Etouffee and the agony of eating alone

As i write it is 8:33pm Eastern Time on the eighteenth of April in the year 2006; and I just made and ate etouffee with crab meat and sausage. Not that I want to toot my own horn or anything, but it was so good it made me bust a nut in my pantaloons.

First I seared the sausages in a pan, then removed them to cook in the oven. I added butter to the rendered fat and tempered the mixture with paprika and pepper. I left the fat on high heat until I could smell the nutty, almost-woody smell of burning butter and could see wisps of smoke coming from the pan. Then I took the pan off the heat, added flour and whisked it to make a roux. So apparently the longer you cook a roux three things happen: a) it becomes darker, b) it loses its thickening ability and most importantly of all c) it becomes more flavourful.

If there are some things in the realm of the culinary arts that I think I am reasonably competent at - making a roux is probably one of them. After all, I was trained by the best. So I cooked my roux till it was a deep honey brown - the colour of delicious - and then threw in garlic, onions, green peppers, mushrooms and crabmeat. I seasoned it like there was no tomorrow and cooked the onions and mushrooms down before adding stock. A little while after that I took the sausages out of the oven and sliced them into pieces before adding them into the etouffee. Then I let it reduce while making rice. Approximately twenty minutes later I had my dinner. By myself.

Holy crap, it was better than sex.

That first taste was like someone smacked me across the face and I had to sit down. I know that I probably say that I come in my pantaloons too often and that it is a crass and overly graphic expression that nobody needs to hear, but this really warranted it. And it absolutely killed me, absolutely gutted me to pieces that i had nobody to share this with. It was a curious feeling, like I had stumbled upon a treasure and wanted so much to give it away but did not have anyone to take it. It is a feeling i have only ever gotten with food. Now, I travel a fair bit for work, and am no stranger to eating alone - but to experience an amazing meal and not have anyone else to eat it with you is sin visited upon sin.

Well anyway - that's my rant. Now I probably should go clean up my pants - you thought i was being figurative, didn't you?

And yes, Morgan, I then had to do the dishes.

All.

By.

Myself.