Tuesday, January 08, 2008

This is Not a Baby Blog

It's not a food blog, either, but I think I needed to post something new to spice things up a bit. Haven't you gotten tired of looking at me and my cute nephew?















Anyway, it was "Coq au Vin Monday" at Chez Joe last night. I'm blaming Julie Powell's entertaining-but-light-as-a-dacquoise book, Julie & Julia, a story of Powell's year of attempting to cook every recipe in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Recommended, especially for foodies.

Verdict on the Coq au Vin?: A big, fat, resounding MEH.

It may look good, and smelled fantastic, but in the end, it was chicken in carrot/mushroom gravy with potatoes (not the most tender, delectable chicken I've ever cooked, either). Maybe it was my technique. Maybe it's the fact that I've been feeling a little peaked the past couple of days and I had almost no appetite when I was trying to down the dish last night.

Moral of the story?: Sometimes, chicken in gravy is just chicken in gravy, even if you dress it up with bacon fat and sweet cream butter and give it some hifalutin, quasi-sexy French name.

Oh, and as for "Cock with Wine"? No appetite for that either. I really want nothing more than to go home and crawl back into bed right now. Alone.

7 comments:

LadrĂ³n de Basura (a.k.a. Junk Thief) said...

I was wondering how many days into the new year before there'd be a bacon reference and...

No cock with wine? Ah, darn. With SF weather this week I've felt more or less the same. Well, with a couple of exceptions. Though I'm writing this on the floor of the Phoenix Airport where it's probably 30 degrees warmer than SF.

Joe said...

What am I? The anti-kashrut poster child?

Anonymous said...

Just skip le coq or the cock and just drown yourself in wine. That's been my policy, and it seems to be working out.

Stash said...

You need a houseboy to cook for you.

Preferably in the nude. ;)

Re coq au vin...hm. I swear I wasn't going to make it [because the weather is a freakish 60 degrees here in NYC] but now you've given me an idea. I'm not sure whether to thank you or not.

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

Did you use chicken or real rooster? You can't use chicken when it calls for coq. The sinews of the rooster melt over an insanely long stewing and the meat becomes almost more tender tender as filet. It takes hours though, and finding a really nice mature coq is hard, especially in southern CA, ne c'est pas?

Well that and you have to sample the red wine during the cooking, so you arrive with the coq, a little lightheaded.

Salty Miss Jill said...

Right-I've tried preparing different variations of this dish and figured it was just my lack of technique or bad taste by thinking it was just OK.
Cock, wine, mushrooms, bacon-all good...you'd think would be sublime, but it's a bit underimpressive to my palate.