Mastering the Art of a Julia Child Dinner Party

I just celebrated another birthday, but this time, I brought the celebration to my friends - via Julia Child. I've been a longtime fan of hers as I mentioned in a blog post a while back, and after watching Julie/Julia with a glass of wine in hand one too many times, I decided I wanted to spend my birthday with a full Julia experience.

A few cute decorations were in order, but I didn't want to buy a bunch of random items I wouldn't be able to use again, so I got creative. Since our dinner table is small, I pulled out a card table and then just got a nice, clean tablecloth to cover it. On top I have some antique blue mason jars from my grandma that I put some simple roses in. On a trip to World Market I came across a cute little Eiffel Tower replica and chalkboard for a perfect Julia saying - Bon Appetit! Votive candles and wine corks did the rest - along with Edith Piaf playing in the background to set the mood.

Like any dinner party, if you plan well enough, it's quite simple to pull off. Luckily I had a resource for recipes (Mastering the Art of French Cooking of course!). I thought a simple start of french bread and cheese paired with artichokes with a lemon beurre sauce would be a gentle way to start the evening. And, with my sister in town to be my sous chef, she tackled the artichokes from start to finish!

Thanks for the help sis!

For the main course, I went with the tried and true Bouef Bourguignon that I'd blogged about in the past. Although the dish takes about 4 - 4 1/2 hours from start to finish, there's a lot of down time perfect to clean yourself (and your kitchen!) up.

For dessert, I made the Reine de Saba (chocolate almond cake) from her book. It was simple and small, perfect for a dinner party without a whole bunch of cake leftover to stare me in the face for a week!

I had to dress the part of course! Pulling off the Julia look wasn't tough. A simple buttoned shirt, knee-length skirt and pearls were the basis, and I made my own Ecole des Gourmands pin. I had a wig sitting around that a few clever placements of bobby pins gave me the perfect hairstyle for the evening. The finishing touch was of course one of my trusty aprons.
The most important part of a dinner party is the company you keep. Many thanks to my gentle friends for spending my birthday evening with me, bring wine to pair with the courses and for dressing like Parisians!

Cheers to a gentle birthday!

Thanks friends :)

Julia's Beef Bourguignon

I loved reading Julie Powell's Julie/Julia in my rhetoric of food bloggling class back in college at UT (yes, get jealous). When the movie came out, I was just tickled! It may not be 100% accurate, but very entertaining and reminded me of why I love cooking and blogging.

Anyway, my lovely sister got me Mastering the Art of French Cooking, so like any Julie/Julia fan, the first thing I made was Beef Bourguignon. Never fear, hestitant cooks. While this meal takes time (about 4 hours from start to finish), there's plenty of down time. We even went to fly kites!

Julia Child's Beef Bourguignon: recipe link here. This was the perfect meal for 6 people, my great friends Meg and Matt came over to enjoy, it was such a treat!

Ok and now for the "big news" - after two years of working with an incredibly horrible laptop with an increasingly cracked screen, and lately broken hinges that I had to prop it up, a new laptop has come into my life and I LOVE it. See the pretty new toy below :) Now that I've got a decent machine, you can expect more posts from this happy blogger!