I met Elise about a year and a half ago when she moved to Chicago with her family and ever since we been trying to get together for a dinner at their house. The thing is that we always have canceled on them because the kids been sick or I’ve not been feeling well and so on. But finally yesterday we made it over for dinner and oh man, can she cook!

She had made an appetizer with prawns and when I asked her for the recipe she says “You already have at home” I am thinking to myself if I ever made this and then she tells me she took a snapshot out of my cook book “Barefoot contessa, how easy is that” by Ina Garten and used the Roasted shrimp salad recipe…lol. She paired this with a beautiful bottle of Clos la Maurassue from Graves, Bordeaux and it was such a perfectly matched wine to the dish.

The evening was perfect and we had a really great time and Elise had really put her heart into this dinner and she had made Boeuf Bourguignonne for the main course. I did not dare to ask for the recipe as I believe she might have had to kill me if she did! I also think to be successful with this secret family recipe you might have to have some French blood in you to get it right 🙂