And Food Brings Us Together

I did make Steak Diane for dinner last night...and it's a good thing, too. Cooper didn't get home from work until after nine, and by the time he showed up, I was highly annoyed by his tardiness. My displeasure did not go unnoticed, and did not go over well, as he was tired and tired of working. He stomped into the shower saying he wasn't hungry, to which I responded, "Too bad - I made a special dinner."

(Special dinners, of course, being my theoretically guilt-inducing leverage: I'm such a good wife. I know you were working. And I was cooking for you. It rarely actually works.)

While he was showering, I cooked the steaks. I'd already made some sweet potato oven fries with garlic and rosemary (pretty intense mix of sweet and salty, very good) and I'd prepped the steaks and measured out my ingredients (realizing that I'd be using beef stock instead of veal, and embarrassingly substituting A-1 for demi-glace because didn't make a grocery list).

By the time Cooper was finished, the steaks were on the plates and the sauce was nearly ready. I didn't care if he was hungry or not: he'd sit and look at his dinner. I finished the sauce and poured it over the steaks - it smelled amazing and had that sort of silkiness that heavy cream is so good at creating.

I started eating right away. Cooper sat and watched me eat. After about thirty seconds, he got up, said, "Is there any red wine open? (sarcasm) Thanks for not getting me a glass. Nice that you thought of me."

But once he found himself some wine and started to eat, the mood mellowed. I was a third of the way into my steak, and was already feeling good enough to apologize for snapping at him when he came home. After a few bites, he semi-grudgingly thanked me and complimented me on the sauce. Fifteen minutes later, we were both smiling.

So I can highly, highly recommend the Steak Diane recipe I linked to yesterday. It works wonders. It was also very easy.

My only regret is that I didn't take any pictures. It did cross my mind, but at the time I was just too pissy to go get my camera.