same, so I got myself into a place where I could talk in front of either kids or adults. Our first date fizzled because of weather. Our second date, our first class, fizzled due to participation.

Maybe fizzled isn't the right word, but it sure did seem like it to me. Of all the hype that I thought was surrounding the class, only three people showed up. I couldn't really tell if any of them wanted to be there, however. Two of the kids are boyfriend/girlfriend, and they only want to be with each other. That we were having a photography class was a tertiary consideration for them. The other kid that showed is an artistically inclined type, but he really didn't say much of anything until the last few slides.

Slides... it seems we do everything with slides now. Powerpoint, or in this case, Keynote (Apple's answer to Powerpoint). And the class itself... Yizong started off like a college professor. He did all the talking, presented all the facts, and had an entirely one-way dialog with his "students." It did not go well. I've done that in classes I have taught before, and it never works out well, especially if the kids don't want to be there. He made it through the first topic: simplicity, but I had to have him go back through the slides and get the kids involved.

Getting the kids involved is the hardest part of the class. The material is ok, better if it's interesting, but useless if the students don't care. In this case I made him go back through his slides, and I started asking the kids questions. Things like, how does this picture make you feel? What do you like about this picture? What don't you like? That last question got us in trouble. One of the three kids is black, and he stated as his first dislike, "There aren't any black people." He was right, there were no pictures of black people in our slides, but neither of us wanted the class to degenerate into a racial discussion. Fortunately he didn't press the point, and we went forward, but we had to actively involve the kids. At times it was like pulling teeth to get them to make any comments on the pictures or the principles.

We held their attention for about 35-40 minutes, then our couple started texting, taking pictures of themselves, and doting on each other. Our artistic kid made a few comments about principles that we hadn't covered that apply to photography, but are more commonly talked about in other areas like drawing. After that 40 minutes, it was useless to continue, but we had reached the end of our slides. Somehow we had no concluding slides to summarize, but I doubt they would have made any impact.

That's really what I wonder at this point: did that class have any impact at all? Did the kids care? It seemed to me like they didn't. The few kids that did show interest didn't come, and it felt to me like we were wasting our time. No adults showed up. I'm not sure how this class was pitched either in the announcements or the newsletter, but I felt like it had been limited to the youth.

Should we continue? I'm on the fence. Part of me feels like we need to reteach the first part again to a larger audience to drum up support, but I'm not sure how practical that is at this point. There's more to write about this youth group, but I want to cover that in a post just for them. This post is about photography, and it's done. The question is: is our class done as well?

Lynn's Sermon

As a continuation of my post last night, I want to talk about the sermon I heard. Admittedly I walked in late, but I got the majority of it. Lynn's sermon is the kind that really holds my attention. It offered a new perspective on Christ and his teaching.

What exactly held my interest? The concept that Christ could have been suggesting putting people that use Christians in a position where their abuse becomes obvious. To illustrate his point, he showed a clip from Gandhi. In the clip Gandhi and several hundred people come up to a line of British soldiers. All the Indians do is approach. The soldiers beat them, and injured the Indians are carried off. Then the another line of Indians come up to the soldiers, and the soldiers beat them, too. This happens over and over. A man in the background, perhaps the soldiers' overseer (I haven't seen the movie so I don't know) looks on with increasing angst and embarrassment. This spectacle spurs a newspaper reporter to phone in a story stating that India was free--the British no longer had effective control. I was a little uncomfortable with this illustration. I always thought of Gandhi as a proponent of civil disobedience. That's not what Christ was about at all, but the point is similar.

The point Lynn was trying to make was about turning the other cheek, walking a second mile, and giving a tunic as well as a cloak--it would put the offending party into an embarrassing situation. According to Lynn, being struck on the right cheek is the only convenient way to backhand a person with one's right hand. Note that in this culture, only the right hand can be used as the left is reserved for unclean activities. If one is struck on the right, then turning the other cheek would involve a more overt and obvious act of violence. Being compelled to walk one mile was apparently a Roman soldier's prerogative if he wanted relief from carrying his pack, but he was compelled by law to only have the other carry it one mile. Having carried it past that first mile would be a breach either of law or military decorum. The clack/tunic combination was apparently the common combination of dress, with nothing really underneath. So if a person was to surrender his clack and tunic, he would be nearly if not completely naked. If a person forced to do something humiliating continued to do that humiliating thing long enough and in front of enough people, I could see how that would be very embarrassing to people who might be observing.

I always took this to be either an act of subservience or caring. That is, if I was forced to walk with a person for a certain distance, then walking with them a little further I would see as an act of forgiveness that shows I hold them no malice. But in Lynn's illustration, that same behavior is meant to induce embarrassment, possibly and maybe even probably to the detriment of the person doing the compelling. I think the main difference between my past thinking and Lynn's is the concept of observation. In my mind, all these would be private acts, with no observers. In Lynn's these would be public acts, plainly observable by many. Unfortunately, both our lines of thought are correct. Practicing these activities in public would certainly have a more immediate and possibly gratifying effect than doing them in private. But I think the more important point is how we respond in private.

If we do respond to a situation in one way while we're in public and respond to it a different way in private, what does that say about us? If we're still doing the right thing, i.e. not in outright rebellion or hate, then I think we're still probably ok. After all, how one responds to a person one-on-one versus how one responds in public can be quite different. What matters is that the message does not change. If we change that message, then that makes us liars and hypocrites, and we have no integrity. I recall that's how one of my teachers in high school defined a person of integrity: one who does the same thing in public and private. I subscribe to that theory. Unfortunately, it doesn't always hold, as much as I try.

Lynn did hold my attention, and he has now piqued my interest. I'm glad, because after hearing his performance in "Biblical storytelling," I wasn't impressed. I was very impressed after last Sunday. I'm looking forward to more.

Busy Sunday

Last Sunday was one of my busier ones. I had plans to help teach a photography class, take a kid shooting and cook dinner for some friends, and at the same time make it to church. The day started out inauspiciously. I woke up later than I would have liked, so I was late getting away from the house. I went to three stores looking for cheese cloth. The local Walmart Market didn't have any, and the local Tom Thumb was out. Kroger had some, and I literally parked crossways, ran in, bought it and ran out so that I could make it to church.

I was a half hour late to church. My thinking was that I would miss the singing and all the preliminaries and make it in time for the sermon. It almost worked. The sermon was already underway when I took my seat, but I hadn't missed much. It was an excellent Sermon. More on that in a later post. After the service I offloaded about fifty pounds of leftover Christmas Oreo-wannabe cookies, then I waited.

That's all I could do. Apparently Yizong switched around some of his scheduling, and instead of being at TCC this Sunday as I had thought, he was at RCC. As such there wasn't much for me to do for three quarters of an hour. Two of the youth group hung around and started pizzas for the photography class, then started decorating one of the rooms for a Monday night do. Yizong got to TCC a little before 1 in the afternoon.

We took the pizzas and some other food into one of the classrooms and set up for the photography class. Only three people showed up. Two of the three really didn't care if they were there or not, and the third didn't say much of anything. I want to talk more about that class later, but for now I'll move on.

I went up to Roanoke with everything to make boeuf bourguignon plus a little single shot bolt action rifle for a kid. While I was driving up, Herman called and asked if we should go to the range or skip it and proceed directly to cooking. We went back and forth for a little while and ultimately decided to go to the range. When I got to Herman and Jen's I offloaded all the groceries, picked up Herman and Herman and headed to the range. Little Herman learned how to shoot his first rifle. Again, more on this in a later post. We stayed later than we should have and got back to start cooking at 4:30 in the afternoon.

That turned out to be a mistake. Julia wasn't kidding when she said it took two and a half hours to cook boeuf bourguignon. That's just how long it took to simmer the beef. All told we spent nearly four hours cooking. Misty, Jen's friend, showed up for dinner, but we were so late that she had to leave. We were so late that we had to invent something else for the kids to eat before their mom came to pick them up. Finally, at nearly 9 at night, we had dinner. It was worth every minute we waited! Julia definitely knew what she was doing when she wrote Mastering the Art of French Cooking. I want to go into detail on the dish, but again, I'll save that for later.

I got home at about midnight, thoroughly exhausted, but thoroughly satisfied. I had had a lot of fun, and I hope to do it all again!

Being Set Up?

Last Saturday evening my plans weren't exactly looking great. Herman and Jen's friend Misty was having a jewelry party. I was invited to go. As I didn't have anything better to do, I went.

Going to a jewelry party wasn't exactly my idea of fun. The Pampered Chef party a week or so ago was a lot of fun, then then I like to cook. Jewelry on the other hand? I don't even wear a ring or a watch, and I don't have a girlfriend to buy things for anymore, so why would I go to a jewelry party? To keep the other guys company was what I understood I would be doing. Never did it cross my mind that I would actually have to participate in the party.

At the party were Herman and Jen, Misty and her husband, David, me, and another girl, Aimee. The girl that was running the show was Crystal. After the standard small talk and a few snacks, Crystal started the show. David, Herman and I became participants. Why? I'm not sure. Crystal went into saleswoman mode, and I was almost immediately turned off. She had a very pushy, in-your-face way of selling, and that always puts me off on whoever is doing the selling. Later, when I talked to Herman and Jen about my impression, they both said that selling wasn't really Crystal's thing, so I hadn't missed my mark. Going through the show was tedious. Jewelry was being passed around, we guys were asked to model it, and we all played a game.

Starting with the game was the first indication I had that maybe there were some ulterior motives afoot. Crystal said that one of the prizes in the game was her. She meant that she would come do a party for you, but both Herman and David made comments like, "Hey Joe! She's single! That'd be a great prize for you!" I didn't pay it any attention at the time--all three of us guys had been making snide comments throughout the show, and I put this off as just another one. The game was gimmicky, and I had yet another put off. It wasn't that if you played you could win Crystal, it was if you played you HAD to have Crystal do a show. Not a good idea to make that kind of claim on me. At the end of the show she asked us to fill out surveys that had our information on it for the purpose of, I assumed, follow on solicitation to do another show. I filled out mine with the information of the White House press secretary complete with address and phone number.

That turned out to be a tactical error. After the party, but still at Misty's house, Crystal went through the surveys and was verifying information. When she got to mine, she asked, "Who's Jay Carney?" I was busted! At the time I didn't admit anything, and there were accusations going around, but Crystal knew who's it was without too much thought. I laid low, and eventually figured out that Crystal was Misty's sister. I felt bad, apologized, and offered to fill out a real survey, but Crystal told me that it was all right.

After Crystal left, Jen took up the baton of matchmaking. She asked Misty, "So, would you fix up your sister with someone you liked?" Once that was said it was obvious to me that Herman and Jen were trying to fix me up with Crystal. Oops! I don't see that happening, especially after I acted like an ass by filling out a bogus survey and getting caught. Later, when I was talking with them about that party, they owned up that they were trying to fix us up, and I allowed that, as far as salesmanship was concerned, I was kinda put off by Crystal. To be sure I don't know her in a personal setting, and she might be the nicest person in the world, but I don't see us having a chance for any kind of date after the way I treated her at the party. Oh well, cest la vie.

Meeting With The Captain

Lynn White, the senior minister of TCC, has been trying to get me for a one-on-one meeting. This morning I met him for coffee and conversation. Somehow I found myself doing all the talking. He only asked me a handful of questions, and I dutifully recited my experiences with RCC. I went over RCC's ruling cabal, my misadventures in Sunday School teaching, my committees, duties, practices, observations, behaviors, and ultimately, my departure. Then I covered my church search, what I had seen at different churches, my misadventures at the Hospital Church. All that is well and good, but after I finished my recitation, Lynn started talking.

Lynn seems anxious if not desperate to integrate me, well, anyone really, into the day-to-day goings on at TCC. Now I know why. TCC has a membership problem. They don't have a lot of members. They have some productive members, some not-so-productive members, and some people who contribute to the church but are not members. Two conspicuous examples are Chuck Burns and his wife, Paulette. Chuck is the minister who was forced out of RCC--the minister under whom I joined the church. Chuck is heading up the membership development committee at TCC, and yet neither he nor his wife are members. Lynn considers me somewhat out of the ordinary in that I have a sense of situational awareness that tells me that if I am to be a part of an organization, then I should be a formal member of that organization. I think I impressed him on this point.

I hope I also impressed him by my honesty. Brutal honesty might better describe it. He asked me why I joined the church. Or, more accurately, what drew me to the church. I told him it was Yizong, and that I transferred from a church that was an active impediment to my growth to one that, currently at best, is indifferent about me. Honesty has always been a simultaneous virtue and impediment in my adult life, but I think it's the best way to approach things. In this situation I think it is especially necessary considering that this church will hopefully be ministering to me.

Or not. Lynn was quite frank in identifying a single adult ministry as a definite weakness at TCC, and this is where the real crux of the matter of TCC exists. TCC is a church that is trying to find its way in a quickly and radically changing way, and I think Lynn has identified that the old models of religion and church operation may not work in this new environment. I believe he's right. The problem he has is the same one I have. How does a church in this new environment attract, develop and minister to single adults? That's a toughie, especially considering the post modern mindset that he and I both identify as being something that the church will deal with on an increasingly common basis.

One potential idea that has been put forward is something termed by Chuck as "Contagious Christianity." I've heard that term before, I just don't recall where. The bottom line is how do you market Christianity and the Church? Looks like we'll have to start thinking fast and hard.