Classic Julia Cooking Classes

Hi – I’m a cooking teacher, admirer of Julia Child and love all things French – so way before the Julie & Julia movie came out, I read Appetite for Life-The Biography of Julia Child by Noel Riley Fitch (probably in the year 2000). Then I purchased The Way to Cook. Next to read was Julie & Julia by Julie Powell when it was only in hardcover because my dear friend Roxanne Wyss chose it for our cookbook club. When My Life in France came out – I read it too, but found the biography by Fitch and this one to have lots of overlap – but hey – that’s fine.

I have also been lucky enough to meet Julia when she visited Kansas City to promote our AIWF chapter during her 80th birthday tour. I even sat next to her at lunch, but was in such awe – I could hardly string a sentence together. But I did watch her polish off a savory Goat Cheese Timbale and devour 4 or 5 delicious lamb chops at a special luncheon prepared by the Johnson County Community College Culinary students.

So in early August I asked my good friend Jet Pabst (owner of A Thyme For Everything kitchen shop and cooking school) if she would like me to teach a Julia Child Class on Boeuf Bourgignon. She said write it up. The movie came out on August 7th. My class was written up in the Kansas City Star the following Friday (August 14) and the class filled by the following day. SO we added a second class (which filled in another day, a third class, 1 fourth class...) – and we are now at a total of 9 classes!

AND – I have never prepared Julia’s classic recipe, but am accomplished in the kitchen, and am not worried.

With 24 students in each class, 2 helpers, and Jet... I will be feeding 27 people at each class!


Friday August 28, 2009
Shopping for Chuck Steak:
Boeuf Bourgignon needs nice 2-inch square chunks of beef. I decided to butcher the meat myself because stew meat in the grocery store is often too small. Since I have cooked delicious French Daube’s several times from Patricia Wells and Susan Herrmann Loomis’ wonderful French cookbooks, I am up for the task of this 2-page recipe (plus an additional 2 pages for browning the onions and the mushrooms).
I decide to buy a whole chuck roast (22 pounds) and butcher it myself. I took my time butchering the roast – and accomplished the task in about an hour. I had 6 pounds of waste and 16 pounds of beautiful 2-inch cubes (almost all of them were 2-inch squares).
A single recipe calls for 3 pounds of beef. So I carefully packaged 3-pounds of cubes per plastic bag and set in the refrigerator. My husbands’ business partner is solo this weekend with his wife out of town – so we call him to have dinner with us Saturday Night for a test run.

Saturday August 29, 2009
Making My First Recipe of Julia’s Boeuf Bourgignon:
I know that the dish has to bake in the oven for about 2 1/2 hours. So, no problem. I do some housecleaning, ironing, play with the dogs (2 English Pointers) and meet my friend Brenda for lunch. We are co-captains of our block and are checking out our neighbor’s new restaurant – The Well in Waldo. It is a beautiful day. 70 degrees. The restaurant has a rooftop and back patio, but we opt for the indoor dining room which is just as nice as the patio doors are wide open and we are right beside it. Have a great lunch – French Dip with delicious ciabatta rolls and I get home after 2pm.
Yikes – I have to brown 3 pounds of beef cubes, sautee chopped carrots and onions, brown additional 1-inch onions and mushrooms. I got the meat done in batches following Julia’s instructions to dry each piece of meat so that it browns properly. Then I cheated. I used 2 pieces of crisply fried bacon and the bacon grease rather than the chunk of bacon. Peel little onions? Are you crazy – I’ve done that before and it takes too much time and I figure that the pearl onions that you can buy in the freezer section of the grocery store will do quite nicely. So I brown them.

Oh! and I forgot the mushrooms – We’ll do those next week for my class, but skipping for tonight....

Everything gets in the heavy Dutch oven and then you toss and coat the meat with salt, pepper and flour. Place in a preheated 450 degree oven for 4 minutes. Toss the meat again and back in the hot oven for another 4 minutes. This is amazing – the mess that you make when you dredge the meat in flour and then brown – is totally avoided and the roasting of the meat with the light dusting of flour is perfect and the flour even browns!

In goes the herbs, red wine, brown stock and tomato paste. Oven temp is lowered to about 300 and we slow cook for about 3 hours.

Ron arrives, we have a cocktail, watch a little football and I serve a wedge of iceberg with cherry tomatoes from our garden and a homemade Maytag Blue Cheese Dressing – a little retro to go with our retro dinner.

Voila! The Boeuf Bougignon is served with light and airy mashed potatoes in a pretty oval bowl, family style (not what Julia recommended – rather classic accompaniments would be boiled potatoes, egg noodles or rice). We have a nice bottle of wine (vintage and name – later). And the dish is declared a success! Imagine when I do it the correct way!

*karen