Birthday Bashing

This weekend is my birthday weekend, though not my actual birthday. (DEG’s age will not be divulged.) As is our custom, when a birthday falls on a weekday we celebrate on the closest weekend.

Domestic Engineer Guys don’t get their birthday weekend off; unless you just won the lottery. If that were true you could hang up your apron and tool belt and hire a live-in chef and housekeeper.

Each year PJ gets to ask THE question: “What would you like to cook for yourself on your birthday?”

Since Friday is procurement day I just finished my menu planning.

Tonight is New York steaks with garlic, butter and thyme, roasted asparagus with dill hollandaise sauce, and fried onion rings. No dessert. The onion ring recipe is compliments of Emeril. You can find it on foodnetwork.com.

Saturday is pesto, diced romas and pancetta on toasted bread (quartered), herb-encrusted roast leg of lamb with garlic roasted fingerling potatoes, pan-roasted broccoli with sliced almonds and garlic, and strawberry shortcake. The pesto is made from scratch, natch.

Sunday is roast chicken with root vegetables. The vegetable lineup includes leeks, carrots, red-skinned potatoes, rutabagas and turnips. They are all roasted together with the whole chicken—a meal in a roasting pan. That vegetable combo is amazing. I also just like saying, rutabaga. It’s a Thomas Keller recipe.

One of my stops today will be at the Wine Exchange in Orange, the best value wine merchant in SoCal. It will be a syrah Saturday, any which way you spell it.

The toasted bread for the Saturday night appetizer is not a canapé. You have to remove the crust to earn that snooty label. Guys don’t do canapés, or the stilted conversation that goes with them.

PJ has volunteered to make the shortcake from scratch. We already have fresh strawberries here in SoCal. There is a roadside stand one mile from our house.

The one birthday benefit coming my way is a weekend without KP. There is also a one in four chance that our son will do KP one night. If so, I may take a picture for posterity.

Purging

No, not that kind of purging.

I just purged about half of my recipes. It’s good to purge now and then.

I have my recipes filed by:
Appetizers
Beef
Beverage
Chicken/Turkey/Duck
Dessert
Fish/Seafood
Pastas/Rice (This one is gathering dust.)
Pork/Lamb/Veal
Salads/Dressings
Sandwiches
Sauces/Seasoning/Stocks
Soups
Vegetables
Miscellaneous (This is where I file special occasion recipes like Thanksgiving.)

I purge every couple of years, mostly the ones that were not used in the previous two years. Some are older than that because during the previous purge I still had intentions to try it. You know about good intentions.

I say “my recipes” but they are mostly ones that I have clipped from magazines, newspaper food sections, or printed from Food Network or food blogs. My eyes remain larger than my stomach, or the days of the year.

I have my own recipes, about 100, and three-quarters of them will be in the book, Guy’s Guide to Domestic Engineering, coming soon to a website near you, and hopefully a retail bookstore or two.

So, my advice is that if you haven’t prepared one in 2-3 years, and unless it is a family heirloom that only soils your kitchen when family comes a calling, chuck it, even if it uses chuck. The chefs will make more. So will you.

If you are a pack rat, and you need a room for food books, food magazines, and recipes, seek counseling.

If you’re anal enough, you can transcribe each saved recipe onto a Word document so that they are all the same size. (For those on the plus side of fifty I suggest a font size of at least 14, unless you have rigged up a way to attach one to your glasses.) This makes sense if you use some sort of display system in your kitchen for quick referencing while cooking. It would be better for those waiting in the chow line if you didn’t use recipes as your daily memory tester.

Recipes also stay cleaner this way. To which, I say, bite me, though you may need some Kosher salt, maybe some thyme. A well-seasoned recipe is a mark of a fully engaged cook, or a married one. As long as you can read it, and it’s not seasoned enough to be an appetizer, it’s fine. For guys, call it a badge—just like grease scars, and shirts and aprons with permanent stains.