So we got to March and had a great time at a dinner party at a friend’s house along with everyone else who had been at Jan. 31st’s Carne Vale. It’s a fun group of people, our host made her fabulous vegetarian lasagna and a great time was had by all (I do hope the wine stains come out of the tablecloth and deeply regret the breaking of a very nice wine glass).

There was a tasty tomatoey pot roast over polenta that (except for the bacon our generous and thoughtful friend gave us in the morning) was our first substantial reacquaintance with animal flesh, which we quite enjoyed. But the next day, after a nice afternoon-into-evening visit with a convalescing friend (and drinking a bit of wine), we made what turned out to be a mistake in getting carryout from a newish local burrito joint across the street from Gallaudet University.

It was decent cheap late-night college food, but after a month of vegetarian fare, it was not a wise choice by us. We ate more than we probably should have of the too-stuffed soft bland carnitas wraps and spent a fair chunk of Sunday in the queasy uneasy realization that we had jumped back on the meat wagon too soon.

Unfortunately, what that meant was that we decided to forego the Sunday early evening outing to a Korean BBQ joint with most of our compatriots from Friday night’s end of Frugal February celebration. We were just not ready to eat meat and more meat, which was kind of surprising because it’s not how we ended up after last year’s Frugal February.

So we stayed home, and I made some French onion soup, which was incredibly good. The key is to repeatedly deglaze the cream-onion reduction in white wine until everything is deeply brown and flavorful.