15/07/2006

Fete de la Reignere

In the previous post you can see that my MP3 player is sitting on the Nosh Brothers book "Entertaining". The recipe on that page is the "Raspberry, Mascarpone and Almond tart" that I'm going to make on Friday as my contribution to the party held each year by our French neighbours to celebrate Bastille Day on 14th July. We can't be in France until 20th July so the celebrations have been postponed until 22nd so we can be there.

Each year it's held at a different house in our lane and it will be our turn in 2008. The person hosting it is responsible for producing the main course and everyone else brings a sweet dish, a savoury dish and a bottle (or two...) of wine. It starts with a very leisurely long lunch with everyone wanting to try all the dishes that have been brought, finishing with cheese and coffee.

Needless to say we all have far too much to eat (and drink)! Then we seem to be arranged into teams for a Boule Tournament in the afternoon. At about 7 pm it all starts over again with eating up "Les restes" which I assume just means leftovers but it sounds better in French. By the end of the evening our French is tested to the limits when everyone starts telling jokes. Play on words in French is not easy!! The next day is spent recovering.

Each year I have made Gravlax with a dill sauce for my savoury contribution and each year I've been asked to do it again the following year so that part is easy. For the sweet dish.....well, previous years I've made Nigella's lemon meringue ice cream which has been popular but I feel like doing something different this year so I'm going to do this tart.

It looks very effective, is foolproof and tastes delicious and there should be no problem getting fresh raspberries. It's a bit of a responsibility because the reputation of English cooking is at stake.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Just had to make a comment when i saw your reference to 'gravlaks'. I'm from Norway and it's a Norwegian dish. Reading about it brought back memories of my parents making it when I was a child. Not sure why, as I don't actually like it. LOL. But it's put me in a nostalgic mood. Great blog. Anniknits (Angel Yarns forum)