Semi-regular readers of Woodhaven Ramblings are well aware of my cooking prowess. I’ve shared stories about Thanksgiving dinners held hostage by a self-cleaning oven, a chicken mutilated by my whimsical knife skills, a kitchen almost set afire with oil and water, and homemade pickles canned while under the ill-advised influence of muscle relaxants. Despite an endearingly local cooking class last year, shelves of cookbooks, folders and boxes of shared recipes, and drawers and crocks of kitcheny gadgets, the fact remains that it is always a crap shoot when I enter the kitchen with plans to feed people.
And so it was last week, as the rain returned and settled in for a few seasons, that I got the brilliant idea to treat my man to a cozy, Fall-ish, home-cooked pot roast. Armed with my admittedly vague cooking class notes and even vaguer memories from the last (and only) time I produced a pot roast, I nevertheless thought I had this. It had been so easy last time! And aside from using a dark, nutty, stout beer instead of something more yellowish and hoppy, Rob and I had agreed that my inaugural pot roast had been a success. So exchange the beer for Cabernet Sauvignon and voila! Happy Husband!
I stopped at a local large grocery store and expected to easily find a package of meat marked “chuck roast.” Actually, per my notes, I was looking for something that also housed a bone in the shape of a 7. I dug through the meat case and discovered a cow has many, many parts -- few of which I could identify if shown a map of a cow. To be honest, I have no idea what part of the cow is called Chuck. So I had no idea if I could substitute another available meat cut for the surprisingly elusive Chuck-with-a-lucky-7-bone. Eventually I found one package…one…with the words “chuck roast” on it. No bone but I didn’t care by then. And yes, I suppose I could have asked the butcher but to be honest, I was embarrassed. What 40-something woman doesn’t know what a chuck roast is??
The next day I felt very Happy Homemaker. I peeled a potato, sliced an onion, and actually used red wine for cooking instead of drinking. I even had a bay leaf! I put Chuck in my looks-like-new roasting pan, added the ingredients, put it in the oven, and set the timer per my notes. I was so confident, I decided to supplement the roast with a new recipe in my bread machine. It was a sweet potato/maple bread that sounded all things autumn. It was going to be a lovely, lovely meal.
The timer signaled, the table was set, the bread was warm. Platter ready, I got Chuck out of the oven with great expectations only to discover Chuck was a bit dry. Dry as in shoe leather. Dry as in I needed both hands to pry the fork into it. Dry as in it looked like we would be having a biblical dinner of bread and wine. I jammed the meat thermometer in it and discovered it was at least 50 degrees more cooked than desired...and still going.
I’m not entirely certain what words or noises I uttered but they seemed to summon Rob with some concern. We stared at the withered Chuck and my now obviously lacking notes and tried to determine what went wrong. As I grabbed the opened bottle of wine I had cooked with and took a swig, Rob astutely assessed the situation and said, “I’ll take care of this.” Rob and Chuck disappeared into the garage while I retired to the living room with a hunk of bread. Plan B was soon underway. We eventually dined on a family favorite called Hobo Stew: macaroni, ground turkey, and Manwich sauce. With some Tabasco, wine, and fresh bread, I was soon laughing and posted a status on Facebook: “So much for THAT pot roast…”
I have a little hobby of trying to match my profile picture on Facebook with my current status. It being dark outside and Chuck being somewhere in our pasture, I couldn’t post an actual picture of my pot roast. So I snagged a clip art picture of a lump of coal instead; it seemed fitting enough. My Facebook friends, also well-versed in my cooking abilities, naturally assumed that lump of coal was actually my pot roast. There was much concern and bewilderment about how exactly I did that to poor Chuck. The next morning I went out to our pasture to take a picture of whatever was left of Chuck, assuming any number of critters had enjoyed a feast over night. Instead, Chuck was still there, fully intact. Yes, even the coyotes and raccoons knew better. They did, however, appear to like carrots.
I posted the picture of Chuck with a clarification about the blackened coal. One friend showed the picture to her husband and asked him what he thought it was. “Well, I see carrots and maybe a dead bird?” I see his point.
I then decided to ask my Facebook buddies how they cook pot roast, because something had obviously gone very very wrong. It became clear in just a matter of minutes that I am indeed the only woman walking this planet who does not know how to cook a pot roast. I don’t know that I’ve ever received so many comments on just one Facebook post. And yet, this is when my Dead Bird Pot Roast started to take on a whole new life, when my cooking misadventure became a wonderful experience of friends and sharing.
Over the next few days, friends were sharing their recipes…with me and with each other. People who only have me in common were suddenly chatting about ingredients and methods and debating crock pot versus oven versus stove top. Several women emailed me their favorite recipes with promises of it being foolproof (fool, at your service!). Statuses started popping up on Facebook of friends saying they were making pot roast for dinner. My sister-in-law in California posted a picture of hers, to give me inspiration, as did a friend in Florida. Two local friends told me they had made a pot roast in my name, and a friend in Massachusetts hoped her roast sent me good vibes. The Dead Bird Pot Roast inspired a nationwide Community of Cooking. It was awesome!
Vowing not to give up, I had lunch with a 70-something friend to help me figure out where I had gone wrong with Chuck so I could try again. After a step-by-step recounting, my fatal mistake was quickly deemed to be the use of a rack. Yes, I had put Chuck on a rack in my roasting pan. So despite the bountiful liquid in the pan, it wasn’t enough to keep Chuck in contact with it and therefore moist. “It would have made a wonderful gravy, though,” my friend tried to encourage me about the wine and veggies and roast juices. Right. Me, making gravy. HA HA HA!
This same dear lady found me at church yesterday and said she had a gift for me. She handed me a recipe card, written in her own hand, of the pot roast recipe she has been using for years, courtesy of a 1950’s Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. The handwriting immediately reminded me of my grandma’s. I have several of Grandma’s recipe cards in my box. I rarely use them but I treasure them. I treasure the time she took to write them out for me, the passing down of instructions and memories of favorite meals, the handwriting that is so personal and tangible.
With lots of support and detailed instructions and a crock pot and cheering from near and far, I attempted Pot Roast v2.0 the other night. A brave young guest with a sense of adventure joined us. It was deemed edible and tasty! Yahoo!!! We skipped having the remaining sweet potato/maple bread with it, though. Rob had noted it tasted a bit strange. When I told him I couldn’t find the “canned vacuum-packed sweet potatoes” the recipe called for and instead had come up with an ingenious substitute, he looked both skeptical and justified. Yep, turns out sweet potatoes baby food -- though vacuum-packed -- doesn’t taste quite the same as sweet potatoes for grown-ups. Still so very much to learn.
No comments:
Post a Comment