Sunday Roast Dinners

Today I wish I were going to my Mum's for a big, Sunday Roast Dinner. Despite the fact that here it hit 90 degrees today, a roast chicken and crispy roast potatoes that are deliciously fluffy inside sound fantastic. (Even though it would turn the temp up in your house to maybe 100 degrees....no matter!) I grew up with everyone sitting down on a Sunday for my Mum's Roast Dinner. The format was pretty the same, with these variables; what type of joint of meat (or bird), whether we ate at 1pm or 5:30 pm (I didn't like 1pm...we weren't Victorian?!), and what was going to be for pudding (dessert). It tied us down to the day in a completely comforting way, although now, with our busy lives, I don't know how I could be tied down to just one, glorious meal.
In the summer if it was hot, (hot is open for interpretation - not usually above 78 degrees) we would roast the meat anyway (you have to, it's Sunday) but serve it with salad instead. I loved that too. I loved all the sides of crunchy, salad vegetables. And in true British fashion, it was not a chicken salad where everything is tossed together in a delectable dressing. No. It was slices of cold roast chicken and lettuce, slices of cucumbers, quarters of red tomatoes, grated carrot, and kidney beans adorning the plate next to the chicken. Then, a little Heinz salad cream (kind of like mayo, but runnier, yellower, and tangier) may be drizzled on your plate. It was years in my family before my sister had the fantastic idea of making a french vinaigrette. Even then, I eyed it suspiciously and went right back to pouring my salad cream. If we were really lucky, and there had been time, we might get hard boiled eggs too. That was a good Sunday.
Every winter, I try to replicate my best memories of Sunday Roast Dinners. There were many obstacles in the New World. It took time to find the right potatoes. (You can't get King Edward or Desiree spuds here?!) The closest is a russet, but only because it is the least waxy kind this side of the Atlantic. Then, I had to track down English gravy. (I don't make it from the pan juices. Only on Thanksgiving!) Yorkshire puddings (popovers) were another challenge. Especially because I had two variations in my head that Mum always told us about; the large, kind of flat, thick pancake-y kind that one of my grandmothers made and the lighter, individual, puffy kind that the other grandmother made. What a dichotomy Mum must have been in....whose Yorkshire pudding do make for your family? Your mum's? Or your mother-in-laws??!! (Depends on whose coming to dinner I suppose.) One of my nephews when he was very little, renamed Yorkshire puddings "milksheds". And to this day no-one knows why. I kind of like the name milksheds more. My children love milksheds (popovers). In fact, that was the first thing they would eat when I would finally make a roast and got everyone sitting down on cold, snowy Chicago nights. It took years for them to eat a roast potato. (Still can't figure that one out.) What a failure I felt. All English children love roast dinner. But apparently half-English children do not. What had I done wrong? Maybe not feeding it to them every Sunday, come rain or come shine for their entire lives thus far?! Possibly. I'll try to work on that this year. Last winter I discovered the baby loved roast pots. At last! Victory! Now if I could just get him to eat the meat, stuffing, and gravy....
While I type this, my English family are getting ready to turn in for the night. What's left of their Roast Dinner is minuscule. Maybe a bit of cold meat. A roast pot or two. Meanwhile, the PG Tips tea that I just made tasted horrible (the coffee pot is on instead) and I am excited to go to get some yummy BBQ with the boys later. It's not the Roast Dinner I've been dreaming of. But this is America after all. And here, anything goes. Even on Sundays.

Kyle and I have been married for 13 years tomorrow. So, last night, he surprised me by organizing a babysitter and taking me out to dinner. All I was told was to be ready by six o'clock with a pretty dress.... A fancy, black car came to pick me up and bring me downtown to a beautiful, French looking hotel (the Elysian) on Walton. I had the most fantastic gin and tonic made with house tonic! Yes, they can make tonic, by steeping whatever ingredients make the base of tonic like steeping tea (and it looked like tea too), and adding grapefruit zest. Soda water created effervescence and mixed with Hendricks Gin it tasted like a summers day....
We ate in the new restaurant in the hotel - Ria. ria's decor was 2010 meets Mad Men. There was something 1960's about the furnishing and art work. But the colours were platinum, gold and silver. I half expected men sitting in the cozy chairs, smoking with thin ties and skinny suit pants. Beside there should have been women whose hair were piled on their heads with fabulous Betty Draper dresses on.
Anyway. The food. It was seafood heavy, which is unfortunate for the woman who doesn't eat seafood! But, it made me try things that normally I would not. Like foie gras. Which, I still feel kind of guilty about. I mean I know it's legal and everything now, but I have to go with Charlie Trotter on this one. I really worry that the bird was just overfed and fattened up, just so someone can grab their liver. But it's done now and the foie gras came like a pate but with a chicken consomme on top. It had roasted shallots, cherries, a beautiful yellow, sweet, sweet tomato that had been quarted with no seeds! (I almost couldn't figure out what it was...) So, I ate it (not all of it, it's extremely rich...no surprise there). Oh, and the amuse-bouche was a chilled potato gelee almost, topped with a watercress one. It was amazing and it looked like a little turtle.
Dinner was tricky. Because my choices were between guinea fowl galantine or dry aged rib-eye with bone marrow. Thankfully, Kyle ordered the rib eye, so I could view the marrow from a distance. (There were many questions for the waiter...including myself telling him exactly what I think of when someone says bone marrow. It's not pretty. But of course the restaurant scopes it out, cleans the bone, makes a custard with the marrow and pipes it back into the bone. It still looked like a dog bone though....)
The guinea fowl was delicious and it was served on a potato puree with English peas. Yum! My only complaint was that it was coved with shavings of black truffle. (Did you know that Australia grows truffles now? Yep. they took the seeds or spores from France and hey presto. Aussie truffles.) But I made a discovery. And it is that I don't actually care for truffles. (Unless Australian ones are just not as good as French ones.) I just dont get the appeal. In fact, I felt bad about doing this, but I pushed the shavings to the side and hide them under the slice of galantine that I couldn't finish! So, clearly I am not cut out for fancy cuisine. I don't eat fish, lobster, crab, mussels, or veal sweetbreads and I don't care for foie gras or truffles! Lucky Kyle. My taste is cheap! Maybe unlucky Kyle because although I don't need fancy food as a rule, we did order lots of booze (a beautiful sparkling rose and fantastic grenache, shiraz, mataro blend from Australia's barossa valley). My dessert? A brown butter hazelnut cake, broken into three pieces with halved blackberries and peachs served three ways - poached, brunoise (small dice) and a slice of dried peach. Oh and it was served with a perfectly soft scoop of crean cheese ice-cream. Yum! It was heaven. All of it - heaven. We had so much fun. Partly because Kyle thought he should ask out waiter why the restaurant was so quiet! Ha ha. Luckily the guy didn't seem to mind and we promised him we would tell everyone about how delicious the whole experience was.
So, 13 years ago we were on our way to Lou Malnati's pizzeria for our rehearsal dinner. And I LOVE that kind of food too! (Again, lucky for Kyle.)

I am a huge fan of the AMC series Mad Men. I was;t always. In fact I didn't start watching it until the 3rd season. I had some catching up to do. As always with period pieces (can we say that? I mean, I know it's not Bronte or Austen, but it's historical!) I am absolutely fascinated. The clothes, the attitudes, the stereotypes, the clothes, the politics, the beliefs, and did I mention the clothes? I have read some articles about the show, the most recent one in the Style section of the New York Times on Sunday. The premise of the article seemed to be about our generation's fascination with the show. The idea being that the show was set in a time where adults had fun, which apparently is contrary to how adults are acting now. (Perhaps only white, middle and upper class readers of the New York Times?) The article states that while we are so intent on eating well, drinking moderately, and staying monogamous, we are actually missing out on all those deviant behaviors that apparently characterized the sixties. Here's the thing - I don't want to have extramarital affairs. I don't want my husband to. (Obvious I know, but I thought I should mention them.) I also don't want to eat chicken salad on Ritz crackers for dinner, and I definitely don't want to feel like I do or do not (as the case may be) "earn my keep" by being some one's pretty wife. The clothes....well, you can figure out that one. The drinking? Afternoon cocktails, while sound delicious, I am a little uncomfortable with. I don't know if I need my boys to know how to mix my cocktails. And I love my wine....I could drink a glass every night ( did I say a glass of wine? )I could drink whiskey too. Martinis? Delic. Gin and tonics? Heaven. But I am also aware that all these drinks, out of moderation, have consequences. Which is, of course, exactly what the article was griping about. Except. Except I am curious to know how many adults health from that swinging generation, suffered. And the kind of fun that I may be missing out on doesn't actually sound that fun. (Except those clothes...)
I admit I yell at my kids. (In fact while I had bronchitis the last couple of weeks, my doctor and I laughed about the fact that yelling at my children was a really bad idea and could produce damage to my vocal chords!) I struggle with feeling at times, a Bad Mother. I struggle with staying at home. And yet, I still can;t bring myself to just arbirally yell at them to get upstairs. Or watch TV. Or, better yet, as Betty Draper did, accuse my child of, when their grandparent passed away, acting like a baby about it. Thus, I may be a more troubled mother. I may overthink everything (oh, alright, I do over think everything) and I may allow my kids too much input at times. But good lord, I hope that I never make them feel 2 inches tall for having a normal emotion with regard to the death of a loved one. Or, have them measure out a perfect g & t and then stir it with their finger.
You may ask, why the heck do I care about this Mad Men topic and why is it so important to me that I chose to blog about it? Well...because my family drama is not up for discussion. And, if the New York Times of Sunday can run two articles about the new season of Mad Men in one month....then, dammit, the topic deserves some examination. (And I didn't even touch the feminist aspect of the series/era. Or lack of it.)