help me, julia child!

today's stay-at-home vacation post brought to you by the wonderful world of french cooking.  only i'm doing it by myself. solo.  alone.  no teacher.  yikes!  i looked up some french cooking classes, but the one i wanted wasn't until july and so i decided to just go for it in my own kitchen.

the owner of northwest fresh seafood sold me two and a half pounds of fresh mussels rinsed and de-bearded (the strand mussels use to connect to other things in the ocean) and gave me this simple rule:  "closed before cooking:  good!  open after cooking:  good!" which i rehearsed...

...chopping the garlic, fennel, red onion, jalepeno, and basil...zesting the orange...putting the little still-alive bivalves into a towel-draped collander in the fridge to keep them happy...

...meanwhile i decided to make a chocolate cake.  this isn't just french, it's universal, except that i added in maybe a bit more dutch cocoa, espresso, and cayenne pepper than the recipe called for and made a coffee concentrate cream sauce topping just for fun. this satisfies the "sweet" portion of my "sweet & savory" french self-imposed guidelines.

today has been a mix of definitely most definitely following the important instructions of health & safety while going intuitive on the rest.  i would like to think that the spirit of julia child, who once dropped a chicken on the floor and kept on going, is with me--imperfections and all--that i'm trying and what more kitchen adventure could you ask for?  i'll let you know how it goes...

..(the next day) they were delicious!  definitely worth it and not as scary or hard to prepare as i thought.  if you make these, get a baguette to soak up all the extra sauce.