Bonne année et bonne santé! Happy New Year and Good Health!
This last year for Thanksgiving and Christmas, Tracy cooked our holiday meal, and extremely well done they were!
So for New Year Eve, le Réveillon de Saint-Sylvestre, I tried to make my lovely bride, Tracy, as close to a traditional French New Year’s Eve dinner as I could manage.
So after some research and shopping I felt I was prepared:
Seared foie gras: this time of year foie gras is everywhere. It’s a major menu selection for Christmas and New Year Eve dinners. Foie gras is incredibly delicious, I had no idea. I seared it about 30 second on each side. The good news: it was melt in your mouth perfect. The bad news: the high heat searing caused the smoke alarm to trigger.
Blinis with smoked salmon and caviar: smoked salmon appeared to be another favorite for the season. I also obtained a nice black caviar (not the wonderful and endangered Black Sea or Caspian sturgeon caviar you hear about. My pockets are not that deep.) The blinis, tiny buckwheat pancakes, were obtained from a store as we still struggle with baking in France. Tracy enjoyed both the salmon and caviar.
Polenta with black truffles. Truffles are a big deal in France. The polenta had shaved flecks of truffles throughout the pan-fried polenta.
A cheese plate with chèvre, camembert , and roquefort cheeses. It’s France, there MUST be a cheese plate. Tracy (and I) love chèvre (goat) cheese. I also included Camembert de Normandie (A.O.C.) and roquefort (A.O.C.) blue cheese both of which are “Contraband cheeses” that cannot be imported into the US since they are unpasteurized.
Additionally, I made meatballs, sausages, and sliced meats. We used to do this for hosting the kids during New Year Eve. It ended up that I had way too much food, but we enjoyed it over the next week.
Champagne. What is the point of living in France if you don’t enjoy real champagne for special event? Of course there was Champagne with dinner. (Although Tracy and I both love Italian Prosecco sparkling wine.)
Dessert: Chocolate and café éclairs from our favorite pâtisserie and boules de noël’ chocolat from the Christmas market in Square Gambetta.
It made a fun dinner with a new tradition to welcome in the new year.
An Italian Point Of View 
My mouth is watering and you were an cuisine rock star here, Alan! The smoked salmon blinis sounds delicious. But, please let me have a serving of the polenta with black truffles! I’ve never had truffles and they are high on my bucket list of food items I want to experience! Great post 🙂
I wish I could find a local “community services” school that teaches French cooking. I’d like to learn the local way of making the regional foods.