Wisdom Well Done

I was well into the recipe for Daube de boeuf provençale (perhaps while browning two pounds of top rump cut into squares “about the size of half a postcard”) when I became aware of the absence of Elizabeth David’s voice.

My discovery of this missing piece of informed articulation may have occurred while I was cutting the pork rinds —“which should scarcely have any fat adhering to them”— into little squares. Maybe I was peeling and slicing two onions when I noticed something gone astray.

Whatever the trigger, my epiphany was the result of French Provincial Cooking. That’s because David’s cookbooks are revealing of her in an elliptical kind of way, which suits me. I work through recipes no less elliptically. I circle through them, on the lookout for ingredients I don’t like. Or can’t afford. Or that need to be set on fire. I seldom read a recipe from start to finish until I’ve read parts of it several times.

In the same non-linear fashion...