This past week I made beef stew.  Twice.  Which means I’ve eaten beef stew for exactly six meals out of the last eleven possible lunches and dinners, and I will once again have it for dinner (for sadly the last time) tonight.  Sick of it you ask?  –How dare you undermine the power of good red wine, grass-fed beef, and local root vegetables.  But you’re right, if this past week wasn’t the perfect and quintessential example of crisp New England autumn, then yes, I probably would have grown a smidge tired of the stew.

The first night I made it, last Wednesday, it truly was a perfect fall day– the trees have been in their annual fiery state, and this particular chilly evening even produced some sideways-spitting sleet.  Also, as one of the first days the apartment radiators began radiating (all except the one in my room) I felt all the more cozy in my heated abode, cooking a rich and hearty supper.

A loose rendition of a favorite Ina Garten recipe, I marinated chunks of chuck stew meat in a mixture of red wine, garlic, and thyme overnight (well, over-day, on Wednesday), then browned the meat in a dutch oven soup pot after lightly coating the pieces in flour.  After browning the meat I added equal portions of roughly chopped fennel, red onion, potatoes, and parsnips.  I then seasoned the entire mixture with ancho chili powder, Italian herbs, ground ginger, hot red pepper flakes, a splash of red-wine vinegar, and a dash of cayenne.  After cooking the meat and veggies for about 5 minutes I added a handful of chopped sun-dried tomatoes, a few minced cloves of garlic, and 2 small sprigs of minced rosemary.  I cooked this for another 2 minutes then added the remaining wine marinade mixture and de-glazed the pan (scraping up all the brown bits on the bottom of the pot with a wooden spoon).  Then I added chicken stock to coat the mixture, brought the liquid to a boil, covered the pot, and popped it into the oven at 285° for 2 hours.

2 and ½ hours later, in the thick of my research methods textbook, and enjoying my long-awaited dinner, I bit into a piece of meat that still had a liberal sampling of its fatty tissue attached.  I picked my head out from my book, not out of fear of eating a grand helping of animal fat, but because I tasted something wonderful yet I couldn’t quite tell what it was.  I swirled the chunk of fat around in my mouth to allow all sections of my taste buds and salivary glands to take inventory on what was going on.  The fat was so sweet and so buttery but not just in your typical ‘beef fat’ way.  ‘What is that?’- I actually whispered to myself…cake! It tasted like cake!  In all and complete seriousness (as I would never joke about meat), the taste was actually reminiscent of classic, white birthday cake.  I can’t say this extraordinary moment of utter taste-bud confusion yet subliminal meat-loving profusion occurred again in this batch of stew or the one I was to make on Saturday, however, that’s what gets me about food- just when you think you know how something tastes, food never ceases to amaze.  Even after the nearly dozens of times I’ve consumed beef stew, and not to mention the hundreds of times I’ve eaten cow fat in my life, I can’t say I’ve ever picked up nodes of cake in my fat.

Food is ever-surprising, and once in a great while sprinkled with the possibility of epiphany.