Then a dear friend called on Christmas Day, asking if I'd received a large box in the mail. I said I hadn't, and he was upset because "they said it would be there by Christmas." I didn't know who this "they" was. We hung up, figuring the package had just been delayed. Leaving later that day to go do some laundry, I happened to look around the staircase that goes up through the center of the building, and caught a glimpse of a box in front of my apartment's vestigial door (it's probably left over from when the building was a house, or each floor was its own flat). That door doesn't have a number on it - it could be a closet as far as anyone's concerned. But there it was, the missing box.
I hauled it inside, and called him back to let him know I'd been mistaken. As I opened the box, I ended up leaving a long, rambling message of flabbergastedness – as close to speechless as I've ever been. The return address was The Chef's Shop, in Great Barrington, Mass., and inside were many goodies:
COLOR was what my kitchen was missing! It's funny how much of a difference that made once the tea towel and oven mitts were arranged just so by the stove, and of course that Le Creuset oval oven in FLAME! (which looks too small in the picture; must have been the angle) will stay on the stovetop. The gifts were an unbelievably generous move, and I can't wait to cook for the giver.
Its been very chilly here lately, so the first thing I made in the FLAME! pot was chili:
The super-high quality of the pot, and maybe even just the brand's reputation, really intimidated me! I still handle it very gingerly, even though that thing has more tough in its plastic oven-safe-to-450-degrees-lid than I do in my whole body. But the chefs at work assure me that I won't ruin it, and it'll cook everything. Kathy, the food writer, said, "You can even braise in it!" I replied that I don't even know what that is, yet. The coworker behind me assured me that I've done it a million times, whether I knew it or not. I looked it up in Food Lover's Companion, and nope, I've never braised. But I'll see if I can do that in week two of the...
...Food/cooking-related New Year's resolution! It got figured out Sunday with lots of help from my coworker Erin. I'll be cooking food from a different country every week. If I go out of town, I don't have to do that week (but probably will). Instead, I'll do at least two dishes the preceding or following week. Erin, a world traveler herself, had lots of good ideas about procuring recipes, so I'll only head for Bittman's World's Best Recipes if I abolutely have to.
I have this vision of heading to the African grocery store (I know the Salt Lake Valley has at least one), ingredient list in hand, then talking with an employee about me trying to cook, and hopefully getting suggestions for side dishes (such as injera, a flatbread – I'm learning already!) or cooking techniques that might help.
For week one - Italian! No, I'm not boiling up some Bertoli and throwing in some Prego (not that anything's wrong with that). On the menu this week, for a long-overdue shindig for old Starbucks coworkers, are pasta e fagioli (that's how FLC spells it), lasagna al funghi (subbing chopped portobello mushrooms for chuck in the ragu alla bolognese recipe) with handmade sauce and béchamel, and probably some combination of salad, bread and wine. I hope to have pictures of this - ideally with a digicam, not just my phone.
This is all happening in fewer than 24 hours, so I should probably get on the ball about it. Or at least start soaking some beans.
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