Oh (la la) what a night...

Following careful planning (often over a wine or two) our French night finally came to be and, oh, what a night.

It all began when Andy Dale, landlord of our beloved Gatehangers Inn, Ashendon, suggested we Belles ‘take over the pub’ for a night. It captured our imagination. We had planned, anyway, to host a murder mystery based on the evening we all enjoyed for Chris Reeves 18th birthday (loosely based on Allo Allo). So it was decided we would change that plan and host a French night in Gatehangers.

We quickly agreed that each of us would prepare one course and ‘The Menu’ became the entertaining subject of many cycle training rides and then, eventually, came the very enjoyable process of test cooking and team tasting.






Each course had its own mini drama.

Canapes – by Amber – a selection of vol au vents:
Amber struggled to find vol au vent cases on Thursday night and plumped for DIY version after good advice from a lady in Asda. She was up until 2am trying to achieve this and failed. On Friday Waitrose came to the rescue and Alex made the mercy dash to collect them. The cases were then baked in Pollicott ovens various ready for Amber’s yummy fillings to be added last minute.

Soup – by Sian – French Onion with Gruyere and French bread.
Sian’s work and netball commitments meant the only time to chop onions (lots of them) was 10.30 pm on Thursday. Once again this became a team event as Alex, Steve and Andy all pitched in to get the job done by midnight. The onions were then caramelised between 6 and 7 am on Friday and the soup was finished off on a ‘just in time’ basis!

Main – by Alex (and Steve) – Coq au Vin with roast potatoes, green beans and carrot batons; with a vegetarian option:
The challenge was finding large enough pans to cook it all in so Sian called on her ‘friends in scouting’ and Liz Johnson of Brill scouts came to the rescue and delivered pots of all shapes and sizes in the run up to the event. There was also heavy negotiations by Vicky and Des to purchase the coq, and Parminters butchers (Haddenham) came up trumps by selling us their very high quality meat at a more low price so, we can only recommend you all go shop there from herein.

Sweet – by Vicky – Tarte Tatin with Pavlova as an alternative choice.
A relatively straight-forward, though time consuming, production that only required sharing of ovenproof frying pans between us all for Vicky to bake her tarte in.

Gatehangers is equipped for around 20 guests and we had 38 booked in so our final challenge was to find enough crockery, cutlery and glasses which we borrowed last minute from our fantastic village hall.

Finishing touches were also begged and borrowed. Isalda (my special French friend) came up trumps supplying the crowning glory flag and large Eiffel Tower and Joe (my son) handing over his very impressive Eiffel Tower collection for our table decoration. 

The logistics of sitting 38 people together in the pub restaurant required several site visits and the agreed table lay out seemed to be a winner – until we tried to walk between the tables when people were sat down! Soup was passed along sportingly by our guests.

How they laughed at my role based, time plan spreadsheet but it got us through the night swimmingly – never again can anyone justifiably scoff at my pre-planning processes. The only thing I didn’t allow for was bread cutting – enter Deb from stage right and all was resolved (thanks Deb).

With Andy ‘trained’ over several evenings to serve at the bar, ably supported by super salesman Roger (and Sonia standing in last minute to help him out) we were ready to greet our guests.

The food was fabulous and the entertainment worked!






The music quiz was well planned and seemingly well executed until I discovered the ‘shuffle’ feature on my iPod was turned on and... aah well... it added to the humour of the evening! No-one seemed to mind that Annalise and I failed to find a winner as everyone had most of the songs but not in the same order on their answer sheet. David Crwys-Williams stood up to the mark and auctioned our ‘exclusive’ music quiz prize – Les and Lesley were so pleased to win it that they donated it to Gatehangers and I am thinking an annual quiz now has a suitable trophy.

Some strange liaisons

French Connections went better – this game requiring guests to find a partner to the name found under their chair. It led to excitement, an opportunity to stretch and to meet new people before tackling the puds. I think, however, Michel is still hunting Albert! And Obelix is still wondering why Cleopatra’s needle did not welcome her with open arms!

I could go on and on about the evening for hours but I won’t. This bit says it all - donate what you think it was worth we said - £1,120 was the response.

Tres bien, c’est fantastique.