Boeuf bourguignon

My book group's latest selection was My Life in France by Julia Child. We combined our discussion on Sunday with a potluck of dishes from both volumes of Mastering the Art of French Cooking. As a meat newbie, I, of course, picked boeuf bourguignon. (Well, I was sort of volunteered...)

And as someone who tries to buy locally as much as possible, I was determined to get the beef at the Dupont farmers market on Sunday morning. (The carrots, onion, and bacon for the dish were also purchased from local farmers.)

Buying the meat from a local producer was certainly something Julia would have done. In fact, she was on a first-name basis with many of the vendors at the Paris markets. She learned a lot from them about when different produce was in season, how to use this or that ingredient, where to get the best of a certain item, etc. I would love to develop similar relationships with the farmers and volunteers who staff the markets in DC, though my personality is not quite as outgoing as Julia's!

I bought nearly three pounds of chuck roast from Smith Meadows Farm, brought it home, defrosted it, and realized there were several bones in the meat. Now, I have no experience cutting meat. In fact, yesterday was the first time I have probably ever touched raw meat. But with a very sharp knife and some patient guidance from my boyfriend, I was able to trim off most of the meat. The bones are in my freezer right now, waiting to be turned into stock. I think Julia would have been proud.

She also would have been proud that we made a delicious dish despite the many obstacles we faced, including an oven that wouldn't stay on (we had to keep turning the broiler on and off while monitoring the temperature), forgotten ingredients, lack of an ovenproof lid, minor burns, and a severe time crunch. We were only 30 minutes late to book group (never mind the spilled sauce on the way), where a feast of baguettes, spinach and cheese souffle, French onion soup, brussels sprouts with cream sauce, and asparagus with beurre blanc and Hollandaise sauces awaited us. The chocolate mousse we brought for dessert was also a big hit and included eggs from Ecofriendly Foods.

A Onetime Vegetarian

On Sunday, my boyfriend and I made fettuccine bolognese with three kinds of meat, all from the farmers market (ground veal from Smith Meadows Farm in Berryville, VA, and ground pork and bacon from Cedarbrook Farm in West Virginia). This was very exciting for me, since I recently ended an 18-year streak of vegetarianism (well, pescatarianism) for partly this reason.

I stopped eating meat cold turkey (pardon the pun; I can't help myself) in eighth grade after doing a report on animal rights and factory farming. I never really missed meat, though my family thought I would crack the next time a major holiday rolled around and my dad made ham (which, by the way, I ate last Christmas for the first time since then—I forgot how good it was!). But I wasn't even really tempted, until recently.

Two major factors influenced my decision to eat meat again. One was Michael Pollan, Barbara Kingsolver, and the similar writers who are advocating for a more sustainable approach to eating real foods, including meat, and in some cases growing them yourselves, or at least having a relationship with the people who grow your food and knowing more about where your food comes from. I was already buying much of my produce from the farmers market, and I started thinking it might be worth trying to incorporate a bit of humanely, sustainably raised meat into my diet.

The second factor was an increasing desire to try new things. I read somewhere in high school that the Japanese have a belief that every new food you eat adds 75 days to your life. I can't for the life of me find this on Google now, but it definitely stuck with me that I was choosing a very limited path by eschewing all meat. Over the past few years, when asked why I was a vegetarian, I would answer honestly: habit. Habit did not seem like a very compelling reason to avoid trying new things.

So, I started slowly trying various kinds of meat, starting with a bite of duck from a friend's plate at a Thai restaurant. And since then, I have tried a lot of different things. A. Lot. I would venture to say I will try almost anything (that goes for non-meat items too). Though I am qualifying the word "anything" to ward off absolutely ridiculous suggestions, I have already eaten head cheese, beef tendon, pig's ear, tripe, sweetbreads, and lamb brains, so I'm not sure what is left.

I haven't loved everything, but I have also not regretted trying anything. In fact, it's been really exciting having a whole new food world open up for me and gaining new favorite foods, not to mention winning the respect of hard-core foodies and/or adventurous eaters.

But to get back to the fettuccine bolognese, one thing I had not yet tried was buying and cooking meat that I knew for sure was raised locally in a way that was humane and environmentally sustainable. And I am glad that I did, because the pasta was delicious.

We basically used this Mario Batali recipe, though we added extra bacon, did not include ground beef, used extra carrots instead of celery (because we didn't have any celery), skipped the broth, and added extra tomatoes. The carrots and onions were also purchased at the farmers market, from Twin Springs Farm, one of my favorites.