scary french food

So, I have made beef bourguignon (or beef burgundy for those who cannot pronounce bourguignon) two times and each time I thought it was pretty good. What's not to like beef cooked in red wine...more specifically Pinot Noir. YUM. I really like the challenge of cooking foods that are specific to a country such as the food of my parents culture...Indonesia...it has been fun for me to figure out the recipes from one of the books that my aunt sent me from Holland. All the recipes are in Dutch and when I feel like I need to brush up on my Dutch I grab those books and read thru them and try to decipher words that are unfamiliar. Italian cooking is fun too, not just spaghetti, but things like bolognese sauce and other interesting pasta sauces are fun for me.

Now, one of the baristas at our Starbucks is French and I have talked to him about food a time or two. Last Spring I made Ratatouille for an event we had at church and I asked Stephane what it was supposed to look like because really, who would think that Ratatouille is for real? Turns out my ratatouille was the closest to what it was supposed to be than the others that were offered that day. Score for me! To make matters more interesting I decided to make another batch because I had not really had any of the first batch and brought a portion to Stephane for his scrutiny. He took a look at it and said it looked and smelled right. A HA! Then I started to worry...a few days later when he was finally working again (I was afraid that I might have caused him to be ill) he said it was VERY good. Evidently he shared his thoughts with a couple of the others at Starbucks and they said he was pretty excited over that. Cha ching! I score again!

We had the Roberson's and Baumann's over for dinner this past Saturday and they all seemed to enjoy the BB. I had promised Stephane that I would bring him some if there was anything left over and he seemed to be happy with that. Dinner was served and there was more than plenty left to share with him so I packaged it up and told Tom "No touchies". I brought it to Stephane on Tuesday and he was pretty excited about it. We discussed what our guests thought and I told him they liked it and even had seconds...so it couldn't be that bad. When he said he thought his wife hadn't had it before I was relieved, but then he remembered that his mother had made it on their last visit to France...OH NO! Now I'm worried again...

It's been a couple of days and I may not see him again until next week. So until then I'll be fretting over what I thought was pretty good beef bourguignon. I think I'll stick to the easy stuff from now on ;)