...and I hit a new low weight the morning after the poulet au porto.

Yay Gwynne!

Thanks for answering my question. I might try thicken-thin/not starch (or whatever it is called) b/c I don't have cornstarch or any other thickener in my kitchen. lol

I had my Julia Child day with 2 of my girlfriends last Saturday. It was a riot. I have never used so much butter and cream at one time in my LIFE!

I am proud to say that my friend Jo and I make a killer Hollandaise sauce

I had not heard that either - but even in her introduction to the 2001 40th anniversary edition of her cookbook she still defends her cream and butter and says that back in the 50s when the cookbook was conceived (before the obesity epidemic) no one worried about butter and cream!

And in another thread here about Julia someone mentioned that in her memoirs (which I have bought but not read yet) she says that when she and her husband began to put on some weight from her cooking they cut down on the starches and sugars (e.g. *carbs*) to drop the weight, not the cream and butter - and that at the end of her life she was quoted as saying that she always made sure of getting at least 6 tablespoons of oils/fats daily, and at least 2 of those had to be butter as she felt getting her saturated fats was important.

I bought the cookbook too and I love it, but most recipes are too labor intensive for me make in the evening when I get home from work, so would be a weekend thing only. So far the only recipe I've tried is the Coq au Vin, but it was absolutely awesome - the most delicious thing I have ever cooked. I used a tbsp of coconut flour where conventional white flour was called for, and the sauce still thickened up nicely. The most exciting part was setting the dish aflame! I was sure I was going to burn my house down,

We covered the whole meat/dairy/breast cancer thing here....
http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthread.php?t=401379

Haha. I've been flambe-ing for a few years because I love Alton Brown's steak au poivre recipe (which is also LC), and every time I do it I still get a big pan lid and use it as a shield because I fear the worst. What does she have you flame in the coq au vin, cognac? Can't recall.

I'm also running into the time conundrum. I don't mind spending a few hours cooking but I also really want to eat before 7pm for my intermittent fasting. With the beouf bourgignon I did it by spreading the process over 2 nights.

The recipe calls for cognac, but all cognacs at the local discount liquor store were all wildly expensive. I just could not bring myself to pay that much money for something I was just going to burn away. So I used some brandy that I had.

I hear you about the time thing too. I like to eat dinner before 6 PM and then not have breakfast before 10 AM to have a bit of a fasting window.

My weight dropped another half pound this morning. I've been hovering just under 170 all summer due to eating just enough carbs to maintain, I suppose, although I certainly kept planning every week to get back in loss mode. But having the significant other *also* doing LC makes it so much easier to stick with it--the rice isn't there to tempt me to have just a bit of it, that sort of thing.

I didn't do anything *too* Julia-ish last night, although I sauteed mushrooms according to her techniques to go on bunless burgers (actually made it into a thick mushroom gravy once the saute was done). I also made some blueberry scones with carbalose flour, at the husband's behest, and honestly those things tasted so good I have severe doubts about that carbalose. It just seems like it should violate some natural law for a baking product to taste good *and* be reasonably low-carb. So I keep wondering if they snuck real flour into the bag, that kind of thing.

That said, I ate two of the things, and still dropped weight this morning (I'm sure this will begin the usual ping-ping soon), so I'm pretty optimistic about my upcoming crepe plans with it. I think I'm just going to use Julia's crepe recipe straight from the book and not try to get fancy with making adjustments for the carbalose, and just see how it comes out.

Coquilles St Jacques is also on the list, next time my grocery store puts scallops on sale. The weather here keeps stubbornly refusing to dip under 70s/80s on the weekend, but when it does I'm going to make more beouf and also coq au vin. I'm going to make a run up to Trader Joe's this weekend to try to find some reasonably priced (okay cheap) wine for cooking.

http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthre...254#post7904254
Fat Fiends II

I'm x-posting to the Fat Fiends II thread because everyone over there is very enthusiastic about butter and cream and mayo. Fellow "Julia" foodies may be interested in the High Fat threads on the boards too:

here's a link to the search page of older fat enthusiast threads...take a look!

http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthre...ghlight=fatters
Fat Fiends- Original thread

http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthre...ghlight=fatters
High-fatting: anyone care to join me?

http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthre...ghlight=fatters
High Fatting 5/08/2008

http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthre...ghlight=fatters
High-Fatting: 3/31/08

http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthre...ghlight=fatters
Any "high-fatters" out there?

the older threads are at the bottom and the more recent rise to the top...

Does Julia's coq au vin include blood?

are you kidding? I "bloody" hope NOT! I don't have the book but you better believe that anything with blood in it will never ever be made or eaten by me!!!

My uncle used to try to get us kids to eat blood sausage, I still want to throw up thinking about it....

Blood?? Nope, no blood.

Hmm, when I try to click on that link I get message: Sorry - no matches. Please try some different terms.

I think super-traditional coq au vin is thickened with rooster blood or something. Julia doesn't go there, but she certainly has plenty of other stuff that ranks high on the gross scale for me.

I'll try to fix it... I've posted the individual links to each thread. I hope they work now.