{"id":1779,"date":"2005-01-28T06:10:00","date_gmt":"2005-01-28T06:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/elitemporaryblog.wordpress.com\/2005\/01\/28\/two-holy-trinities-failure-and-the-gratin-that-saved-the-date"},"modified":"2015-09-24T03:54:31","modified_gmt":"2015-09-24T03:54:31","slug":"two-holy-trinities-failure-and-the-gratin-that-saved-the-date","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orangette.net\/2005\/01\/two-holy-trinities-failure-and-the-gratin-that-saved-the-date\/","title":{"rendered":"Two holy trinities, failure, and the gratin that saved the date"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been a long, mundane week. By day, I poke and prod at other people’s punctuation. I cross items off the list. I fall asleep on the bus. And I pass my nights on the couch with a highlighter and a pack of Post-It flags, wrapped in a wool blanket and wearing pink-and-green Christmas gag-gift socks with candy canes and \u201cSweet Stuff\u201d<\/strong> printed around the ankle.<\/p>\n

After so much toil and troubling footwear, I\u2019ve earned something very, very good. Short of dashing Frenchmen beating down my door, I at least deserve a glass of wine, a piece of cake, and hours of exuberant hip-shaking and singing to myself. With years of practice, I’ve learned what makes me happy, and although I don’t often go so far as to surprise myself with flowers, I\u2019m quite good at anticipating and fulfilling my needs. After all, as Autumn, wise waxtician and facialist of Duque<\/a>, says, \u201cHoney, you\u2019re always<\/em> dating yourself!\u201d
<\/strong>
The evening thus began with an after-work stop for the holy trinity of foodstuffs<\/strong>: a bottle of wine, good dark chocolate, and butter. Coming home, I took down one of the wine glasses my neighbors recently lent me\u2014ah, the luck of having generous teetotalers next door!\u2014and I preheated the oven and fired up the stereo. Then I retrieved from the refrigerator my beloved jar of sourdough starter<\/a>, foamy, thick, and very lively, thanks to a recent feeding.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I set to work on Margot\u2019s trademark sourdough chocolate cake<\/a>, a moist, fine-crumbed wonder I\u2019d helped to make several times but had never put together on my own. Somewhere between greasing the pan and creaming the butter, I poured myself another half glass of wine. [For the scorekeepers present, that\u2019s one and a half very modest glasses, total<\/strong>.] Then things started to get a little unsettling. Half an hour later, I sent the following e-mail to Margot:<\/p>\n

\u201cI hate myself.
I just made your sourdough chocolate cake and accidentally left out the sugar<\/em><\/strong>. There I was, working the hand-beaters feverishly, thinking, “Wow, this butter is creaming really strangely with these eggs. Usually, recipes tell you to cream the butter with the sugar before<\/em> adding the eggs. Hmmm. I guess the sugar comes later in this recipe. How weird.” But I carried on and even tasted the finished batter before pouring it into the pan, thinking, “Well, it tastes okay<\/em>, I guess.” Then, while washing the bowls, I finally started to panic, realizing that I’d added no sugar at all. Ever<\/em>. I went back and reread the recipe and realized, sure enough, that I’d completely missed the “cream sugar and<\/em> butter<\/em> blah blah blah” part. Needless to say, I took the thing out of the oven, poured it down the garbage disposal, and started hating myself<\/strong>. I\u2019ve never done this kind of thing before. Guess there’s a first time for everything, eh? But if we’re talking first times, I’d prefer something sexier.
Waaah.
Goodnight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Apparently, the holy trinity was not a very cooperative team. I may have simply been very tired, or maybe delirious from too many nights in those socks, but I blame this disaster on my pathetic and intractable lightweight<\/a> status. It was clearly time to get something into my stomach. Luckily, I\u2019d planned ahead.<\/p>\n

For a year or so, I\u2019ve been a subscriber to Lynne Rossetto Kasper\u2019s Splendid Table<\/em><\/a> <\/em>Weeknight Kitchen<\/em> e-mail newsletter<\/a>. Each Tuesday I find a new recipe in my inbox, led off by a lusty description from Ms. Rossetto Kasper herself. A few weeks ago, the focus was an egg and tomato gratin from Jacques P\u00e9pin\u2019s newest book, Jacques P\u00e9pin Fast Food My Way<\/em><\/a>. A simple layered dish of gently boiled egg, saut\u00e9ed onions and tomato perfumed with thyme, and gruy\u00e8re cheese<\/strong>, it sounded like a holy trinity in its own right. And it could easily be made in single servings, a distinct bonus when you\u2019re dating yourself.<\/p>\n

So, cheeks burning from the cake failure and wine, I opened the refrigerator and pulled from its cool belly the container of saucy saut\u00e9ed onions and tomato I\u2019d made only a few days earlier. I turned the oven up to 400, put an egg on the stove to boil\u2014a blessedly easy task, perfect for restoring culinary confidence\u2014and grated a handful of gruy\u00e8re. While the gratin baked, broiled, and bubbled<\/strong> in its ramekin, I toasted a few slices of day-old La Brea wheat baguette for dipping and scooping, and I set the table.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

It was simple; it tasted like France<\/strong><\/strong>; and it was exactly what I needed. The cake may have been an embarrassment, but there was more wine if I dared, and my cabinets are never without chocolate. Now if only I could get myself to give me a back massage.*<\/p>\n

*Special thanks to <\/span>Amy<\/span><\/a> for providing the inspiration for this post.
<\/span><\/p>\n

Egg and Tomato Gratin<\/strong>
Adapted from The Splendid Table Weeknight Kitchen<\/em>, which in turn excerpted from Jacques P\u00e9pin Fast Food My Way
<\/em>
The recipe below makes one gratin serving four people, but it can also be made in individual ramekins for four single-serving dinners. Simply make the onion and tomato mixture the first night, and each night thereafter, just boil and slice an egg or two, top with some of the vegetable mixture and a loose handful of cheese, and bake.<\/p>\n

6 large eggs, preferably organic and free-range
2 Tbs good olive oil
2 medium onions, thinly sliced
4 tsp chopped garlic
\u00be tsp dried thyme leaves
\u00bd tsp salt
\u00bc tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 14-ounce can whole peeled tomatoes, roughly chopped and juices reserved
2\/3 cup grated gruy\u00e8re (or other good-quality Swiss-style) cheese<\/p>\n

1. Place the eggs in a saucepan and add cold water to cover. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, reduce to a simmer, and let cook for exactly nine minutes. Immediately (and carefully) pour the hot water out of saucepan and run cold water over the eggs. Transfer the eggs to a bowl filled with ice water and let sit for 10 to 15 minutes, until thoroughly cooled. Peel the eggs, and cut each of them into four wedges. Arrange the wedges in a 6-cup-capacity gratin dish or baking dish.<\/p>\n

2. Heat the oven to 400 degrees. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat until hot but not smoking. Add the onions, and saut\u00e9 for about two minutes; then add the garlic, thyme, salt, and pepper. Add the tomatoes and their juice, bring the mixture to a boil, reduce the heat, and simmer, covered, for 4 minutes.<\/p>\n

3. Pour the onion and tomato mixture over the eggs in the gratin dish and sprinkle the cheese evenly over the top. Bake for 10 minutes; then turn on the broiler and broil the gratin 3 or 4 inches from the heat source for 2 or 3 minutes, just to brown the top. Serve.<\/p>\n

Serves four.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been a long, mundane week. By day, I poke and prod at other people’s punctuation. I cross items off the list. I fall asleep on the bus. And I pass my nights on the couch with a highlighter and a pack of Post-It flags, wrapped in a wool blanket and wearing pink-and-green Christmas gag-gift socks with candy canes and \u201cSweet Stuff\u201d printed around the ankle. After so much toil and troubling footwear, I\u2019ve earned something very, very good. Short of dashing Frenchmen beating down my door, I at least deserve a glass of wine, a piece of cake, and hours of exuberant hip-shaking and singing to myself. With years of practice, I’ve learned what makes me happy, and although…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nTwo holy trinities, failure, and the gratin that saved the date | Orangette<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/orangette.net\/2005\/01\/two-holy-trinities-failure-and-the-gratin-that-saved-the-date\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Two holy trinities, failure, and the gratin that saved the date | Orangette\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It\u2019s been a long, mundane week. By day, I poke and prod at other people’s punctuation. I cross items off the list. I fall asleep on the bus. And I pass my nights on the couch with a highlighter and a pack of Post-It flags, wrapped in a wool blanket and wearing pink-and-green Christmas gag-gift socks with candy canes and \u201cSweet Stuff\u201d printed around the ankle. After so much toil and troubling footwear, I\u2019ve earned something very, very good. Short of dashing Frenchmen beating down my door, I at least deserve a glass of wine, a piece of cake, and hours of exuberant hip-shaking and singing to myself. 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