Feeding The French

We have a dinner party organized for tomorrow night. It’s probably the first sit-down occasion when we’ll have a few French people present and it’s giving J and myself nightmares. We’ve met these people a few times before when our friend Helen has held soirees at her apartment in Nice, so they’re not strangers. But still – this could be a social disaster. It could all be on Facebook on Monday, or worse, on the local forum or even worse than that there could be French sniggers as we walk into the local bar next week!

The problem is what to serve for dinner. And more important than that, do we have canapés to start? And if we have canapés would it be ok for me to serve pickled onions and cheese and onion crisps with them? What about slices of chorizo? No, no – nothing spicy you idiot. And do I get good champagne or just the normal stuff? I haven’t slept for a week since J told me about hosting this dinner party.

When J and I were discussing it (sorry – when J was telling me that IT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN), I wanted to cancel the whole thing or just have a Barbie and make it easy on ourselves, but J had her own ideas. She wanted me to make Crêpes Suzettes but that would be culinary suicide despite the fact that I think I make a pretty mean pancake or crêpe. If I did make pancakes would it be ok to serve them with warmed up Nutella chocolate sauce or would I have to make the proper orange, lemon and liqueur sauce and set the house on fire as I tried to flambé them in a pan with cheap, Greek brandy? If I had a deep fat fryer (I’ve asked for one for Xmas), I could have surprised them, and surprised isn’t an exaggeration I suppose, with deep fried Mars bars! I suppose they would call them Mars bars en-croute.

As for the main course (you’ll have noticed we’re going backwards here), I suggested we do a rib of beef on the BBQ because, as it’ll be a warm night we’ll be eating outside on the terrace and there’s nothing like a barbie to make everybody feel relaxed. But the French will want their beef red raw, whilst I like mine to be well cooked and that’s not really possible with a single joint on the Barbie, so that idea was knocked on the head. Something I’d like to do to my wife for having the social irresponsibility of inviting Frenchies in the first place.

What about the starter? Will I try my mean French Onion Soup on them or should we stick to slices of Scottish sausage wrapped in puff pastry? What about the easy option of smoked salmon but then they’ll want to know if it’s French salmon, farmed or Canadian. Oh my god !

And then there’s the wine. I drink plonk but I do try to take a reasonable bottle when I go visiting (about €2.50) but the first thing the French will do is look at the label and it’s at that point that things could go downhill if I’m not careful and there’s absolutely no chance I’ll use my wine boxes – sacre blue! Maybe I should just pour some plonk from my wine box into a decanter – nobody would question that would they? Everybody would think it was real good stuff but then they’d look for the tell-tale signs of sediment at the bottom of the decanter which you always get when it’s a really good wine. Of course ! I could put some cigarette ash at the bottom of the decanter – that would fool them.

What to do? What to do ? We’ll let you know how it goes. Wish us luck.