We had a nice birthday evening for Eliza.  She loved the boeuf bourgignon.  I also made stuffed mushrooms out of Mastering The Art of French Cooking.  They are one of my favorites, and the recipe has been a staple all these years.

Last night I decided I'd go see Julie and Julia.  It was very warm so I made a Salade Nicoise, since I had some good olives and fresh greens left over from Eliza's dinner.  This week, I am really liking a simple salad dressing made of lemon juice, olive oil, Dijon mustard, salt and pepper--and a little squeeze of fresh garlic.  

Synchronicistically, I happened to be wearing the pearl necklace that Sigrid gave me when I went to the movie (pearls were Julia Child's favorite jewelry.)

I loved the movie.  I called Sigrid this morning to tell her that I found my old copy of the cookbook.  She and a few friends are having a Julia Child dinner tomorrow night.  Sig is making a beef dish, and others are bringing dishes, too.  Sounds fun.

This is the first week of school--the first week of kindergarten for Auggie, first week of second grade for Chloe and Anders, and third grade for Trevor.  When we asked Auggie if he liked his first day of school he said, "Of course I did."  

The kids started swinging outside my house after dinner last night. Gunther and Colm (my next door neighbor) were watching the boys and talking about their iPhone applications.  I went off to the movies.

I walked with Rainey this morning, and then did yoga at 1:30.  After that I started cooking my beef bourgignon for Eliza's birthday tomorrow night.  This was her choice for dinner.

She had just seen Julie and Julia and wanted to have the beef stew experience.  We dug out my old cookbook of Julia Child's and Simone Beck, the one I learned to cook from when I was first married.  The copyright is 1964 and I probably bought it that same year.  I taught myself to cook from The New York Times Cookbook, Escoffier (too hard, too French) and Mastering the Art of French Cooking.  Wow, brings back old memories.

Sigrid was saying she'd love to have my old cookbook, so I will give it to her.  She is such a fabulous cook--far better than I.  She made us a first class halibut and vegetable dish when I was down there last week.

The smell of braising beef permeates my house tonight.  I was just outside watching the boys swing and giving my succulents a little dousing.  It's cool, with the fog rolling in, but a quiet, delicious twilight. 

I'm looking forward to getting into bed and continuing to read Marlena de Blasi's book, The Lady in the Palazzo.  I read her first book, A 1000 Nights in Venice, where she moves to Italy and marries an Italian.  She's a chef and author. The books are filled with descriptions of markets, meals, and local, rustic food.  She and her husband, Fernando make friends with a woman who opened her own simple restaurant, where she cooks local bounty like rabbit, lamb, chickens, and harvests whatever arrives in the spring--watercress, grains, and other lovely things.  Marlena and Fernando sometimes sit in the evening with two nearly silent shepherds who befriend them. They grill olive-oil drizzled bread on the fire, drink wine and enjoy the deepening evening.  de Blasi is a very sensual writer.

Gotta run and take out the stew.  It is surely done after four hours.  I just need to throw in the sauteed mushrooms and braised onions and I'm, done for the night. 

I spent the weekend at Sigrid and Jim's house.  Chloe turned seven on Saturday!  She had her party at the Pinz Bowling Alley where Trevor had his.

One minor problem.  Chloe and Sigrid went to pick up the birthday cake at Ralph's grocery store.  At the checkstand the bottom came apart and....plop went the cake.  Everyone in line was staring.  Within minutes, the store provided another cake, inscribed it with Happy Birthday, Chloe, complete with bowling pins and balls, and they were on their way.

Trevor and I were at home playing "box ball."  We found an old square box and started shooting the rubber ball into it.  Then we played Connect and solitaire together.  It's fun to tease him and get into a kind of punchy laughter.  Only with a child! 

FISH LORE

(from Fish Behavior in the Aquarium and in the Wild, by Stephan Reebs, Cornell University Press 2001) p. 197

"Late one day, Lorenz (fish researcher and one of the founders of ethology) came to feed a pair of parental jewel chichlids he was keeping in his laboratory.  That pair had just about finished retreiving their young for the night--like many cichlids, jewels at dusk gather their free-swimming young a few at a time into their mouth and spit them into a pit so that they can watch over them at night.

The female was holding station over the pit full of fry, while the male was dashing back and forth, looking for stragglers.  Lorenz dropped a piece of earthworm into the water.  The female did not flinch from her guarding post, but the male rushed to the worm, seized it, and started chewing.  Then he saw a stray fry swimming by itself away from the pit.  Bent on retrieving it, he took it in his already full mouth--and then paused.  What to do?  To eat or not to eat? To retrieve or not to retrieve? Part of the mouth content had to go to the nest, the other to the stomach.

After a few moments, the father found a solution: he spat out both the worm piece and the young.  Both sank to the bottom--sinking is a reflex in young cichlid fry being retrieved, and as for the meat, well, that was only gravity.  Then the father ate the worm, taking his time and watching the nearby fry.  When he was done, he took the fry in his mouth once again and brought it back to its waiting mother. 

Nearby students watching the scene spontaneouslybroke into applause.  The decision by the fish almost made him look wise.