Yet another blog about food

Dear Mother,

Like Dad, I seem to be writing mostly about meals, but sometimes meals are the day's highlight, a time to slow down, converse, reflect, laugh and enjoy good food.  Last night (Monday) was our traditional end-of-volunteer-service celebratory meal for Janice, even though we just got here.  Janie will be returning to Florida for her final doctoral seminar next Monday, and so we won't see her again this summer.  The usual "final" celebratory meal was therefore moved up, and the Bloughs decided also to use it as their 40th anniversary celebration.

As in past years, we returned to Porte Dorée which has a fine restaurant that is very reasonably priced.  All meals are the same price, so we had about 12 choices of entrées (appetizers), another dozen or so choices for plats (main courses), and another 10-12 choices for desserts.  Decisions, decisions.

I started with a cold fish terrine, layers of white fish and salmon, with a delicious tomato-basil coulis.

Janie had a bowl of seafood (crayfish, scallops, shrimps, clams, etc.) done in garlic butter.

Janice's appetizer was a meal in itself, with a bit of duck confit, foie gras (liver), dried prosciutto

Neal was persuaded by the owner/host that duck foie gras and its fat are both excellent for cholesterol watchers. Little persuasion was required.

Then we proceeded to our main courses, but I only remembered to take one photo.  (Not pictured, alas:  I had duck steak, which is duck breast sliced the long way, and Janice had loup, fish.)  The Bloughs had duck confit, that lovely leg of duck slowly cooked at a low temperature while submerged in duck fat.  It is then stored for several months, completely submerged in duck fat, which makes the otherwise tough leg meat ever so unbelievably tender.  The duck fat melts at room temperature, so it does not clot when consumed but is more like olive oil.  The greens are Swiss chard, both the green leaves and white stems.

For dessert, several of us had crêpes flambées, which were made close to our table--a great show. 

Profiteroles with three kinds of ice cream and an unbelievably dark, rich chocolate sauce, one of the establishment's specialties.

One final food-related photo.  During my meandering in the afternoon, I happened upon an interesting sign on a lamp post, listing some of the world's more famous vegetarians.

This afternoon I am going to visit Michel, the conductor of Friday's Pierre de la Rue concert.  Then I have no plans other than further meandering, camera in hand.  I also have to plan supper.  Tomorrow (Wed.) I will go with Neal to the seminary at Vaux for my third annual day of shooting for their archives.  We will get back by about 8:30, in time for the final meeting of the English class and its annual party.

All for now, with love from us both,
Evan