New cookbook in the mix/Saturday night meal

Thursday night I got a copy of Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook. It looks like it's going to be one of those good ones.

Saturday I made "Mushroom Soup" and "Steak au Poivre" from the new book and they were both really, really good. This amazing sense of well-being came over me as I was eating. mmmm, the power of good food.

A couple of quick notes:

1) I used the hand blender on the mushroom soup. I figured there was no chance it would work on the onion slices and big pieces of mushroom. I was wrong. Boy was it cool to not have to deal with using a blender on the soup.

2) Even with my pseudo-demi-glace (see next post), the steak au poivre was mind-blowingly good. I do want to try the whole veal stock thing at some point, but it's nice to know that I can create something good using stock from a box.