Tuesday, July 20, 2004

St-Donat Feasts July 16-18

Nino and I headed to Montreal and then St-Donat for a weekend of relaxing, swimming, reading, drinking and surprise, surprise ... gorging!
 
Liane, Brenda and Carol Wiseman came over for a BBQ Friday night. Mum made chicken and shrimp brochettes with peppers marinated in a sesame vinaigrette - very tasty. Carol made Greek salad which was excellent though she claimed her oregano was dead and the taste of the salad wasn't quite right. We had white rice mixed with some curry and fresh peas too. For dessert we had angel food cake with strawberry/rhubarb sauce and Liane and Brenda brought these amazing little meditteranean cookies from Nocochi. We opened a Lake Sonoma Winery Old Vine Zinfandel that was fabulous - sweeter than most zins but just great.
 
Challah french toast for breakfast Saturday morning!
 
Lunch was famous Montreal "party sandwiches" and "flying saucers" - grilled smoked meat, turkey, salami sandwhiches on rye bread using antique Toas-Tite sandwich makers. (I just bought on EBay!!) 
  
Dinner Saturday night was a complete feast. We bought a tomato/garlic focaccia at Boulangerie St-Donat that we ate with some salad. Dad bought 4 huge lobsters (!) and we were able to do a side by side comparison of steaming versus microwaving (!!). I had read an article in the Chronicle about microwaving lobsters and in fact, the Chronicle was right - microwaving was better! The steamed lobster was good but a little tough - perhaps steamed a little too long. The microwaved was less tough and seemed to be a little tastier. Other bonus of microwave is less mess! The lobster was good, but comparing it to the steamed crab we had a few weeks ago - I'd choose the crab. Maybe it has something to do with the freshness? For dessert we had apple cranberry pie from the Boulangerie with vanilla yogurt  and some port.
 
Sunday lunch Mum invited a hoard of people for buffet lunch. Highlight was Mum's famous pickled salmon and great rose (don't know which one) that Gail brought us!
 
Sunday dinner - Carol was back this time with shrimp cocktail, and delicious grilled veggies. We had burgers, hot dogs, veal chops on the BBQ with baked potatoes. Carol's veggies were so tasty - peppers and eggplant brushed with oil and Herbes de Province. The best way to do baked potatoes is definitely in the oven (or toaster oven) - Yukon golds in 400 degrees for 40minutes to 1 hour.
 
Monday lunch we stopped at Santropol for a quick bite. We had suggestions from Liane and Dena for other fun places but we just didn't have time.