Drinking wine out of mugs? You betcha.
In my 26th year of life, I am attempting 26 new things that I’ve never done before. Full list here.
Thursday night, Brian and I made plans to get together to watch the new season of RuPaul’s Drag Race. A week or so ago, we spent an evening drinking wine and eating Oreos, watching previous seasons on Netflix. The show is awesome. It’s hilarious and extremely low budget. After our respective bottles of wine were finished, we started writing down our favorite RuPaul quotes.
“Sharpen your claws, baby. It’s a jungle out there!”
Thanks Ru!
So for this week, it was my turn to host the viewing. I decided to use this opportunity to knock another item off my list. After all, I have 24 items left and only 8 months. Where is this year going?!
For Christmas my mother bought be Julia Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking.” It’s the most thorough cookbook I’ve ever used,which is great because I have no experience with French cooking. I decided to cook the simplest dish: Fish Filets Poached in White Wine (Filets de Poisson Poches Au Vin Blanc). My Julia recommended using Sole, so I went to a fancy grocery store near my office. They had it….at $28/pound! Not. Happening. So I went with the Hake, which was still pricey at $12/pound, but this was my first ever fish dish!
I have to hit four different grocery stores in my neighborhood to come up with the various ingredients necessary, and I finally get home to start cooking. I had skimmed over the recipe beforehand, but now that I read it more carefully, I realized that the recipe did not include the sauce. I thought it was fish in a white wine sauce, but no. I hollered a profane word and looked through the cookbook for the simplest sauce I could fine. I decided on a basic white sauce (Sauce Bechamel), and I ran to the corner store to grab some flour to thicken the roux.
Brian arrived in the nick of time, and I put him to work stirring. Cooking is not a difficult task, but when you become over ambitious, like moi, you find yourself trying to saute brussel sprouts, monitor the poached fish, and stir a roux to the appropriate level of thickness.
It all came together, though. The brussel sprouts were amazing, just due to the fact that brussel sprouts in a shit-ton of garlic and butter will always be amazing. The fish was perfectly cooked, although I found a couple of bones in the piece I ate, and the roux was a bit bland. I think I needed more salt/pepper/seasoning/something. But, honestly, neither of us got food poisoning the next day, and we enjoyed our meal. So, sweet success!!
We shared a bottle of Merlot that a vendor gave me at work, split a sleeve of Oreos for dessert and watched the drag queens argue and fight. As Ru would say, “You’ve got to know who you are, and flaunt it. All. The. Time.”
Chrissy's Blog 
Looks delicious!