I'm up at 11:30a.m. Yesterday's shopping extravaganza took a greater toll than expected. Nothing happens at all during the day except tea, cookies and digital TV. The only other task I manage to complete is an internet grocery order, which should arrive four hours after I return to my flat.
My sister's got on the food bandwagon recently and invites us to hers for London broil. I'm not sure what London broil is, so I check Wikipedia. It's not a cut of meat but a way of preparing an enormous slab of a traditionally tough quadrant of beef, such as a flank steak or round steak. The meat is marinated, grilled and cut into slices against the grain. It is usually recommended that the steak be beaten to a pulp to tenderise it. Now THIS I'm looking forward to.
Mom, Rocco and I arrive at my sister's at 10 past six. Rocco asks if we're late. Mom and I laugh, and I say, 'Good one, Rocco,' for my sister is genetically predisposed to tardiness. Every family has at least one member for whom 'punctuality' is a four letter word. This describes my sister's gently warped lexicon perfectly.
Kathy's husband Jim is sitting in his recliner in exactly the spot I last saw him. He works very early in the morning and is usually a goner by 9p.m. Jim is the household barometer and is camped out comfortably in his favourite chair, indicating at least an hour wait for dinner.
In the kitchen all guns are blazing. Kathy's got what looks like a cow in the oven and a pot of gruyere sauce melting on the stove. She's been watching the Food Network quite a lot recently, and her heroine is the 'make it in 30 minutes' cooking guru Rachel Ray. I've never heard of her of course, being absent from the country for seven years now. Cultural phenomena have come and gone in at least three waves since I moved to Britain.
The gruyere is in a bag and has come already shredded. Unfortunately, my sister's not that versed in things European and didn't realise that the words 'and Emmenthal' meant that there is also shredded Swiss cheese in the bag. The mixture is intended to be added to white wine and used for fondue. I stir the living hell out of the cheese sauce. The emmenthal works its way into the mix somehow.
At 6:30, dinner is served. Jim is in shock. Still he manages to cut short his respite and mosey into the kitchen, where mom, Rocco and I are already seated and salivating
Kathy hoists the beef off the broiling pan and into a serving dish as big as my back. Sauteed onions and mushrooms are piled on top, and we pour over the cheese sauce. The emmenthal has fallen out, as it does, off the heat. But the sauce has enough gruyere in it to make it full-flavoured and viscous enough to slide gently through the onions and over the steak. Kathy did warm us that her food forays are largely experiments. And how can one not applaud her for making the effort? Anyway, this effort's gone overwhelmingly well.
A half hour later, I feel the urge to moo wash over me. We're all stuffed to bursting with beef, onions, green beans, cheese sauce and scampis. My face feels as though it's turning blue from oxygen deprivation. Three glasses of Bordeaux deepen the dizzying effect. This is the most satisfying meal I've had the entire visit.
We chat for awhile longer, help with the washing up then drive home and pass out. It's the end of a perfectly relaxing day of quality eating and drinking. Mooooo.
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