Julia’s Bleeping Beef Bourguignon

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Last week, Dan and I watched Julie & Julia. He hadn’t seen it yet. I had. When it got to that part where Julie was drying her beef in a towel, I turned to Dan and said, “This weekend, let’s make Julia’s Beef Bourguignon.”

I don’t know why I said that. I hate touching raw meat. Guess that’s just the power of Hollywood.

To my surprise Dan said, “Okay.”

So we went out today and bought all kinds of amazing things. We got the beef from the butcher’s counter at Marsh. A strong and repulsive Cotes du Rhone at 21st Amendment. Pearl onions, mushrooms, parsley…well, you can read the recipe.

When the slicing and chopping started, so did the respectful Julia Child impersonations.

Dan chopped an onion, and I said, “Holy [bleep]! That smells good.”

We dried the meat and seared it in the pot. “[Bleep] me. That looks beautiful!”

We sauteed the onions and carrots. The little brown bits in the bottom of the pot turned the onions golden brown. “How, [bleeping] gorgeous is that?” I asked, holding a piece of meat up with tongs. “Look at that [bleep]!”

At some point during the recipe, we had time to sit down and just let the [bleeping] thing simmer in the oven. We sat at the little bistro table on the deck, talking about how hungry we were and how much fun we were having. When we opened the doors to go back inside, we were hit by a wall of Authentic French Cooking Smell™.

“That smells so [bleeping] amazing,” I said. “It can’t taste half as good as it smells. It’s probably going to be a disappointment.”

Five hours later it was ready to eat. (Yes, I do mean 5 hours. We started cooking at 3:30, and we didn’t sit down to eat until 8:30.) We tested a couple of pieces of beef. Our knees buckled.

“Sweet [bleeping] mother of  alpacas in heat!”

It was a wildly successful endeavor. And I’m very proud of us both for doing so well with such a complicated recipe.

Making Julia’s Beef Bourguignon is a bucket list item for anyone who likes to cook or likes to eat. But I think the name of this dish should be changed to Julia’s Bleeping Beef Bourguignon, for obvious reasons.

If you prefer a photojournalistic approach to cooking, please see the Bleeping Beef Bourguignon Photo Album.