How a very bad cook learned to do better

In the new HBO series Julia, Child has tackled television. Shot at a time when there was no room for second takes, there was a lot of room for disaster. In one episode, titled Coq Au Vin, a flustered Child loses control of a piece of chicken which slips backwards onto the floor, rescued and handed up to her by her doughty producer.

I know that fluster. I have lost control trying to mix butter with caster sugar using an electric whisk. Crumbs of mix begin to fly out of the bowl and the whisk took on a life of its own, jumping and shuddering and trying to escape. I quickly gave up, leaving the victorious mix unbeaten, soon to become a rather flat cake.

So I was wary of coq au vin, which seems to be a complicated recipe for an unskilled novice. The cook has to cook the chicken, using a special stock made according to a separate recipe and then risk all (and her eyebrows) by setting it on fire with brandy. And this coq au vin calls for pearl onions and mushrooms made from other recipes found in different sections of Child’s cookbook.

Elizabeth David, another non-French and highly esteemed cookbook writer, warns it’s difficult to get the sauce right without overcooking the coq. And, I thought, it could be an expensive failure, as well as a humiliating one. In addition to a chicken and a chunk of bacon, the recipe calls for a cup of cognac and most of a bottle of robust red wine.

Rather than risk crushing my newfound enthusiasm for cooking, I put this coq au vin on the backburner, a challenge to be tackled when I have mastered more of the art of cooking, let alone the Art of French Cooking.