WHEN I WAS TEN years old, in 1945, we moved, my parents, brothers, and I, to the country, into a shabby cottage on a broken-down seventeen-acre property that lacked, among other things, electricity.
For reasons unimportant here I was sent away three years later to live with grandparents, and when I returned a year and a half later electricity had miraculously been installed. This meant two things: television; refrigeration. And we had a freezer.
It was a big freezer, a "chest-type," waist high, big enough for six adults to lie in if they had to. My mother put all sorts of things in it, and occasionally retrieved something for dinner. It was rarely fit to eat.
We have a freezer here on Eastside Road, of course; it takes up the top quarter or so of our relatively small refrigerator. Cook puts things in it, and occasionally retrieves something. (I put empty Martini glasses in it, and remove them on Friday and Saturday evenings.)
Tonight she retrieved steak and gravy — and a few potatoes as well — left over from a party we gave eight months ago. What a miraculous thing the deep-freeze is, to be sure. The taste of this steak and gravy took me right back to a marvelous day last August. There was no freezer burn at all; the flavor was deep and delicous; the textures were just what you'd want in braised meat.
With the meat, asparagus; afterward, green salad and a tangerine.
☛RESTAURANTS VISITED, with information and rating: 2016 2015
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