Friday with Evelyn’s Midtown Kitchen

Deborah dropped me off at my hotel around 10PM. We had been cooking (with some waiting for the beef) for hours in a kitchen at Detroit’s Eastern Market. The market was closed, but Chef Evelyn, who was in a commercial kitchen, was waiting for us. From 6 onwards, we spent time cooking and helping. Bœuf Bourguignon requires a few hours to finish. We would wait an hour for that to get near perfect. I helped with some dishes and got to try it twenty minutes out; it was still a bit fresh, and the meat was just pulling apart. Another twenty minutes and it was perfect. We skipped the pearl onions (which were not missed). This is Chef Evelyn’s reworking of a Julia Child’s recipe. She dropped the pearl onions, bringing the mix to a boil on the stove before baking, and instead put the carrots and mushrooms in after the first hour of baking to keep them fresh. It was excellent.

I tried to carry the Bœuf Bourguignon to the oven. It was so full that I spilled some of the hot liquid. We had to clean up the floor. Chef Evelyn explained that it was not a severe loss (I did change pants today; I did not want to smell like French food all day).

Back at the hotel, I found my room, 233, and soon was in my PJs. I read some more Canadian Crime/detective novels and soon fell asleep. I am using painkillers and some Benadryl to help me sleep. This makes the time change easier for me. The book and the pills help. I did rise later as I was very warm and then woke cold in the morning.

Previously, Deborah had found the classes at Evelyn’s Midtown Kitchen online, and we agreed it would be an excellent birthday present for me and something fun to do together. I looked forward to tonight.

Back to the cooking: Musrhoom Vol-au-Vent was a side for the main. Deborah used a microplane on garlic. It’s mushrooms with onions cooked in a cream sauce and served over puff pastry bowls. It was terrific; chef Evelyn added fresh thyme and some nutmeg to the sauce, adding to the flavor.

We did cut little bowls out of puff pastry for this. Deborah did some rolling and then used an interesting cutting ring set (I have to get one of those!) to make a bottom and an outer ring for the bowl by cutting another circle in the same size again with another small cutter. We would then take the middle and add that to our baking. They made terrific pastry bites. I did the brushing with egg wash.

Other than the chef, none of us handled the knife well. We had some lessons, which helped a bit. There were at least no cuts, bleeding, or worse, poorly cut veggies. I will have to get better at that. The knives were wickedly sharp.

Deborah and I got to play with the mixer and make Crème Chantilly. Another couple was with us, and they cooked the meat and cut up berries to go with the whipped cream we made (Grammarly put the zest in the whipped cream, I wrote that it was in the berries). The lemon zest really added to the flavor and cream. Some of us thought it was the best item. I would nominate the beef as best, but the other items were all good. The salad with the dressing made from some mustard that Chef Evelyn brought from Paris was fresh and good.

It was fun and worth the wait for dinner to let the beef finish. The company, Chef Evelyn, and the food were all great: Recommended EMK.

Returning to the start of our day together, Deborah picked me up in her mini for lunch. It was Friday, a work day, and she had spent the morning doing other things, like taking the dogs out, checking work-related emails, and doing other work tasks. We headed to Dogwood’s, just inside Pontiac, Michigan, and had a good lunch. Deborah had a California wrap while I had the steak and salad.

We spent the afternoon together. I needed to move a bit to shake off the time change and the impact of the Benadryl. It can leave you fuzzy-headed. We did the river walk in Rochester Hills downtown. The walk helped.

(I learned later that Rochester Hills is the nearby area and we were in Rochester. )

For dinner, we picked up three bottles of wine, deciding to pick a theme and buy all Michigan wines. One bottle, a Malbec, was from Argentina but was bottled here in Michigan. We drank the white wine while cooking and at the meal’s start. I tried the Malbec, which was good with food but not so good alone, while Deborah stuck with the white. We never got to the sparkling wine.

Deborah popped home to let the dogs out and feed them and then we headed to Eastern Market. We arrived and I walked around building 5 until I found the kitchen and met Chef Evelyn. We moved the mini to be insight of the kitchen and then started in learning from the chef.

That is the full circle.

Thanks for reading!