With everything that’s been going on, I wasn’t paying attention to the fact today is Bastille Day. We usually celebrate and under the circumstances, I just can’t pull together the really fancy meal. That would be beef tournedos with peppercorn sauce, potatoes dauphinois, haritcots vert, and tart tartin (or chocolate mousse made from scratch). Tonight’s menu will be the less intense modern version of coq au vin although I did get bacon to render, shallots, and I am using bone-in, skin-on chicken. What I am not doing is cutting up a whole chicken, finding lardons, and making a bouquet garni. I also confess to having bought chocolate mousse cups from Jello, but I did look in the dessert freezer section just in case there were some authentic ones there.

Anyway, this gets us close enough. In actuality, the way we started celebrating Bastille Day was many years ago the first summer we were together. The wonderful Baltimore Aquarium did a Bastille Day sunset harbor cruise and we were able to enjoy that two years in a row. Although we’ve missed a few years because of schedules, we’ve been able to celebrate properly most of the time. I don’t actually think there’s any French ancestry on Hubby’s side of the family and I don’t recall where it is on mine. I’ll have to check that out again one of these days. I know there was someone on my paternal side and it might be maternal as well.