Calling all Coq au Vin recipes!

Daniel and I are having some friends over for dinner Saturday night. He wants to make Coq au Vin. We've been going back and forth the past few days with recipe ideas and have yet to find the one.

I suggested a Julia Child recipe, but he's not sold. He thinks her recipe seems too quick & easy. He believes the chicken must marinate overnight. (After reading Julie & Julia this summer, I didn't think Julia Child had any easy recipes!).

When I forwarded our guests one email Daniel sent about the dinner, they were not surprised. One even said it was just the type of email he'd expect us to exchange. Nice.

Here it is for your reading pleasure:

I called United Meat market and tried ordering a Rooster. They talked to me like I was CRAZY: “Hey, there is a guy here who wants a Rooster!” Pretty funny. Long story short it takes a week and it is not a Rooster. It is a Capon, which is a young castrated rooster. I’ll stick with organic chicken this time. Hahaha.

Now that the rooster situation has been sorted out, we need to pick a recipe. I'm rooting for Julia Child's. This one and this one are also in the running. Does anyone out there have a Coq au Vin recipe that is even better? If so, I'd love to hear about it.

Daniel plans to do a guest post next week about our Coq au Vin experience (which will also involve a few bottles of Beaujolais Nouveau!). I'm sure that will be a very interesting read.