Kitchen Time

I spent a lot of time in the kitchen the last ten days or so. I tried my hand at the classic beef with burgandy, and that soaked up most of an entire day but the results were amazing-- I simply didn't expect that it could have been worth the time and effort and cost, but it was worth all and then some. The family met the dish and said Amen.
Then came the Dinner For Those Who Forswear Meat, which meant a long afternoon making a spinach lasagna. Though I've made this recipe perhaps half a dozen times, I have yet to find a way to make it in anything less than four hours, using all the bowls, mixing bowls, pots, dutch ovens, spoons and so forth in the kitchen. Yet the result was, as with the prior dish, met with gladsome noises and enthusiasm, and so the payoff was in the end worth the effort.
And finally, the ethnic holiday of the paternal line came 'round, and so I had a whack at a traditional lamb stew, and though this too took several hours to produce, it didn't inflict as much damage to the kitchen, and when the time to dine arrived and the offspring and wife and company admitted to hunger, the Guinness flowed and the humongous pot of onion and shallot and potatoes and lamb was reduced to mere dribbles of leftovers. Faith and begob!
It's for certain that such a level of cookery, maintained on a daily basis would begin to pale and wear on one, but for now and then, it can be great fun, a real treat, both the making and the eating.