It's Julia's Fault

Um... today was Monday, wasn't it?

What was that I said on Thursday. Gee, let me quote myself: "I intend to go back to my healthy ways on Monday."

Groooooan.

For dinner, I made chicken soup, mushrooms in butter sauce, prime rib au jus (Julia Child's recipe, since I am reading her book, My Life in France. ) Hard not to think about food, when she recounts meal after meal in glorious, sinful detail, complete with what wine was consumed :)

"I closed my eyes and inhaled the rising perfume," she writes. "Then I lifted a forkful of fish to my mouth, took a bite, and chewed slowly. The flesh of the sole was delicate,with a light but distinct taste of the ocean and blended marvelously with the browned butter. I chewed slowly and swallowed. It was a morsel of perfection."

This, about fried fish, LOL. Well, Sole Meunière, to be exact. I am proud to say that I know how to make it, thanks to my favorite Cordon Bleu cookbook.

Child was a woman who loved, and lived, life to its fullest. She documented everything, with all five senses, was interested in so much, and her sharp eye noticed everything. It is so sad, to me, that this vibrant woman is now gone (I know, I know, there I go with the morbidity, again.)

I used to watch her in the 70s, and snicker because everything she made began with "mehl-thed butt-erh." Nevertheless, I watched. On a black and white TV, with no remote (oh, horrors, you actually had to get up to change the channel!) I was amazed at how she got right in there and patted a rump roast as if it were a cherished pet. She would give a chicken a "butt-erh massaaaaage." It amused and fascinated me to watch her enjoy herself so much in that kitchen, and I was only about 10 years old.

Years later, I would see her in person, doing a cooking demonstration at an upscale kitchen store. I was stunned by her height-- the woman was 6-foot-two -- and, yes, she still loved her "mehl-thed butt-erh."

Anyway, what was my point? Oh, yes, because my back feels great and I can stand in the kitchen again, I am cooking, and enjoying every minute of it. I am also eating too much at dinner.

And it is all Julia's fault.