How to: French Revolution Night.

Hello and Happy Wednesday!

Le husband is French and I am German and we love to keep our traditions alive. In Germany or France, dinner is usually a light meal. Just some bread, cheese, sausages and a salad or olives and that is it. The whole family comes together, we all sit at the table, eat, laugh, live and talk about our day. In France you would enjoy wine with it and in Germany mostly beer. Then again, wine is fine with me, hah! When le husband and I had our little apartment in Manhattan there was a ritual we usually celebrated every Friday – French Revolution Night. Sounds funny, but we were looking forward to this all week. Le husband was in charge to buy the wine and I bought some french cheese (Le Rustique at a whopping $9.99 but who cares, right?), fresh olives and baguette. Done! So when we came home from work we talked about our day and our week while sipping on a glass of wine first to wind down. Sometimes we took our dinner upstairs to the rooftop of our building. Manhattan-life at its finest.

French Revolution Night is so easily done. All you need is some appetizers, red grapes that add this delicious sweetness to everything, Crostini, Baguette, maybe a dip or two, olives, a couple of different French cheeses and of course a (two) bottle(s) of red wine. (Le husband and I prefer Bordeaux)

Sometimes if le husband is in a really good mood, he makes his world famous French Onion Soup. One word: YUM!

I am German and our traditional dinner here looks somewhat like this:

Cheese plate is essential of course but if we want to add a delicious twist to our dinner, we switch over to the German charcuterie board. Once in a while I do enjoy a slice of ham, mortadella, salami, sausages, prosciutto or pâté with some mustard, black olives, cornichon pickles and bread. It really only takes minutes to put together and is also a great party/summer dinner if you have friends over. 

A charcuterie board is best served with cold beer, Lambrusco, chilled rosé or of course a glass of Bordeaux which goes to almost everything, right? When I was in France with le husband a couple of years ago I was amazed to see a wine fountain next to the water fountain at a restaurant. Gotta love France!