2010: overall

So here we are. The last cooking day of 2010. Tomorrow, New Year's Eve, I'll be taken care of: dinner at The Press Club in Melbourne. A degustation with matching wines. A night at a nice hotel. School's out. For a day, at least.

I knocked over my first Larousse Gastronomique recipes on 9 November. I roasted a chicken and served it with baked potatoes and braised leeks. I used store-bought stock for the leeks. A tetra pack of Campbell's salt-reduced chicken broth.

Now, on 30 December, I have cooked

• 82 recipes
• 10 species of animal
• 2 loaves of bread

I have had new experiences, such as

• Roasting a turkey
• Successfully making my own pasta

I've ruined things, too. The chocolate and Earl Grey chantilly was more like chocolate and Earl Grey soup. I could've poured it into a mug, microwaved it and served it as a late night beverage.

More significantly, to my mind, I've run into trouble with many of Larousse Gastronomique's prescribed cooking times and temperatures for meat. Slowly I'll have to reduce the times, lower the temperatures until I attain the medium-rareness I desire in beef and lamb and the juiciness I desire in pork.

I've had great successes

• I'm happy with how the turkey and duck turned out
• The poule au pot was awesome
• The rib eye, too
• And, tonight, I enjoyed the shit out of the chicken marinade

I've knocked over 82 recipes. Some I'll revisit. A few I won't. I've learned a few things--fresh pasta, a certain degree of subtlety--but I have much, much, much more to learn. I have some crazy recipes to tackle over the next couple of years or however long it takes me to go through Larousse Gastronomique's recipe collection. I have to cook several whole four-legged animals. I have to somehow get my hands on woodcock and grouse and fresh foie gras. These are products not avaliable in Australia. At one point I considered using something else in their stead--pigeon or quail or partridge or pheasant--or just ignoring them. Saying I could've do the 'preparing [of] fresh foie gras' because of, you know, the law and all that. But fuck that. If I'm going to cook my way through the Book, I'm going to do it properly.

Onward.