More Delicious Food

The past two nights have been extraordinary as far as food goes - last night especially.

Last night, one of the Vanderbilt girls in our dinner group brought her mom and aunt to dinner - so naturally the woman we eat dinner with, Madame Betirac went all out.  We usually have very good meals with her - she always includes a green salad, she makes delicious quiches, and occasionally (not nearly often enough) we have real dessert (instead of boring fruit salad or yogurt - hint these are NOT desserts, they do not signal the end of a meal to my tummy) such as Tarte Citron (lemon meringue pie) or mousse au chocolat.  So all in all, I am generally quite satisfied with our dinners.  But last night, in honor of the visitors, Mme Betirac outdid herself!  We had beef tenderloin, haricot verts (french green beans - superior to american green beans), salad, polenta cubes with parmesan and lemon and MOUSSE AU CHOCOLAT!!!  And to top it all off we had wine with dinner (we've never ever had wine with dinner before, on select occasions, such as birthdays, we have a bit of wine before dinner, but never with).  We had red wine (I didn't have any - still don't like red wine) and 2 roses (one from Provence, drier, and one from Langue D'Oc region, which was sweeter).  It was a wonderful meal - we ate like kings (or maybe even queens)!

After our scrumptious dinner, Sara made an apple cake with a cinnamon sugar glaze (Emily's handiwork) for Renaud's birthday.  He was very very pleased.  We gave him his cake and sang happy birthday (en francais of course).

Tonight was also a special dinner because Madame Betirac had a concert (she plays the harpsichord in a few groups) so Christophe made dinner.  But even more exciting were the guests!  Some of Christophe's biking friends were there (Christophe does BMX bikes - not motobiking like Renaud).  I feel like most of the time they were laughing at us and commenting in very rapid french how ridiculous we were.  Which was fair, we were a bit silly tonight.  But it was a fun meal nonetheless.

Tomorrow we go to Marseille for a field trip.  Hopefully we all survive (just kidding - people, mostly Christophe, joke about how dangerous Marseille is, but in reality it's just a big city)!  Thursday I volunteer at the middle school again, but I think I get to explain Thanksgiving to the younger kids.  That should be very fun - I love explaining American holidays to them.