My other channel of choice is The Food Channel. I can only apply so much of what I learn from HGTV- but with The Food Channel, all it takes is a trip to the supermarket and the proper cooking utensils. I love Iron Chef and when Alton Brown narrates as if it's an olympic event. I dream of being one of the judges who get to taste all the delectable dishes, that are "plated" so appetizingly, and then make comments, like, "Hmmm...the ginger really gives it a surprising tang." My favorite show, at the moment, is The Barefoot Contessa, starring Ina Garten. I want to be one of Ina's friends, although I don't travel in circles with movie producers and famous architects. Ina can make a tuna sandwich seem like a gourmet meal. And she's so calm and content all the time.
Last Sunday, Scott, the groom to be, was sitting on the couch, flicking through the channels (like most men do) while waiting for Lindsay. It was time for The Barefoot Contessa, so I suggested he watch with me. The dish- lobster mac and cheese. One thing about Ina's dishes, you want to just run out to the supermarket to buy all the ingredients and then just get to work in the kitchen. What made lobster mac and cheese so perfect for the lobster couple was that Lindsay's favorite food is lobster and Scott's favorite is cheese (any kind) and well, who doesn't like macaroni? The real selling point, though, was Ina referred to this as "comfort food". You see what I mean? I just want her to adopt me. The dish and the flyer from Fairway advertising lobsters for $4.99 per pound were an opportunity you couldn't pass up. "Let's make it," I said, "Tonight!". Ten minutes later, we all (Lindsay, Kim, Scott and I) piled into the car and drove to Fairway. Scott had never been to Fairway and Lindsay and Kim had, but didn't like it. This turned into a life-changing event because they all decided that Fairway was a great place to shop. (You know you're domesticated when you get more excited about food shopping than clothes shopping.)
There was a long line ahead of us for the $4.99 per pound lobster, of course. When it was our turn, I ordered the lobster steamed. The fishmonger replied, "Nope, ma'am, we don't steam 'em here- we don't even have a steamer." I never made lobster before. I turned to Scott. He never made lobster before. He read my mind. He nodded, reassuringly. "I can do it," he said, shrugging his shoulders. "All we need is a big pot." (Did I mention I love him?) "I have a big pot," I said, reassuringly, although I wasn't so sure it was big enough. And when we got home, my confidence sunk when I saw the size of the pots I owned and the two three-pound lobsters. (You can't underestimate the importance of the correct utensils on these cooking shows.) This led me to say to the lobster couple, "Do you have a lobster pot on your registry?" They looked at each other with wide eyes and immediately went online and added a lobster pot. That didn't do much to help our present situation, though. And so the fun began. Scott said that you had to stroke the lobster's head to calm it down before you boiled it. Kim left the kitchen in protest- she is one step closer to becoming a vegetarian again and can't abide by slaughtering your meal to be; in other words, she was on the lobster's side. Coco, our dog, was quite agitated over having such a large, moving thing in the house that was not human; therefore, I had to stroke her head. I remarked about the scene from the movie, Annie Hall, which got blank stares from my three children. "You never saw Annie Hall?" I asked. I went online to Youtube and searched the scene. Hysterical. The best part was when the lobster crawls behind the refrigerator and Woody Allen says, "We should have gotten steak- they don't have feet." And then I thought to myself that the filet mignon was also on sale for $4.99 per pound and that would have been a whole lot easier.
One thing about the Barefoot Contessa- everything always goes so smoothly and seems so simple. Not so in the Feldman household. We had a hard enough time fitting two three-pound lobsters into the too-small pot and timing the macaroni and preparing the cheese sauce with all the spices. It looked more like the Iron Chef in my kitchen and if Alton Brown was narrating, he would be saying, "And there they go, banging into one another, again, as they drain the macaroni from the pot and pull one lobster out of the other pot, which seems a little too small." But, we did it. One word to describe this experience- tumultuous.
And then in the end, sitting down to taste our lobster mac and cheese.....
"The Gruyere really brings out that nutty, unexpected flavor."
...By the way,this weekend, I'm making the filet mignon, without feet.
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