The Heathen Housewife

Poor little Sophie is not feeling all that well today. She woke up in the middle of the night last night with a fever, and has been hot and sluggish all day. This is not the kind of fever worth worrying too much about. I took her temperature pre-Tylenol this morning and it was 101.6 – just barely qualifying as a “real” fever, certainly not high enough to call the doctor absent other scary symptoms, just high enough to make her feel off and sad and in especial need of my arms around her all day long. And that’s okay. I have to consider it a privilege that on days like today I can make her feel somewhat better just by holding her.

I only gave her one dose of Tylenol this morning, and I let her burn the bug off for most of the rest of the day since she didn’t seem too terribly uncomfortable. Of course, this evening I noticed that her top front teeth are almost through the skin, and if I didn’t know better I would blame that for the fever. In reality, I know that her little friend H was feverish last week when we scheduled a play date anyway. I figure, it’s good for her to get exposed to a bug or two now while she’s nursing so she can build her immune system. Tonight Julie had a bit of a cough, and I wonder if she’s next. I’m just hoping whatever this is clears by tomorrow night so we can go eat Thanksgiving dinner in good conscience.

We’re going to Joe’s cousin’s house for Thanksgiving, as per tradition, and she has a bitty baby to whom we probably would not like to spread this bug. I’m still working on the assumption that we will attend the party, however, and tonight I did my grocery shopping for my part of the meal. I was assigned to prepare the green bean dish, and was told that it didn’t have to be the traditional casserole (thank the powers of the universe!) I loathe the traditional canned green bean and mushroom soup casserole. It is vile and disgusting. I have tried to appreciate it on many occasion. I have taken my obligatory one bite of it at holiday meals for the last thirty years and I can say honestly and for certain that it is a true abomination.

Which brought up the question, what to do? Should I do an Asian-type green bean stir fry? Should I do a green bean almond dish even though Joe can’t eat most nuts? no….I wanted something that would seem like familiar Thanksgiving food to most of the people there, yet have a fresh, palatable presence. I did a little search on the Food Network’s site and came up with this. It’s the traditional green bean casserole Emeril-style. Homemade mushroom soup made with three different kinds of fancy mushrooms, real cream, and brandy. Fresh green beans. Fontina cheese. That sounds like something I could find room on my plate for.

I headed to the store. Not the normal big-box store, but the fancy store with the carpeted aisles where I had more confidence in finding my fancy ingredients. I talked to the friendly young man at the cheese counter and picked out my ten dollar wedge of cheese. I strolled over to the produce section and stared at the very large section devoted to mushrooms for a good ten minutes, trying not to think too hard about how much I was preparing to pay for shiitakes, oysters and creminis. I did a few loops around the canned goods section looking for those fried onions just in case my hand-made ones don’t turn out or I run out of time. I never found the display, but I did find and bring home a random can that someone had left on the shelf next to the chicken broth.

The adjacent liquor store was closed by the time I got there, so I had Joe rummage around in the basement for the bottle of brandy I thought we still had in a box never unpacked after our move last year. Eureka! Just enough left for my recipe.

These better be some decent green beans.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 22nd, 2006 at 4:50 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.