So, it all worked out just fine in the end- thank goodness our friends are so accomodating and all arrived about an hour later than I asked them to. It gave me the time to run to the shop for a few last minute things AND have a quiet glass of champagne, while enjoying the clean house and the lovely smells coming out of the kitchen. And also the time to listen to my Ipod shuffle and decide that Scissor Sisters was more annoying than cutely kitsch. Cesaria Evora, an old fav, took over that slot.
As you can see by the morning after photo of the dining room table, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. The lamb was a bit dry though, which was disappointing since I paid something like 55 euro for it at the butchers. It wasn't their fault though. I took the lid off for too long since I wanted the juice to boil down a bit and make the beans a bit crusty on top. Learned my lesson on that one. The walnut puffs were OK but I think the recipe needs to be tweaked. I just threw the walnuts in the food grinder with lots of parmesan, some flat leaf parsley, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper. I think next time I would add a clove of garlic and bread crumbs so that it was a bit lighter. And maybe instead of chopping the walnuts until they started to turn into butter I would toast them first and just roughly chop them. I was surfing the net yesterday trying to find other suggestions for improving the walnut flavor when I read a recipe that used walnuts and anchovies. Maybe thats the trick. I'll give it a try next time. I just didn't think that the flavor was strong enough, especially for an hors d'oeuvres. Any suggestions are welcome...
The only thing that I think turned out perfectly gorgeous was the tart. I used a recipe that I found by googling fig tart and everyone loved it. I decided to double the filling, since just one batch barely covered the bottom of the crust but that might have been a mistake. It was so rich that you really could only eat a tiny piece. Other than that, the flavors were perfect- the buttery almonds, the hint of spice from the cinnamon and nutmeg, the sweet figs; this is a dessert that screams "fall". Definitely going to copy it into my recipe file since I love figs but I think its hard to find good recipes for them. Generally, I just throw them under the grill with some brown sugar and eat them with cream and biscuits.
We drank far too much at dinner- my excuse is that everyone brought such nice bottles of wine!- and rather than go out with my girlfriends afterwards, as I had planned, I made it an early(-ish) night. I would have gone out if I knew that I would be able to find a taxi home but since we live in Paris, that is a pretty big 'if'. I'm going to plead sore feet over drunken laziness on this one. After slaving in the kitchen all day, I had no desire to walk home a mile in high heels at 3 am. I was still feeling guilty for acting like such an old woman, but the next day, even with a good 8 hours of sleep under my belt, I hardly moved off the sofa. Thats what Sundays are for, I suppose. Still, we only managed to finish up the cleaning at around 9 pm the next day. And that is taking into account Daylight Savings.
Next weekend, we are doing brunch. The nice thing about having people over for brunch is that you really can make your guests bring most of the menu with them. Must remember to go out and buy coffee mugs, though. I had a bit of an incident with a sink full of dirty mugs and my extra large Le Creuset casserole...