Thursday, May 31, 2012

Eurovision and a week of making merry ………

You’ve probably guessed by now that we love entertaining friends and showing them our beautiful home town of Saint Malo and its surrounding area.  Well we have had the perfect opportunity this week with a visit from Nadia, a very close friend of ours who lives in Scotland.   Nadia is a young looking (and I mean very young looking) 70 and a real foody – she was a joy to have.

First things first I suppose, we were delighted to show her Saint Malo at its best with the most beautiful late spring weather, 27◦C and stunning blue skies and shimmering sea (a far cry from the 6-8◦C that she has been suffering in Fife……

A leisurely stroll around the heart of Dinan, with its charming ancient colombages buildings, a day out to peruse the stunning coastline around the Pink Granite coast, a property watching day surrounded by the Parisians owned villas and mansions of Saint Lunaire and Saint Briac sur Mer and joy of joys visits to as many food markets as we could manage. 

Two Araignee crabs were purchased from Saint Servan and lovingly (and humanely) prepared one evening and with an entrée of crisp fresh French radishes with melted butter and rock salt and cheese as dessert made a stunning supper.



In honour of Nadia’s visit we held a very jolly dinner party with Amelie and Benjamin our bar owning friends and feasted on ‘Chevre Chaud’, Boeuf Bourgignon with gratin Dauphinois, Roquefort and Elderflower Baked Alaska – all ‘fait a la maison’ as usual!



Saturday was a highlight of course with our first Eurovision party.  I am not going to discuss the result with both France and the UK performing very badly in the voting (although our French friends were happy that the French song was placed well above Englebert Humperdinks UK effort) and a winner from Sweden that was hardly memorable, as that was not the point - We had a party ……..



Danielle, Christophe, Benedicte and Patric and Francoise joined Nadia, Darren and I for a very tongue in cheek Eurofest.  Of course the song contest was important to us but so too was the food …… A beautiful  meze of tapas which Benedicte had prepared, Stuffed vine leaves, sun dried tomatoes, anchovies, flat breads, pepper tapenade, lentil dips and stuffed peppers – just lovely – followed by a paella made by yours truly (in our new paella pan I have to say ….) 


and a delicious mousse au chocolat courtesy of Francoise and Tarte aux Pommes from Danielle.  Despite the result we had a great time!!!

We sadly saw Nadia off at Rennes airport yesterday and today ……..

……well a quick refresh of our apartment and then a jaunt to the ferry terminal this evening to collect our next victims – Julie and Blue sitting on a Condor Ferries ‘fast cat’ as we speak.

More making merry we think ……….!