There's the aristocracy, upper class, middle class, working class, dumb animals, waiters, creeping things, people who eat packet soup, then you.

So my mother-in-law got me (uh, us, ahem) a $25 gift card for Central Market for our anniversary. This is awesome and terrible--just enough to get me in trouble, thinking I have carte blanche to get something outrageous I wouldn't normally get.



Sure enough, I'm leafing through my Fine Cookings this morning and find a great menu for a "Christmas" spread of a succulent roast beef with some neat-o appetizers I've been dying to try. The first is an oyster dish. I really have been wanting to give oysters a go even though I really don't suspect I'd be a huge fan. This is followed by this weird-ass poached-egg-pasta-caviar dish. Enough said, I'm there. WEIRD.

And Plan B? Well, in that case I'm buying some prime filet mignons and making my own truffle butter sauce. Cause I know they have white and black truffle oil there. *salivates*

So I FUCKING FINALLY FIND the caviar (at the deli of all places) and the salmon roe is $8 an oz...who buys this?...and then it starts. At $56 for what one supposes is the actual caviar. I was expecting more like $40, so I'm already hesitant. And there is no beluga. The very cool man who knows his caviar explains to me how it has been unavailable since last year when the government made it an illegal import and Russia controls it (editor's note: oh, look at that, it's endangered...) it's all very exciting and forbidden and expensive sounding, really. But I just do not have the stones or alcohol in me at that point to make such an investment, especially not knowing which caviar would best replace the recipe's preferred beluga. As a pleb, I don't know dick about caviar, there, I said it.



Oh, baby, baby. (I'll probably hate it).

But even better? Beside the caviar display...there it is. TRUFFLE BUTTER. I nearly buttered my skirt. Ten bucks.

The caviar experiment shall go on the back burner (ha ha) and at the moment I'm baking up a couple Fine Cooking recipes...roasted butternut squash and caramelized onions casserole, glazed carrots, and the potato rolls recipe I attempted a month ago...at the time it was only moderately successful, not puffing up as outrageously the second time as it did for my mother. Seriously--my mom makes them once and they look gorgeous--like nauseatingly picture perfect--and make the house smell like heaven and orgasms (wait, is that appetizing?) and then they do an eighth of this when I make them. The worst is that it seems like a fairly easy recipe.

Pastry Chef Vel suggested I'd let it sit out too long the second rise. This time? This time has been a bit of a fuck-up. I put in a tablespoon of yeast rather than the teaspoon the recipe suggests. I dumped the potato-water in lieu of regular water and went from there. Everything has been ok but the second rise has seen nearly zero action in the rising department.

What. The. Fuck.

This is not a difficult recipe. I am really not a master of precision and detail--a horrendous baker I would make, I know.

Anyhoo.

The onions smell fantabulous. Onions on the stove are one of the few smells that send me into pure rapture--best kitchen smell ever.

Balls, the ipod just died. Time to put the TV on and catch up on some piffle TV while I cook.



Here's hoping there's no writers strike at midnight...what's a girl to do without her Stewart/Colbert fix at night??