after waking up from a short nap of 3 hours, it was time to eat again. this time it is the christmas eve's dinner. everyone was waiting for us to get up?! we were so tired as usual. it took us an hour just to get downstairs.
everyone was enjoying hors d'oeuvres: escargots, mini tarte flambée, pigs on a blanket, and varieties of blinis such as caviar, salmon, and pâté. i didn't eat too much of the appetizers to save room for the meal.
the evening was a long one. we had cold lobster and they were huge. for taste we dipped them in ginger sauce or mayo. by the time i was done with the lobster i was stuffed. we had other food coming. next up was the duck stuffed foie gras with chestnuts, alsatian pasta (they are fluffy pasta), and bambi (soaked in red wine). The foie gras was really filling and tasty ... it has a tartness to it and bitter after taste contrasting with the sweet chestnut. the bambi has a tangy taste because it was soaked in red wine and it was oven baked and sliced. it has no strong odor or taste to it like i would imagine it similar to lamb, but it was soft and succulent.
annie did the wonderful table setting. we had lit some candles and gold sprinkled holly flower on our table on runners with golden stars printed on them. the napkins were deep purple.
i sat next to an almost 90 years old lady. people call her 'mea tou' as in grandma in laotian. she is full of charisma for her age. she lives by herself five minutes from home. she only know a little bit of french, yet she gets around town without any problem. after the lobster, she was stuffed like i was and didn't want to try any other food, so i cut a little piece of my duck and foie gras to have her at least try it. she was laughing at my gesture.
during dinner she was telling her story about when she was in laotian. papa did the translation. she was married to a frenchman who was a soldier stationed in laos back in the 1940s or so. after so many years stationed in laos he was asked to return home to france, but she didn't want to go to france with him. so she stayed in laos. they had a child together and after awhile the son when off to france and basically they lost touch. the son neighbor happened to be someone who search for long lost love ones and just so happened she was also looking for her son. they finally reunited in france and she stayed ever since. she loves to travel and recently just went on a trip on her own to asia. she traveled to laos, vietnam, and even to japan.
after dinner she performed a ceremony of blessing to the family. it is a laotian tradition to be blessed by an elder. we were blessed by her. we held a mandarin in our right hand and our left hand lifted to the left side of the head. we took turns as she held us by the right hand and placed bracelets on our wrists and chanted her wishes of good health, luck, fortune and love.
baby woke up after dinner was over at around 11pm and to keep him up we open up christmas presents earlier before the midnite struck. papa and annie helped dressed him up as papa noel. it lasted for an hour. we then had christmas logs. there were three different ones to taste: ice cream log made of vanilla and lemon ice cream, chocolate log with the most detailed decoration, and the cream log made with raspberry and vanilla mousse. they were all pretty to look at and tasted very good.
after that baby and i were koed! so we took our usual nap.
* im lie, kob chie means i am full, thank you in loatian
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment