COQ

We're having James and Diana over this weekend and because we've never really cooked for them before, we decided we needed a trial run before the big night. So Thursday night our kitchen became the coq au vin test lab.

We scoured the internutz for recipes and it was really comical. There were really hard ones. Really easy ones. Basically, everyone and their brother has weighed in on this recipe. So we decided on a mix of about four of them and got to work. The dish included:
- chicken
- red wine
- carrots
- mushrooms
- bacon
- pearl onions
- chicken broth
- salt
- pepper

And Meena whipped up some mashed potatoes that included:
- potatoes
- cream
- butter
- salt
- pepper
- garlic

The bottom line was that this thing has fantastic flavor. Sadly, the presentation was horrible. So I think we're set for Saturday. We are going to make a couple tweaks and I have a mental image of how I think the thing should be presented. I'm feeling good. We're ready!