It’s raining today. Cold and wet. Just like Holland. Only without the charm.

Days like today put me in the mood for comfort food. While we were stationed in Holland in the 1970’s, my Mom took a week and attended a cooking school in Dieppe, France. And did we benefit! This is one of my favourite recipes. It is great for a dinner party, as it can all be done ahead of time and reheated, or built in the crock pot and left to stew all day. This is actually my recipe that has evolved over time. I’ve borrowed a bit here and there; thrown in a few elements of a classic Southern French daube, for example, and added in some dried mustard, just because I like it. But here are the basics for you to monkey around with. Serve with plenty of crusty bread and a green salad — it’s a crowd pleaser.

Easy and Elegant Life’s Boeuf Bourguinion
(Serves 6-8)

3-4 lbs of stew beef, cubed
1 jar of pickled onions
2 jars of button mushrooms in butter
1 small bag of baby carrots (optional)
1 bag of fingerling potatoes *
3 pieces of salt pork or thick cut bacon
1 TBS of flour
1 bullion cube or 1 tsp of “Better than Bullion” mixed with some water.
1/2 bottle of red wine (I use a Cabernet Sauvignon or a Burgundy, of course!)
pinch of herbes de Provence (basil, majoram, thyme, savory, rosemary, bay leaf)
healthy dash of dried mustard (I use Coleman’s)
salt
pepper
Parsley for garnish.

Render some fat from the salt pork or bacon in a heavy frying pan. Remove the pork and reserve. Brown the stew meat in the fat. Sprinkle the meat with the flour and stir while cooking for a minute or two. Add to your crock pot or dutch oven.

Combine all the other ingredients in the crock pot, lay the pork or bacon on top and cook on low for four hours, or high for at least 2 hours. You may want to thicken the stew with a little more flour (mixed with hot water to form a paste.) Or you can cook it longer and reduce the liquid. The bourguinion is done when you can cut the meat with a fork.

Just before serving, sprinkle a little chopped parsley over the top.

Finish off the other half of the bottle of red with lunch.

* You may omit the fingerling potatoes and serve the stew over a bed of mashed potatoes instead.

I don’t have a business card anymore — at least not a valid one. And, as one who works primarily at home, I don’t really meet that many people. So I haven’t really felt the need to have cards printed up. When someone asks what I do for a living, I usually tell them that I am a writer. And in response to the inevitable question that follows, I tell them that the thing I enjoy writing most is my blog “Easy and Elegant Life (dot com.)”

Everyone promises to look me up on the web. But for one reason or another, probably that the name is sort of cumbersome, nobody remembers the URL. And that’s not limited to people I meet for the first time. Good friends can’t seem to get a handle on it either.

So today I headed over to Merrymaker, my stationers in Richmond, to have a card made up.

Of course it wasn’t that simple. So to help me with the multitude of decisions I had to make, I went to the source — calling cards are very 19th century London.

After consulting my DeBrett’s, I realized I was about to design a woman’s card — and very fast sort of woman, too.

A quick email to an art director friend, and another to the unfailingly tasteful architect, helped sort things out. That’s the advantage of having an aesthetics committee to consult.

I now have two cards.

One is my “business card” and the other my calling card. Both are to be engraved on triple thick white card stock with black ink. Unfortunately, one of the fonts I wanted isn’t one of the standard offerings, so the results are a tad more conservative than I thought that I would wind up with. But they should be beautiful.

Of course I have to add my first initial and fix the name of the site on the draft (above) designed by my art director friend. But what’s in a name, right? And after handing out an engraved card heavier than a Chinette paper plate, I bet it’ll be more memorable. Or at least easier to find in a crowded wallet.

I’m always thrilled when the mantle is covered with formal, engraved invitations. The thick, creamy stock and the elegant typeface promise an “occaision” to be remembered. The first thing that I do, after drafting my reply, is to think about what I’ll wear. Is it to be black tie? If not, should I wear a suit? If so what color and style? Which tie? Or what coat, slacks and shoes? For me, spending time in my walk-in closet is sort of like browsing at the bookstore. The possiblities are endless.

And so it occured to me. Most people do tend to rise to the occasion when receiving an invitation.

As an operative in the Sartorial Intelligence Services, your mission is to stop the attack of the fifth column casuals amongst your friends and associates. Change happens from within, do something about the lackluster wardrobe choices you see your peers choose and invite them to step up their game a bit. Throw a party or a happy hour.

But make sure that you send a formal invitation — NOT an e-vite — but a real live written or printed invitation to your soirée. It can be a postcard or printed on stock that works in your printer, or engraved if the evening warrents it. At the bottom left of the card, stipulate the dress code: Formal means black tie these days, after that things get murky for most people, so spell it out for them: “Jacket and tie,” or the more mundane “Business Dress.” “Cocktail attire” might work. “Elegant Casual” might give them cause to rethink yesterday’s jeans and tatoo t-shirt.

Then again, it might not.

You might consider a theme — Rat Pack night at the Zebra Lounge, Cocktails with Gatsby, Brideshead Revisited — and marry the attire, location and music to that era.

Take plenty of pictures and post them somewhere that those on the guest list can access or send thank-you’s with a photo. Maybe your guests will like what they see.

Vive la revolution!