The Profoundness of the Everyday

There are certain dishes that I make only once a year and I make them only at certain times of the year. Osso Buco is one of those dishes. Sometimes I make it at Christmastime, sometimes on a cold January night, and occasionally it shows up on Valentine's Day; but never in the months between March and November.

Tonight, the house is filled with the smells of veal braising with onions, carrots, celery, tomatoes, pancetta and a splash of Madera. Two hours and counting until we sit down for a "fortress-like look of tender shanks floating on a moat of risotto." I didn't make that up, it is paraphrased from a poem by Billy Collins, who, in my opinion, is a master at taking everyday occurrences and somehow making them profound. (He's been called "the most popular poet in America" by the New York Times.) Here's how he describes an Osso Buco meal his wife prepared: 

Osso Buco

I love the sound of the bone against the plate
and the fortress-like look of it
lying before me in a moat of risotto,
the meat soft as the leg of an angel
who has lived a purely airborne existence.
And best of all, the secret marrow,
the invaded privacy of the animal
prized out with a knife and swallowed down
with cold, exhilarating wine.

I am swaying now in the hour after dinner,
a citizen tilted back on his chair,
a creature with a full stomach--
something you don't hear much about in poetry,
that sanctuary of hunger and deprivation.
you know: the driving rain, the boots by the door,
small birds searching for berries in winter.

But tonight, the lion of contentment
has placed a warm heavy paw on my chest,
and I can only close my eyes and listen
to the drums of woe throbbing in the distance
and the sound of my wife's laughter
on the telephone in the next room,
the woman who cooked the savory osso buco,
who pointed to show the butcher the ones she wanted.
She who talks to her faraway friend
while I linger here at the table
with a hot, companionable cup of tea,
feeling like one of the friendly natives,
a reliable guide, maybe even the chief's favorite son.

Somewhere, a man is crawling up a rocky hillside
on bleeding knees and palms, an Irish penitent
carrying the stone of the world in his stomach;
and elsewhere people of all nations stare
at one another across a long, empty table.

But here, the candles give off their warm glow,
the same light that Shakespeare and Izaac Walton wrote by,
the light that lit and shadowed the faces of history.
Only now it plays on the blue plates,
the crumpled napkins, the crossed knife and fork.

In a while, one of us will go up to bed
and the other will follow.
Then we will slip below the surface of the night
into miles of water, drifting down and down
to the dark, soundless bottom
until the weight of dreams pulls us lower still,
below the shale and layered rock,
beneath the strata of hunger and pleasure,
into the broken bones of the earth itself,
into the marrow of the only place we know.

Billy Collins,
The Art of Drowning

So, it is my hope that on this eve before Christmas Eve the lion of contentment will place a heavy paw on our chests and that we will slip into a dreams so deep that they are below the shale and layered rock, beneath the strata of hunger and pleasure, into the broken bones of the earth itself, into the marrow of the only place we know. 

See what I mean: Osso Buco gets pretty profound with Billy Collins.

Osso Buco
Adapted from Comforting Foods

Gremolata:
1 lemon, scrubbed
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 tablespoons finely chopped Italian parsley

With a vegetable peeler, cut off the lemon zest into thin strips. Cut the strips into thin 3/4-inch-long pieces. Bring a small saucepan of water to a boil, add the strips of lemon zest, and cook for 2 minutes. Drain well and dry on a paper towel. In a small bowl, toss the lemon zest with the garlic and parsley. Cover and set aside.

Osso Buco:
Four 1 to 1-1/2 pound pieces veal hind shanks, tied around their sides with kitchen string
Kosher salt
Black pepper
All-purpose flour
1 cup olive oil
1 medium-size onion, cut into 1/4-inch dice
1 medium-size carrot, peeled and cut into 1/4-inch dice
1 medium-size rib celery, cut into 1/4-inch dice
1/2 ounce pancetta, finely chopped
1 large garlic clove, finely chopped
1 teaspoon finely chopped fresh sage
1 teaspoon finely chopped fresh rosemary
1 tablespoon tomato paste
One 28-ounce can peeled whole plum tomatoes with their juices
1 cup Marsala
6 cups chicken stock

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Season the veal shanks with salt and pepper and dust them generously with all-purpose flour. In a Dutch oven just large enough to hold the veal shanks in a single layer, heat the 1 cup of olive oil over medium heat. add the veal shanks and brown evenly, 4 to 5 minutes per side and on their edges as well. Remove them from the Dutch oven and set aside.

Add the onion, carrot, celery and pancetta to the dutch oven and cook, stirring until the vegetables are just tender and the onion and celery are opaque, 2 to 3 minutes. Add the garlic, parsley, sage and rosemary and cook, stirring, until the herbs release their aroma, 30 seconds to 1 minute. Reduce the heat to low, add the tomato paste, and cook, stirring slowly for about 3 minutes more. 

Add the canned tomatoes, breaking them up with your hands. Raise the heat to medium and cook, stirring occasionally, until their juices reduce to a think consistency, 7 to 10 minutes. Add the Marsala and cook, stirring occasionally, until the liquid again has all but evaporated, 7 to 10 minutes more.

Stir in the chicken stock and bring the liquid to a boil. Add the veal shanks to the dutch oven. Cover and put it in the preheated oven. Cook the veal shanks until the meat is very tender, about 2 hours. Remove them from the Dutch oven and, with a large spoon, skim the fat from the surface of the cooking liquid. Cut and remove the veal shanks' strings and place each one on a serving of risotto or polenta. Top with gremolata.

Enjoy.