Saturday night my husband and I joined the legions of cooking enthusiasts that have attempted Boeuf Bourguignon immediately after seeing the movie Julie and Julia. And before Saturday night I never would have considered my husband to be the least bit enthusiastic about cooking.

(The subject of whether or not the movie warrants its ensuing praise or whether the characters are narcissistic and insipid isn’t the point of this post. To be sure, the matter has been thoroughly debated over the past few weeks right here at OS.)

In celebration of my 38th trip around the sun, my husband took the day off work last Friday and shuttled me to the movie as part of my present. (It was a most appropriate gift for someone who loves cooking so much she named her stove after Julia Child.) My sister had suggested I see the movie with someone who loves to cook. My husband doesn’t fall into that category, but since I hadn’t seen a movie in a theater in more than six months, I didn’t think it wise to wait for a better offer.

Indeed, my husband doesn’t love to cook. He CAN cook, which is to say he can begrudgingly follow a recipe if everything he needs is in front of him and the kitchen is silent while he uncomfortably navigates his way through the steps. On these rare occasions, my role is to remain within in earshot of his cries for help and to be near the phone for his usual call from the grocery store.

“Where do they hide cake flour in this place?”

My husband considers anything that can’t be found easily (read: right under his nose) hidden. Calling me is always preferred over asking someone that actually works at the store.  Truthfully, I don’t mind the grumbling or the calls. As anyone who does the lion’s share of the cooking knows, it is a luxury to have someone else prepare a home-cooked meal for you.

“Let’s make BOEUF BOURGUIGNON for dinner tomorrow night!” he announced as we left the theater. I’m not sure which surprised me more: that he’d been inspired by Julia to cook something, anything or his loud, awkward imitation of the chef herself. (Without offering up our movie reviews, it’s worth mentioning here that he FELL ASLEEP in the movie.) I was thrilled by his interest in cooking, but did he really want to make Boeuf Bourguignon? It took a long time to watch in the movie, let alone to cook it at home.

We found the original recipe from Mastering the Art of French Cooking online: over 20 ingredients with no fewer than 40 steps. Recipes were nested in recipes. This was out of my league.

“Are you sure you want to make something so complicated?” I asked when I showed him the recipe.

“Beef, mushrooms, red wine? Yes!”

And so the adventure began. We spent the next day shopping for ingredients. At the meat market, the butcher asked what we were making. “Boeuf Bourguignon,” I quickly spat at him before my husband could offer up another Julia Child impersonation in the crowded, tiny store.

“You didn’t by any chance just see some movie where they were making it did you?”

“Yes! How did you know?” Was this butcher psychic?

“The woman before you was making the same thing. You’re probably the 9th person in here today making it. I’ve sold more stew meat in the last three weeks than I have in the last three months.”

I looked at my husband who didn’t seem troubled by the notion of becoming a cliché or the reference to stew meat. For me, it was a not so subtle reminder, that, fancy French name aside, we were in fact just making beef stew. But it was too late; stew meat in hand, we were committed to the project, and I had started to think it might even be fun.

Relegated to sous chef, I sliced and diced and interpreted the somewhat vague steps in the recipe. My husband, playing the role of head chef, browned, stirred, simmered, strained, reduced, and roasted his way through the entire recipe without so much as a single ‘hmpff’. He was somehow in his element – smiling, whistling. Who was this strange chef in what I'd come to refer to as MY kitchen?

The recipe suggests you regulate the oven temperature so the liquid simmers slowly. My chef checked the casserole dish six times over the course of the  two hour plus cook time. I suspect the temperature was fine – he just couldn’t keep from sneaking tastes.

My chef delegated the sautéing of the mushrooms to me between taking samples from the oven.

“Wow, what did you put in there?” he asked when I gave him a piece of mushroom to try.

“Butter.”

"Wow! Really? Just Butter?"

Yes, dear Julia and the French love to cook with butter, lots and lots of butter. I stopped counting the number of tablespoons we were adding as we worked. This was an auspicious occasion and certainly not a time for counting fat grams and calories.

We sat down to dinner at nine - an hour later than we planned. My chef husband spooned the gleaming Boeuf Bourguignon over the noodles on my plate. And then we tasted it. We agreed - it was delicious.
“It’s melting. This meat is melting on my tongue,” he said. “How can beef cubes, mediocre red wine and a few herbs and veggies turn into something this amazing? It’s like magic.”

“To Julia,” we toasted out loud. Quietly, I toasted the new chef sitting across from me. Tonight he prepared a complicated French dinner with a smile on his face all the while reminding me why I love to cook and why I love him. We savored our way through our first helping and even went for seconds. Licking the globs of sauce from his spoon he closely resembled a cat that’s had too much catnip.

The phone rang before we’d finished our second helpings. My chef left the table to answer it – my sister. She, like me, had feared the worst would come of our kitchen collaboration and was probably calling to see who had dibs on the guest room for the night.

“It was fantastic! Better than fantastic. I’ve never tasted anything like it before,” he told my sister in his White Sox just won the World Series voice.

He handed me the phone. “Yes,” I confirmed, “it was delicious.”

“Does he realize it’s just beef stew?” my sister asked.

“No,” I answered sounding a bit defensive.

Anything that can inspire my husband to whistle while he works in the kitchen and make him think of cooking as the magic I’ve always believed it to be is indeed more than just a stew.