France, food, family, and friends

I spend a fair amount of time looking at the pictures in iPhoto on my computer.  I now have 30, 581 of them.  The vast majority of them are of France, food, family, and friends.  That pretty much covers my interests.  Yesterday, instead of grading papers during my free period, I started thinking about dinner.  That lead me to think about the pesto and cherry tomatoes I happened to have in the refrigerator.  And the box of bowtie pasta and can of olives in the cupboard.  That lead directly to thoughts of this salad made last year by O, Frenchie and fellow food lover.   He chaperoned the French students' trip to Durham. The search for the salad photo took a while.  (I got distracted by photos of the Eiffel Tower, food markets here and in France, picnics, baseball games, family trips to the beach...)
Anyway, this is O at the Durham Farmers' Market.  The Ex-Ex and I lost him and found him later eating a goat cheese sandwich made for him by Dave of Elodie Farms.  Sneaky Frenchie!  Savoring this deliciousness all by himself.  Embarrassed to be caught eating cheese for breakfast?  Around me?  I hope not since I would eat Dave's cheese any time of the day.  And especially on fresh homemade bread.

O's son loves to cook, too.  Here he is making a cake for his school's vente des gâteaux in January.  They held several bake/cake sales to raise money for their trip to visit us!

The ingredients for his gâteau au yaourt--

The sale was a great success.

I had some of the salad for dinner last night.  The Ex-Ex decided to have some of the leftover Easter Soup.  But I caught him sneaking bites out of the salad when he thought I wasn't looking... That's okay.  There are leftovers for dinner tonight!

I decided to add roasted chicken this time.
This is really good pesto from the supermarket.  Not homemade.

Olivier's Pesto Pasta Salad

1 16-ounce box of bowtie pasta, cooked al dente
Fresh mozzarella, cut into bites
Black olives
Cherry or grape tomatoes, cut in half
Pesto
Salt and pepper, to taste

In a large salad bowl, mix all the above ingredients.  Use as much or as little of the ingredients as you like or wish.
The roasted chicken was a nice addition, too.

Bon appétit, Olivier!  Merci pour la recette!