Sunday Dinner with Marjolaine

Hello there :)

Today was a rainy day but I hardly noticed, being indoors all day. I took the early bus up to see a dear friend of mine, Marjolaine, who lives about 25km away. It's about an hours ride and so in theory I could do most of my waking-up on the journey, but they always seem to have the heating on so high on the buses, and so I usually actually end up going back to sleep! Either way up it's a nice little portion of the day where I can just relax and really 'fall into' whatever music I'm listening to on my Ipod. Today it was Bon Iver and Death Cab For Cutie which became a little too much, emotionally, after a while; but being a creative type, I enjoyed it in a way. I think the Sunday silence and the dullness of the day all added up to produce this deep ambiance, it was kind of nice.

Anyway the rest of the day was lovely and cheery :)

There she was waiting for me as usual, full of life and smiles at the bus station. And as we walked back to her house together she 'briefed' me on her master project: today we were to cook dinner!

The aperitif glasses, with 'iced' rims (dipped in cordial and sugar)

The woman herself hard at work 

Starters: mini quiche Lorraine (her speciality) and ratatouille tarts with salad and goats cheese canapes

Dessert: homemade white and milk chocolate moose, aren't the dinky heart-shaped dished cute?

  And some appropriately matching home-baked biscuits, which unfortunately I didn't get chance to taste

And where is the main?! I hear you cry... well silly amateur blogger that I am might have gone and accidently forgotten to photograph it! But I can assure you it was delicious!

We had honey and mustard roast pork joint with fancy little 'towers' of mashed potato and 'lardons' (finely cut bacon pieces) Marjolaine's father was a chef and so not only do we always eat well at her house but we eat fancy too ;) I've learnt lots of little presentation tips from spending time at that house, including how to make 'tomato roses', which are so pretty and very simple! I shall have to tell you about that one day.

I will post in more detail about the actual recipes sometime soon, they were certainly worth sharing and I'm hoping to try them myself one day!

Thanks for a lovely day Marjo, Bisoux!

Heidi-V

x

Ps. Apologies for the quality of these and some other recent photos, I've been being lazy and using my old phone's camera, naughty me! Also, excuses and reconciliations on the poetry front tomorrow... Ooooh err!