Got to love cooking french food for dinner guests

[idun]

I'm just waiting for my guests to arrive. The hardest thing to do was the roulade au chocolate, from the best of british baking, a cheat, no, a roulade, it sounds french and is divine and I know all my french friends'll love it.

My gratin dauphinois is in the oven along with pork chops. The beurre blanc is ready to finish later and I'm going to add cooked mushrooms to that today.

The salad dressing is done, the salad compose, simple, mixed salad with noix de grenoble and blue or hard cheese, I'll let the guests chose. Even got a pain de campagne.

 

I've got a stinky ripe Rustique and a selections of other cheeses.

 

Now if I had decided to do a Sunday lunch, where would I be, well I'd be suer'ing hunched over a hot stove and possibly swear'ing too[Www].

 

 

[EmilyA]

Sounds delicious. We have got French friends coming on Tuesday and I am doing steak and mushroom pie followed by sticky toffee pudding as they asked to try a traditional English meal. Bit stuck for a starter but think I will just do Gentleman's Relish on toast with aperitifs.

[idun]

We have just been discussing cooking and why I hated cooking 'english' food for french guests..... the reason being that if I said say 7.30 they'd be there at quarter past 8 expecting their aperos before eating and it would play havoc with my yorkshire puds etc.

Before a pie I wouldn't do much of a starter, light sounds good.

[suein56]

[quote user="idun"]We have just been discussing cooking and why I hated cooking 'english' food for french guests..... the reason being that if I said say 7.30 they'd be there at quarter past 8 expecting their aperos before eating and it would play havoc with my yorkshire puds etc. [/quote]

Crikey, if they did that here they would miss the aperos ! Having been informed that French people were often late, as you describe, it came as quite a shock to find that everyone hereabouts - of any nationality - always arrives on time, and very often together.

I was told it was considered bad manners to be late, especially when food and cooking were involved.

Sue

[idun]

In all our time in France, there was only once, I mean ONCE that everyone arrived when they should have done and that was when I had organised a surprise party for my husband. Other friends had taken him out and everyone else knew that they had to be there when our friends brought him back. And they were.

 Sometimes they were not too late, just about half an hour but it was up to an hour and a half. We never did that, and yet it was never reciprocated.

Meetings at school with the teachers would have parents turning up an hour late too and these meetings would go on until 23.30. In the Savoy they say to allow un quart d'heure savoyard, but that quarter of an hour is as quick as 'un moment' that one gets in shops.

 

I remember when my mother was staying with us and she went mad. Said she had to eat and it was disgraceful people being so late blah blah, and I suppose her hating it, made it have some appeal to me. I was usually on a pretty safe bet on liking the things she didn't. [:D]

[EmilyA]

Well these are old friends and we know that they are always fashionably late by precisely 15 minutes.

We have other friends who we know that if we are invited for 8pm they will ring up and explain that they are still busy on the farm at 7.30. We usually get pudding by 11.45....

[Frenchie]

I recently cooked a boeuf bourguignon for English guests, I thought it would be better if I cooked it the day before, as it is always better when reheated.

So I prepared it,in a cast iron casserole,  sat to watch TV, as it takes three hours to be done, checked if everything was OK at 10 PM, only one hour left, normally, should have been ready for 11.

I fell asleep on the sofa, woke up at 2 am ; it was totally burnt , a horrible smell in the house !! [:-))]

My English guests got tagliatelles à la carbonara... [:'(]

[:D]

 

[Pommier]

Better than Bourguinon à la Charbon!

[Frenchie]

Indeed !! [Www]

[NormanH]

[quote user="Frenchie"]

I recently cooked a boeuf bourguignon for English guests, I thought it would be better if I cooked it the day before, as it is always better when reheated.

So I prepared it,in a cast iron casserole,  sat to watch TV, as it takes three hours to be done, checked if everything was OK at 10 PM, only one hour left, normally, should have been ready for 11.

I fell asleep on the sofa, woke up at 2 am ; it was totally burnt , a horrible smell in the house !! [:-))]

My English guests got tagliatelles à la carbonara... [:'(]

[:D]

 

[/quote]

Should have used a slow cooker...[I]

[Frenchie]

Like most French people, I don't have a slow cooker, though I've seen that it now existed in some French shops.

Not a French habit.

As I said the other day to an English friend, I wouldn't feel comfortable leaving home to go to work with something cooking, even though I perfectly know there are virtually no risks.

So I'll stick [:)] to my cast iron casserole for the moment... ( but not at night ..)

Unless you want to give me a pressie for my birthday  [:$]... [:D] ( 3rd of April ..)    LOL