Saturday, November 28, 2009

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.

10 comments:

  1. It looks like you all had a good time and it is nice to see S smiling.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I agree, and all the blogs I have read about Thanksgiving, makes me think I should adopt the day :-) Everyone I know had a great day.

    I would have to go with the Lamb too! Not a big lover of Turkey, but have to have it here on Christmas day !!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hooray for Vouvray! Its so good! I hope you don't get your goose too cooked with your new friends.

    ReplyDelete
  4. How did they like the pumpkin pie? Was it the first one for either of them?

    Sounds like a wonderful event!

    Judy

    ReplyDelete
  5. If you call it 'T-Day', but you serve leg of lamb, isn't that blasphemy? It appears a good time and an excellent meal was had by all.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I've been collecting lamb recipes for some time - I have not made one yet. Lamb sounds delicious.
    I hope my first turns out like this one.

    ReplyDelete
  7. nadege, it was great fun!

    anne, go for it! The first Thanksgiving was celebrated by English people, after all. They weren't Americans yet.

    rachael, I love Vouvray!

    judy, I'm not sure, but everyone liked it!

    starman, not in my book!

    michael, have you never eaten lamb before?

    ReplyDelete
  8. OMG! I was about to scream.. MORE PHOTOS!! Where's the pumpkin pie an all the rest of the stuff you wrote about.. then I got down to the last paragraph and said.. "Oh shoot!!"

    But, knowing YOU... hehehe... Everything was just DELISH!!! And, fewer photos for me to drool over!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Your meal looks amazing, and your home looks oh-so-French!

    ReplyDelete
  10. leesa, I always forget the camera when I'm eating and drinking. And maybe that's a good thing! lol

    mark, thanks!

    ReplyDelete

Tell me what you think!