07 May 2007

Election night barbecue

Nicolas Sarkozy won the French presidency last night with a little over 53% of the vote. Ségolène Royal got more than 46%. All this was pretty accurately predicted by the polls and was not a surprise.

Callie sleeping on Walt's foot at noontime, when we had lunch outside

We really weren't paying attention, however, because we were having a back yard barbecue with our English friends from down the road. Janet and David came over to introduce their one-year old dog, Bentley, to Callie, and to meet Callie themselves. Their friends Samantha and Ben from Bristol, who are staying in the village this week, house-sitting for a vacationing French couple, also came along.

Bentley helping Walt grill chicken on Sunday evening

Walt cooked chicken on the grill over grape-vine stumps (which burn hot and steady) and we made a curried potato salad and some green beans in vinaigrette. We had roasted red peppers on toast with cream cheese as an appetizer. The red peppers are ones we grew last year, roasted, and the put in the freezer.

David (holding Bentley), Sam, Ben, and Janet (holding Callie)

The best news about the Callie-Bentley meeting is that Callie held her own with the energetic, playful older pup. Bentley is a beautiful little terrier. The two dogs chased each other all over the yard, and Bentley kept running right over Callie. She took a lot of tumbles and rolled all around, but it didn't bother her and she kept going back for more. You could tell she was really having a good time, and we didn't feel the need to be too protective of her.

Janet and Callie

After a while, Callie started trying to herd Bently around. That would be a collie's instinctual behavior. At several points, when Bentley stopped to catch his breath, Callie ran to him and tugged on his ear to get him going again. Once or twice she had him on his back on the ground. She is an amazing little 10-week-old dog — they both are amazing dogs.

David and Bentley

It was too dark to take pictures by the time the romping began.

Callie, 06 May 2007



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4 comments:

  1. Now are you SURE this isn't becoming a dog blog?

    I like the idea of the roasted peppers on tartines with cream cheese. I make the peppers a lot but am tired of just serving them more or less plain -- often with anchovies, a Catalan specialty apparently.

    Interesting to know they freeze well!

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  2. Ooh - curried potato salad sounds good. I made one with lardons the other day, but it turned out too vinegary.

    Roasted peppers with kiri (I assume) also sounds good. Thanks for the ideas, and again - you have a gorgeous daughter.

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  3. Amy, Kiri is one brand of cheese, though I remember it as being kind of salty. There's also St-Moret which can stand in for cream cheese. What I buy is called fromage à tartiner and I get it at Ed or Netto or one of the regular supermarket chain stores.

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  4. Eh bien, ce barbecue est bien sympa ;-) J'aurais bien aimé y être mais pas en tant que p'tite souris d'autant plus que Callie doit aimer "courser" les souris :-)

    Dites, va falloir venir en Normandie présenter Callie à notre Filou pour que les relations internationales soient au beau fixe entre nos animaux respectifs :-)

    Sinon, ici, le temps est redevenu gris... souris, mais pas très froid... Le rhume est de la partie en ce qui me concerne, alors, jus d'oranges frais et miel sont au programme en ce jour férié... As-tu vu que Sarko était à Malte :-) ? Bises. Marie, sinusitée !!!

    PS : as-tu entendu la gaffe faite par Bush quand il s'est emmêlé dans les dates 1776, lol, versus 1976 lors de son discours à la Reine Elizabeth II ?!!!!!!!!

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