The Wedding

My sister got married in a small town, an hour North of Paris, called L'Isle Adam. A friend of ours (who is the Mayor of the town) officiated the ceremony, and then held a beautiful reception at her amazingly charming house.

There were about 20 of us at the reception and we started with appetizers outside in the garden.

There were spicy radishes:

There was brioche layered with crab dip, and petit fours:

There were spinach and salmon, spinach and cheese, and crab petit fours (to name the few I remembered!) and they were perfect one-bite appetizers that complimented the champagne:

There were many rounds of toasts to the happy couple, and the champagne corks just kept popping! The weather was perfect and it was hard to bring everyone inside for dinner- until the food started being served. It was quite a traditional French feast and I made sure to document each of the beautiful courses. First, foie gras:

Served with an array of fresh, warm bread:

Baguette and cranberry nut bread

The foie gras was very creamy and peppery and worked perfectly with the sweetness of the cranberry bread. This was definitely my favorite part of the meal, and the dish I always look forward to eating whenever I'm in France.

The next course was steak with les haricots verts (green beans!):

The green beans were dressed simply with flavorful olive oil, salt, and pepper and the steak was cooked to a rare and tender perfection.

But the course that had the most "wow" factor was most certainly the cheese plate:

There were so many types of cheese that it was hard to choose (and, as a nod to the Americans, they put a small container of Philadelphia cream cheese on the platter!). I believe my choices were a chevre, a hard cheese that was tangy like swiss, and brie with some fig jam. Of course this was all served with even more bread. The presentation of this plate was incredible. It was as pretty as the flower arrangements and my sister's bouquet- in fact, this plate looks like it required even more attention to detail!

After a little bit of dancing to abate some of the fullness, the dessert was brought out- a cake made of colorful macaroons in all different flavors:

The cream colored ones  are vanilla, the light brown are cafe flavored, the dark brown are chocolate, and the green (my favorite) are pistachio. The macaroons are stuck to the cardboard cone with chocolate and to eat them you just pop them off with a knife! The macaroons were served with fig, chocolate, and vanilla ice cream:

The fig ice cream (the light brown) was so unique and addicting. It had a lot of cinnamon and nutmeg and big chunks of fresh figs. It was heavenly. I didn't have a chance to try any of the others because I was too focused on my pistachio macaroons and fig ice cream- but I noticed that the chocolate was the biggest hit. Apparently, the fig ice cream is an acquired taste- because most people didn't like it!

We danced the rest of the night to an amusing mix of both French and American "celebration songs" and drank more champagne. It really was a great celebration and I am so, so happy for my sister and my wonderful brother-in-law (mon beau frere)!!!