We had a major success at the Birth Control Bed & Breakfast yesterday. We fed real live French people Mexican food and they survived!
I don't think it is possible to explain (but I'm gonna try anyway) how terrifying it is to know that you are having your French friends coming over for dinner. The question of what to feed them becomes all consuming. These are FRENCH people. People who actually LIKE eating a minimum of 4 courses at Sunday dinner. And have eaten INCREDIBLE STUFF since they were 2.5 years old!
The pressure is insane.
Sure, I can now make a mean boeuf bourguignon and even a gratin dauphinois that'll knock your sock off, but it just seems odd for me, the woman who grew up on seafood and spaghetti, to offer typical French cuisine to the French. (The exception being Magali, who helped me finish off a huge casserole of gratin dauphinois all by ourselves. God, that was good!)
Hubster and I finally decided that for this occasion, we were going to be different. We were going to offer a real taste of something not French and, most shocking of all, we weren't going to offer a cheese course.
We started off with a 5-layer dip and, thanks to a former ex-pat, I whipped up a recipe of chicken enchiladas while Hubster made his famous chili. Of course, the two of us sat there eating green chilies before cooking with them to be sure we didn't over due the spice factor. The French cook with exceptional flavour but rarely with spice so we were both very afraid of overdoing the "heat" factor. Not nice to accidentally kill your dinner guests, now is it?
Luckily for us, we picked the right guinea pigs. None of their heads turned bright red, no one broke out in a huge therapeutic sweat, and best of all, they even asked for seconds. Finishing off dinner with a bit of banana bread and fruit, Hubster and I were pretty darn pleased with ourselves.
It was so nice to eat Mexican food. Guacamole, re-fried beans, sour cream, salsa, chilies: happiness on a tortilla chip. My only concern is that I'm worried our friends might get a little Montezuma's revenge for their gastronomic straying. Too bad we didn't have any Beano to offer before we started eating!
It'll be Hubster who suffers though. These friends are his co-workers. And they share a very small office space.
Tee-hee.
2 comments:
Glad your Mexican dinner turned out well. You are lucky we didn't crash it. I was having a hankerin for some Mexican food yesterday!
So glad I'm not the only one that starts to freak out under the pressure of cooking for French people. :)
Sounds like a great meal - I'll bring some beano!
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