As I was planning for last night’s meal, I pulled a Veal Parmigiana recipe from my notebook. I had already prepared the dish with some success at least once before, so my wife added the ingredients to her shopping list without much discussion. She was concerned that the flour and bread crumbs involved in the preparation did not fit in with our “low carb” efforts to lose weight. As it turns out, she had nothing to worry about.

When she came back from her Sunday grocery shopping trip, it was without the veal, a key ingredient in this dish. I would have stop by the store during the course of my errands sometime before Tuesday night’s dinner  – “no big deal to pick-up the veal.” I picked out this recipe for my night to cook, so “preparing the meal was part of the deal.” It was a bit on an intimidating task for me since she does the shopping, but I would simply ask the butcher for “eight veal scallops.” What could go wrong? Or worse yet, what if they were out of them again? They had just eight left and it cost me about $60, so I also learned a little bit about “veal appeal.” It’s pricey stuff for a hack cook like myself. 

I apparently didn’t remember how much preparation goes into Veal Parmigiana, or I would have picked something easier. Instead, I had bowls and skillets everywhere for the flour dip, egg bath, shredded cheese, and bread crumbs. Fortunately, my wife was preoccupied with work concerns and somehow missed the mess I created. The biggest problem was that the oil wasn’t hot enough to secure the breadcrumbs to anything but the skillet. I did not have this issue the last time I made this dish, but I also didn’t have as much veal. Crumbs were stuck to the bottom of the skillet and the veal absorbed the cooking oil. At this point, I thought maybe my wife might not notice, so I poured the cheese and homemade tomato sauce over the crust-less, unappetizing veal and baked it for another 25 minutes as instructed. It came out looking hot, cheesy, and gooey like the picture on the recipe. Surprise, no hidden carbs – they all stuck to the pan!

To make a long story short, I did not infringe on the diet whatsoever. In fact, she ate very little, complaining that I’d wasted $60. We were not serving it on a bed of pasta or with a side of bread as is traditional. She filled up on the Caprese salad and let the dogs enjoy her portion of veal, emphasizing that it made for “pretty-pricey-puppy-chow.” They always seem to enjoy my cooking, and often benefit from my frequent preparation errors in the kitchen. They’ll be ready for more veal left-overs tomorrow. Overall, I just didn’t have a “feel for the veal,”and will go back to chicken “for my next meal.”