It’s Bastille Day, a day when everyone, even an ethnically Anglo-Irish-Kraut like me, is allowed to be French. As un homme de droite, it annoys me that the I-love-France day celebrates the unpleasantness of 1789, but them’s the breaks. I shall say a prayer for the Vendee, and for the martyrs of the era, but go right on celebrating France, if not the Revolution.

We’re cooking French tonight. Dorie Greenspan’s mustard tart, using up the very last of the spectacular Maille mustard I brought back from Paris this spring; Provencal roasted tomatoes; French carrot salad; a red snapper preparation my chef cousin Daniel is working on; Daniel’s ratatouille; and for dessert, a pear tart Tatin made with pears from my grandmother’s backyard tree.

There will be rose and Sancerre too. Oh, will there ever be.

People, if you do a Bastille Day French dinner, I want some Views From Your Table. I’m especially talking to you people in this blog’s Paris bureau!

UPDATE: An Evans-Manning to Niall, writing from London in the comments thread:

As an Englishman, I’ll be observing my usual Bastille Day tradition of landing on the French coast in a rowing boat by moonlight, riding hard to Paris, rescuing a beautiful French noblewomen from the clutches of bloodthirsty Socialists, then back home to my London club in time for a celebratory dinner, pausing only to pick up some Bordeaux and champagne on the way.

UPDATE.2: Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry, bless your heart for easing my conscience about celebrating the French Revolution. Reader Richao kindly brings PEG’s catechetical lesson to our attention:

The storming of the Bastille Day happened on July 14th 1789. The National Holiday celebrates the Fête de la Fédération, which occured on July 14th 1790.

It’s an important distinction.

The storming of the Bastille, though symbolic, was an event of no importance, a show of division. The Fête de la Fédération was a formal celebration of the unity of the French people.