SUCCESS!!!

Success has crowned my efforts! I am proud and pleased to announce that I have succeeded in creating un vrai boeuf bourguignon. The entire process took about four and a half hours today, and an hour or so yesterday [everything marinates for twenty-four hours] and the result now sits on a large pot on the stove, awaiting the dinner hour. I shall follow tradition, and serve it with little boiled potatoes. It is rich, intense in taste, deep in color, and delicious.

There is enough to serve at least four comfortably, so Susie and I will have several dinners before it is all eaten. One of the odd and unexpected aspects of the process is that near the end, after the pot of meat and vegetables has been simmering for three hours, one separates and [supposedly] throws away the vegetables. Susie is at the moment reading a book about the creation of style in 18th century France, and she reports that in the days of the Bourbon kings, the aristocracy did not eat vegetables. They were considered suspect, and good only for peasants, who could not afford to eat meat. The veggies that I separated out from the pot taste wonderful, and we shall eat them tonight or tomorrow night.

I have had greater triumphs, of course -- the birth of my two sons, for example, and the time I successfully played Beethoven's Opus 59 #3, with the super-fast viola part in the last movement. But this ranks right up there.