Beef bourguignon and other pretentions

I'm wondering how pretentious it is to have beef bourguignon for lunch? Is it made better or worse by the fact that it's (homemade) leftover beef bourguignon? How about that I'm drinking diet coke with it, instead of the obligatory burgundy or beaujolais? In the end, it doesn't matter, because it's as delicious leftover as it was fresh, and I'm not going to stop eating it just because I'm afraid of a few pretentions.

It's not my intention to turn this into a foodie blog, but I am something of a foodie, so it's going to sneak in from time to time. I love good wine, good beer and good food. Usually, it's far simpler fare than Julia Child's beef bourguignon recipe (she did have a penchant for complicated recipes, although to her credit, she somehow made us believe that we could follow them - in the words of Julie Powell, "because goddammit, if Julia did it, so could we.")... no, a "normal" lunch for me is far more likely to be bread, cheese, veg and fruit than anything found in the pages of a cookbook. My coworkers think I'm a little nuts, as they microwave their lean cuisines and hot pockets, while I'm standing in our office kitchenette slicing avocado wedges and spreading chevrie on a baguette. But at the end of the day, I know most of what has gone into my body, and it's not chemical preservatives that I can't pronounce. Except for what's in the diet coke, and the odd Konditor Meister pastry, of course. ;)

I do sometimes get a little pretentious when I'm having folks over for a meal. I have developed a reputation as a very good cook among our circle of friends, and this means I feel I have to live up to that reputation, instead of making spaghetti marinara with a salad and calling it a day. That's not to say I don't enjoy the accolades. When a friend (for whom complaining is, well, second only to breathing) tells me that she has never had a bad meal when I've been cooking - Julia Child herself might as well have descended from heaven and asked me to cook for her. But it can be a lot to live up to. So perhaps there will be some foodie stuff in this blog - recipes of my own or other musings. Really, who knows where this is going to take me?

For now, I've finished my beef bourguignon and am looking forward to a mid-afternoon sugar rush with a piece of Konditor Meister cake. I'm expecting to head over to my former "local" Irish pub for the weekly seisun tonight, so I expect the next post will be oriented to music, rather than food.