Latke Party

Last Friday night, to celebrate the last night of Chanukah, we headed over to Rachel and Adam's apartment for a latkes-and-dreidel party. We met some new people, enjoyed delicious potato and potato-and-zucchini latkes, and played "aggressive" dreidel with fine Polish vodka and French candies.

Sides for the latkes included smoked salmon, herring, cucumber salad, and apple sauce. Quite a spread!

Lighting the Chanukah candles. As usual, there was some disagreement about whether to light left-to-right or vice versa. And as usual, left-to-right won out. I look on as Adam lights and Debbie sings.

Post-dinner dreidel fun with Fabien, Adam, and Adam's brother Josh.

Lizzie looks on with apprehension as Rachel manifests drunky-drunkness.

In our game, Lindt truffles were worth "3" and were highly coveted. The game broke down when people hoarded and then not-so-surreptitiously consumed all the truffles.

Thanks for having us over, Rachel and Adam!

Happy Chanukah!

We couldn't wait for the holiday to start, so we actually bought each other our first presents Wednesday morning, during a tour of the various kitchen stores around St. Eustasche/Les Halles. (More on that soon.) Louis got me a Chef's knife (second year running!) and I got him - drumroll, please - a crêpe pan! And of course that meant we had to make crêpes, stat.

We filled our first homemade crêpes with dark chocolate and banana. Delish!

Tonight, to officially ring in the holiday, I cooked up a menorah from scratch, using a pan, some aluminum foil, a flour/salt/water dough, and tea lights (call me Mag-gyver).

Louis surprised me with more presents - I got a butter warmer! And Louis got (himself) a book.

We had to try out the butter-warmer by making crêpes again, this time with a special filling I'll post about later. (Hint: it starts with "q" and ends with "uince.")

Can't wait to see what the next 7 nights will bring! Happy Chanukah!