Fezzik In Paris

The Purrito arched an eyebrow at me, not bothering to hide her mixture of doubt and incredulity as, a couple of weeks ago I informed her of my plans to attempt to cook over the long weekend while she returned to Texas. Her reaction would have tweaked my pride, had I not had my own doubts as to whether I was even going to bother, or if I didn’t have the history that I do with regards to simply going back to chicken and vegetables when she heads back to the US for a while.

“I like how you get ambitious when I leave. Why don’t you cook when I’m here? Why don’t you cook for me? I would love that,” she added.

“You are a good cook. I am not. I’d feel bad if the food sucked.” This was not entirely true; she is an infinitely more competent cook than I am, but I hate cooking. I don’t enjoy eating out any more than I do eating at home (I actually enjoy it less, most of the time), but this is orthogonal to the point. If I screw up while she’s gone, I can throw a pizza in the oven or Deliveroo something edible; nobody will even consider politely eating whatever abomination wound up on the plate in an attempt not to discourage the unsuccessful party from trying again.

While I have my doubts as to how correct this answer was, she let me off the hook; when she left, the recipe book that I was requested lay on the table, complete with an “I love you and I’ll miss you” on the final page. While I do think the (unattemptedm on my part) baked fish recipe was perhaps a bit perfunctory (“Bart’s Fish Tales has a great youtube video”), I rode to glory on the wings of her duck recipe and sunk into the muck with the aid of the instructions regarding the moules (to be fair, that wasn’t her fault. I don’t think it was my fault either, considering that I actually bought the correct herb (parsley, as opposed to cilantro) this time).

Because nothing is true and everything is permitted she wanted an accounting of my (mis)fortunes via WhatsApp, I took pictures along the way.

Epilogue: chicken and green beans is back on the menu.

Letting the damn magret rest for ten minutes is the hard part.

I have managed to avoid overcooking the duck. Color me surprised.

Now to set up a picture that will inspire envy in the Purrito… Dining with Laurent, our (vegetarian) French whale, is sure to do the trick.

This is why we buy pre-washed moules or clams. It was natural somehow that I recalled that Léon delivered after I bought the moules.

Fuck it, I’ll drink some of the beer that these things are about to be cooked in.

Voilá. Tragically, they’re not very good; perhaps beer is overrated as a moule-cooking medium.

While my duck was a success, my moules were not; in any case, I think I’ve earned a non-cooking night.

In the news-surprising-to-nobody category, Vorenus prefers delivery. He also needs to stop gnawing on the Purrito’s yoga mat (sigh).