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Terry Marotta: January is Remorse Time for us all, with tummies still mounding from the holidays. Humble Time too as, trying to hack ice off our cars, we lose our footing on the crusty snowbanks and practically slide clear under them. So we’re fat AND we’re uncoordinated. Just weeks ago, we lived a world of pretty dreams; now the bugle has sounded Reveille. In my family though, the wake-up call came early. By December 1, our middle daughter, Annie, had planned the whole menu for Christmas Day. Three years before she got interested in becoming a chef and was suddenly hauling around this giant shoulder-bag full of daggers and scalpels. (This is what they do in culinary school: they pocket the stiff tuition, then tell you you’ll be forking over another $1000 for the knives because you are sure as heck not using theirs.) All these glittering implements she brought to our house on December 23, along with the beef stock and the veal stock; the dozens of herbs and vegetables to cook and throw away all but the juices; the multiple pounds of butter; and the pints and pints and pints of heavy cream. That whole day she stood in our kitchen working, while the rest of us lounged on our fannies watching football. The beef alone took eight hours what with the trimming, searing and simmering. It was 8:00 at night before she got the two giant pans of it into the oven, 11:00 before they were ready for her to set out in the cold air of the screened-in porch that is just off our kitchen. Our son heard the explosion some ten minutes later but was mystified as to its source—until the next morning when Annie returned to tie on her apron and saw it all: the glass top of the table that the beef had rested on smashed; the redolent labored-over juices leaked away and gone; all that savory beef dried up into dusty knuckles that glistened with shrapnel. Her eyes brimmed only briefly. And while her dad began cleaning up the mess and I was sent at a gallop to buy the last two tenderloins in the county, Annie began making the side dishes. Which she set on several more stable surfaces in that same screened-in porch. Where, during the candle-lit hush of Christmas Eve itself, a possum broke in and ate them. All our young people typically sleep here the night before Christmas and this year 12 of them rose on the big morning to see what Santa had left. All but Annie, who woke with such a high fever she couldn’t sit up, let alone come to us. And so we went to her, six of us perched on her bed, the Three Stooges times two, taking notes on what she said to do to her food. So yes, a good part of the menu never materialized. But we finished making her breakfast croissants, which turned out to look only a LITTLE like cow pies. And we reached for those famous knives and tackled those large thigh-sized tenderloins. At 4 p.m. I counted 18 family members in the kitchen all working; that’s about when our chef drifted weakly downstairs to try and join us. So color me immune to the letdowns of January. I embrace mishap and am content to live and learn. One nice thing I’ve learned is that some foods just NEVER go bad. This I ponder with my still-mounding tummy as I stand even now, three or four times a day at our open fridge, pulling out pint after pint of Annie’s heavy cream, and drinking it straight from the carton. Contact Terry by visiting www.terry |
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