In Praise of Younger Women

Apologies. I've been working on a website for an Indian restaurant and it's been taking up all my time. Go to bed at midnight. Wake up at six. Fire up a couple of beers and work in peace until nine. Go back to bed. Wake up at 4. Fire up a couple of beers and work until 9. Eat. Repeat.

So: no time to cook, although I did delve into the realm of breaded, deep-fried stuffed mushrooms the other day. I'm not a great deep-fry fanatic but these were just too damn good, if a bit finicky. I'll share next time -- I have a few ideas beyond mere Boursin stuffing.

But my real topic is that of Abigail, Brigitte's niece, who came to stay with us for a few weeks from her home in West Virginia. Abigail is a mere twenty years old.

Dear Abbie

It was a bit weird, at first, as if if some random teenager had just crashed your pad. You know, crazy hours, hours on the phone, painted toenails, obscure alternative rock bands, tie-died shirts, split-second plan changes . . .  well, you know the drill. I didn't.

From the start I did my usual, as did Brigitte, and made tasty stuff pretty much every day. Brigitte came up with a first: stuffed peppers.

Brigitte's Stuffed Peppers

 I think I lamely made an old standby: stroganoff, but I tried to make strawberry daiquiris every other day, so that makes up for the lameness.

 Nick's Steak Stroganoff

 But Abbie kept saying "While I'm here, I really should learn to cook from you guys." So I thought, fondly, "Yeah, right. A twenty-year old actually making something other than a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich."

But one morning (a rare morning in which I actually woke up) I detected the small of frying butter . . . Abbie had gone to the Metro, bought all the fixings and had made a mushroom/pepper omelette with a side of home fries. It was delicious! 20-year olds are not supposed to be able to do that. Her only mistake was that she left the burner on after doing the fries. Forgiven!

But she kept harping about her Philly cheese-steak sandwich. Yeah, right, thought I. She could barely put together Muesli and milk (I still stubbornly denied she could cook) so it was bound to be an unmitigated disaster.

And then one night, among the usual chaos of her new Montrealer-flake friends cancelling and whatnot, she suddenly decided to make the Abigail Philly cheese-steak sandwich.

Who was I to argue? I retreated to the bedroom and watched Nazis kill Russians and she went to work.

And what she came up with! Amazing. It was the first sandwich of which I've eaten the entirety in many years. And what did she do? She substituted goat cheese for the usual bland Jack or Mozzarella.

Abigail's Philly Cheese-steak Sandwich

And she didn't make French fried potatoes, she made SWEET French-fried potatoes.

But the crowning glory was this morning, when we'd both stayed up all night, her packing, I sleepless, and we decided to make an omelette for Brigitte, who had to drive her to the bus station.

Abbie started making the omelette and I chopped vegetables, but then I smelled a powerful smell . . . truffle oil! She'd grabbed the truffle oil out of the cabinet to make the home fries with. "I'm sorry!" she apologized, when I told her what she'd done, but I was delighted! Home fries in truffle oil! I'm going to remember that. I love kitchen mistakes.

It's too bad she's gone, but she has a bright future in the kitchen. Our kitchen, at least.

I'll try to reverse-engineer her Philly cheese-steak but I fear it'll be a failure. We'll miss you, Abbie.