Christmas Eve dinner at my gourmet daughter and husband's: a Julia Child menu!

[CTyankee]

The theme was the first meal that Julia Child ate in France, taken from her book "My Life in France."

The menu was the same as Julia's meal primarily: oysters, salade verte, sole meuniere, but with Pouilly-Fuisse instead of Pouilly-Fume (son in law's boo boo!)and we substituted creme brulee for Julia's cheese course.

After the table had been cleared and the kids departed for TV watching, we sat at the table finishing the wine and my daughter read aloud the passage about the meal from Julia's memoir...

We laughed about it later...I said most families read the Nativity story aloud, but we read Julia Child's account of a truly memorable meal...

[yellerpup]

1. What a delightful way to celebrate!

You must be very proud of your daughter. The meal sounds like pure bliss. :hi:

[CTyankee]

2. Thanks. It was the BEST. Both dtr and son in law are excellent cooks and they

LOVE to entertain. The oysters were from PEI and are particularly tough to open but my son in law could do it! They served the raw oysters with champagne vinaigrette with chopped shallots...divine...a very cool evening!

[grasswire]

8. so it was a take on sauce mignonette?

Mignonette is usually made with shallots, pepper, champagne or white wine vinegar. But this had drinkable champagne in it?

[CTyankee]

9. Ack, I temporarily forgot the term "sauce mignonette" ...actually, my dtr

couldn't find the champagne vinegar and we had to settle for the white wine vinegar she keeps on the shelf, but of course it had the shallots and pepper. No drinkable champagne in it. But it was just wonderful and son in law made quite a bit of it...believe me, we slurped (literally) it all down with those oysters, which were quite large. All the seafood and fish were from Legal Seafoods in Boston...we were just lucky that they had the PEI oysters on Xmas Eve. I cannot tell you how insanely good they were...

[yellerpup]

10. Lovely, lovely!

I am not a jealous person, but that meal makes me wish to be at your daughter's table. Well done! :applause:

[CTyankee]

11. I was pleasantly surprised that she did this! And she had planned it.

I think it was one of those "let your mind get creative" kinds of things...she had said she wanted to do a "Julia Child meal" but I had no idea what she meant. It was this, as it turned out...

As I've said, she and her husband LOVE to cook and entertain! I am happy to be there when they do!!!

[Phentex]

3. Hey, I made your minestrone...

do you really add the ditalini with the rest of the stuff? I thought a 1/4 c of pasta was too little so I added more (used pieces) and I waited a while before adding so it wouldn't get mushy. My family gobbled this up. Thanks for sharing.

Your holiday meal sounds wonderful!

[CTyankee]

6. I added just a bit more, too. Mine didn't get too mushy, tho and I cooked it a good long time.

Glad everybody liked it...like I warned, it is veggie dense!

[elleng]

4. Mais non! Creme brulee, pas de fromage? Mon dieu!

Avec amour aux touts!!!

[CTyankee]

5. je suis desolee, ma cherie Ellen...quel dommage...!

[elleng]

7. !!!

:hug:

[hippywife]

12. Sounds fantabulous!

So glad you all had a lovely dinner and a great time sharing your mutual interest. :hi:

[Beacool]

13. It sounds like you had a great meal surrounded by loved ones.

That IS what Christmas is about: love.

:)

[pengillian101]

14. What a memory.!

Wow!

[Tesha]

15. wow...

what wonderful fun!
We've done themes before - but we've never thought of recreating Julia!