The Bride is Bossy

At the risk of being a bossy big sister, I thought I'd offer some advice on timing, because I seem to have less trouble than others with this.

So, Timing: make the soup and grate the cheese on Saturday (or
ahead of time ayway). On Sunday, heat it up and put it together
before serving.

The Pomme a l'Anglaise - peel and shape the potatoes Saturday night or Sunday morning and leave them in salted water in the fridge until you want to cook them. See Note below about these.

Oeufs a la Neige: The custard is made ahead of time - maybe Saturday or maybe Sunday morning. It needs to cool in the bowl you are going to serve it in. The meringues can be done ahead, too.

So: Saturday - make onion soup and grate cheese. make creme anglaise and refrigerate. If desired, shape the potatoes.

Assuming you want to serve everything pretty much at once, instead of returning to the kitchen between courses:

Sunday morning, after a leisurely breakfast.
1) make the meringues and put aside to drain.
2) If you didn't do the potatoes Saturday, pare and shape potatoes (more later about shaping them) (you
could omit the shaping, too)

Take a break until a hour before dinner.

Before dinner
3) reheat the French onion soup and while it's getting hot,
4) make the caramel up to the point where it says 'when the liquid
stops sputtering, set over low heat an dcook until the caramel
redissolves and is syrupy. Keep it in a warm place - maybe in a dbl
boiler over warm water, so it's ready to finish at the last minute.
5) put the potatoes on to boil.
6) preheat the broiler, put the butter in the pan for the trout and
turn it on
7) prepare the trout by dredging in flour, place in pan
8)while it's cooking assemble the onion soup - bread and cheese
9) turn the trout
10) put the soup under the broiler
11) put on the second batch of trout,
12) When the gratin looks lovely, remove the soup from the broiler.
13) make the butter sauce.
14) drain the potatoes, which will be done by the time the trout is
cooked.
15) after eating the trout, return to the kitchen finish the
caramel. Assemble the dessert by putting the meringues on the
custard and doing the caramel thing.

I think that should work.

If you have Sous chefs (I don't) I would assign one of them the assembly and cooking of the onion soup, then you only have to think about potatoes and trout. Or, have the youngest sous chef (if under 12) assemble the onion soup, and an older one broil it.

About the turning - that is the shaping of the potatoes. This is something I've tried once. It's fiddly, but cool. I think it could get fairly easy if I get enough experience. I'm determined that I'm going to master it, so I am happy to have this opportunity. Here's what I've learned: It doesn't matter what size potatoes you start with - just make sure the chunks are all about the same size-ish. It's easiest to use a vegetable parer and run it down the sharp edges of the veggie, just to round it a little. Then, for bigger changes - say to make the ends a little pointier, I might use a paring knife or I might use a veg. peeler. Jacques Pepin demonstrated on the tv show Jacques and Julia. You might see if there is a video of him online showing how to do it. It's much clearer than the illustration in the book.

I'm not sure this will be helpful, but I've tried.

PS. I'm not doing the soup. I made a beautiful Onion Soup Gratinee last week and I still have some in my fridge.