* Between The Sea (the Med) and The Alps -- {Pronounce: ontruh la mair eh lay zalp}

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Putting on the green

Green 1Happy St. Patrick's Day to all my faithful readers.  When I was a kid, if you didn't wear green to school, you got pinched.  Do kids do that anymore?  I guess now it would be called bullying.  But I know we always tried not to forget! 

Perhaps that's why I still always think about being green on this date, whether I succumb to the temptation or not.  Now that I'm all grown up, I had some friends over for dinner recently and created my green theme with my table setting (well, yes, I did wear shades of green on my body, too, but not out of fear of being pinched!).

Green 2
Being green

As this particular dinner involved kids and was thus more of a family affair than most of my more adult affairs, I tried to gear the evening to involve them rather than their just having to endure their parents' evening out. 

Just as I attempted to make my recent Valentine's menu follow as much of a red theme as I could, I tried to follow a green theme for this dinner.  So we started with a green salad!  That was easy.  But for the main meal, I chose to repeat the mini-wok main course with non-green chicken, thinking that kids might enjoy getting to cook their own dinner at the table (which they did).  We did have a green vegetable side, however.

Green 3
Making memories with friends
Green 4
Having a great time

Green 5
Surprises are always fun

As we are also into the Easter season, I surprised the kids by making each of them a little Easter basket.  I didn't want to upset their mother by giving them too much candy, but I think my collection of different sizes of foil covered chocolate eggs was within reason, and I think they look really pleased. 

Too bad the contents don't show up in this photo; really, I didn't give them empty baskets!

Green 6
Don't forget me!
Green 7
Well, since you did not offer . . .

To finish off the meal, I served green ice cream (mint chocolate chip), which ended up being quite a hit.  Once again, Romea assumed she was an invited guest.  This time she got really cheeky; she decided that she was also entitled to actually partake!

Dinners in France seem to be more formal affairs rather than the spontaneous evenings we used to have with friends in the US; even this simple one involved setting a date in the agenda well in advance.  But it was still nice to be fairly stress-free and relatively casual and just enjoy being with friends normally too busy with family life to have a lot of personal social life.

And I got to enjoy seeing how I could pull off a St. Patrick's Day theme with absolutely nothing specific around the house.  Not being a green person myself, even just coming up with the color theme was a challenge.  But I think I pulled it off okay and had a lot of fun doing it.  I hope you enjoyed sharing with me!

4 comments:

  1. Even in the US, it's hard to get together with friends without scheduling these days! Looks like a fun evening.

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  2. I wore green clothes and jewelry, but the food was not green. I don't know if the school kids still get pinched, but I did hear an amusing story on the radio: an incoming afternoon DJ got pinched by an outgoing morning DJ, so on air she "called HR to report an assault." It was all in good fun, and when she asked if she was allowed to retaliate, she was disappointed to be told the rules forbade it since he had been wearing green.

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  3. I didn't wear green at all and nobody pinched me... of course, I'm not a school kid! looks like a lovely evening..

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  4. I don't know if pinching still happens, but I always try to wear green and most people at my office did as well. The green ranged from just a hint to a kelly green suit! That one really did stand out. I always say that I ought to wear orange because I'm Protestant, but I go along with the green theme. And then, of course, there are all the articles that say that old St. Patrick himself was no "saint" and that this whole St. Patrick's Day silliness is an American invention. Whatever. I just enjoy the silliness. And I don't drink green beer (or any other kind, for that matter).

    Your dinner party, as always, looked perfect. And it sounds like everyone had fun, including the kids.

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