My own Julie/Julia project

Ok, so this is really just becoming very cliche. Everyone has seen (or is going to see) the movie Julie and Julia. I did just see it myself last week while on vacation and totally enjoyed it. BUT, I want credit for being one of the people who read the book 'Julie and Julia' when it first came out and wasn't mainstream. In fact, today I went back and looked at my reading log (I keep a log of every book I read, the author and when I finish reading it) and found that I finished reading this book in October of 2005, long before most people who are now all into the Julie Powell - Julia Child frenzy that seems to have people racing to cooking stores and book stores.

Dave bought me a copy of "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" (mtaofc for short) a couple of years ago for my birthday and it has since been sitting, collecting dust on the bookshelf in the kitchen. Being encouraged, once again, after seeing the movie, I decided that I needed to try some of the recipes from this cookbook, as Julia made them seem like dishes that any person interested in cooking could, well, master. The kids have, for many reasons, been intrigued by the existence of brussel sprouts which I have hated my whole life. I think my aversion as been the strongest reason for them to be curious about them. Over the weekend while at the grocery store, I decided to get a few of the offending veggies and find some recipe in mtaofc that I could prepare using them. I made a quite simple dish of braised brussel sprouts for the kids to have with dinner and to my amazement (and Dave's) the kids thought these were just about the BEST thing they had ever eaten. Dave, who had never in his 40 years consumed one of these tidbits, also declared them delicious and we all decided that this must be in our regular repetoire of staple vegetables, at least prepared like this. My mother (sorry mom) never made brussel sprouts that were this tender, tasty and buttery. You can't go wrong!! There are other versions of brussel sprouts in mtaofc, many with cheese and sauces (how can that be bad, eh?) so I see myself now becoming a regular in the produce section buying bulk quantities of these.

I have no photo, as there wasn't really anything to document. However, as I continue to try to make various dishes from mtaofc, I will include any pictures that I think would be interesting to my blog-following public. Bon appetit!