You Said French What?
- Sid Vasey
- Dec 25, 2018
- 3 min read
You might be thinking French fries...French toast...maybe even French kissing... but I'm here to tell you it's none of the above. Let me start at the beginning. This is the story of how an innocent email turned into Christmas dinner.
Every year I ask my folks to take my son out shopping so he can buy me a little gift, something I don't know about. This year was no exception. We usually do very well communicating by email, but all that changed...
Subject: Christmas
Me: What day are you taking Jacob shopping? Is French toast ok for breakfast? What protein do you want for dinner? Just a simple, straightforward email. Wasn't expecting this...
Grandpa G: Tues French Pork
Not kidding...this was the response...wth?
From: sid@awesomedaughter.com
Me: I'm assuming you meant you'll pick him up Tuesday, that French toast IS ok and that you'd like a pork dish for dinner. Sounds good.
See MY use of punctuation? Just sayin' a couple extra keystrokes...
From: grandpa@letsbefunny.com
Grandpa G: no i meant french pork
Not only did he drop the punctuation, he said to hell with caps. And what the heck is French pork? In the immortal words of Barney Stinson, "Challenge accepted!"
I had no clue what "French pork" was so I called on Google and voila it showed me a dish called Enchaud Perigordine or French-style pot roast.
Me: So, you want French pork? French pork is what we shall have. See you Tuesday.
Email silence...
Fast forward to today, Christmas morning 2018. My parents arrive...
Me: Merry Christmas you guys! Gizmo bouncing and barking like a goof, trying to steal their shoes.
Grandpa & Grandma: Merry Christmas! Hugs all around. Gizmo "calms" down, Bloody Marys are served, move to the living room to open presents.
Grandpa: So what's for breakfast?
Me: Ah...that would be FRENCH toast, bacon, Mom's egg dish, fruit salad and coffee.Grandpa: Sounds good...so what's for dinner?
Me: FRENCH pork.
Grandpa: What's French pork?
Me: It's what you asked for, Enchaud Perigordine.
Grandpa: How do you pronounce that?
Me: Seriously Dude? No clue, but here's how I massacre it, On-showd Perry-jor-deen <-- with attempted French nasal accent. Thank you Mr. Lemoyne.
Grandpa: You know I was joking with the whole email, French pork thing?
Me: Yup, but I had to go there. You've known me for how long, what did you think I would do?
Grandpa: Point made.
One thing you have understand, once I got through by butt-head teenage and college years, I became friends with my parents. It's not that they didn't love me before, they did, but they had a role to play, it was called being a parent. Did I like it then? Hell no! But now, now we can finally be smartasses.
After Christmas breakfast I began meal prep, I knew it was going to be a long, complicated prep so I poured myself a drink. Nah, just kidding, I had some stuff to chop up...
Then I had to pound the pork after I butterflied it. My son asks what I was doing, more specifically his friends on Fortnite could hear me through the headset and wondered what the noise was. I told him I had to flatten the pork. He started laughing and the proceeded to tell his friends that I was...ok...I'm sure you guess what he said. You gotta love teenage boys. Anyway, the worst part of this recipe was tying up the pork, I cut the twine too short. Yes, I could have re-cut longer pieces of twine but, I didn't and now I think about it, not quite sure why I didn't, lol. Roasted the pork on 225 for 90 min.
Let it rest, roasted the carrots & parsnips, in basting oil. Made the sauce for the pork from the renderings in the dish. And we were good to serve.
It had good flavor, was tender and no one complained. Always a win when no one complains. We ate and talked about stuff, laughed and told stories like the time my brothers dented the fridge and how fingerprints on ceilings were normal when you had tall boys. It was the type of conversation you expect to have at a family dinner table. Do we take "shots" at each other? Yup, I'd say we do. But that's part of what family is about, accepting each other for who you are, no punctuation and all. Merry Christmas my dear family & friends. I love you all.
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