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We, the family and I, are spending time visiting my mother, or Mamie as we call her, to celebrate both Mother’s day and her birthday. My sister and her family came for dinner and we ate great food as usual and took pleasure in each other’s company and conversation. My two kids are a bit older than my sister’s kids but they all get along really nicely regardless of the age difference. For dinner, my mother did all of the cooking, my sister and I helped by setting the table, getting whatever my mother needed and with cleanup. Mamie made us a wonderful seafood soup as an appetizer, she followed that with a rib eye roast cooked perfectly at rare and a tian of tomatoes, potatoes and zucchini with grated Swiss cheese put under the broiler for a crunchy golden melted crust crowning the caramelized juicy, tender vegetables. She also prepared fresh English peas, steamed and then sautéed with onions in a little bit of butter. Now if all that wasn’t enough, dessert of the highest caliber followed, a Saint-Honore. The Saint-Honore is a sophisticated dessert involving puff pastry as the base of the cake with cream puff pastry dough to make the cream puffs used to make a walled circle around the base which is then filled with a vanilla pastry cream and whipped cream. The puffs are attached to the pastry base with golden caramel. It is a picture of fluffy creaminess, it isn’t what I would call light and airy but it isn’t heavy either. The dessert achieves the perfect balance of everything, flavor and texture. It is no wonder that Saint-Honore is the patron Saint of French bakers and pastry chefs. Tomorrow we are going back home after lunch, and as luck would have it, there are leftovers. Seafood soup and Saint-Honore, hooray for us, more good food before we hit the road.
laurieanichols 