Last week's Christmas pics were lovely. Thanks all.
This week is Festive Food and can include food for any festival, or even just a lovely place setting. Thanks .

No food on the table yet! This was my sister's table on Christmas day

Had a scrummy lunch at friend's house.

Every once in a while my we'll do a fancy "themed" dinner at my house - this is a picture of this year's "French" dinner before we sat down to eat.

Here are a bunch of blurred-out folks enjoying the food and wine at a party I went to the week before Christmas.

I'm sorry I was ill over Christmas and didn't even want to look at food. These tables look good.

I'm just admiring all those gorgeous table settings, and have remarked once again a difference in the French way of doing things, and the way in which I was brought up to set a table ...

In France (or at least among the circle of friends and social acquaintances that I have here) the glasses are placed not to the right of the plate, but centred behind it, and the forks (as I think I have mentioned before), are placed tines down ... I have gotten so used to seeing it the 'French' way over the last several years that it now looks odd to see them placed the 'proper' (for me) way

On the rare occasion I set a fancy table, I always put the glass centered above the plate. Didn't know that was a "French" way of doing it. Just the way I was brought up I suppose.

You need to read "The Art of the Table" by Suzanne von Drachenfels. She tells it both the US and European ways. Apparently the forks are laid tynes down as it looks less agressive!

My sister recently discovered that she has a knack for making Pavlovas - wonderfully light, not too sweet, ever so wicked



She made these two for a pre-Christmas party, and another for Christmas Day. I sampled all of them.

Oh Yum! My favourite!

..... and mine.

Here is a rather messy Christmas table! But it tasted good.

This is our buffet table - we had too many people present to have a sit-down dinner, so we had a buffet instead. We had three meats (ham, turkey and prawns) with four salads (potato, rice, ambrosia and green salads) and various accompaniments (breadrolls, gherkins, beetroot, devilled eggs etc).

We had four desserts as well, but these aren't on the table yet. One of the desserts was pavlova but because one of our family members is allegedly allergic to strawberries and citrus fruits, I couldn't made the traditional recipe. Instead I made a cherry and kahlua cream pavlova. It was yummy! I also made a mud cake and icecream terrine.

It doesn't sound a lot but I was cooking or preparing food for three nights prior to Christmas!

Thanks all for some yummy food pics. This week is devoted to the word "New" as in a brand new shiny clean, newborn year.