I'm really not much of a beef fan, so this is a bit of an odd selection for me to suggest. I've made beef stew (with red wine, of course!) in the slow-cooker before, and honestly it wasn't for me. But I'm willing to give this a chance. Who doesn't love coq au vin, right? It's essentially the same but with beef instead of chicken. I love everything else in this recipe, so I remain optimistic.
The only other editorializing I'll do right now is a short commentary regarding the bacon in the recipe. At the time Mastering the Art of French Cooking was written, many of the items now available at most grocery stores were exotic and hard to find. Therefore, Julia et. al. include a list of ingredients that are integral to French cooking but different in America. The very first item mentioned is bacon. The book says:
The kind of bacon used in French recipes is fresh, unsalted, and unsmoked, lard de poitrine frais. As this is difficult to find in America, we have specified smoked bacon; its taste is usually fresher than that of salt pork. It is always blanched in simmering water to remove its smoky taste. If this were not done the whole dish would tate of bacon.
Blanched Bacon
Place the bacon strips in a pan of cold water, about 1 quart for each 4 ounces. Bring to the simmer and simmer 10 minutes. Drain the bacon and rinse it thoroughly in fresh cold water, then dry it on paper towels.
Even though this edition was updated in 2001 and many parts of it have been modernized to include such innovations as food processors, the instructions still always call for this method of blanching bacon. And so far, every single recipe I've cooked from this cookbook calls for bacon. Whether this speaks more towards my cooking preferences or the French, well let's just say I do tend to be a bit of a Francophile sometimes.
My point is, there are many more options available now than just blanched bacon, which just sounds unappetizing to me (though to be fair, I have not tried it), especially if you go to a butcher. I use pancetta in place of of the blanched bacon. Pancetta is salt cured so it's not the same as the lard de poitrine frais, but it eliminates the problem of the smokey flavor. Clint and Shannon, you guys can certainly do it however you like of course, but I recommend the pancetta!
So here's how this is going to work. The challenge has been set. Now we all start cooking. We don't have to cook the assigned recipe on the exact same night, but cook and post about it within a week. Bon appetit!
