Approaching any given night's menu seems ripe with possibility and offers a world of wonder, but how come I so often revert to the old standards instead of bringing out the rare or sampling something new? It's why I am easily seduced by whatever gimmick pushes me to break the routine or interrupt the habitual; that's what the silliness of "National Day" features has been doing for me thus far in 2023. And it is precisely why the Memorial Day Monday's dinner was going to be coq au vin: it was National Coq au Vin Day, or so they say. There's pretty much zero chance that would have been the planned dish otherwise...trust me.
But as noted in an early June blog post, the 11-hour power outage on that holiday's afternoon knocked all plans aside. Even though all the refrigerated foodstuffs were tossed in the post-outage fridge clean-out, the desire to put this on the table remained, and I made it instead quite a bit later: on Sunday August 20th! I'll note that, while this has been a delicious dish in each of its singular and limited appearances (this recipe, once before; a more involved version from Serious Eats; and once as coq au vin blanc), I was especially glad for all its comfort overtones given it was the first time Mookie and Kristen had been over in very nearly a month!
"Modern Coq au Vin," by Sandra Wu. In Cook's Illustrated, Number Eighty-Three (November & December, 2006), p. 18-19.
