Still no response on the cornbread recipe, but I actually have a good signal and can tell about Cabin Fever, Princessmobile style.
It's windy. It's blowing up to 30 mph and expected to continue that way for the next few days. It's also cool -- cold, according to my darling, whose circulation isn't what it once was. I realize that none of this is likely to elicit sympathy from those of you in winter snow storms or rain, but I bet most of you have a larger space to hunker down in. We can, and do, walk in the wind and try to find routes that are more or less sheltered, but it's still uncomfortable walking. And then Cabin Fever sets in, at least for me. When the internet signal is good I can roam online. But I've been competing for bandwidth with this holiday city of RVers, all camped within a half mile of the tower.
Yesterday I addressed my Cabin Fever by tackling some of the produce I'd bought and cooking Julia Child's Provençal Potato Gratin, from the New York Times. (Here's a gift article, for curious nonsubscribers.) It's pretty easy once all the prep work is done, but the prep work involves thinly slicing potatoes, onions, and seeded tomatoes; grating Parmesan cheese; smashing garlic and making a paste of anchovies, garlic, herbs and olive oil. In my case, doing it all by hand.
You would be justified in noting that Ste. Julia and her cooking partners in France no doubt did it by hand all the time. I personally would have preferred using a food processor. But it was the middle of the day, and I didn't want to start the generator. I used my trusty Moulinex, except for the paste. (For this I used the battery-powered wand blender, and decided it's worth keeping.)
I think my darling may be suffering a bit of cabin fever also. Just as I'd finished all the slicing and grating, he decided we should go to town to get beer. Well. I'd already realized I had no anchovies or anchovy paste, and had been trying to think of a substitute. Now I didn't have to. Away we went, 30 miles each way, with our brief but important shopping list.
An hour or two later, we were back. I made the anchovy/garlic/herb sauce, then began cooking. Cook the onions in olive oil until soft and golden (not browned), then fold in the tomatoes to warm them. Take it off the heat and begin assembly in a baking dish: a layer of the tomato / onion mix, then a layer of potatoes, then some of the sauce. Lather, rinse, repeat. Top with the last of the tomatoes and onions, then grated parmesan, and a drizzle of olive oil. Bake at 400F until the potatoes are cooked and have absorbed all the liquid. That last bit didn't actually work for me: even with the potatoes fully cooked there was free liquid, and it seemed the longer I cooked the more free liquid there was. Maybe I didn't seed the tomatoes adequately. Maybe my ingredient balance was off.
No matter, though. I liked it, well enough to do it again. He was less enthusiastic about it, not (he says) because it was meatless but because he wasn't crazy about the flavors. (I only used about a quarter of the anchovies called for in the recipe, but I suspect it's the anchovy flavor that he didn't like.)
There are plenty of leftovers for me!
