March 7, 2010

I'm sitting in my kitchen while frozen cordon bleu bakes in the oven and a box of instant mashed potatoes sits on the counter waiting to be made. There are frozen biscuits in the freezer waiting their turn for the oven and a can of veggies sits in the pantry waiting to be stuck in the microwave. Not every night can be a Julia night! As a matter of fact, certainly only ONE night a month can be right now! I barely know what I'm doing. I'd go broke and I'd gain "500" pounds othewise, but my family sure would be happier! =) Kidding. I'm thinking back to February's Julia dinner and I can't help but smile. I remember wandering around the Wal-Mart parking lot with a buggy; that's Southern speak for "grocery cart", full of our ingredients for that night's Julia dinner looking for the LOST car! this after we spent the whole time inside "fighting" over who's gonna pay the bill. My mother on one side of an isle and I on the other, we looked at each other and laughed. I thought to myself, "this is what we get for buying our ingredients at the local Wal-Mart!" I mean, how can one master the art of French cooking by shopping at Wal-Mart? Well, it's not about mastering it for my mother and I and it doesn't have to be for you either. It's about spending time together with family and friends and creating memories. You may find one night that we ate the back-up pizza when it all went horribly wrong! LOL Gosh, I hope not. What a waste of good ingredients.

Back to February's dinner; beef bourguinon. We finally found the car and made it home with our bags. You know, I don't even remember the details of how the meal was prepared! What I do remember are the good memories. Mom and I joking that chunk bacon from which to get lardons, whatever THAT is, must be nothing more than good 'ol fatback! The French just didn't know! We laughed and just bought thick sliced bacon and the meal was still wonderful! I remember going back and forth over dried vs. fresh herbs. Can you freeze fresh herbs, 'cuz I'm never gonna use 'em otherwise! Or should we just get dried? It'll never go bad...we opted for dried. The funniest part was at the part where you put the stock pot full of yummy goodness into the oven and then you have to pull it back out and do more amazing things to it on the stove top. Now the WMF Function 4 pots have stay cool handles...unless they go into the oven, dummy! I grabbed that handle and got a nasty surprise! What's hilarious is my mother did the very same thing not more than 2 or 3 minutes later! We laughed at ourselves.

It's no surprise to anyone that the kitchen and the dinner table are great places to bond with family and friends, but imagine how much more you can do and with so much less frustration and limitation, when you have the right tools. I mean it! I know from time to time I'll sound like nothing more than a sales person (maybe a bad one), I love how having what I need gives me the confidence to try those "never could" recipes. And even if I mess it up, with the right attitude and outlook, what great and funny memories I've made! What's awesome too is that with quality equipment and gadgets, I don't dread the clean up. No lie - I washed WITH EASE the pot that sat baking in the oven for 3 hours without soaking it! I just wiped it right off! I almost couldn't believe it. Time to finish tonight's frozen dinner and spend time with my family.