Where'd I go for my birthday dinner?

Stayed at home. Johnny cooked a lovely dinner, an Americanized French recipe of chicken braised in red wine vinegar. There was a whole head of garlic in it. And it called for a bouquet garni, which completely stumped him.

Look it up in the index, I advised. Nope. So, turned to Julia Child's "Mastering" where she helped make sense of wrapping thyme, parsley and bay leaves in cheesecloth. Later, he confessed that he had just used thyme because he couldn't find the bay leaves and he didn't think parsley tasted like anything. No big deal, it tasted great.