A Few Holiday Shots

Another Thanksgiving Day has come and gone. Where do the years go? If you celebrated the day, I hope you had a good one. We certainly did.

A holiday gift basket with wine, pâté from the Dordogne, and freshly picked cèpes (mushrooms).

We had friends S. and U. over for our traditional T-Day leg of lamb. You can read about our lamb tradition here and see photos of the leg before it was roasted. We asked our friends to bring their dogs along for the day. Callie had a great time hanging with Mr. Moe (a yellow labrador) and Bambou (a collie/shepherd mix).

Our guests S. and U. just before the lamb is served.

Lunch began with apéritifs: kirs royales made with sparkling Vouvray and a cassis liqueur. The cassis was special because it was home made. I took the berries from our bush out back this past summer and macerated them in a sugar syrup and alcohol mix for a few months. We pretty much drank all of that with two bottles of the sparkling stuff.

The roasted leg of lamb. Yum.

Along with the kirs we ate smoked trout rolls stuffed with céleri remoulade (we've done this before and we really like it) and bacon-wrapped prunes. Tasty!

We served the lamb with its pan drippings and dijon mustard. Along with that we had flageolets (beans) and glazed carrots. Some of us had a cheese course, then we had a dessert of pumpkin pie that I had made on Wednesday served with some lightly whipped cream.

The wines were varied in age and style. We started with a 2002 Saint-Estèphe (Bordeaux), moved on to a 2008 Bergerac, and then to a local Touraine Primeur (2009) from right across the river.

I got some photos early on, but as the day progressed the camera got forgotten. So I have no photos of our dessert and none of the dogs! I did manage to call home and exchange Thanksgiving greetings with friends and family, and I'm sure I sounded quite festive on the phone.