Happy Bastille Day!

Happy Bastille Day!  Bastille Day is, of course, French National Day, observed every July 14th as the anniversary of the storming of the infamous French prison, the Bastille.  In line with our general philosophy of celebrating every holiday that we can, we had marked this day previously in years past.  However, since we actually studied the French Revolution this past year, it seemed appropriate to make an even bigger occasion of Bastille Day then usual.

Yesterday we invited some friends over to help prepare a French meal with us.  We started by munching on apples and a French baguette while we chopped up food for our main dish.

We then had meat fondue, cooking our steak, chicken, or sausage (consumed along with some fresh raw vegetables) in boiling broth rather than the more traditional, but less healthy or safe, boiling oil.

We concluded the meal with home made cream puffs--home made puff pastries filled with hand-whipped cream and blackberry curd homemade from berries our friends had picked themselves.

Delicious!  They were consumed almost immediately, of course....

Today I'm trying a less traditional dish.  I'm making what I am calling Lasagna Provencal--kind of a cross between traditional Lasagna and Ratatouille, accompanied by baguette once again.

If nothing else, you should at least mark the occasion by watching this video about the French Revolution from the History Teachers series that I've mentioned before:




Enjoy!