Jill & Julia

Yesterday I had my own Julia moment....

Yes, it was in the kitchen in a ill-fated attempt to venture into something new by cooking something good. It was an emotionally challenging day. I did my obligatory search for jobs...carefully scanning my favorite employers for possible openings and looking for new openings. Sending out the emails that I knew would amount to nothing. I was feeling rather bad about it.

Over the years, I have found that cooking is my outlet for a daily adventure. It transports me to a different country...it has brought me beyond my front door to connect with great cooks of the past. I've collected a small library of cookbooks, researched age-old french cooking techniques and even translated some turn of the century recipes from a french homemakers cookbook that I picked up at a garage sale.

I think it really began some years ago, possibly even before we moved into this house...but it has crept up on me since my children were born. It was something I could throw my energy into that would benefit us all.

When I was a child, I would watch Sat. afternoon PBS with my dad...he would laugh over Julia Child's accent, her mannerisms. He had no desire to cook but he loved, as we all did, the universal appeal of Julia. I loved watching with my Dad...I grew to love Julia too. Perhaps it also had a lot to do with the muppet french chef that we also loved to imitate. I kept watching her thru the years and enjoyed watching Jacques Pepin and other cooks she partnered with on her shows.

Since my mother did not enjoy cooking, I had to learn from someone and Julia did that for me.

4:30 arrived and I had a fridge full of farmer's market produce...beautiful spinach, lovely tomatoes, super jowl bacon. hmmm...Last week I made spinach ricotta gnocchi. perhaps this week I could make spinach pasta carbonara. My dh would be home in an hour. Kids were busy playing.

I set the pot to boil, cleaned the spinach...boil spinach and set up making pasta. Squeezed out water from the spinach. thawing bacon under hot water.
I was out of the correct flour...had to mix and mingle...bread flour, all purpose white, unbleached pastry....while advised not to use the mixer, I did anyway....I pulled out the pasta maker.
turn and knead...more flour...turn and knead..more flour.
pasta sticking in the pasta maker...more flour.
5:30 DH walks in the door....hmmm, bright green dough...looks interesting.
still sticking...more flour. Pasta, ready to cut?

5:45 DH comes down from shower..counter full of flour, black capri pants covered in flour...table not set, children fighting, wii too loud. Bacon frying. Where's that wine?
Pasta sticking in cutter...yeek! I look down at the horrid mess of flour and bright green lumps of dough and say to my husband. This is a dismal failure....now I really feel bad. If the futility of looking for a job doesn't get you down, then making a huge mess of dinner will certainly do it.
I'm thinking, this can't be rescued ...Shall I cobble all the odds and ends of dry pasta in the cupboard and still serve as is?

DH comes to the rescue. He sets to cutting the dough by hand. I finish the bacon and grating the cheese, prep the bowl with the eggs. DH looks skeptical. pasta boils in 2 batches...tossed in raw eggs, cheese in bowl...2nd batch tossed in. bacon poured over...all tossed. Hmmm...the egg noodles are truly artisan...wide and rough cut. I will not argue. Is this truly edible? skeptism could be mitigated with a little wine. I go to the basement to search out a bottle.

Table set, water/milk poured. lettuces thrown into bowls...salad dressing on the table.

Children called to the table.
Andrew takes a look....OOOOOOH bacon! OOOOOOH cheese! Okay, how bad can this be?
All the food was polished off in a matter of 30 minutes. I guess it wasn't so bad after all.

As with life, can we cobble together the broken bits and pieces of life and make something good of it?

Now on my 6th week of unemployment, I have set to reinvent myself at 44 just like Julia. While the idea of spinach pasta carbonara wasn't bad, my execution was off. But my basic ingredients were excellent. I may just need a little help from my dh and friends to help me pull the pieces together. I hope my skeptism for the final product doesn't send me screaming from the room ...I am still hoping that I can approach this all with some confidence that there still might be something good there to pull it all off.