Since I had given Suzette a duck liver for Christmas (food lovers will appreciate that a duck liver is a perfect Christmas gift) and we had made a ate of foie gras with it, we decided to build a dinner around it.
Suzette created the menu; an elegant sampling of charcuterie and cheeses served with a small plate mother’s fruit salad.
I heated a plate of chicken curry and rice for lunch with five vegetable pickle and Major Grey’s Mango Chutney as condiments on the side.
Then at 6:30 we began to prepare our dinner. Suzette fetched the bottle of 1995 Chateau de Yquem Sauternes we bought in the Maison de Vins in Sauternes.
I fetched the Pate of foie gras and plastic container of red and white grapes. Suzette plated the PPI fruit salad and refreshed the honey whipped cream dressing by adding yogurt to reduce its sweetness and drizzled the salads with dressing.
Then Suzette filled a Pyrex baking dish with hot water and soaked the bread pan Pate container in it to loosen the Pate and then de-molded the Pate onto a ceramic dish and added grapes to it. I sliced about two dozen cornichon and toasted the same number of 1 ½ by 1/3 inch squares of French baguette.
I made a cheese board with Swiss Gruyere, French brie, Norwegian Jarlsberg, and California Goat Cheese plus a small jar of green olive tapenade.
I sliced the small log of summer sausage and opened the jar of Harry and David’s onion and Pepper relish that Willy had given us.
After the table was set, Suzette lit the Christmas chandelier candle stick we recently bought and we opened the bottle of 1995 Chateau de Yquem Sauternes.
Willy arrived a bit after 8:00 just after we poured the first glass of Sauternes, so we poured him a glass and he joined us in our first taste of this great wine, generally included among the top ten wines in the world.
I decided we should drink from our Baccarat Crystal white wine flutes and American champagne goblets. There is an interesting story regarding the Baccarat crystal glasses. My family took a trip to Europe when I was 14 and Billy was 12. Mother had arranged to hire professional shoppers, so in England she visited Wedgwood and bought a set of Florentine pattern china. In France she visited the Baccarat factory and bought sets of the hand blown crystal and in Florence she had leather shoes made to order from a special shoe factory that carved lasts by measuring her feet. There was a dispute during the trip over the spending of money between dad and mom that ultimately led to divorce several years later, but Billy still has the Wedgwood and I have the Baccarat crystal.
The Sauternes was lovely, sweet, and full of Botrytis overtones. For more information, here is the link to the Wikipedia site.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sauternes_(wine)
A really memorable wine, especially with some duck liver spread on a buttered slice of toasted baguette topped with a cornichon.
We ate and ate and still had lots of leftovers.
After dinner we watched the broadcast from Times Square with Anderson Cooper and opened a bottle of Gruet Brut and poured some into Baccarat crystal glasses.
After we toasted the New Year, shortly after 10:30 we went to bed and Willy left.
A lovely News Year’s Eve in the time Covid.
Bon Appetit
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