Birthday lunch 2016

Another birthday has come and gone. We ate it well. This year we made the traditional steak au poivre with a cut of beef we don't usually indulge in: filet. In the US, we call that cut the tenderloin or filet mignon. In France, however, the word mignon is normally used to refer to same cut of pork, not beef. Since filet is one of the more costly cuts of beef, we often use faux-filet (sirloin) or rumsteak (rump or round) for this dish.

A dish of snails, six per serving, with garlicky parsley butter.

We each had a half-dozen escargots de Bourgogne as our entrée, prepared the traditional way with a garlic and parsley butter sauce. The steaks were dry-marinated in crushed black pepper before being seared in a hot pan. The sauce was made by de-glazing the pan with Armagnac and a little beef broth, then thickening it with crème fraiche. We served the steaks with french fries. We followed that with a green salad in vinaigrette.

Lunch is served! They look like hamburgers, but they're slices of filet coated with crushed pepper.

I drank Champagne with the entrée and Ken drank sauvignon blanc (he doesn't really enjoy the bubbles). We enjoyed a Saint-Nicolas-de-Bourgueil (from a little further down the Loire Valley) with the main course.

Birthday tart.

Dessert was an apple tart. I used Delblush-Tentation apples. First I made a compote with some of the apples, a little sugar, and some cinnamon. I pre-baked my pie shell, then spread the cooled compote inside. I layered sliced apples on top and baked the tart until it was done. Finally, I glazed the top with some of Ken's home-made apple jelly. Tasty!

Le plat principal

As I do every year since 1981, I had steak au poivre (steak with pepper sauce) as the main course for the birthday lunch. The cut of meat varies from year to year. We've used everything from filet to sirloin to flank to rumsteak to faux-filet and even ground beef patties, depending on the year. This year we used entrecôte (rib-eye, club, or Delmonico steak), cut very thick, from a butcher across the river in Thesée. His is the best entrecôte I think I've ever tasted. It was a big steak and a good deal of it was left over for lunch on Tuesday.

Our entrecôte marinating in crushed black peppercorns.

I dry-rubbed the steak with crushed black peppercorns (done in a mortar) and let it sit for an hour or so before cooking. Then Ken seared the steak on both sides in a hot pan with butter. After that, he removed it to a low oven to keep warm while the sauce was made.

Searing the steak in butter.

To make the sauce, Ken de-glazed the pan with calvados (apple brandy from Normandy), flambeed it, and added chopped shallots and crushed green peppercorns (for another layer of pepperiness). He stirred in some cream for more richness and reduced the sauce a little. Then the steak (with all the juices it released) went back into the pan with the sauce.

Lunch is served! Those specks on the plates are bread crumbs left from the first course.

We normally serve the steak with French fries; they're great dipped into the sauce. And a green salad dressed with vinaigrette afterward is a great way to cleanse the palate, if you have room - we didn't this year. With it we drank a 2013 Chinon, made from cabernet franc grapes, that was given to us by friends J&N.

L'entrée

In France, a typical meal has three courses: l'entrée, le plat principal, and le dessert. In the UK, I believe these are known as the starter, the main course, and the dessert. In the US, we call them the appetizer, the entree, and the dessert. I don't know why we Americans call the main course the entree; it makes no sense at all.

Six snails per serving, and the last of the bubbly Saumur.

There are variations on the standard meal, of course, the most common of which are the addition of an hors d'œuvre and/or apéritif before the entrée and a cheese course before, or in place of, the dessert. For my birthday lunch yesterday, we started with an apéritif of sparkling Saumur (Loire Valley) wine. The bubbly was dry and delicious, made from mostly chenin grapes possibly blended with a little chardonnay.

Some of the ingredients of the day.

Our entrée was escargots sauce tomate (snails in a tomato sauce). The snails themselves come in a can, already cleaned and cooked. I made the sauce with some of our home-grown tomato paste, chopped garlic, home-grown oregano, smoked paprika, and hot pepper. I heated the snails and sauce  in a hot oven, then served them with baguette slices. The tomato paste sauce was a nice change from the standard garlic/parsley/butter sauce. They were delicious! Our plat principal was steak au poivre (steak in a pepper sauce). More about that tomorrow.

LV

According to Wikipedia, fifty-five is the natural number following fifty-four and preceding fifty-six. It is also the atomic number of caesium, the tenth Fibonacci number, and the sum of the numbers 1 through 10. It is a square pyramidal number, a centered nonagonal number, and a semiprime number. Between 1974 and 1988, it was the maximum highway speed limit in the United States. It is a magnitude 7.9 barred spiral galaxy in the constellation Sculptor. It is the Autoroute de l'énergie in central Québec and an interstate highway between Chicago and New Orleans. It is the direct-dial calling code for the South American nation of Brazil.

Fifty-five is also my age for the next three hundred and sixty-five days.

Another birthday

As most of you know, yesterday was my birthday. I was born on the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. That might explain my diminutive stature, although genetics probably has more to do with it. As is our custom, Ken and I celebrated with my traditional birthday dinner of steak au poivre and frites.

A perfectly cooked steak with peppercorn/Armagnac sauce served with french fries.

This year we got slices of rumstek. The butcher sliced them from a rolled roast which was not our preference, but in a crowded butcher shop it's hard to quibble. We asked for thicker slices than he started to cut, so we actually got what we wanted. Once we got them home, I tied them up tighter with a bit of string.

The raw steaks, marinating in crushed black peppercorns.

I marinated the steaks with a generous coating of crushed black pepper (done with the mortar and pestle) before they were sauteed in butter. Ken made a sauce with Armagnac, beef broth, and some more butter. I made a batch of french fries in the fryer.

The steaks, hot off the fire, ready to rest a bit before serving.

Another success! This is my traditional birthday meal. I had it for the first time in 1981 at a restaurant in Nice, France. Every year since then, Ken and I have made it at home for my birthday. And it's always been wonderfully delicious.

We drank a bit of champagne before lunch.

Festivities

My birthday was yesterday. It wasn't what they call a "milestone" birthday, but I think that any birthday over 50 is a milestone. At any rate, I celebrated as I usually do. Starting off with a nice bottle of Champagne.

A premier cru blanc de blancs. Blanc de blancs means that it's pure chardonnay. Yum.

This bottle is one we got just over a year ago when we went up to Champagne for a week with our friend Cheryl. We had a good time tasting (that's a euphemism for drinking) many different Champagnes. This winery turned out to be one of my favorites. It's not as pricey as some Champagnes can be, and it's mighty good.

We're thinking of going back to get some more, or at least ordering some from the winery. We're on their mailing list now.

Apples to apples

Yesterday we had one of my favorite meals: a steak au poivre (pepper steak) with a cream sauce made with calvados (apple brandy) and served with french fries. We followed that with a green salad. Dessert was an apple tart. I started out with these beautiful reinette apples.

Beautiful apples called reinettes.

Lunch was scrumptious as it usually is. Then we had the tarte. Yum! I also got the news that my new monitor will be delivered today (Thursday). Here's the tarte before we cut into it.

An apple tarte made with a custard filling. Yum!

So if the monitor is indeed delivered today, I'm planning to clean out the space where it will go before I hook it up, which means doing some organizing on and around the desk. I also plan to open up the computer to dust it out, a job that should be done every year. It'll be a busy day.

A very merry birthday

My astronomical birthday yesterday was great fun! I call it astronomical this year because in addition to the solstice, the universe gave me a full moon and a lunar eclipse to celebrate. Unfortunately, the skies were overcast and rainy, so I didn't get to enjoy them until I watched the news.

I didn't take any pictures this year; these steaks are from last year's birthday dinner.

Ken and I spent the morning shopping. We had to get new tires on the car to pass the bi-annual inspection this year, so we took advantage of the wait time to hit the hardware store, the home decoration store, and the grocery store, all within a five-minute walk of the garage.

Lunch was the traditional steak au poivre. That's the meal I had on my birthday while in Nice, France, back in 1981. I've had the same meal on my birthday every year since then. When we made the dish back in the US, we'd often use a cut from the tenderloin, either filet, tournedos, or chateaubriand. Here in France the usual steak for the dish is rumsteak, a very lean and tender cut, which is what we got. I crushed a bunch of black peppercorns with the mortar and pestle and coated the steaks with it. They sat for about an hour like that.

Then we seared the steaks in a hot pan and set them on a platter to rest under foil. The pan was de-glazed with armagnac and the sauce made with a little beef bouillon and cream. And more armagnac. We served the steaks with French fries, as is our tradition. The steaks were perfectly done: crusty on the outside and very rare inside. Pure heaven on a plate!

By the way, Ken's photos of this year's meal are here.

Birthday Dinner

So the traditional birthday dinner was great, as always. We got a couple of steaks from the butcher in Saint-Aignan. He specializes in Limousin beef, and it was as beautiful as it was tasty.

The steaks, covered with black pepper, before cooking.

As is the custom, we covered it with cracked pepper and let it sit for two hours before cooking. Then it went into a hot pan just to sear the sides. Next, we put it into a warm oven to rest while the French fries cooked.

A little apéritif of sparkling Vouvray. The glass is from when we lived in Sunnyvale, CA, fifteen years ago.

The sauce was made with brandy and cream, some white wine and some mustard. Then we served it with a 2006 Bordeaux that friends of ours had given us last summer. It was all very tasty. After the main course, we ate a green salad followed by some cheese.

Dinner is served!

For dessert, I made a pumpkin bread. Ken made a sour cream glaze and it was amazingly good. Yum! Another birthday success!

Birthday cake!

Fifty

Today is the winter solstice. The shortest day of the year. The first day of winter. And my fiftieth birthday.

Nothing says Holidays in France like clémentines from Spain or Morocco.

Not a big deal, but interesting. We'll be doing the usual birthday dinner of steak au poivre with a cognac cream sauce and french fries. I've had this birthday meal every year since 1981, well over half my life now.

This year the cognac will be replaced by a local gnôle, also called marc, a brandy distilled from the leavings of the grape pressing process (seeds, skins, stems). One of our neighbor wine makers, whose father still has one of the dwindling number of licenses to make the stuff, gave us a bottle this fall. We've been saving it for today.

Some will go into the sauce, some will go into us.

In other birthday news, I got "the letter" from the national health service. It's colonoscopy time!

Solstice Dinner

On Sunday we had a busy day (for us). That means that we were invited out to a party, needed to stop at a bakery for bread, and had to get home to prepare our traditional Walt's Birthday Dinner.

Our house label, Château les Bouleaux. I drew the little picture of our house back in 2003.

Since one cannot go to a party empty-handed, we had to think of something to take to our hosts. They are a mixed couple (French man/English woman) that we see every now and then. We met them both when they were with previous partners, but there has been some shifting around and they've been together now for a few years.

An empty wine glass. Not empty for long...

We could have taken flowers (boring) or chocolates, but we ended up getting a little earthenware tray. Since it was also his birthday, I wanted something a little more. So I bottled up some of the ratafia de coings (quince liqueur) that I had made last holiday season, whipped up a little label on the computer, and took that along.

Steak au poivre and frites, the tradition continues!

The party was fun, but we only stayed a couple of hours. Once home, we changed into more comfortable clothes, opened a bottle of sparkling Vouvray, and made our dinner. Very tasty, as it is every year.

Birthday Dinner

So here's a little peek at what we had for lunch yesterday. It's our traditional steak au poivre with cognac cream sauce and french fries followed by a green salad.

The steaks are covered with crushed peppercorns.
They're pretty thick, and tied around the middle to hold their shape.

The meat is rumsteak. The cognac is actually armagnac. The cream is standard crème fraiche. :)

First the meat is marinated in pepper for an hour or two. Then it's seared in a hot pan and put to rest in a warm oven. While it's resting, the pan is de-glazed with the armagnac. Once that reduces a bit, add the cream and reduce some more. The steaks go back into the sauce to be served.

The finished steaks in the cream sauce.

This year we used green peppercorns. They have a very distinct flavor and it's a treat to use them on a steak au poivre.

Home made pumpkin pie for dessert! I grew the pumpkin myself.

That champagne glass down below is one that we got at the annual Sunnyvale Art and Wine Festival back in 1994, when we actually lived in Sunnyvale, CA. My how time flies!

A sparkling Touraine Brut was consumed during the cooking process.

It was a great birthday feast! I can't wait to do it again next year.

Birthday Boy

Today is the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. It's also my birthday. I made it through another year! To celebrate, I decided to post a photo of me celebrating:


Pink and green frosting, yummm! It's my third birthday party. The same year that Marylin Monroe died and Johnny Carson took over the Tonight Show on NBC from Jack Paar. Moon River by Henry Mancini won Song of the Year at the Grammys. I had to look that stuff up - I was only three.

My family lived in Tampa, FL, at the time. I do have a few vague memories of living there back then. We moved back to upstate New York the year after this photo was taken.

The original photo is a Polaroid that I scanned.

And, while I'm at it, here's a holiday angel, a.k.a. moi, taken the same year, to wish you all the best:

And, yes, that's Yogi Bear on the couch. He's smarter than the average bear, which is why he does Christmas in Florida!

Birthday dinner this year will be the same that I've had every year since my first birthday in France back in 1981: steak au poivre in a cognac/cream sauce with frites. Yum!