What We Ate, Part 1

1. Saturday Lunch en famille:

First, we sat in the living room and munched on Texas BBQ flavor Pringles while sipping white wine (perhaps a Pineau?).

Then we removed to the dining room table. The first course at table was pate. I asked if we could get some, and that led to a trip to the Super U (Soop-Ehr OO). [Dominique, please note presence of the Super U in the blog, as requested]. Dominique and I chose three delicious treats: duck pate with chantrelles, plain duck pate with a chicken fat top, and rillettes (shredded pork in lard, used as a spread). So we ate all three with bread at the table as the first of the red wine was poured. I made up for Charles's disinterest by eating a double share. I also think - in all modesty - that I made my bones with Dominique's mother Danielle when I exclaimed "Cornichons!" as she placed the bowl on the table. She seemed pleased that I knew them. As a group, we ate our way through 3 baskets of bread.

Next came the main course. Roasted potatoes, so replete with butter that they had turned yellow, steamed green beans, and the most delicious country sausages (obtained from a local farm by Stick and Dominique). This time, Charles took the lead, eating his way through a massive amount of potatoes and sausages.
That was a mistake. Brian warned us that we'd seriously underestimated our hosts. "We're just getting started," he said. Oops.

Danielle brought us four kinds of cheese, and more bread. We tried Roquefort, Comte, Camembert, and Brie. When that had been reduced to ashes, it was time for dessert.

A plum pie, composed not of slices but of whole green plums (whole, dude, as in with the pits in them) wrapped in pastry, appeared on the table. Then a cream cake: two layers of cake separated by pastry cream and topped with a strawberry/currant glaze. Each person received a slice of each. And coffee.

At some point during this bacchanal, someone asked whether I liked Cointreau. "Yes," I said, "It's one of the first liquors I ever tried, and I love it." Did I know Cointreau is made in St. Barthelemy d'Anjou? Well, no.

So we finished off a bottle of Cointreau in beautiful tiny glasses which belonged to Dominique's great-grandmother (her father Gerard's grandmother).

Then they rolled us back to the house, snoring.

But wait...there's more.