A few nights, after Dayne's delicious martinis, we just continued snacking on French cheeses, charcuterie and funny snack chips like roast chicken crisps and bacon cheese puffs. One night we went down to the only restaurant in town and ordered the only thing they make- pizza- and brought it back up to the house. It was soooo good with interesting toppings and the best salumi and olives of course.
A couple of times we shopped at the local town markets, there is an evening one in the town of Valleron that we thought was quite good. This was mainly locals, and most not speaking much English which made it really fun. A few stands had these strawberries that you could smell almost from the parking lot!
Have you ever seen such gorgeous squash blossoms?
We had chicken for dinner on that night...
One of the nicest days of dining happened when we went to visit our friends Abra & Shel in Uzes. First we took a walk and shopped at the market (in these posts the term market refers a local farmers market vs a grocery store) for our evening cook together dinner, coming up with the dishes as we saw ingrediants. The market was small, in the center of town, and very cute with venders selling everything from seafood to olives and perfumes. There was a basket of kittens and even a snail farmer.
It took us a while to make it back home. There was bread to buy, pastries to pick out for dessert (and a brief lesson in how to inquire about nuts and/or peanuts as an ingrediant) and of course wine to choose. Once we returned Abra set the table with an amazing lunch she had put together. It was so nice to sit on the beautiful patio and catch up with our friends and hear more about the area.
After some pool time, nap time and a stroll through town we all started working on an amazing dinner. Dayne, Paul and Forest made up some cocktails using a cherry liquor Abra had made. We noshed on tomato slices, dressed with fresh garlic and squash blossoms stuffed and baked. Then the appetizer of duck breast baked in a salt crust and served with a meurette sauce studded with foie gras. Main course of melons du veau and sauteed baby zucchini. Lots of wine. Amazing cheese and then a chocolate torte. It was quite a feast!
There was one other big dinner event, at our very own chateau where all 26 guest teamed up to make a big dinner on the last night that we were all together.
There was an amuse of cold soup with chicken, salad chevre chaud, incredible deboned and stuffed chicken, ratatouille, tarts and lots of wine. Lots.
Ah, joyeux été...
ReplyDeleteSounds amazing! The pictures of those strawberries is like fruit porn :O
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