A Fiftieth Wedding Anniversary

Rare as hen's teeth nowadays...

Ok, those aren't hen's teeth but parmesan toasts with fresh basil, garlic, olive oil and cherry tomatoes. But if you didn't know any better you could be mistaken...

I don't know too many people who have managed to stay together for so long. My grandparents did, and now my aunt and uncle have reached this momentous and significant stage in their lives. My cousin had a party tonight to help celebrate her parents anniversary. And this being my cousin, it was done in style, with 18 people invited for dinner.

It does help that she lives in a house that could be in any house & garden book. Heck the garden comes fully equipped with starfruit, as well as guavas, clementinas, pomellos, grapefruit and anona - and if they are sneaky enough, they go out back to the fields and dig up potatoes from the moshav that backs onto their property.

There were little pizza toasts with gorgonzola and sundried tomato spread, shrimp with garlic and pernod, boiled salted almonds and freshly roasted spiced nuts to keep us going before dinner. I was grateful for a small whiskey to help me get my circulation going again after my scooter ride - I don't know what the windchill of 90km/hr is, but I shivered all the way there and even now, I am still shivering in spite of the hot waterbottle on my lap.

Now, admittedly, my cousin does have help, and they dealt with all the scut work, but my cous had organized beautiful flowers, including a centerpiece for the table, which was set with crystal and white linen. Her husband, who is the cook of the family, made a gorgeous, velvety pate, redolent of the extremely generous dose of cognac that it received, as well as the rice, gratin potatoes, salad, and chicken with dried fruit and carrots.

After dinner, and before dessert they had a short video with old family movies (long enough to be interesting, short enough to be appreciated) and then, as a special treat for the happy couple, a soprano from the Israeli Opera Company, and her accompanist, sang arias from la Boheme and Tales of Hoffman, Gershwin, and Rogers and Hammerstein, and gave the evening a bit of a highbrow feel. Again, not too long, not too short, just right. My cousin always gets things "just so".

Dessert was bought, and worth every cent.
Lovely maccarons filled with coffee, dark chocolate and vanilla butter cream,

and there was a very eye-candyish dacquoise cake that had
mocha butter cream spread lavishly under the curls of meringue.

I thought it was a very nice way to celebrate 50 years of happiness.

When I arrived home, chilled to the bone, I went online and discovered that the picture that I had entered into DMBLGIT had tied for the originality class. The other entries are really impressive - there is some serious food porn going on there! And to be included in such exhalted company... I am chuffed!