Keeping it Light

For a while there, it was all about French cooking. Between Julie and Julia, butter made a comeback, boeuf bourguignon was all the rage, and we even hosted a poulet-en-croute dinner for a few friends. My favorite thing from Mastering the Art of French Cooking though, is the omelet.

I love reading that book because it works as a cooking instruction book and as a delightful diversion. I have a tendency to wander from the page, try new ingredients and methods, not always with the desired results. My mother handed down her love of an orderly kitchen along with the notion that recipes are “suggestions”. This helps me a lot when it is 6 o’clock on a weeknight, everyone’s hungry, and I need a substitute ingredient for whatever we’re making. It also encourages creative use of the pantry (another hand-me-down talent). 

The downside is that it's easy for me to forget to learn the basics somewhere along the line.

Omelets are about as basic as you can get. Eggs, butter, salt and heat. Then there’s the flip, just to keep it interesting.  If you follow a Julia Child recipe, it turns out just like it should. 

I read My Life in France first, and there was so much attention devoted to the omelet, I was hooked. I ordered a set of Mastering from my favorite used book place and lugged them around on car trips, read them at my desk over lunch, too late at night and so forth. Then it was time.

My friends came over after work for omelets before going to see the movie. We had a delicious salad fresh from the winter garden, French wine (bien sur!) and…perfect omelets!

I was feeling pretty confident.

So, the next morning, I made omelets for my kids.

Let's just say that's not how it looked in the cookbook.....

After several minutes of the floor-rolling-belly-clutching kind of laughter, I scooped the eggs up and they were delicious.  My kids love to know that perfection isn’t the goal – how much easier things are that way! The wonderful thing about cooking? You always have another meal coming up.