It's All in the Stew

It was a cold summery day in Oakland. Time for .... stew!

I got the recipe from Ina Garten, who hosts the Barefoot Contessa food show. Everybody else worships Bobby Flay or Emeril on Food Network. But Ina cooks -- and looks -- like the kind of cook you want in your home. She loves food and it shows.

So, anyway, she had a beef stew recipe that called for the chuck to be marinated in a good red wine, like cabernet sauvignon. I couldn't resist.

So, I got 2 pounds of good looking chuck from the butcher at the Piedmont Grocery, and I went to work. The secret to this one, I think, is the marinade but also the fact that you saute the meat, and THEN dump the veggies in.

I made some mistakes along the way, like not cutting the potatoes and onions up enough, but that's the beauty of cooking for myself. I get to try it out, figure out what I did wrong, and hope I don't repeat the same mistakes next time.

The only down thing about this recipe is that it takes about 5 hours to make! So don't put it together while you're hungry!

So, picture this: A glass of red wine, eating my homemade beef stew (and incidentally, dropping it all over my shirt), and then watching the end of Season One's Battlestar Galactica. Stew, wine, and Cylons. It doesn't get much better than that....except if my sweetie had been sitting beside me on the couch.

But when she is, I'll have this killer stew all ready for her!