Pratique de Base -- Lessons 5 and 6

Lesson 5 -- April 4-5, 2010

We get off to a bad start because I break a fundamental rule: never send anyone shopping for you. Donna hits a wall quickly as Kings has no whiting or trout (see Cassoulet de Poissons below). I give her several alternative suggestions and the guy working the counter tells her "you know there's a big difference between tilapia and whiting, right?" She'd better love this dish.

Summer Harvest Salad -- Artichokes! I now know why I should have considered myself lucky in avoiding working with them for all these years. This is a mean-ass plant! The spikes on the end of these leaves defend themselves to the last (in clean-up the next morning, I am stabbed again from hell's heart by an artichoke burr hiding on the floor). But my wife loves them. It garnered me nothing (save the gratitude of an aging but still cute woman and half a dozen holes in my hands) but it was tasty. The big improvement here is in my mayonnaise-making skill. I've been working this concoction for years, but for some reason became hooked on blender mayo. This time, attempting to be faithful to the book, I go back to hand-made. Wow, it's clearly better! And my track record of blender mayo, no disrespect to my wonderous Cuisinart high capacity pureeinator, is 50-50. Half of the attempts separated. I do the whisk-work and am reminded that I can do this successfully 100% of the time. Now, it's wrist-breaking work, but as someone who has been working his right hand on a steady regimen since age 13, I am up to the task (sorry for the reference in the middle of a mayo discussion).
Fish and Bean Stew -- I substitute black-eyed peas for great northern white beans. A deft use of a pantry item, but a mistake as these beans shed and break up under heavy cooking. As the tilapia also breaks up, I wind up with some sludge. Very tasty, though. Deidre likes it. Andre loves it. LFP was a no-show. We get lots of leftovers and I freeze four portions (an update will come after the thaw).

Sponge Cake with Creme Anglaise -- I am keeping my commitment to dessert. It keeps the Fuss Pots engaged with my cooking exploits, if not bought into every production. This one goes over like a sister-kiss
Time: 4 hours Complexity: 10 (of 10) Cost: $76.59 Mess: 9


Lesson 6


Onion Tart -- delicious, and a double winner. The first win is that four of the five of us love it. The second: my wife is now convinced that our friend, who recently made a similar dish, used a store-bought crust. It's a rare feat to get a victory from a couple of jagged, overbaked edges. This keeps nicely in the fridge and would be a good choice for Donna's future luncheon meetings where she needs food she pretended to make for her fellow charity moms and board members. The crust was slightly overworked.



Mussels with Wine and Cream Sauce -- deferred.


Vanilla Bavarian Cream with Coulis -- (substituted blueberries we have in the freezer for raspberries called for in the book). This came out perfectly. I used a small spring pan and got a beautiful looking, delicate tasting dessert. Even LFP loves this one, though my attempts to get her to mix in blueberries (which she loves separately) fail. Some future therapist is going to have a yacht from the fees this kid will have to pay.


Time: 3 hours Complexity: 5 (of 10) Cost: $40 Mess: 6