Stewing

It’s cold. Bone-chilling, wet, as-cold-as-it-can-get-without-really-snowing cold. I grant you, it’s not the 5,000 below zero they get in the Midwest, but this is the temperate rain forest. The whole family has been congregating to use the newly completed downstairs bathroom because of its incredibly toasty tile floors. All the long underwear in the house is off the shelf and on our bodies, and yet we still feel cold. There are extra quilts on the bed, and Little One’s toes are covered in socks where they stick out from under the covers.

So when I saw a package of big chunks of Oregon beef in the market, I knew what we would be eating for supper last Friday. I also bought a local onion and three horse-leg thick carrots from Dungeness farm as well, and headed home.

Number One’s stomach led him into the kitchen by his nose, and he said, “that chicken and wine thing?” “Nope, beef stew” “Mmmm.”

Darling Husband came through the front door, his manly bulk exaggerated by the extra layers of coat and sweaters. After he had stomped off his boots and doffed his Indiana Jones hat, he paid a visit to the pots on the stove as well. “Coq au vin?” “Nope, boeuf bourguignon” “Mmmm” For this, I get a good wet one planted on my cheek. And neck. And…

At the supper table, our bellies radiating the warmth, we push back and start talking about classic French dishes. We love the way the traditional winter dishes warm us. Coq au vin and boeuf bourguignon are family favorites. But we’re also open to change (a good thing in this election year). I immediately think of Ratatouille—the movie—where our rat hero updates a classic dish, but is still able to trigger a Proustian moment in the cold heart of a jaded restaurant reviewer. I grab a French cookbook off the shelf, and it reminds me that ratatouille nicoise is a peasant dish featuring onion, green pepper, eggplant, zucchini and tomato. Judging from the ingredients, it is a dish planted firmly in autumn, celebrating the harvest, when tomatoes and zucchini are abundant and warm on the vine in the afternoon, but the evenings are verging on cool. We sigh a collective family sigh and make a mental note to try it next September.

But the splatty snowflakes continue this Monday, and we are getting snippy again. Even Hannah opted for indoors today, trading her all-day freedom forays for a toasty armchair where some kind soul left a wool throw. I head for the computer in my wool slippers, ostensibly to organize myself, but my morning reading leads me to the P-I foodie blogger, who tells me about the lentils she had for Christmas and about hogwash, another local food blog, where Jess Thompson has submitted herself to the tortuous journey of creating a recipe a day during 2007. I browsed and ogled, and while I was reading, I realized I had already seen what I was looking for: a bowl of lentils cooked with duck fat. Now, I’m fresh out of duck fat, but I do have some onions and freshly dried herbs and a couple of late tomatoes. I’m thinking of a thick lentil stew over some creamy polenta to warm the troops tonight. I’m sure it will warm their bellies better than suburban housewifey fallbacks like fish sticks or stir-fry.