Preparing for the Pity Party (aka Drowning Our Sorrows)

One of the inspiring cookbooks today

Hi everyone, Rei here! Currently I’m breathing in the most heavenly scent of Laura Calder’s gougères that Mom just pulled out of the oven.

I just tried one, and it’s as good as it smells.

We’re making these for a cocktail party we’re hosting for all the parents of newly departed college students (Mom is calling it the “Drowning our Sorrows Party”).

Today it’s my turn to watch and blog while Mom cooks (and no I won’t be getting drunk). On the menu is an artichoke and olive tapenade, spiced almonds, and various veggies, hummus, fancy cheeses, and other snacks.

Spiced almonds, gougères, and artichoke tapenade.

And of course, we’re jamming out to Capital Cities while we do so.

We’ve decided our goal for this blog is changing from strictly Julia Child to a more broad idea of simply French cuisine. We will still attempt many (hopefully all) of Julia’s recipes, but will also broaden our view to other chefs and cookbooks. Feel free to recommend to us your favorite recipe if you feel so inclined!

This is Terri. Just finished the baking and prep for the informal get together. My husband cleaned up the backyard and finished the dishes. Thought I’d share some pics from the prep starting with the gougères. My Brazilian friend Lucila makes these and they are truly amaze-balls.

Prepared ingredients. Eggs are from our four chickens Hermione, Ginny, Luci, and Charlie.

I’ve always had a little trouble with making choux pastry. Today’s result was a bit better than in the past. My arm always gets tired beating the eggs into the dough but this time since there were only three eggs, it wasn’t too bad.

After two eggs were already beaten in; this is the last one. I used eggs from our chickens.

After the eggs, I added the shredded gruyere and put the dough into a piping bag. Piping onto the buttered baking sheets was a bit challenging and I didn’t know what size to make the dough blobs. I know for next time. They turned out great. Really a super easy recipe from Laura Calder.

Parsley and rosemary from our yard. The recipe called for more parsley than we had. Oh well.

Next up was the rosemary infused olive oil for the tapenade. This recipe is from My Paris Kitchen. Super easy. Olive oil, salt, rosemary, and flat leaf parsley.

By the time my husband got back from the store with the ingredients, the rosemary infused olive oil was done and I was ready to get the ingredients into the Cuisinart. Can’t wait to taste the tapenade with the olive oil on some toasted sliced baguette.

Olives, capers, artichoke hearts, olive oil, garlic, and salt. Easy peasy.

I was working on the almonds as I was doing the prep on the tapenade and nearly burned them. I think I was supposed to use raw almonds but all we had were roasted unsalted. Worked just as well. This is another recipe from Laura Calder’s cookbook. We used to make them all the time and then stopped one day. Can’t recall why. Maybe we got tired of them and needed to get out of an appetizer rut.

Toasted the almonds. Then added the peanut oil and spices. Mixed altogether and spread out on a plate to dry. Then popped them in one of my French bowls.

Now the champagne, wine and beer are chilling. Hubby is in the shower. Rei is watching something meaningless on their phone (Rude!~Rei) and it’s time for me to get cleaned up. Oh, and I put a few games out on the table just in case folks need a distraction. I honestly have no idea how many people we are having or who exactly is coming. Hope they aren’t easily offended!

Back to Rei to wrap this up.

Alright, Rei here again. I’ve not only been on my phone, but I’ve been sneaking some snacks when Mom isn’t looking, and let me tell you, they’re pretty good. The almonds are my personal favorite. (Wow! That was a surprise~Terri)

Anyways, until next time, have a fantabulous day!

Rei and Terri