Happy New Year!

With everyone bringing something for tonight's meal, there was no real cooking for me to do, just the veg. However, I'd not been able to resist some fresh cranberries in the supermarket so I set about making a sauce from Delia's Christmas cookbook hoping that Martine wouldn't think I was interfering with her main course. It was delicious, by the way and complemented the beef very well.  http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/main-ingredient/cranberries/cranberry-and-onion-confit.html 
We kicked the evening off at 20h30 and spent a few very pleasant, though not riotous, few hours together
Menu:
Apéro: Oysters (Armand et Marie-Claude); Iberic ham, still with its foot (Jean-Jacques and Claudie, his sister) which we took in the kitchen
À Table:
Smoked salmon; foie gras (Armand and Marie Claude)
Beef Wellington and gravy (Martine); sautéd potatoes, green beans and cranberry sauce  (Me)
Cheese Board (Henri and Michèle)
Chocolate and Salted Butter  ice cream yule logs (Henri and Michèle). We all had a bit of each!
Red and white wine (from Claudie's vineyard)
Canellets (little cakes, a Bordeaux speciality) each one being presented in it's own little box (J-J)
Champagne (Us)
Coffee and liqueurs (Us)
It was a good evening and we didn't see the hours pass and openned enough fizz to celebrate New Year in France and in UK, an hour later. Thought the London fireworks were spectacular; shame people had to pay to get ringside views. . Christian did very well to last so long but fell into bed as soon as everyone left at 3h30. I washed the glasses, tidied up a bit but abandoned the most part at 4h until after a good sleep.
Weather:
11°, sunshine and blue skies, wind still present but not so strong
Headlines:
A young Belgian tourist aged 25, won over 519, 000€ in a slot machine in the casino in La Rochelle for 60c. What a way to start 2015! An regular "elderly" player who was interviewed bemoaned the fact that he wasn't a regular and another who had just won 120€ moaned that this was derisory. victor Meldrew is a alive and well! Dear Lord, please save us from becoming such old miseries.