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You would think a lawyer would have no use for a chinoise, which (according to Wikipedia) is "an extremely fine meshed conical sieve used for straining soups and sauces to produce a very smooth texture." You might think a lawyer would have no use for a chinoise, but, in the case of this lawyer, you would be wrong.
A chinoise comes in extremely handy when you spend your weekend creating classic stock (the better to make soups and sauces), which is what I have just done. It started off innocently enough. I wanted to make cog au vin, a classic French stewed chicken. But I was dealing with a new cookbook, a serious techniques cookbook, and the recipe called for red wine chicken stock, which is a brown chicken stock made with red wine and water instead of just water. Brown chicken stock is chicken stock made by roasting the chicken intead of sauteeing the chicken, a technique that creates gold chicken stock, versus brown.
To make the red wine chicken stock requires roasting chicken thighs, carrots, onions and celery, then dumping the chicken and vegetables in a soup pot and deglazing the roasting pan with red wine, after which you dump the red wine into the pot with the vegetables, along with enough water to cover, and simmer, along with a bouquet garni, which is just some herbs tied up in a washed leek green, until the stock is done. So to make the red wine chicken stock, without which you cannot make the cog au vin, you have to make something else. Even if a bouquet garni is pretty simple, it's still emblematic of the process: you have to make one thing, use that to make another, and use that to make still another. The cog au vin is a two-step process; other recipes require far more.
But I like to cook, even if it is just for me, as it was this weekend. So I very happily made red wine chicken stock, and also (while I was at it) made golden chicken stock the regular way, to compare the results of the two methods. I used the chinoise to strain the solids out of both of them. Then today (after the red wine chicken stock had cooled overnight, so I could defat it this morning), I reduced the red wine chicken stock further and then strained it through the chinoise again. It is now jelly, freezing in my freezer, waiting to flavor my eventual cog au vin, which I didn't get around to making this weekend, being too busy making stock and other stuff.
I used the golden chicken stock to make potato, leek, and asparagus cream soup tonight. I had to buy the leeks to make the bouquet garni for the stock, and I had a leftover russet potato and some asparagus that had been in the refrigerator too long. So making potage parmetier and adding asparagus to it seemed the logical thing to do.
And what a revelation. Asparagus is not my favorite vegetable (haricot vert have pride of place), but the soup -- quel magnifique! It was what cream soup should be but never is: smooth, delicately-flavored, full-bodied, rich. Perfect. I had slices of French bread with it -- Central Market French bread, not my own, but still pretty good, and Kendall Vineyards chardonnay. One bowl was enough; it was a meal. I felt as though I were eating history. The stock derives from classical French stocks, the technique is French, the execution French. I am a home cook, not a chef, but I am linked to Escoffier by the technique, the execution -- and the result. In making this soup, I am one with countless cooks who have begun with the basic foundation: the stock..
This weekend I also made a veal and peppers ragu, courtesy of Marcella Hazen and Saveur, which was outstanding; a breakfast frittata of eggs, onions, and parsley, also good; and took the sourdough starter I'd ordered from King Arthur flour and prepared the quart of starter that I'll use from now on to make sourdough bread. I was on a streak.
In the process, I referred to my new text, Cooking (by Perterson), to Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, to The Making of a Chef (by Michael Ruhlman), and to Ecole de Cuisine (by Jill Prescott). I also reviewed my Thanksgiving recipes and made a grocery list. In other words, I immersed myself in cooking, which is classic avoidance behavior. I avoided going the gym, I avoided working on a legal memo for work, and I avoided, for the most part, people. And I've been really happy the whole time.
So what does that say about my life? I'd rather be home playing with food than doing almost anything else. That's why a lawyer needs a chinoise.
Cooking is a happy thing, even those times when it doesn't quite work. Being a lawyer, being a commercial litigator (which is what I am) is kind of like being an oncologist: you don't see people when they're happy; you see them when something has gone bad wrong in their lives. They look to you to fix whatever it is that has brought them to you and, unfortunately, the legal system is a really blunt tool, an imperfect instrument for solving problems.
Of course, it's better than what it replaced -- blood feuds and fighting things out in the street -- but it isn't fully satisfying, ever, dor anyone. Even if a plaintiff grabs the brass ring and ends up with a bazillion dollars, it's only because they've lost something irreplaceable: their limbs, their spouse, their child.
Because I do business litigation, mostly what happens is settlement, and what that means is the defendant pays more than he/she thinks is right, and the plaintiff accepts less than he/she thinks is right. So no one's really happy and everyone resents paying their lawyer's fees, no matter how good a job the lawyer has done. I can pull a rabbit out of a hat, work a miracle, raise the legal dead, and my client still resents my fees because in their mind they shouldn't have been sued, or had to sue, in the first place. I think sometimes I should study the phenomenon of transference. Psychologists and psychiatrists have to learn to deal with it and I think lawyers should, too, because what gets transferred to us often is all the misery and anger that being caught up in the legal system involves.
And I feel sorry for my clients, I really do. If I got sued, I couldn't afford me -- and I hope never to be caught up in the system other than as a lawyer. On the other hand, I'm really good at what I do and, an astonishingly large part of the time, I manage to salvage the best there is to salvage from a bad situation. But none of it is as satisfying as making a really good chicken stock that I can turn into an astonishing cream of asparagus soup. If I knew why that is the case, I think I'd know the secret to the universe -- and certainly the secret to what I should do with the rest of my life.
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Posted by laurel819 on 2007-11-11 18:48:26 | Rating: | Views: 82
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This makes me want to get back into cooking again. I miss it. Between work, classes and social obligations I barely have enough time to shove a few chicken fingers into the oven every now and then.
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Posted by atrebble
on 2007-11-15 13:33:33
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