When Roomie came home, he saw what I was cooking and told me he'd never eaten veal.
"That's 'cause you're a good person," I said.
He agreed.
I had on hand some breadsticks I'd made (they were supposed to be baguettes). They were no good for regular eatin, but they were perfectly cracker-ey for homemade bread crumbs. I had fresh mozzarella, a hunk of parm, eggs, pasta, and best yet I had everything I would need to make this Smitten Kitchen tomato sauce that I absolutely adore. (A note for my super foodie readers: The veal parm recipe also calls for fresh parsley and fresh basil, and while I had the parsley, I had no basil. I did have fresh tarragon on hand, and the tarragon substituted for the basil in a wholly surprising and totally transcendent way)
As we sat down for dinner, I realized Roomie didn't have a knife to cut the meat. Fortunately, his fork was more than sufficient to cut the veal into bite-sized pieces. After the first bite, he looked at me, wide-eyed. Seriously, if cows had blue eyes .... I almost started to think I should feel guilty for cooking some poor, tortured creature and making this sweet, animal-loving, doe-eyed hippie enjoy his (or her -- do they make veal out of young heifers?) dead body. I offered all I could come up with as a remittance, an apology for making Roommie realize how tasty animals can be when they're disallowed from ever feeling fresh air, from ever running, from ever getting the opportunity to be what they were born to be.
"I'm sorry I made that baby cow taste so delicious."
I think that's good enough.
