Entertaining your friends with a country French dinner is as easy as saying Bienvenu Mes Amis. It may be the middle of winter, but the French aromas from your kitchen have a way of offering a warm welcome. We have selected to serve an Americanized Bouillabaisse along with a fresh salad with orange sections and a Coeur a la Creme, the ambrosial cream dessert so often associated with Valentine’s Day, for dessert. You’ll understand the orange sections for the salad after reading the recipe for the Bouillabaisse.
This elegant fish stew-soup come originally from the Marseilles area of France. Our version uses ingredients easily available in the United States, but feel free to substitute fish and shellfish available in your local fish market. If you find lobster, the usual shell fish for this dish, at a reasonable price, have the fish monger steam and clean it and then cut it into six pieces. Add it at the last minute instead of other shellfish. Remember when you substitute to keep in mind the exchange size. To help your fresh shellfish to not suffocate, store them in a colander or strainer, uncovered, in the refrigerator.
The dessert needs to be started the day before you are going to serve it which is a great help when you are entertaining. We can get fresh berries the year round, but if you can’t, use fresh pears or very thinly sliced apples which have been dipped in lemon water.
To decorate your table, we suggest a Pierre Dieux fabric or any country fabric which has a blue background along with fresh flowers. If you have ceramic animals, especially roosters, they will ad to the country atmosphere. In our trips outside of Paris we have often encountered the use of unstructured arrangements which we have tried to reproduce here.
A fresh baguette, some light red or crisp white wine ( French, please) for your friends, and soon they’ll forget the problems in Washington and focus on the fish soup you are serving. You may wish to tantalize their taste buds with a hot rouille made with chili peppers to top the Bouillabaisse, but beware this can be almost lethal to someone who cannot tolerate the heat of chiles, so ‘a little dab will do you.’
For other decorations you may elect to search the house or your local shops for flags, French sous or coins from the bank, or inexpensive French trinkets for the table. A beret on the bust in your living room or foyer will add a smile to your guests, as will some copies of books from the library written by French authors scattered on the cocktail table (translated into English so they can read them, of course). Posters of vineyards, chateaux, and the Loire River are easily recognizable as are examples of French crystal, pottery, and art, even if copies. And, don’t forget, since we are having fresh fish, decorations from the seaside or better yet, the Riviera. So get your thinking cap out and decide on your table theme and then on to the meal. Bon appetite!
(for the recipes, click on The Recipes or click on the individual recipe above)
