Welcome the year with comfort food

We made the French classic pot au feu for New Year's Eve. We read up on the subject, in Escoffier, Mme. St. Ange, Anne Willan, and Richard Olney, and devised a recipe with the best of all of them.

You might think that Escoffier would have the ultimate formula, but he said to put the meat and lots of root vegetables into a pot, simmer for many hours, and serve. We needed a little more direction and vegetables that wouldn't be mush.

So we combined Anne Willan and Richard Olney. She's the British-born cook who owned La Varenne cooking school in Burgundy until recently (I worked for her when she lived in Washington, D.C. and Paris). He was the American ex-pat who lived in the south of France and wrote books. Both advised simmering meat separately from veg, adding cabbage and cooking that in a third pot.

We were afraid the house might smell of an English public school, but I got a horrid cold, so that didn't matter to me. We made the meat first, then chilled it, skimmed off the fat, and used the broth to cook the vegetables.

We tied the leeks so they wouldn't fall apart. When they were done and the cabbage wedges were cooked, we served bowls of the broth with a toasted croute, a soft-cooked egg, and a sprinkle of Parmesan and parsley as a first course.

The meats (short ribs and chuck) with an array of vegetables, along with good French mustard, became the main course. (This won't win any beauty pageant.)

Dessert was hot milk cake and ciambelle, two favorites to toast the year ahead.

Very tired and still full of sniffles the next day, I sat down to leftover pot au feu and it was just what the doctor ordered.