So I suppose that little thing called Christmas deserves an entry
After much dispute, presents were opened in the evening of the 24th, before dinner. By which I mean at about 7.00. Mine were well recieved, and to my surprise I even got a few myself! A France calendar thing; some soap/ a hand towel from Provence; a little hand-made baby from Juliette (age 7); and some chocomate. Yum.
There were canapé things througoutt he evening, but dinner proper didn't start until about 10.00. First were some shrimps or prawns, no idea which. Very messy to eat but very yummy. Following that was the main course, some sort of meat that I'm told was duck but I don't believe them. It didn't taste at all like duck, or any sort of bird for that matter. Ah well. I still ate it happily :) Desert was Tiramisu. Yum.
By the end of all that it was approaching midnight and I was very proud of myself, for I had managed to avoid overeating whilst still eating everything I wanted to.
Christmas morning I din't get out of bed until almost 10.00...! Very nice. I didn't manage to go to Church but ah well. I didn't want to be a bother like that and I have no idea what the cathedrals are. There's one just down the road but it has a total of zip signage, so oh well.
Lunch was another big affair, starting again with canapés. Smoked salmon and foie gras for entrées. Mmmm to the salmon; not so much to the foie gras. Main course was a sort of venison, but from the doe rather than the deer. That was yummy. It came from NZ, funnily enough. Desert was fruit salad which was also good.
Todaaaaay I tried to make a pavlova. I had lots and lots of problems along the way. First was the small matter of malt vingar, which I couldn't find anywhere. There was red wine vinegar, white wine vinegar, cider vinegar, colourless vinegar, coloured alcohol vinegar and million of different types of vinagrette but no malt vinega. What the hell. Malt vinegar is the most common stuff in my world.
I'm still unsure aboutt he cornflour. What I bought was flarine de mais, which everyone thought was right, but it was yellow. Cornflour isn't yellow, is it? Who knows.
Next was the ancient electonic beater. I had to stop before I was finished mixing becaue it was threatening to overheat, and I never quite managed to get the mixture thick enough to form "stiff" peaks.
In the end the pav came out alright, if a little flat. Now for the cream! What sort of cream? Umm... normal cream. Crème fraiche? Crème anglaise? Um no? For beating.
Insert another five types of cream here.
Castor sugar? Didn't even bother. Used normal sugar.
In the end I managed to find what I believed to be the right sort of cream but actually wasn't. It refused to be beaten. It didn't go as far as bringing down section 59 of the Crimes Act, but it came close. So I made do with half-beaten cream.
It turned out alright, I supose, for all the glitches that appeared along the way. Went down alright, too. I should have taken a photo.
Well that was a longer entry than I intended.
Oh and SOPHIE! See my reply to your comment in mmy last entry :D