Soren as Supper Guest (8.11.24)

Our treasured guest for Sunday dinner on August 11, 2024 was Soren Flindt.  He was just a month old, but already wide-eyed and a great dinner companion.

I am scared of little babies now, although I raised my own with aplomb.  Michael K handed me his brand new son, and I found Soren delightfully cuddly.

Taking photographs at dinner is always a bit random, as I dash about, cooking and serving.  I captured Mike and Heidi enjoying my dinner rolls, but I didn't get good photos of anyone else.


 

Beef wellington was the entree.  This was my fourth try, and I got it right!  I smeared a beef tenderloin with mustard and sauteed mushrooms, and then wrapped in puff pastry and baked it.

Since this was a British meal, we started with mulligatawny soup, an inheritance of British colonists in India.  My recipe called for as many spices as an Indian curry.

Heidi adores sticky toffee pudding, as do I.  Heidi shared her favorite recipe for that treat, which is on the menus from London to Dublin and Edinburgh.

The mulligatawny soup reminded me of my own adventures in India.  I traveled back and forth through India as a little girl, within ten years of India's independence from Britain.  My family vacationed in Darjeeling, a "hill town" in northeastern India, where the British retreated from the heat of India's plains.  The British colonized India in the 1700s, so there were many years of British culture seeping into the subcontinent.

I also visited Jonny and Jenny in Delhi in 2008, as they completed an internship with nonprofits.  I stayed in an old British colonial hotel, and hired my own car and chauffeur.  The driver dressed in a white uniform and spoke British English.  There was definitely still a bit of the Raj in India's culture.