IT’S EASTER, and I’ve decided to make my hero Julia Child’s beef bourguignonne, the only recipe I make that my mother also made, the same classic dish that Julie Powell, as played by Amy Adams, ruined so spectacularly in Julie & Julia by falling asleep on the sofa and leaving it too long in the oven.
Beef
bourguignonne isn’t really a spring dish. Our corner supermarket doesn’t have
small onions; it stocks them only for big winter holidays. I settle for frozen,
feeling a flick of irritation because this is what my mother used.
It’s the
only Julia dish my mother made that I found acceptable, but I cook it only
maybe once a year because doing so makes me so sad that when I’m done, I can
rarely bring myself to eat it.
During my
first semester of college, my mother, only 46, was diagnosed with brain cancer,
an astrocytoma with the shape and reach of a starfish. That summer, she had
suffered from crushing headaches and double vision. Her doctors decided it was
an underactive thyroid, then hypoglycemia, then menopause. Her headaches had
persisted, and miraculously, so did her elaborate nightly meals. There is no
summer longer than the one before college; your old life has wilted, but your
new life has yet to bloom. In the afternoons, I watched my mother wash down
three aspirin with a swig of Coors before getting something on to simmer. How
on earth did she manage this, and why?
They were
able to remove part of her tumor, but only part. The prognosis was dire. My
mother, according to her surgeon, woke up, looked him straight in the eye, and
“asked all the hard questions.” She was given six months to live but managed
only three.
By February,
she had completed her prescribed rounds of radiation and chemotherapy. My
parents had been steadfast in shielding me from the horror of it all. I was a
mere 17. I’d gone away to USC, my father’s alma mater, pledged a sorority, and
was dutifully having the time of my life. They insisted.
My birthday
is March 2, and suddenly, uncharacteristically, my father called and summoned
me home on Sunday for my birthday dinner.
I was happy.
Home meant presents, cake, and my choice of fancy dinner. In the naive way of
children to whom nothing bad has ever happened, I assumed that if my mom was
cooking me a birthday dinner, then she was better and was going to be OK.
The fanciest
special-occasion food I knew was steak and baked potatoes with sour cream and
chives, and that’s what I asked for. Also, a green salad with Bob’s Big Boy
Bleu Cheese dressing. I knew there would also be some kind of store-bought cake
from the grocery store.
But that
Sunday, the moment I walked in the door, I took one whiff and knew we weren’t
having steak. It was that smell I knew so well: the buttery, floury, slightly
blood-infused smell of browning beef on a too-warm day. My mother was setting
our places at the big dining room table, one utensil at a time. She wore her
usual capris and a bright floral top, and an orange turban to hide what she
called her bald chicken head.
I felt the
sense of injustice rising up in me. It wasn’t fair! They’d called and asked
what I wanted and I’d said steak, and there was no steak. Instead, my mother
was cooking beef bourguignonne. I didn’t even dislike beef bourguignonne, but
it was not steak. No steak. No baked potato with sour cream and chives. No
green salad with Bob’s Big Boy Bleu Cheese dressing. And also, no cake. And
soon, no mother; the person I loved most in the world was leaving me.
I followed
her into the kitchen. We didn’t talk. She couldn’t talk well after her brain
surgery. She leaned against the counter, her redhead’s pale complexion mottled
and her face slack and puffy from her meds, removing each piece of beef from
the pan with the focus and precision of someone defusing a bomb.
I think she
made a few simple things before she died a week later, but Julia’s beef
bourguignonne was the last thing she made for me.
When I made
the dish last Easter, I rushed through the browning of the stew meat, ruining
my favorite hoodie with splattered oil. I also wound up with an extra plate of
sautéed carrots and onions. I spent most of my young adulthood furious that my
mother had solicited my opinion about what I wanted for my birthday dinner and
then didn’t cook it. Then I moved into a phase where I realized I was really
angry at her not for her menu planning but for dying and leaving me alone, for
that is how I thought of being left with my well-meaning silent father. Now
that I have lived past the age at which she died and have a daughter older than
I was when she got sick, I can only imagine the sheer terror she must have felt
at the thought of dying and of leaving me to make my way in the world without
her.
Then, in a
further iteration, over the course of the long Easter afternoon while I stood
in front of the stove turning and basting the beef, I found myself admiring her
courage. Her days were numbered, and she knew it, and she was going to spend
her last days at the stove making something that gave her pleasure.
Source:
http://www.rd.com/true-stories/inspiring/what-i-learned-mother-cooked/
Question:
1. What is her favourite meal?
a. Key lime pie
b. Beef bourguignonne
c. Meat balls
d. Steak
e. Noodles
e. Noodles
2. “…but I cook it only maybe once a year…” The word it refers to?
a. Steak
b. Baked potato
c. Beef bourguignonne
d. Salad
e. Bread
e. Bread
3. What date she was born?
a. 2nd March
b. 2nd February
c. 4th December
d. 2nd January
e. 5th February
a. 2nd March
b. 2nd February
c. 4th December
d. 2nd January
e. 5th February
4. What is her mother's name?
a. Julia
b. Margareth
c. Barbara
d. Alice
e. Judith
a. Julia
b. Margareth
c. Barbara
d. Alice
e. Judith
5. What is the last thing Julia ever made for her?
a. During her first semester
b. During her second semester
c. During her third semester
d. When she was 5th years old
e. When she was 11th years old
a. Steak
b. Baked Cheese
c. Beef bourguignonne
d. Salad
e. Pizza
6. When was her mother being diagnosed with brain cancer?e. Pizza
a. During her first semester
b. During her second semester
c. During her third semester
d. When she was 5th years old
e. When she was 11th years old
