Monday 30 December 2013

Bailey's Blue Cheese Sauce (with a side of Jaded Embitterment)



There are two types of people in this world- people who go out for New Year’s Eve, and people who do not. I am quite firmly the latter. I have attempted to be the former several times, namely last year, when I went to the Lakeshore in Toronto and saw a band. The band, Dwayne Gretzky, was awesome. My company was also amazing. I left at 12:30 and made it home without a DUI. Had it been any other night of the year, it would have been a perfect night.

But of course, it wasn’t any other night of the year. It was New Year’s Eve, so an awesome night isn’t enough. Are you really going to bring in the new year with just an awesome night?! You can’t do that. You fail at life if you do that. Your night has to be super perfect awesome, obviously. Your one true secret love must reveal himself to you, kiss you at midnight, and tell you how all along he knew how truly incredible you are, and in fact he didn’t love that other girl the whole time you’ve been secretly pining for him, because this is actually a teen movie and of course later in the night at 5 a.m. while you eat breakfast together swooning, Simple Minds will come on and then you’ll dance in the diner together much to the dismay of every other broken hearted girl in the diner, who will enviously promise herself that next year, HER night will end as perfectly as yours.

But of course, that will not happen this year. You know what will happen? That guy will show up with his girlfriend to the bar you paid $745,393.00 to get into, you’ll get drunk and cry in a corner at midnight, your text to your back-burner booty call won’t go through because EVERYONE texts their back-burner booty call at approximately 1:34 am when they realize life is not a Richard Curtis movie, and then you won’t be able to find a cab to save your life. If you live in the frigid north like I do, you’ll wait in a diner out of desperation until 5 a.m. surrounded by incredibly intoxicated people, reeking of desperation, until you see some obnoxiously in love couple get up and dance to an 80’s power ballad playing on the radio. At which point you’ll cry again and promise yourself next year will be different.

You know what? It can be. I realize the previous two paragraphs painted a picture of me as an embittered, sad, and lonely spinster, naysaying what could possibly be the most fun night of the year (whilst simultaneously chagrining my grade 10 English teacher with my grammatical errors). But I’m here to present a second option: Staying In. Much loved by crazy cat ladies and jaded 28 year olds alike; the old-fashioned Staying In presents a night of nostalgia-filled board games, drinking champagne that did not cost you half your tuition, and the opportunity to take advantage of that eHarmony free communication weekend, where you can meet other like-minded people who also enjoy staying in on the biggest party night of the year.

If you stay in, perhaps you will invite other human companions over to partake in the rejection of this pressure-cooker of a night, and then you may also want to feed them. If you decide Albert Burneko’s poached lobster tails are not for you (although I urge you to try them at some point), perhaps you’ll opt for the easier, if not cliché, red meat varietal.

Should you happen to go for this, you’ll want to jazz it up a little with something special. Nothing is better with red meat than blue cheese and great red wine. So, here’s a nifty little sauce that you can serve with your meal that will provide some acknowledgment to your guests that this is, in fact, The Most Special Night EVER.

Start with a finely chopped shallot in about a tablespoon of butter in a saucepan. The jury is still out on whether or not to make a roux for this sauce, so I’ll leave it up to you. If you like a thicker sauce, also add a tablespoon of flour to the shallot and butter and stir that around until it gets golden. Now add a splash of sherry and reduce it by half. Add a cup of cream (real cream, don’t chintz and go with milk. The resolution diet starts the next day.) Bring the cream just to a boil and then turn down your heat. Finally, crumble in a cup of blue cheese and whisk until it melts into the cream. Finish with salt, pepper and the juice of one lemon.

Enjoy your evening whatever you do- but if you can’t get a cab at 3:00 a.m., don’t say I didn’t warn you!

Happy 2014!

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