New Year's Celebrations

December 31st:  We got home from Grenoble around 3:00 and went to Dom and Olivier's house at 8:30 where we had an amazing dinner with them and their former neighbors, Martine, Michel, Isabelle, and Frédéric.  Unfortunately, I did not think to take any photos.  The food was to die for!  Here's the menu, if memory serves me correctly:  We had champagne and a variety of delicious hors d'hoeuvres to begin and then a tourte with ham and foie gras made by Isabelle.  Then we had a soupe aux pois cassés  followed by lobster tails (made by Martine) and rice.  Olivier served us a "trou normand" (pear-flavored digestif with pear sorbet) at this point to help us make room for the following courses.  Afterwards, we had boudin and scallops in a foie gras mushroom sauce, cheese, and chocolate cake with raspberry confit for dessert.  I don't think that I have ever eaten so well.  Poor Sam thought that each course was the last so he was about to explode by the time the end was really near.  He went to "check on Jed" before the cheese course, and we never saw him again.  He fell asleep in a chair in the living room.

Here's a photo I stole from Dom's Facebook page.  Olivier challenged me to eat this "stinky" Camembert, and I did.  It wasn't bad at all.  

January 1st:  Bénédicte invited us to lunch at her friend, Tristan's house near Dieulefit today.  Since we got in around 3:30 a.m., we were not extremely enthusiastic about waking up this morning, but after a little caffeine, we were ready to go.  What a beautiful day it turned out to be too!  It was sunny and warm enough for the children to leave their coats inside while they played by the river.  Bénédicte and Tristan served us foie gras, castrated rooster (I know that there MUST be a fancier name for this, but the explanation is what I retained.), potatoes, cheese, wine and coffee.  It was all delicious, of course!  We spent the entire day getting to know Tristan who is a documentary film-maker, acupuncturist, and homeless shelter worker.

The river running in front of Tristan's house

A vacation property owned by Tristan's landlord on the same property as his house.  It rents for about 500 euros a week.

The view from the side yard chez Tristan.

Me and Kylian and Mattéo

Jed and the boys