Happy Bastille Day, y'all!

It's been a wild and crazy night with lightning and such popping everywhere and the power popping on and off. It's calmed down now and I'm out on the front porch in the nice cool evening - which is a pleasant change!

We weren't overly ambitious this 14 Juillet and did a decidedly peasant-ish meal. In the past we've done everything from all day cooking extravaganzas to a simple picnic of wine, cheese, pate and bread.

We decided to strike a balance this evening and it's probably best as the power did go out at what could have been critical moments in the culinary world had we been creating anything out of the ordinary.

But instead, we had a zucchini and basil soup (our next door neighbor Rob keeps giving us zucchinis - which is absolutely wonderful - though it puts me in mind of the Zucchini invasion of 1977 when Lexy's mom made everything out of zucchini. It was a culinary marvel.) We followed that with our own take on gratin dauphinois which we have now dubbed gratin mobynois (as there was a very good chance that some Moby fur made its way into the dish...) which uses broth instead of creme fraiche. Oh yum! We are very pleased with ourselves.

Main course was lamb with a rosemary and garlic rub. We couldn't grill it as we had planned over a wood fire with fresh rosemary sprigs supplying the extra fragrance...but stovetop was a great second best. We had goat cheese and fresh bread and a Saint Emilion that was to die for.

I know - we're food geeks. But it's so much fun and keeps us mostly out of trouble.

Mostly.