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Christmas musings
Well Christmas is over. I hope you had a happy one,
we did. This year was unusual in that we didn't travel anywhere to be with
family or friends, nor did anyone come to us. Seemed to be the pattern
this year, maybe its the economy. At any rate we go together with a group
of local friends for Christmas day. Each couple brought a separate course
for the meal & our bachelors brought the wine. Much more on the meal
later, but here are some of my musings.
Christmas is different when you're spending it in a
country other than your own. Its a time of year that can be difficult - if
you let it. Nostalgia for ones 'native' things & customs can beat one
down. It doesn't have to be that way, however. There are antidotes. And
the greatest antidote I know of is do it yourself. Make things that remind
you of home, get your local family & friends involved. You'll have a ball.
An example; I was reading an American who lives in
France's blog before Christmas and she was going on about candy canes. Or
more accurately the lack of them in France. Now whether its candy canes or
something else that you miss my remedy is: MAKE IT YOURSELF! I know
this lady is a great cook & must be perfectly capable of making her own
candy canes so why not? Rope in your friends, involve your neighbors, what
ever!
This year we went out and scoured the countryside
for greenery; we found holly, mistletoe, lots of pine boughs , rose hips
and plenty of other materials for making wreaths & table decorations. The
ladies, led by Denise who is great at these things, got together and made
lots of wreaths & beaucoup de table decorations. They had a great time.
On the cooking front in addition to the normal
things we did for our dinner various people had made their own mince for
mincemeat pies, fruit cakes, Christmas pudding, terrines & pates. And I
have to say that the quality was far better than store bought; not to
mention cheaper!
Thus, my main conclusion is that Christmas is what
you make it. And the more you make of it yourself the better it will be.
You all knew that didn't you? I'm just a slow learner sometimes.
Enough philosophizing let me tell you about
Christmas dinner.
Rob & Jean acted as hosts. That's Rob's handiwork
with the corks. The wine pictured was an excellent Cahor. We also had an
equally excellent (but very different) Corbieres.
We started off with some nibbles that I'd made.
Anchovies & Olives mashed & baked in flaky pastry and sun dried tomatoes
with cream cheese wrapped in 'brick' pastry.
Our first course was oysters for those who like them
and a chicken liver pate for those who didn't.
I must say that France is a great place to eat
oysters.
Next came the fish soup that was my contribution to
the meal.
It was simply a homemade fish stock with saffron to
which I'd added sautéed sea bass, scallops and prawns. The red & green that
can be seen is paprika and tarragon. The red paprika for its color and the
tarragon for its color and flavor.
For our main course we had roast goose. And
wonderful goose it was too. Jean had roasted two huge geese; one actually
fed us all as they were so meaty. I was lucky and got lots of crispy skin
on my plate. Heaven!
With the goose were roast potatoes, Brussels sprouts
with chestnuts, two different stuffing's and pureed parsnips.
Absolutely delicious and perfect for Christmas.
A little sorbet followed. Mango & ginger.
My palate was cleansed beautifully!
 
The cheeses. A very nice selection including a
Stilton from England. Served with homemade oat cakes. Life doesn't get
much better than this.
The Christmas Pudding!
Another advantage of homemade. Normally, I don't
like X-mas pud all that much; too rich. This one. however, was great.
You could taste all of the individual fruits.
Of course the brandy sauce that went with it didn't
hurt either.
All in all a great Christmas dinner which we all
thoroughly enjoyed. A collaboration amongst friends with mostly dishes
made by one of us. What could be better?
Well snow would have been nice, but we missed out.
It didn't snow until the next morning!
I'll leave you with a couple of snow pictures and,
hopefully, some insights into Christmas in a foreign land.
Peace to you all.
Yet more Cassoulet - December 28th
Well looks like the cassoulet
battle over on eGullet is heating up. You can see the latest here
.
I'd weigh in, but Pti is more
than capable of holding her own .
Amazing how worked up people
can get about beans or chili powder.
I think there are a wide
variety of dried beans that will work well in a cassoulet. So long as they
are
fresh & cooked properly, not too hard & certainly not falling
apart. To me one of the tricks to a good
cassoulet is to get the liquid to solids mixture right. You
don't want a soup nor do you want a paste.
I've found that one way to control this is via the amount of
bread crumbs one uses. Tradition says that
you mash down the crumb topping seven times. I never make it
through that many, but I do normally
do two fairly generous layers of crumbs. If I'm still a bit
sloppy then I might go to a third topping.
Works for me.
As for the chili powder I can
take it or leave it. I don't detect much difference between the Basque
stuff
& ordinary chili powder. I have noticed in the shops that
they seem to be selling a lot of Piment
d'Espelette in jelly form or as a paste. I'm not seeing
a lot of the dried stuff.
I do hope the remark about
sprinkling it over a cassoulet was meant as a joke. Wasn't it?
Ah well; it makes for an
interesting life.
Cassoulet pages
(too big to paste)
The First Post
This is the first post to my
new website. Hope you like the new site and format; its all my own work.
If you like the style and
design get a hold of me - I do these simple sites for money. I don't want
to
do any really big websites as they're a lot of work, but I
enjoy doing smaller ones. I've done a number
for friends who have gites or B & B places or are selling
their houses. My rates are very reasonable.
Enough! This is not a selling site its my blog.
The website is a sort of
Christmas present to myself. I enjoy doing the blog and turning it into a
proper website gives me a lot more freedom. (the old software
made inserting graphics a real pain.
I've got a number of posts I want to do after Christmas, but
then I'll slow up as we're travelling most
of January.
The archive portions of the
site aren't finished yet. I've moved posts from about April 2008 onwards
over, but still have a lot to move. In fact I probably won't
move everything since they'll still be
available at the old site (www.frenchfoodfocus.blogspot.com)
We'll see.
Have a Merry Christmas and
I'll talk to you soon.
PS: Guess what? After I'd
gone on about Christmas markets our village suddenly decided to hold
one! Amazing. It wasn't too bad either. I went up to have a
look & show my face. I normally try to
do this at as many village events as I can.
Why is it that
this year we have Christmas markets running out of our ears?
There are at
least five being held in nearby villages & hamlet's. In fact Linda is
going to one in Caylus this
afternoon. It seems to me that they are breeding like rabbits. Used to
be just a year or two ago that there was only one Christmas Market in
a nearby village; that was at Puylagarde.
Now there have
always been Christmas markets in the larger towns and cities. The
Christmas Market in the main square of Toulouse (Capital) is truly
spectacular and the Cahors Christmas
market is great. You could go on down the line from there, but there
weren't many in the small villages. Not enough traffic one would have
thought.
Perhaps its the
economy; everybody out trying to make a few Euros? I
strongly suspect
that its mainly the same traders going from village to village selling
the same stuff. Certainly my quick look at Caylus
Christmas market this morning didn't reveal any truly local vendors.
Anyway, more
power to them, they're very colorful and, hopefully, people will find
something they like and the vendors will make a few Euros to help
their Christmas budgets.
I did buy
something at market on Thursday. This was at the seasonal market which
is an off shoot of the main Villefranche de Rouergue
market. Here in the 'halle'
they sell only dead birds (chickens, ducks & geese mainly) and fois gras.
This is the real deal straight from farmer to you.
Rob & I were
checking out prices for next week when we'll probably buy our ducks & fois gras for
Christmas. One of the larger vendors must have had a 100 pounds of
fresh raw fois gras for
sale, amazing! I've never seen that much fois gras in
one place before.
I won't mention
prices as I don't want to make those of you who don't live in the
French country side to get too jealous.
I will say, however, that Rob & couldn't resist buying 2 cuisse de canard
each (a cuisse is
the leg & thigh together). They were 2 Euros each and each one weights
close to a kilo. These were big ducks believe me.
I'll cook them
with lots of shallots & green olives very slowly in a covered frying
pan on the stove top. Absolutely tender & delicious. I'll try to take
some pictures as I do it.
These are
pictures of what pass for Christmas decorations in our village. I
don't think they'll win any prizes, but they are sincere. Its just
that you have to know who did them.
They're done
every year on his own initiative and, I expect, at his own expense
by our village cleaner. This is the guy who sweeps the streets,
cleans the public toilets, plants & weeds the public flower beds and
so forth. Its not much of a job and I'm sure it doesn't pay much,
but he's very happy to do it and to have a place in village life.
One sees him
most days if you pass through the village; a cigarette in his mouth
working away. He's fiercely proud and protective of the village. I
remember when we first moved here & he was in charge of the village
dump. You had to prove that you lived in the village to use the
dump, normally by showing an electric bill. It took several times
before he admitted that he knew us and let us in without showing our
bill. Cranky is probably the best word to describe him.
Ok, so, so
what? The point is that here in this small village they have found
employment for this man. You see he's somewhat retarded. Not too the
point of being institutionalized (although in some places he would
be), but certainly enough to be normally unemployable. Not here
though; here a place is made for him and the village looks after
him. They do it gently, kindly and allow him his dignity.
So, nobody
complains about his Christmas decorations. We praise him and them,
we take a secret pride in them and when we see them we feel just a
little bit better about ourselves for being part of a kind society.
I'm not sure
if this system of kindness is true in the multitude of villages in
France. I do know that in one of our neighboring villages the same
sort of thing is true. There too the menial village jobs are done by
those handicapped in some way. I suspect that at least to some
degree it is a part of village life all over the country.
The French
are, it seems to, me a kind people. Not in an ostentatious way, but
in a collective unobtrusive manner. This weekend we have the
Telethon to raise money for charity. This is a BIG deal and takes
place all over France. Millions are raised. In our village it will
be held in our Salle des Fetes and will be well attended.
Outside the
shops the collections have started; a can of food, a packet of
cookies, whatever. What's interesting is that the collectors are
genuinely volunteers, young people & old, but obviously people
giving of their time. You see no "commercial" collecting.
I remember
that I found this approach a bit different when we first moved to
France. After all the French do not make such a big deal out of the
Holidays as do we Americans and the British for that matter; they're
far more low key. My French friends gently pointed out that nobody
anywhere in France would go hungry over this season. The general
population would make sure that they didn't.
Yet another
reason why we live here.
Archives - 2008
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