Happy Mother's Day. Wishing all you mothers a wonderful day full of love and happiness.
Today is a bittersweet day for me. It's my first Mother's Day without mom.
But I have two wonderful boys who love their momma. Brunch at The Hermitage Hotel.
These are some of my favorite quotes. I just couldn't pass up an opportunity to post them.
Of course, we had a wonderful mother's day. With MJ, my SIL, and Kelly, my niece in town, how could we go wrong? The hub had made reservations at the new 1808 Grille in town. It was a lot of fun. We got in before the after-church crowd, so we had the place almost to ourselves. (You know Nashvul! Us heathens get in to eat before 12 noon! lol)
Posing before we ate too much.
Mimosas all around!
The flower arrangement on the tables.
They sat us right by the dessert table. Hmmm. Wonder if the hub had that one arranged? Make-it-yourself strawberry shortcake. Keep the shortcake, just pass the whipped cream, please?
Flourless chocolate cake with a cinnamon sauce. Some of the cakes were a little undercooked and we first thought they were souffles. Hmmm. The cinnamon sauce? Not too good. I preferred mine with the whipped cream, of course!
I don't know what this was.
The cold buffet was a little better than the hot. Sorry, but they have a lot of bugs to work out next time they do a buffet brunch. Live and learn. As I said, they just opened their doors so, maybe next year will be better. There's a lot to keeping so much food hot and fresh at the same time. (The best thing I had were the blueberry muffins. Per-fecto!)
After brunch, we decided to take a tour of the Hutton Hotel which is part of the restaurant--or should I say vice versa.
Kinda funky.
We even had them take us up to one of the rooms. Very W-ish.
After brunch, we ran over to see mom. She was happy to see us all.
We ended the day with Uno games way into the night. It was a perfect day.
We had the very best time Saturday night. It was definitely a girl's night out. And the bonus was we had a wonderful male chef who was classically trained in French cooking. Does it get much better? Hmmmm. Let me ponder that one.
We started out with a bowl of fresh broccoli soup from the chef's kitchen. I don't even like broccoli and it was fabu.
Chef was a little taken aback by our cute aprons since the school does supply their own traditional whites. But we stuck by our guns even though he said "There's no cutesy aprons allowed in my kitchen!" lol. (I found them on Etsy at Boojiboo's.) I think after he got to know us a little, he saw how we saw the kitchen, through rose-colored glasses. ha. It was just too much fun.
I truly think the highlight of the entire evening was our chef, Chef Jamie, who was absolutely the best. He knew his stuff, was a pleasure to learn from and he had a wonderful sense of humor, which is always a must for me. He has been taped for an upcoming Food Network show with Bobby Flay coming in June, I believe. I'll keep you posted on that one! He was just too much fun. Here he is with his best French "pout." We all just adored him by night's end.
He started with the Hericots Verts (green beans) which we blanched and then later sauteed. Mmmmm.
Chopping tarragon for the bearnaise, teaching us chopping techniques.
A stock pile of mmmm mmmmm good butter in the fridge. Oh my.
Cooking up the shallots and tarragon, etc. for the bearnaise. We had to remove some of the shallots. We went a little overboard. tehe.
Chef seasoning the steaks. Salt and pepper.
The girls--Sherrie, Kelly and MJ--preparing to sear their filet mignon. Are they not the cutest ever?
MJ going to town on her steak.
My niece Kelly is chopping button mushrooms like a pro for our duxelles. Her hub will be so proud!
This stuff was soooo good.
Even better atop a filet mignon!
All closed up and here's Sherrie putting an egg wash on top of the puff pastry. We all put a little decoration on top. Chef's idea. Now who's being cutesy?
Kelly, "Oh please Lord, let mine come out the best, please let it come out the best." Looks like prayers were being said by all! lol
MJ is scooting away after making some funny remark. We were yucking it up by this time.
All prayers were answered because our beef wellingtons came out absolutely perfect.
See? Are you just dying to take a bite? I wish I had more! The chef prepared each of our plates for us and it was a delight being "served," as you will. He was just a hoot. I hope to take more classes with him.
After dinner, it was time to cook our Crepes Suzette. First Chef made the orange sauce. Mmmmm. (By this time, I had a butter smudge on my lens. Hmmm, I wonder why???)
That's Armando in the background there with Sherrie and MJ keeping an eye on our flipping technique. He was soooo sweet.
Mmmm, into the sauce the crepes went. Flambeed and then served.
Oh my.
And a bonus to you, my dear friends, the recipe for crepes! (You can resize to an index card size if you wish.) I hope you enjoy. But it can't be as much fun as the girls and I had. It was just a delightful evening from start to finish. A big thank you to the wonderful Viking Cooking School for helping with the planning of our menu and a special merci beaucoup to our Chef Jamie!! Un ne soirée délicieuse a été eue par tous.
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