Red Flannel Stew — The Softening That Comes With Years

The first week of February, and Valentine's Day approaches with the particular irrelevance that the holiday acquires after twenty-one years of marriage. Robert and I do not celebrate Valentine's Day. We celebrate Tuesdays, and Thursdays, and the ordinary days when one of us makes dinner and the other clears the table and neither of us mentions the affair or the counseling or the years of rebuilding, because the rebuilding is done and the building that resulted is standing and the standing is the celebration.

Mama has been restless at night. Three times this week I heard her in the hallway — not confused, exactly, but searching. She opens doors. She looks into rooms. She is looking for something that is not in this house, and the something may be Beaufort or Reverend James or the kitchen that no longer exists in the form she remembers. I follow her gently. I guide her back. I do not lock the doors, because locked doors are a betrayal of the autonomy that I am trying to preserve for as long as possible, and autonomy is the thing she has left when everything else is being taken.

Carrie has been researching colleges with the intensity of a general planning a campaign. She has narrowed her list to eight schools, all of them away — Atlanta, Boston, New York, Chapel Hill. No school in South Carolina. No school within a day's drive. The distance is deliberate, and the deliberateness is not rejection of home but assertion of self, and the assertion is necessary, and I recognize it because I made the same assertion when I left Beaufort for Charleston at eighteen, and the leaving was not abandonment but growth.

Joy had a birthday party at Pathways — not her birthday (that's in April) but a communal birthday party for all February birthdays. Sandra sent photographs: Joy in a party hat, Joy eating cake, Joy hugging Diane. The photographs are uncomplicated happiness, and I pin them to the refrigerator where they join the collection that is becoming a gallery of Joy's life — a life that is smaller than the one she might have had and richer than the one most people assume she does have.

I made Robert's favorite: beef stew. Not Lowcountry, not Southern, just good — chuck roast braised with red wine and root vegetables and thyme until the meat yields to the fork the way a man yields to the years, not by weakening but by softening, and the softening is the quality I love most in Robert now, the tenderness that the affair broke open and that has never closed, and that makes him, at fifty-two, a better man than the man I married.

I have made this stew enough times now that my hands know the steps before my mind does — the browning, the deglazing, the long wait while the house fills with something warm and unhurried. Robert asked for it again this week, which he does when the season turns or when he senses, without saying so, that we all need an anchor. Red flannel stew is not elegant and it is not quick, but it yields — the way the best things yield — when you give it enough time and enough heat.

Red Flannel Stew

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 2 hours 15 minutes | Total Time: 2 hours 35 minutes | Servings: 6

Ingredients

• 2 lbs beef chuck roast, cut into 1 1/2-inch cubes
• 3 tablespoons olive oil, divided
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 large onion, roughly chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 3/4 cup dry red wine
• 3 cups beef broth
• 3 medium carrots, cut into 1-inch pieces
• 2 medium parsnips, peeled and cut into 1-inch pieces
• 2 medium beets, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes
• 2 medium Yukon Gold potatoes, cut into 1-inch cubes
• 2 sprigs fresh thyme
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
• 2 tablespoons fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped

Instructions

1. Brown the beef. Pat the beef cubes dry and season with salt and pepper. Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Working in batches, brown the beef on all sides, about 3–4 minutes per batch. Transfer browned pieces to a plate and set aside.
2. Build the base. Reduce heat to medium. Add the remaining tablespoon of olive oil, then add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened and golden, about 6 minutes. Add the garlic and tomato paste and cook 1 minute more, stirring to coat the onion.
3. Deglaze. Pour in the red wine, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom of the pot. Let it simmer until reduced by half, about 3 minutes.
4. Braise. Return the beef and any accumulated juices to the pot. Add the beef broth, thyme sprigs, and bay leaf. Bring to a gentle boil, then reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer for 1 hour.
5. Add the root vegetables. Stir in the carrots, parsnips, beets, and potatoes. Cover and continue to simmer over low heat until the vegetables are tender and the beef yields easily to a fork, about 45–55 minutes more.
6. Finish and season. Remove the thyme sprigs and bay leaf. Stir in the red wine vinegar. Taste and adjust salt and pepper as needed. The beets will turn the stew a deep, warm red — this is expected and welcome.
7. Serve. Ladle into wide bowls and top with fresh parsley. Serve with crusty bread for soaking up the broth.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 420 | Protein: 34g | Fat: 16g | Carbs: 28g | Fiber: 5g | Sodium: 610mg