I’m getting in the mood to cook some hearty cool-weather fare myself. Beef Burgundy sounds about right. I think this strip from 2011 tells a simple truth, at least when I’m in the kitchen. Despite washing bowls and utensils as I go, the culinary detritus eventually gets ahead of me, even with those classic “one-pot” dishes that I love so much. Boeuf Bourguignon, in the French, is beef simmered in wine, of course. The great Julia Child’s recipe is a go-to standard for this dish, and it reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from Julia: “I often cook with wine; sometimes, I even pour it in the food I’m cooking.”
Behind the Scenes
By Jimmy Johnson
Recent Posts
Ghost of Christmas Past
This holiday Arlo & Janis comic strip from 2022 is similar in concept to the new strip that ran yesterday. I thought the latter ...
Spearhead
I have produced a number of comic strips related to Veteran’s Day. Especially in latter years, I have tried to emphasize the universal experience ...
Dark Passage
Remember: it’s that weekend. The return to standard time can be a bit of a shock in the late afternoon, but I rather enjoy ...
What’s old is old, again
You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to build a web site, but there are similarities. Everything needs to be just right, or ...
Back to the ol’ drawing board
I don’t have a lot of time this morning. I wasn’t going to post anything, but I’m tired of looking at that old photograph ...
Thursday’s Child
On Sunday, I teased you with the suggestion there are more changes coming here. There are. They will appear soon, and I think you’ll ...
218 responses to “Behind the Scenes”
Mindy from Indy, be glad you aren’t in England right now: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/wildlife/11887157/Invasion-of-giant-house-spiders-after-Britains-wet-summer.html
My Mom made pot roast every Sunday, but since we never had alcohol in the house, she did not cook with it. Once I started making Boeuf Bourguignon, I realized what a great sauce that it makes. Now when I make a pot roast, I pour in some red wine and let it simmer. Wonderful flavor and consistency
I developed the habit of washing up as I cook, and often tell people I learned it from my mother. Did she have that habit? No, she did not, and frequently had every pot and pan in the house dirty. Thus, I learned to clean as I go.
Agreed. And it doesn’t even have to be the “fancy-smancy” French variety of hearty cool-weather fare. (Although, between the beef and the wine, what’s not to like? 🙂 ) In fact, this very morning, I pulled my chili pot from under the cabinet and sat it out on the counter as a reminder to put on a pot of it this evening.
Yes, I do have a dedicated chili pot. Why do you ask?
And yes, Jean dear, that’s a corollary of the First Law of Bachelor Housekeeping: “Never let it get ahead of you.”
I wrote this yesterday and sent it to my Auburn buddies. Since JJ is one of us, I send this to him and the entire village. Enjoy! Blessings on everyone.
In 1948, when I was 10 years old, a group of us young boys were playing a sandlot
baseball game next to my house in Baton Rouge, when my Mother came out and told us that
Babe Ruth had died. We all sat down and cried. Today, 67 years later, I sat down and
cried when I heard the news that Yogi Berra had died. I listened to Yogi on radio and I
also remember watching the television game in 1956 when Yogi jumped into Don Larson’s
arms after he had pitched the only perfect World Series Game in baseball history. Yogi
was not a home run hitter or a fielding ace but he was a baseball players baseball
player. He had a World Series Championship ring for every finger and he played in three
that the Yankees didn’t win! He was also a great philosopher.
In honor of Yogi and as a bit of advice to our Auburn football team and coaches, I’d like
to say:
“IT AIN’T OVER ‘TIL IT’S OVER!”
THIS YEAR MAY BE LIKE “De Ja Vu ALL OVER AGAIN!”
To the coaches: “IF YOU COME TO A FORK IN THE ROAD, TAKE IT!”
And my favorite: “YOU GOTTA BE CAREFUL IF YOU DON’T KNOW WHERE YOU’RE GOING BECAUSE YOU MIGHT NOT GET THERE!!!”
War Eagle!
I agree Ghost, certain pots and bowls get designated for certain types of food around here because they always seem to serve that particular best. I have a pot for chili, a smaller one that is always the best oatmeal pot. There is a very old crock type bowl which always get used for left over bean soup because it always holds the right amount of bean soup. Stainless steel is most often the material of choice. I have a copper bottom stainless, 2 quart Revere ware that gets used most often. I have also discovered an enamel lined 10″ skillet that refuses to stick no matter how I abuse it. Even eggs just lightly sprayed with canola oil never, ever stick. So yup, certain pots and pans with certain items.
Just FYI, any dish with tomatoes in it will taste better with a bit of booze in it. Some of the things in the tomatoes that give it a good taste only dissolve in alcohol, so you can’t get their flavor properly any other way. And, never put fresh tomatoes in the fridge, because some of the other flavor components change at low temps, permanently degrading the taste. (I do, however, have some friends who actually prefer them that way. Yuck!)
Being Southern lady cook there is nothing that a good slosh of alcohol can’t improve. My Granny was Baptist and we served grape juice for our Lord but once I became Episcopalian, Katy bar the door! Didn’t hurt that late husband was in fine wine industry of course.
Jack Daniels is my favorite go to for cooking, along with rum, port, red wines and beer. Unfortunately pancreatic disease made me a non consumer decades ago but cooking is fine.
Favorite pot roast is a Cajun version indolent of many things but Jack Daniels plays a huge role. I actually visited his grave about 45 years ago and laid a rose. Love.
OF now winding down; blew just before the 20 min. window. New prediction may be up soon. emb
http://www.nps.gov/features/yell/webcam/oldFaithfulStreaming.html
Thanks, Sideburns. Now I know why I always add red wine to my Italian meat sauce.
Another Yogi-ism I always liked, domaucan1, is “You can observe a lot just by watching.”
Of course, Yogi is also reputed to have said, “A lot of the things I said I never said.”
He wasn’t the only one, Ghost. Many of Goldwyn’s malapropisms were made up by his publicity department, such as “quick as a flashlight.”
Debbe, thanks for the compliment. Humor, at least the best humor, is usually something that you knew, but you didn’t know that you knew it until someone put it into words. I know that sounds like Yogi Berra, but I’m actually thinking of George Carlin. He was famous for such things as “Have you ever noticed if you wear a hat long enough it feels like you’re not wearing it anymore, and when you take it off it feels like you’re still wearing it?” I know that when I heard that I said “Yeah, that’s right.” It’s like A & J. The funniest strips are those that appear to result from JJ looking in our windows.
My sister had a close friend who over the years came up with more genuine malapropisms than anyone I’ve personally known. My favorite was her description of how she was once awakened suddenly in the middle of the night by a loud noise. “I sat deadbolt upright in bed,” she said.
Debbe, I replied on yesterday’s blog.
Before a doctor decided to ruin my life and good times, my favorite hearty, cool-weather fare was pizza.
Of course, pizza was my favorite hearty, hot-weather fare, too.
(Yep, still jogging, still dieting, still losing a little weight.)
MBH had shin splints or, as she told a friend, she had chin splits.
Mark in TTown, here in the Western US we have our biggest spider population explosion during the drier years.
Spoonerisms and malapropisms are different from each other:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/spoonerism
and: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/malapropism
Peace, emb
TruckerRon, Yep, the same way a mild winter means a whole lot more pesky bugs the following spring here. But I gather that the British spider population hasn’t increased, they are just intelligent enough to want to get somewhere dry to reproduce. And humanity has thoughtfully provided them those places!
Debbe, here’s the violinist from that FM album doing a solo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ug64iUFgKAM
There was a 6.6 quake in Indonesia today.
Seeing double can be a good thing!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAxdlPZ37Gc
Trucker: Neat. emb
Debbe, thank you for the compliment — you have a big heart and are so nice to all the Village people. I miss Denise too and have made a couple of attempts to reach her on Facebook, but no luck.
Mark, I will heed your advice about waiting room TVs. I think I have only resorted to desperate actions when the receptionist was with a patient or on the phone, or was nowhere to be seen.