i decided to go whole hog and give her a Christmas/anniversary present of a multi-course meal for us and a couple of good friends with food from mystery books.  this was made much easier when my sister-in-law found me a copy of The Nero Wolfe Cookbook by Rex Stout and the editors of Viking Press.

anyone who reads nero wolfe knows that he didn't go in for frugal. the decision to go for russian caviar (i decided to follow all the advice i had heard and skip the beluga in favor of larger quantities of ossetra and sevruga) plus getting the freshest foods available (flying it in when needed), good wines and trappist ale got the cost up a tad.  (i never counted.)  what with that and our friends' great fondness for Babette's Feast got us to calling the meal babette's brunch despite the fact that it was an evening meal.  we ate for about 5 hours.

the experience was made more adventuresome by the fact that our first grandchild was born on the day we had scheduled and we ended up rescheduling for a week later (much to the disappointment of the produce).

one of the highpoints for me was making a booklet with the menu plus some relevant food quotes.  ever since then i've wanted to reproduce it on my web page with links to the recipes.

thanks to an operation to remove a neuroma in my foot, i've finally had the time to put it together.