It's Me, Sara Louise

{Papa aka Ed Asner, Brother-in-Law in his special ‘Gap’ sweater, and The Husband, who I swear is not actually a giant}

Disclosure: This post is about my New Year’s Eve, and more specifically, my New Year’s Eve dinner. Please forgive my food photography, it’s horrible, like really bad. However, I did get a new camera for Christmas, and I’ve vowed to actually read the manual this time, so fingers crossed you’ll start seeing much prettier photos here. In the meantime…

Here’s the thing about New Year’s Eve… I’m not really a fan. It’s just so… “Look at me, I’m New Year’s Eve! I’m sparkly and shiny and the best time ever!” And honestly, I’m like, “shut the H- E- double hockey sticks up… you’re not, and nobody likes you” and then punching it square in the throat.

There, I said it.

But this year something fantastic happened, my New Year’s Eve was spectacular.

Not wanting to go out-out, we decided to stay in Le Petit Village and dine at Chez Agathe, our local restaurant, for their special New Year’s Eve night. Papa and his wife were going, along with their BFFs, The Germans, Brother-in-Law, Child Bride and of course, La Petite (because why shouldn’t she ring in the New Year instead of being tucked up in bed like a normal 21 month old?).

We were short one person though… my mother opted out. She’s not a big NYE person either, and usually volunteers to babysit for the night, so this time, she got to babysit Fifty with a bottle of Montrachet and a West Wing marathon (now wouldn’t it have made sense for her to watch La Petite along with Fifty? Yeah, I think so too).

We arrived at Chez Agathe’s at nine…. Champagne for everybody! (Starting off New Year’s Eve with anything else is basically blasphemy. And so what if we had already shared a bottle with my mother. C’est la vie, no?)

Flutes in hand we settled into our table while La Petite played with her favorite toy…

La Petite is clearly her grandfather’s granddaughter. Let’s just hope she doesn’t try and shoot it.

After the Champagne, we had Kir Royals and amuses bouches to nibble on (truffles on toast and boudin with something on top – I don’t know what that something was because I’m not a huge fan of boudin).

See that weird breaded thing in the little red pot in the photo above? I know that it doesn’t look like much but oh my Michelin stars it was divine! It’s an egg, soft boiled to perfection, breaded and lightly fried, atop a sauce of fois gras. There are no words to describe this egg, no words that can properly do it justice. It was the egg to end all eggs. All I can say is, it was sublime. I loved that egg.

So after the Champagne, Kir Royals, toasts topped with truffles, boudin thingys and the egg to end all eggs, dinner began.

Dinner was six courses (bonjour gout, ça va?). The entrée was a choice between Noix de St Jacques juste saisie et sa réduction au Champagne (scallops in a Champagne reduction) or Trilogie de Foie Gras Maison. I had the scallops and The Husband chose the fois gras. (Actually he wanted the scallops too, but I wanted to try both, so he caved and ordered the fois gras. One of the many reasons why I love him.)

And for the second entrée (that’s right… the second entrée… and we haven’t even gotten to the main course yet) we had Tempura de Gambas dans sa nage façon Bouillabaisse (Tempura battered shrimp swimming in a Bouillabaisse sauce. Another winner).

After amuses bouches and two entrées, we needed a rest and that rest came with a Pause Provençale…

After our ‘rest’, it was time for the main event, le plat principal… 

There was the Cochon de lait confit façon aigre-douce et sa pomme golden caramélisée (suckling pig with golden caramelized apples) which is what I had above. And the Civet de Lièvre en longue cuisson, comme le faisait ma grand-mere (Agathe’s grandmother’s Hare recipe). The Husband had the Hare and I would have taken a photo of it, but I was too busy eating. Apologies.

Because this is France, after our main course, we eat cheese… a lot of cheese…

That’s me on the left and Papa on the right. Why did we have this headlamp thingy at the table? I have no idea, I don’t even know where it came from or who it belonged to. But you can’t have a headlight thingy at the table without putting it on, right? Right. And do you see the back of a man to the right in the background of the photo of Papa? Well that’s some guy from England. Mrs. German had gone over and introduced herself when she heard them speaking English, then she called me over because of course I had to meet them. Because all English speakers in any non-English speaking country must meet and become friends. Those are the rules.

After the cheese we had café gourmand for dessert. It was another perfect course, but by that point, 2013 had already arrived and I was too busy playing with my new headlamp thingy and talking to English people to bother taking a photo.

And then to bid a proper adieu to 2012, I made everyone go around the table and say what they had loved the most about it, and of course we had to toast to each and everything that everyone said (because I like to make people participate in drinking games that they didn’t sign up for).

bisou