A few days ago, I got it into my head to whip up a batch of Boeuf Bourguignon -- or Boeuf à la Bourguignonne -- the luscious, wine-drenched beef stew first made famous in America by our beloved French Chef Julia Child and most recently by Julie Powell when she burned it to a crisp then remade it for no-show guests in the hit movie Julie and Julia.

(Does anyone else think those names should have been reversed?)

This past Saturday, we had about 30 Francophone and Francophile guests arriving for a potluck; members of our French-speaking club share the hosting of this monthly event and September was our turn.

Now, un potluck français is no ordinary covered-dish affair -- don't even think about offering a mayonnaise-drenched potato salad or chips and salsa or thawed shrimp with cocktail sauce or fried chicken or pigs in a blanket or crackers and pimento cheese or green beans topped with little marshmallows.

One must make un grand effort for this crowd -- and that's exactly why I attacked, if you will, Julia Child's recipe from Mastering the Art of French Cooking, with relish.

This called for, in brief, four and a half pounds of local, grass-fed beef, half a rasher of organic bacon, one-and-a-half bottles of Côtes du Rhône, a large sweet onion, a couple of small carrots, some garlic, a bag of frozen pearl onions (so you don't have to peel them -- Mark Bittmann says it's okay), a pound and a half of button mushrooms (called champignons de Paris in France), organic beef stock, various herbs, small amounts of olive oil and mounds of -- yes -- butter...not a complicated list of ingredients but enough to keep me busy for at least five hours.

Though I'd made beef burgundy numerous times in the past, usually following the Joy of Cooking version, halfway through preparing Julia's recipe I realized I had never really made Boeuf Bourguignon at all.

What I had made back then was some pale imitation -- a shameless knock-off. True, it had taken half the time, but, as in everything in life where we cut corners, there had been a price to pay.

To accommodate this extra-big batch, I dusted off a 5-quart Le Creuset casserole inherited from my husband's gourmet father (Bax had made just about every one of Julia Child's recipes before Julie Powell was even born), which would double as a serving dish on the stove. The light and dark green pattern is the same used by Julia at one point in the film.

Baxter preparing a meal in the 1970s.

And so I spent a glorious Child-like afternoon in the kitchen -- chopping, slicing, washing, drying, searing, sautéing, braising, pouring, measuring, tasting, smelling, smiling, re-tasting, writing emails, checking Facebook, reading the news, playing online solitaire, stirring and re-tasting -- before finally turning off the oven and computer and cleaning up the kitchen for company. (Okay, Julia never checked Facebook...)

Though one should make a big effort when making Boeuf Bourguignon, one should never appear to have made any effort at all.

I wish I had some hilarious story to tell about the cat eating the beef while my back was turned or drinking all of the wine myself and no longer being able to distinguish between an onion and a clove of garlic or spilling the whole thing onto the floor (as I did a roast turkey and veggies one Thanksgiving years ago) or crumpling into a sobbing, frustrated mess on the floor.

But the happy truth is that the whole thing came off without a hitch. That's how easy the recipe is to follow.

A few Julia Child tips and highlights?

• Make sure the beef is absolutely 100% thoroughly dried before searing it in the very hot oil.

• Toss the seared meat in several tablespoons of flour in the oven for four minutes then toss the mixture and put it back into the oven for another four minutes -- then and only then, add the liquids. This browns the flour without burning it.
  

• Watch the onions turn a delicious caramel brown before braising them with an herb sachet (fresh parsley and thyme plus a bay leaf) for another 40 minutes.

• Sauté the mushrooms quickly in small batches with very hot oil.

• Use that fuller-bodied Côtes du Rhône rather than (my usual) Pinot Noir.

• None, unless you count the additional time.
• None, except that I couldn't find -- or didn't try hard enough to find -- a single chunk of bacon with its rind still attached, so I used that regular sliced bacon instead. I'm sure Julia's recommendation would have added even more flavor.

As our guests arrived, I hit them first with the aroma emanating from the stew, which wafted down the driveway, followed by the lifting of the lid to show off its rich, glistening color, so shimmeringly beautiful. And then came the tasting.

The verdict?

Magnifique! Délicieux! Formidable!

Bon appétit! I cried out in my best Julia Child accent.

The few Americans loved my imitation and we all repeated the phrase over and over again, throwing back our head and shoulders and belting it out with gusto.

But the French just stared at us and shrugged.

C'est qui, cette Julia Child? Who, they asked, is this Julia Child?


For a PDF version of the Boeuf Bourguignon recipe, posted by Knopf Doubleday, Julia Child's publisher, click here.
For just the brown-braised onions, click here.
For the sautéed mushrooms, click here.