Sunday lunch – le déjeuner de dimanche

Le déjeuner de dimanche

Sunday lunch,  January 7 chez nous –  or “are we really eating all this holiday food again?”. Answer: yes. David, our writer son, and his family couldn’t make it for Christmas so we made up for it  with a late celebration and a sighting of Santa Claus (who made a special trip from the North Pole bearing loads of gifts.)

The picture above is of the  table with no one at it and before it became a total mess. On the menu: foie gras accompanied by Loupiac (sweet white wine, delicious), a tender pork fillet (filet mignon de port) and gratin dauphinois accompanied by a nice bottle of Julienas, a cheese plate with Munster and Reblochon and a galette des Rois.

The fellow in the background is a (formerly painted) wooden 16th century statue of Saint Anthony of Egypt. I remember the first time I saw this saint at my in-law’s apartment in Paris.To say I was intrigued is an understatement.  I don’t know much about saints and didn’t know which St. Anthony it was, and the first thing I learned about him was who he was not.

“Our” saint is not  St. Anthony of Padua, the patron saint of lost items.  He was born in Egypt in about 213 A.D., spent his entire life engaged in a struggle with the Devil and was the founder of Christian monasticism. His popularity reached its height in the Middle Ages; the black-robed Order of Hospitallers in Grenoble (France)  were a familiar sight as they went around collecting alms and were known by their bells and their pigs, which were given a special privilege to run free in the streets. You can’t see it in the photo but there is indeed a bell – and a pig at St. Anthony’s feet.

After Philippe’s parents died, we inherited the saint and he has been in our place ever since. I can’t even imagine what it was like when he wasn’t here. One day, though, I decided he looked sad. Then it occurred to me that when he was hanging on the walls of a church people looked at him from below. So I got down on my knees to see what they saw. His expression was totally different – contemplative but certainly not so sad!