French food focus-About living and cooking in rural France,recipes,lifestyle,comments

Hello Dave/Linda,
I first want to say that I've been reading your blog/site
for some time and truly enjoy it. As an ex chef and current photographer I
long for retirement and the opportunity to enjoy France for longer periods
of time other than the odd week or two we can now spend there.

The reason that I am writing is to see if you have available a list of
area restaurants? Either on your site or maybe via a posting Dave may have
done on Egullet? I saw recently that he encouraged someone to inquire about
good restaurants next time they were to be in the area.

We are going to be staying in Salles la Source (between Rodez and
Marcillac) in a gite.
It will be my wife,myself and our 6 1/2 year old son. So,they would need to
be places where having a six year old would be appropriate. Our tastes run
to more rustic,local preparations than highly refined,tortured-stacked food
kind of places. Possible Ferme Auberges,great bistrots etc.. We've traveled
several times before in the Dordogne and Provence and digging up restaurant
recommendations for those areas seemed easier I guess because they are more
highly touristed. We are really looking forward to our week in the Aveyron
and are spending the second week in the Minervois.

At this point we are considering trips to Villefranche,Corde,Najac,the
Aubrac area,
possibly around Millau. Any where that is day trippable from Salle la
Source. Any recommendations you could point us to would be greatly
appreciated. Hope you have some good fortune in finding a buyer for your
home and keep up the great work on your French Food Focus site! It's
inspiring for those tied down among us.

Cheers,
Vance

We went to see Shakespeare in the open air the other night and I must say it was wonderful. The play was 'Much Ado About Nothing' and it was performed in the village square in Lauzerte. The weather was perfect, the actors very good and our seats couldn't be bettered.

Having gotten organized for once we had reserved and paid for our seats via the internet. In fact we got the last ten bookable seats. When we arrived and collected our tickets we were early enough to choose our own seats. We took front row. Believe me, sitting only three feet away from the performers put a whole different complexion on the play. Absolutely wonderful. Its amazing how little scenery or props are needed to stage a play like this. The actors were dressed in what looked like first world war military costumes with the actresses in nice , but plain dresses. The only props were a table with a bowl of fruit and a bunch of sunflowers. A bottle of wine & some glasses. Thats it! The performance was great.

There were 15 of us in all so we'd traveled over in a convoy of 4 cars. We led the way with our Sat NAV plotting the route. We arrived in good time and found a great place to picnic. Lauzerte is a beautiful hilltop village and we were able to park just near the city wall in the shade and have our picnic sitting on benches overlooking the countryside. Everyone had contributed a dish or so. I did a tortilla with salsa, there were several quiches and salads. John had done his rightly famous orange cake and Deborah had done a superb apricot tart. Very yummy with a bit of wine to wash it down. We only had to walk 50 yards up to the square for the play.

Here's a mystery. On the way home we all went of own separate way except for Toyin who followed us as he had no Sat NAV in his rental car. The machine took us home by a totally different route from the way we'd come. Don't know why. There was no traffic is speak of either way; it was all country roads. Go figure?
Now even more amazing; each of the other two SAT NAV'S took a different route from ours, again not the same way we'd come. BUT, after an hour of driving we all converged at Caylus AT THE SAME TIME! Don't think I'll ever figure that one out.

Anyway all was well. Nobody got lost in the dark and we'd all had a wonderful evening.

Poor kids! The local young people work so hard every year to put on the Festi' Lac event, but this years was a disaster.

There was a thunderstorm earlier in the evening so people stayed away. Only about 400 turned up instead of the 5,000+ expected. The irony was that the storm never amounted to much at the actual lake. It sort of skirted the edges, but never dropped any rain to speak of.

There were so few people that they had to try to refund everyone's money since they couldn't really try to put on some of the bands & events. Some fireworks were let off. Those that couldn't be taken back.

We're told that the losses are 20,000 Euros. Thats a lot of money in anybody's language, is huge in terms of a small village committee. I have no idea how they'll try to raise it. We can only have so many vide greniers and village repas.

To add insult to injury and turn this into a true tragedy a young man drowned in the lake that night. He went missing at about 4:00 AM and was found at 6:00. Nobody quite knows what happened. The assumption is that he'd had far too much to drink. He was only 25 years old and was from Montauban.

Well, its that time of summer when life slows down a bit. In our case just before the cultural storm hits us in earnest. So its been a fairly quiet week.

We went to a concert in Cordes-su-Ciel Tuesday. That started nicely with an early supper at Seglar, one of our favorite inexpensive restaurants. Linda had comfit de canard & I had a great pizza. We both had salad starters; mine was a 'fisherman's' just chock full of cold seafood & smoked salmon. Very yummy & all for 12 Euros each with wine. As the name implies Cordes is one of these places perched on top of a hill, very picturesque, but the village makes its living from parking fines so one doesn't dare to park illegally. I dropped Linda off as high up as you can drive & went in search for a legal parking place. The best I could find was quite a ways down the hill. So, up I trudged. The combination of wine with dinner, a very hot evening and a lot of steep hill nearly did me in I can tell you. Then I found out that they wanted 20 Euros. EACH! for admission. I was not happy, but we were there so we paid. To add insult to injury the opening pieces was an ultra modern atonal something or other. I must say that I've never heard a cello make sounds like that before. I hated it. Linda loved it. The composer was there so one had to be polite. I far preferred the Schuman & Ravel that followed.

I missed my golf on Thursday. Linda had forgotten I was going to play & had loaned the car to a friend. No big deal it was really too hot to play anyway. Our poor friend; her cat had just died, she had been to the dentist with an abscess and her car was broken. What's the old expression? I certainly don't begrudge her the use of our second car for a couple of days.

Its busy down at the lake; they're getting ready for Festi'lac. There will be something over 5,000 people which is a really big deal for our little village. Great fireworks are the big attraction as well as several bands plus a giant paella. I do mean giant, it will be over 8 feet in diameter. We won't go, but will try to stay awake to go up into the village to watch the fireworks. Hope they make money this year, they usually go overboard on the fireworks so lose money.

Simple dinner with friends last night. Rupert's pal, Barty a retire greyhound, came with his owners as did our friends from up the hill. I had made gazpacho with garlic croutons to start. We had both Toulouse sausage and my own brand of Italian sausage done on the BBQ along with baked potatoes, green beans and yellow courgettes as a main course. Dessert was a lemon cheesecake. A nice simple meal served out on the verandah.

Next week activity hot's up, but not the weather according to the forecast. We've got two more concerts to attend plus the Shakespeare ("Much Ado About Nothing"). I'm particularly looking forward to the play which will be done outdoors in a charming village square. We're going with friends & doing a communal picnic. Should be fun.

In our part of France July & August are the season for fetes. The fetes come in all shapes and sizes and get the villagers involved, especially the young adults.

Here's the side window of our village shop advertising just a few of the very local events.

As you can see there is a fair amount of competition so the signs are made as colorful as possible to attract attention. In actuality the Mayors of the local communities do get together and set 'fete' dates so as to minimize conflicts.

Here's the notice board as you enter our village. Naturally, our very own 'Festi'lac' gets prominence.

It will attract several thousand people to its three bands (one to suit each age group) and very impressive fireworks display. As you can see the will be a giant paella to eat. The paella is very popular in our area and is very good. By giant they mean a paella that will be at least 6 feet in diameter. The following day there will be a large vide grenier/ brocante (yard sale/ flea market)

Saint-Antonin Noble Val is in competition on the Sunday with its 'fete des Battages' (here's a link to what a battage is all about: http://www.breuillet.net/05agriculture/battages.html.) Its a sort of harvest festival for when the wheat was brought in and threshed.

The straw horse looks a real fast steed and the jockey a true professional. The races themselves are fun. Very informal with some trotting races and a few flat races. Every year somebody manages to fall off, but normally they're not hurt. Everyone brings a picnic and lots of beer and wine is consumed.

Of course the races are only part of the whole fete in Puylagarde. There's lots more.

In case you're wondering Veronique Pomies who is on on Monday plays the accordion. Our local people do love accordion music so she and her fellow players are very popular. All of the traditional songs are played and everyone except we foreigners seems to know all the words.

The turn off to Parisot from the main road is a hotbed of sign competition. It very visible.

Croches is a musical term and this is a musical festival held every year in the nearby village of Verfeil sur Seye.

Somebody forgot to put the place on the sign. Its hard to get good help these days!

Unfortunately, more around the corner is the sign for Parisot's Art Festival. They'll get a more prominent position after the other festival have passed.

The Art Festival is growing year by year and this year there will be over 20 artists exhibiting. A unique feature is that the art is shown in people's homes. Living rooms, garages and so forth. The children have their competition in the old market hall.

This year there will also be three musical evenings held in the church. Chamber music, a piano recital and an opera singer. It should be great fun.

I don't think any other part of France can match ours for the number and enthusiasm of its summer 'fetes'.

They're very much local events not put on for the tourist trade, but for the local populace. If as a visitor you happen to be here and read the signs all the better.

What are we going to? Well the races for sure plus the art festival. We'll also be going to an outdoor production of "Much Ado about nothing" put on by a travelling company of English actors. In addition there are a number a classic concerts that we'll attend. Promises as always to be a busy summer our here in the sticks.

Much as I love the French Cornichons I miss my American dill pickles. We do eat a lot of Cornichons and I've sampled as many other types of French pickle as I can find, but they just don't seem to do good old dill pickles. So, I've resorted to making a version of them myself.

The first problem is finding the right cucumbers. 'English' cucumbers are always available. These are the great large dark green guys. Mostly hothouse grown I suspect and very mild tasting. As summer starts you can begin to get something close to the right kind of cucumber. They look right, but they're always too big. At least 6" long and very thick. And, of course, at the right season you can get the little guys for making Cornichons. Every so often, though, I find they type of cucumber I need at one of the markets.

Such was the case on last Saturday. I'd gone to Villefranche to buy some cards downtown and as I walked through the main square in front of the church I took a look at the small stands selling local produce (they're there very day except Thursday when the BIG market fills the square) AH HA! There was the inevitable little old lady with a basket full of just the right kind of cucumbers. I'll have a livre says I. (NOTE: A livre is half a kilo or 500 grams. Its also pretty close to a pound. Of course, its also the word for book and the French call the British currency, the pound, a livre. Interesting. I'd love to know the derivation of all the lexicography. But, I digress.) They cost me one Euro. I took them home all happy & excited.

For these summer pickles I basically use the recipe from Bittman's "How to Cook Everything". Its very simple, the pickles are delicious and I love them because they don't have to cure for very long. Long lasting dill pickles made with vinegar are a whole different ball game. For these you simply dissolve some kosher salt in hot water then add crushed garlic cloves and dill to taste then add your scrubbed cucumbers. Voila! I cut these in half lengthways to speed the process. Put everything in a bowl with a weight on top to keep the pickles submerges and let them sit out for 24 to 48 hours to develop taste. After that jar them and store them in the fridge. They need to be eaten within a couple of weeks.

I could hardly wait. I put mine in the fridge Monday afternoon. I managed to hold on until about 7 PM before sampling. Delicious, I love these little guys. They were even better the next day. We had guests over that evening (cold beet soup, salad 'Nicoise' and plum tart.) and they ate a goodly portion of my batch with their wine. I have some left, but they'll easily be gone before the two weeks are up.

Orage is simply French for thunderstorm. We had a dozy yesterday evening. Lots of lightening, buckets of rain and very gusty winds. We don't get them this bad very often, but this one went on & on. We had a family of renters in on the other side of the house so had to go over and make sure that they'd closed all their shutters.

They were all up at the pool admiring the lightening. We advised that this wasn't the best idea in the world as swimming pools are not a place to be near in this kind of weather. We invited them down to the verandah to watch the fireworks.

Rupert of course was not at all happy. Poor guy does not like thunder at all at all. Fortunately all the people helped to reassure him and he calmed down. In the meantime the parasol above the dining table on the back patio ended up on the lane. Luckily the table was OK>

In any case we gave the renters some wine and I made some popcorn to watch lightening by. The show ent on for over half an hour. Very impressive! We think it was a highlight of our renters stay. They really seemed to enjoy it. They also enjoyed the apricot pie I'd made for them earlier (the recipe is somewhere on the blog). It was a good one as I'd found some excellent apricots at our Parisot market AND I'd coated them with my recently made 4 fruit marmalade. Delicious if I do say so myself.

Last night was our village 'repas'. This is a public meal open to all who live in the village or who are visiting. I'll admit that I'm feeling very stupid today for having neglected to take the camera along with me, my apologies. The prices was 15 Euros which is a bargain bearing in mind that you get a substantial meal, unlimited wine and a live band for the price.

Last night we were blessed with perfect weather. The festivities began at 19:30 outside in the square in front of the town hall. As the sun went down the square was in the shade and the temperature dropped to a comfortable level. As is usual on these occasions nothing started on time. The ladies collecting the money didn't even arrive until 20:00! The bar was open though and the lads were stoking up the BBQ.

We had brought two Scottish families who are staying in the gite with us. I brought them & smart Linda joined us later. We started greeting friends. Its surprising how many people we've come to know over our years here. Lots of kisses & handshakes exchanged as well as the latest local gossip. (a new restaurant is opening at the top of the village. Will it succeed? Will the food be any good? The jury awaits.) I made a point of thanking Gina who I knew had helped the Mayor with his speech at THE wedding.

The band made an appearance and played a short set of tunes. This was a 'traditional' band complete with trumpet and accordion. They were good & not too loud. By now most people had gravitated to tables and were sitting. The jugs of wine and bottles of wine began to be placed up each table at fairly short intervals. The party was truly on now!

Serge, our local restaurant owner, appeared with the huge tub of aligot. For those of you who don't know it aligot is a dish made of boiled potatoes and local cheese. The cheese is a form of Tome and the locals will tell you that you can't make a truly good aligot without it. Its delicious, but a heavy stick to your ribs type of dish. Its preparation requires much stirring of the potatoes and cheese. Its hard work. It was fun to watch the village children try to have a stir. The smaller ones couldn't get the paddle to move.

While the aligot was finishing we lined up for our starter which was a selection of cold cuts; salami like sausage, friton, headcheese and a lone Cornichon. All very nice and there was plenty of local bread on the table. Seconds were offered by local young women moving around the tables.

At this point with everybody sitting down I could estimate the size of the crowd. About 200 I think, not bad since there are only just over 400 resident in the entire commune. The foreign contingent about 11% of the total population were well represented. I think we all feel that we should support local events and causes.

Next the main course. The aligot and BBQ'd lamb and local sausage. Absolutely delicious. AT this point the local girls were selling bottles of a better wine for those who wanted it. 6 Euros per bottle. Seconds of the lamb & sausages were also on offer. Lots of bottles water available still.

Now the music really got going as did the dancing. The French are avid dancers and good at it. This band was aimed at the older crowd so there were lots of foxtrots, waltzes and more traditional dances. Dessert, ice cream cones, was served.

By now it was nearly midnight and everybody was having a great time. We left not too long after midnight as Rupert had been inside at home for a very long time. One friend, however, didn't quit until 04:30. He has quite a head today!!

In all a fun evening in rural France. Sorry about the lack of pictures, but there's always next year.

It all started when our neighbor and my good cooking pal Ruve offered me a frozen capon AND a whole fois gras!! What a challenge. The deal was that I had to cook them with she and guests coming to dinner. Thinking quickly I said OK so long as you give me a truffle as well. A bit of a gulp at that, but she's game and the deal is on.

This was planned to take place after THE wedding, but when we still had guests. As it turned out our brother & sister-in-law were still here as was Ruve & Michael's nephew. (He & Michael had just finished a three day hike so were ready for a good meal.

I had my recipe out of La Russe Gastronomic so I was in good shape. All was well until the day before the meal. The plan was that the ladies were going off to visit a pornographic potter (its another story, I'll tell you sometime.) and we guys were supposed to meet them in Villefranche for lunch. This worked as I could visit my favorite butcher & get the things I needed. Well, the pottery was closed so the ladies wanted to go to Seglar for lunch followed by shopping (sight seeing they said, but shopping they meant) I began to panic as I absolutely needed a few things for the capon & they had to be in place 24 hours in advance. I won't bore you with the whole story, but I managed to break free with the guys & find a good French butcher.

After some linguistic difficulties he produced exactly what I needed. Some pork fat and a thin slab for barding, Perfect! And the price was right, no charge! I wanted to invite him to dinner since he now knew what I was cooking & was amazed that a 'foreigner" would try it. Happy now & with ingredients in hand we made it home so I could start preparing.

This recipe requires that you start 24 hours in advance. Having unfrozen the capon and the fois gras previously I could start. For the capon I carefully loosened the skin over the breast area then slipped in very thinly sliced pieces of the truffle. With the fois gras I deveined it then whizzed it & some of the pork fat in the food processor (about 1/4 by weight fat). I also added the left over truffle. The mixture then had salt & pepper added plus a bay leaf and a few fennel seeds ground up. I cooked this in a pot for about 10 minutes just to combine the ingredients. Once it was cool & coagulated again I stuffed the capon with it .

I now trussed the bird and covered it with buttered parchment paper. Now it could rest in a cool place until the next day. As it was very warm a cool place was our spare fridge.

Next day I made our starter which didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped. This was slices of smoked salmon surrounded by avocado with finely minced cucumber & tomato with extra concentrated Balsamic vinegar dotted around. The flavor combinations worked, but the avocado was not ripe enough & the vinegar lost it shape & spread around. If the avocado had been riper & I'd been able to serve immediately I think I would have been OK. I may try this again as the flavors were good & its a nice light starter to have before a heavy main course.

The capon was in the oven covered with it's barding. 180 degrees C for roughly three hours then I took the barding off & let it brown & finish off for another half hour. I served the capon with creamed potatoes, green beans with herb de province and julienned carrots with sugar & a bit of ginger.

The capon was absolutely delicious, moist & flavored by the truffles. The fois gras stuffing went well even though a bit decadent. All in all a very nice main course and special.

We had a perfectly ripened St Felician for the cheese course. I served it with four kinds of breads from my favorite shop in Villefranche; country style, rye, whole wheat and multi-grain, all were small loaves the call Valentines.

Dessert was a sort of lemon mousse. Its very easy; I had made lemon cheese the previous day so was able to whip some cream then just add & whip in the lemon cream. Light & delicious after a large meal.

Thus ends the capon caper. It was fun and a good thing to do after all the wedding festivities.

Finally the big day is upon us. (sorry that this post is so delayed, but I was just plain wedding'd out!) Again the weather was perfect. Sunny, bright, but not too hot. No major panics at the last minute.

Everybody gathered at our house for the walk up to the church. The bride was so anxious to get there that she took the direct route which is pretty steep instead of the planned longer, but easier route..

A proud father walking up the hill to give away his daughter. Given the steepness of the hill & the vagarities of ladies shoes everyone stopped at the top for a breather.

Into the marie we all trooped. Once we were settled the ceremony began. I must say I was very proud of our Mayor; he gave a wonderful speech, in English! He'd obviously had some help in writing the English version as the grammar was perfect and he's obviously practiced the speech as well as his delivery was excellent. This from a Mayor whose normal English is no good at all. It was a gracious gesture on his part and made me very proud of our village.

Here he is with the happy couple after the formalities were finished. Te groom just can't stop beaming.

Here's the couple with two of the bridesmaids. The third & smallest bridesmaid is missing because she went fishing!

After the rice throwing and nine million pictures we all headed for the chateau and the champagne reception in the marquee.

Denise had organized the marquee and the tables beautifully. Although you can't see them the views from the open sides of the marquee were spectacular. It was terrifically kind of Michael & Ruve to offer the chateau for the wedding. Everyone was very grateful.

A table setting. We had a super fish soup starter followed by roast lamb then a wonderful selection of cheeses followed by a trio of desserts.

A thoroughly enjoyable wedding which came off with hardly a hitch. The dancing went on until the wee hours. I ducked out for some much needed sleep.

Thus ends my Wedding posts. There was a great BBQ at the chateau the following day which was enjoyed by all. Again, the weather held. This was catered by Bavo who had also done the dinner. Well done as always by him.

Now we're really getting into this. Perfect weather yet again. I got up early to make brownies. Linda wanted them for tonight. I also bought some bread and made sandwiches to take to golf as the course has nowhere to get food without driving back to the village. I made French style concoctions, some with garlic sausage, mustard & Cornichons, Some with Lagioule & just a bit of cucumber & mayonnaise and some with just butter & sheep's cheese.

Derek (the bride's father), Tony (a close friend of the bride's parents) and I took off at 9 AM to play golf. Its nearly an hour's drive to the course. When we got there there was the edge of a thunder storm going on with a bit of thunder & lightening. Just a few drops of rain. We went ahead anyway, the course even loaned Derek & Tony clubs for free. Much to my delight I won the first hole. This is a rare event as they're bother better golfers than I. The weather got better & better, we stopped and had our sandwiches after nine holes and then carried on. After the 18 holes Tony had won 4 holes and Derek & I three each. The rest were halved. A just result and pleasing to me as I played well by my low standards.

Back home & everything was going pretty well. Everyone was supposed to start arriving about 6:30 for drinks & a stand up supper. Linda had made her delicious mussaka's, fresh green beans & mashed potatoes (they were supposed to be baby new potatoes, but they boiled a bit too long so became mashed potatoes instead.) I unfroze some canapés I had made before hand, not good. They don't as it turns out freeze well so many were spoiled. Those that survived and got cooked were good though. I whizzed down to Caylus and got some potato chips & nuts to fill in. It worked.

Everybody arrived in dribs & drabs and it turned into a really nice party with lots of wine, beer and conversation. Linda's food was a real hit. We barely had enough for the 25 people who ate. Great evening which continued until not too late as people had been travelling & were tired and also wanted to be in good shape the THE BIG DAY.

The bride and groom. We're not nervous - are we? Victoria's thinking & John looks like a deer caught in the headlights!

John (the groom) with his mother, brother and sister-in-law.
They all seem to be having a good time.

Various crowd scenes.
Everyone was having a good time & the weather was perfect for being out on the verandah.

A tired maid of honor. This is one of Victoria's nieces.
They've spent most of the day in the pool, but are burned out now.

    A story before bed time. The other brides maid.
    This one when she heard that her sister was going to be a
    brides maid asked if she could be a 'mermaid' too.
    Of course she could as you'll see tomorrow.

Not much cooking today. Yard work though and all the ladies still working on the marquee and table arrangements. First guests arriving & getting settled into their B&B's.

Naturally, my normally trusty ride on mower refused to start this morning. The problem appeared to be with the starter switch so Ben & I took it apart .(Ben installs electronic security systems for a living so was just to guy to have around) Couldn't find the problem even using my old voltmeter. Ben was saying that it acts like a blown fuse & I'm saying that I've never heard of a fuse on a lawn mower. Turns out that he's right, buried underneath in a bundle of wire there is a fuse and its blown. Off we go to Caylus to my trusty quincaillerie to get one. Can't find them so I ask where they are. Over here is the answer, except that we're out of them! Frustration. I then think of a Renault garage a couple of miles up the road. So off we go again. I ask the girl at Service Reception. She goes off & comes back with the head mechanic. "you want a fuse", he asks. Yes, I do. OK, come with me. We go into the work area & he produces a large plastic container stuffed with fuses of every size. I'm saved. He gives me two of the right size free of charge. We head back home.

The mower works now and I get the lawn mowed while Ben rakes the grass. My brother-in-law gets going with my fancy new strimmer. Soon we have a very tidy garden.

Later people start arriving. First two, then another two. Wine is poured and everybody chats out on the verandah. The weather couldn't be nicer. Its a good start to the festivities.

About 7:30 we all meet at the restaurant at the lake. This is not a grand place, but they do good simple meals al fresco. Most of us have steak frites. (the owners are Belgian and make fantastic french fries) We drink more wine, but not too much as I'm up early to play golf tomorrow.

Day 4 and all's well. Yesterday was more cooking; two big pots of Bolognaise sauce one vegetarian & one normal with lots of meat. Took a while simply due to the quantities I was making. Both sauces turned out pretty well when we had them with spaghetti for dinner.

In the morning I had walked the dog which relaxed both of us. We went on one of our favorite walks up through the woods. Very beautiful with lots of wild flowers. Roop was disappointed as he couldn't find any rabbits or deer to chase. Still, a nice walk.

I took Ben & Cholodie with me to Villefranche when I went shopping and gave them a little tour. Its a pretty old Bastide town and they enjoyed it. After the supermarket we stopped at a favorite bread shop and picked up a loaf of "Le Secret". This is a large loaf of bread with a great crust and is absolutely delicious. I don't know what the secret is, but it seems to be a good one.

Back home I made a couple of carrot cakes. It seems that a couple who will be wedding guests have their 40th wedding anniversary on Sunday so I've been asked to make a cake for them. I dearly love carrot cake, but always seem to have a hard time getting it to rise. Its one of the few recipes that I follow exactly, but this doesn't seem to help. I'm beginning to think that maybe my baking powder is old & past it. I bought new baking soda not long ago, but not baking powder.

While I was baking all of the ladies, five of them, who had been decorating the marquee came down and sat on the verandah making gauzy butter flies and drinking wine. As I baked I was giving Ben instructions on how to make gazpacho. He made a big batch witch turned our well and went down a tread with the ladies. I finally got to have a glass of wine and a chat with my friend Allen about 18:30.

We persuaded he and Denise to stay for the spaghetti and an apricot tart I'd made (this recipe is somewhere here on the blog) Afterwards I tried to watch some tennis, but the TV seemed to crap out. Hopefully its Ok, if not we have another one.

And so to bed. Lots of arrivals tomorrow and lots of yard work scheduled. We're going out for dinner so not much cooking in store.

Day #3 was good. The weather is holding and is perfect. Sunny, a slight breeze & temperature in the mid-70's. Who could ask for more?

The groom went down to Toulouse to pick up a Nephew and family; wife and two delightful little daughters. Their plane was about an hour late due to a security scare back in England, but still the delay wasn't bad. It was Chlodie's (the wife) first visit ti France so she was fascinated. The children couldn't wait to see Rupert. Francesca, the older one at 5 years old, says she's going to marry Rupert. Her younger sister isn't so sure as normally she's afraid of dogs, but she's coming around. Rupert is very gentle & patient with children.

We had Jacques in for lunch as well as the family. I did my now infamous sort of Spanish omelet's. One vegetarian & one with lardons & chorizo. Those plus a nice salad plus oatmeal cookies for dessert made a simple, but nice lunch. After lunch everybody headed for the pool to play & work on their tans. I had a nice read & a nap.

For dinner we had roast pork which I had been marinating with roast potatoes and a selection of vegetables. Everyone is trying to lose weight even though its too late now so no dessert. Plenty of wine thought!

Day 2 has past and I'm still alive. Not a bad day at all; the weather was perfect and the forecast remains good. Bride's Father, Rupert & I went for a good walk through the woods first thing in the morning. Came back, had some, coffee and got ready to go to market. (if I'm on my own I go to market in my scruffy morning condition, but if I go with Linda I spruce myself up. I went with Linda yesterday.)

We went to St Antonin market yesterday instead of out favored Limogne. What a zoo! St Antonin is very touristy, you hear lots & lots of English spoken and there are quite a few stalls that sell tourist oriented gee gaws. The streets are narrow so its very crowded and hard to do one's shopping. We went because the Herb & Spice Lady has a stand there and I needed to stock up on ingredients for Leo's Rub & my BBQ sauce. In addition we needed vegetables to feed the masses yesterday evening.

I had quite a discussing with the spice Lady about dried onion. I wanted onion powder, but she said that it was no good and that I should buy shredded onion as it keeps much better. But, I said, I need it in finer sizes that that for my rub. She said, OK then run it through your spice grinder when you need it. I gave in as after all she's the expert and she's right running it through my coffee grinder (this one kept only for herbs & spices) is easy enough. I do love her stall. Its very colorful and she seems to have virtually every herb & spice known to man. Its fun to work out the names in the two languages. She's better at the English names than I am at the French.

Anyway, we got everything else including 4 dried salami type sausages for 10 Euros. Plus I got a gift sausage; great deal. Then we got out of town as the crowds were getting to us. Got home, unpacked then made up a batch of rub and a couple of jars of BBQ sauce. By now it was lunch time so we had a simple bread & cheese with fruit type lunch.

After lunch I put two pork roasts that had been thawing out into their brine mixture so they'll be ready to roast on Tuesday. I also put the shoulder of lamb we're having tonight in the fridge as it had nearly thawed. I then rubbed all of the spare rib racks that we had last night. Everybody except Rupert & I went off to Najac to tour the castle. (its pretty spectacular & Linda was chuffed because she got in free because we know the care taker & his wife. Its nice when you know the locals.) Back home I was going to have a nap, but couldn't sleep so I got up and made croutons to go with the gazpacho we're having as a starter tonight . I also decided to part bake the ribs ready for the BBQ. Then I tried to think up something suitable as a main course for our vegetarian niece. In the end I took two fairly large yellow zucchini, cut them in half lengthwise and cut ou their seeds. I then sautéed a mixture of red bell pepper, onion & garlic chopped finely; once this mix was cooked I stuffed it into the center of the zucchini and it was ready for baking when the time came.

In the end there were 8 of us for dinner. The gazpacho was even better the second day especially with the addition of honey vinegar which we'd found at market. The ribs took a while as I ran out of gas on the BBQ in the middle of cooking them. A had to change bottles & get the heat back up. They were fine in the end and even though everyone said there were to many of them, they somehow all disappeared along with the twice baked potatoes and coleslaw that Ruve brought. Dessert was some sinfully good chocolate that Linda had bought.

Watched a bit of the rain delayed golf and then off to bed. Another day survived, getting there!

Ok, here we are on day#1. The parents arrived, well actually Linda picked them up from the airport at Toulouse after a much needed therapeutic shopping foray in Montauban's. They arrived on time which was good, but on the way home car problems ensued. Mind you we had just had the Mercedes serviced, but nevertheless a light fixture fell off then something else happened (Car mechanics are not Linda's strong suit) which made things worse. At least they made it home. We'll see what Bernard has to say on Monday since it was only in for service yesterday! My theory which holds that you don't take any car in for service until it has something really badly wrong is proven yet again!!! Anyway. they made it here safely whic is good. Rupert, the dog, went berserk as he absolutely adores my brother-in-law.

Anyway after an hour or so the kids (namely the Bride & Groom) arrived having driven straight through from England. They were early since they had set off early because they were too excited to sleep. Their trip went well & the SatNav got them safely through Paris even in the rush hour. Lots & lots of unpacking ensued, I won't bore you with the details of what got unpacked except to say that there were lots of ohhs & ahhs from 'Auntie' over the dresses.

The groom, his prospective Father-in-Law & I managed to watch a fair amount of the US Open Golf on TV. Good that.

Dinner? Ah yes, a gazpacho with nice fresh croutons I'd made earlier in the day. Pretty good if I do say so. Then a baked potato & salad for our vegetarian Niece and a nice pot of Cassoulette for the rest of us. Suitable wines. I would have dons a sautéed fresh pineapple with ice cream, but they were all too full. I'll save it for another day.

Thus ends day #1. I'd be ecstatic if they were all this easy. Of course I haven't mentioned shopping, lawn raking, path clearing, gravel raking or any of the cooking.

I've spared you any posts about THE Wedding until now, but I can't hold off any longer. The event has been dominating our lives for low these many months; or I should say dominating Linda's life & the mine by proxy. The grand event will take place next Saturday, June 27th right here in our humble village. The preparations have been going on for months. Plans made & remade. Dresses bought & then almost unsought. Question? How many of my male readers know what a fascinator is? (and no, its not an obscene expression or object) Menus thought up, then rejected then finally agreed. You wouldn't believe the paperwork involved when getting married in France. Guess what though? Neither of the kids getting married are ours!

No, its Linda's favorite Niece! and her intended John. For reasons best known to them they decided many months ago that they wanted to get married here in Parisot rather than in England where they both come from. You can read all about it at: www.victoriaandjohnswedding.com. A website that I put together for them. Why we don't know. We should be flattered I guess. Once we discovered that it was actually possible legally for them to get married here the event was on.

Little did we know the amount of paperwork involved in getting married in France. And, this is only a civil ceremony as neither of the kids is religious. So much for the Common Market! Our local Marie has been very helpful, they've done everything to help, but there's just a lot of paperwork even though this is a first marriage for both kids. Our sainted friend, Jacques, has been of enormous help. Just today we had to have the kids scan & send down copies of their passports for me to take to Madame at the Marie. Don't ask why; we just do what's asked of us. The Mayor is being very helpful; he's even been taking English lessons so that he can do the ceremony in Both languages. He'll wear his ceremonial robes. Very kind indeed.

Once our friends Michael & Ruve found out about the wedding they offered the grounds of their Chateau for holding the reception and wedding dinner. That expanded to include a BBQ and games the next day. As you can imagine the kids (& their parents) were over the moon at that news. It is a very beautiful chateau; very storybook like and has been beautifully renovated. The grounds & gardens are terrific. Michael & Ruve are extremely kind to have offered this and I must say there couldn't been a nicer or more romantic setting for a marriage.

The event is being kept small. Only about 30 including some locals whom the kids have gotten to know over the years. Another friend, Denise, is designing and supervising all of the decorations for the marquee. She's brilliant at this kind of design. Bavo is catering the Wedding dinner and the BBQ. He's Belgian and moved down here a few years ago having sold a very successful tapas bar back home. He'll do a great job.

As for us we will have 8 people staying in the house for the next two weeks. This includes two delightful nieces aged 5 & 3. The older one wanted to be a Brides Maid, but the younger one wanted to be a mermaid!So we're feeding never less than 8 and at times up to 25 people every day for the next two weeks. I've had to do a spreadsheet to keep it all straight. I'll start filling you in on our food preparations on my next post.

Meanwhile, keep your fingers crossed for us. Some positive thoughts wouldn't go amiss.

Haven't been doing much exciting the last few days. Staying home to avoid the crowds (Assumption is a big holiday in France & a 4 day weekend so the roads are crowded. (Friends drove home from the Paris area yesterday & got stuck in four traffic jams.) Its nice though; we've had so much hecticness over the past month that its nice to just piddle about.

Linda has been concentrating on the garden which is looking splendid. I keep mowing the blankity blank grass which has been growing like mad. I've cleaned the pool, its heating up nicely, and the tiled areas around it. I've put up some hanging baskets for Linda on the veranda. My only big job was to move one of our satellite dishes. When it was installed some years ago the trees were much smaller and even though I keep cutting them back it had become a question of the dish or the trees. I decided to move the dish. Its embedded in a big lump of concrete and I decided to move the whole thing; this involved much digging to uproot the dish and to dig a new hole. Moving this heavy lump by myself was a bit of a problem, but I managed using a bit of applied physics. Leverage in other words. Lo & behold both of my levels have lost their liquid for leveling in the vertical direction. ( called friend, but his fancy laser level only levels in the horizontal direct. Ah well, I'll just have to buy a new one.) I've called Mark, our local satellite guru, to come over and re-align the dish.

Nothing fancy on the cooking front. Roast chicken the other night. Steals at the Lake cafe last night, nice though as they've just opened again for the summer. Tonight I'm trying a new recipe for salmon from Jacques Pepin. Sounds good. I do like his cooking.

Only three weeks to preparations start for the big wedding. After that its guests all summer, only one free week during all of July and August. Want a French vacation? Call us, maybe we can do a deal for the week of July 18th.

I'm going to play around with Wedding dinner menus (only the printed ones; somebody else is doing the actual cooking. Think I'll use a stylized picture of the chateau where the dinner will be held. Here's a couple of my efforts so far. If you're so inclined let me know what you think of them.

Well we really got messed up the last couple of days. Linda thought that she had invited our friends from South Africa for lunch the day before yesterday. She'd also invited some local friends who she thought would go well with the South Africans. I planned a meal and we were all set.

Our local friends arrived on time so we sat around, had a drink & nibbles and chatted. And chatted. And chatted, by now our South African friends were seriously late. Linda called them - no answer. No South Africans. Ah well. I started dividing things up; most of the par-boiled potatoes stayed out of the oven. So did the majority of the carrots, they had to wait to be braised. The zucchini stayed off the BBQ as did one of the brined pork roasts.

I got us going with chilies and brie done on the BBQ. These were good, but the chilies were a bit to hot for our friends. We finished off the main course; roast pork, braised carrots, baked baby potatoes and BBQ'd zucchini. All went well. Dessert was Tarte Tatin with ice cream. (I'd made two of them so one went into the freezer.) All in all we had a nice meal and a good chat with our friends who we hadn't seen for a while.

Next day Linda got a hold of Tony, the South African neighbor, And found out that he was expecting to come to dinner that day, not lunch the day before. Who knows who got their signals mixed up? In any case we decided that they could come for dinner anyway.

To adjust the foods now that we were a bit short I bought some baby back ribs to go on the BBQ with the remaining pork roast. There were just enough carrots, zucchini and potatoes if we plated up instead of serving family style. To add a bit of substance I used the remaining chilies along with some tomatoes, onion, cucumber and sweet yellow pepper to make a brochetta. I got this wonderful loaf of bread which is ideal for brochetta. Its called 'Le Secret' and comes from my favorite bakery in Villefranche. Its a big rectangular loaf with a thick crust and is very much pain de Campagne. Anyway, I sliced it thickly and quickly toasted it in the BBQ. Everyone got a clove of garlic to rub on their bread, the brochetta mix was passed around and a chunk of parmesan with a grater to top the mixture. This was a real hit.

The rest of the meal was fine and the South Africans particularly enjoyed their Tarte Tatin.

We broke up at about 12:30 having managed to demolish a fair amount of wine and improve international relations immeasurably.

I'm afraid that this post won't be of a lot of interest to you if you are not a regular on the eGullet forums and have been following their arguments about an ethical code when posting. You can read the whole thing on: www.egullet.org. In a nutshell they have written up a code of ethics for posting on the site and they seem to have high hopes that it might be adopted by other bloggers. Most of it is what I term 'motherhood & apple pie' in other words so innocuous and self evident as to be banal. Who wouldn't agree.

Where I got into a discussion with the power that is was over 'comps'. This is where (in this case) a restaurant, food provider, event or the like provides a meal, product, tickets or the like to someone. In other words its complimentary. In most cases these comps are given in the hopes that the recipient will comment or more importantly write favorably about the donor. They are very prevalent in the restaurant business as a method of, hopefully, generating favorable comment and reviews.

Now, the eGullet view was that comps were OK so long as the compee revealed that a comp had been received when they wrote up whatever it was that they were comp's. I took and take strong exception to that policy. eGullet is a forum for those interested in all thing related to food, most members are like me non-food professionals although there are a goodly number of people in the industry who participate. My position was and is that even disclosed that comp'd opinion is tainted and, therefore, of little value. How can one possibly know what the real opinion is? Therefore, my opinion was and is that if a comp has been given that restaurant, provider, event or whatever should not be written about by the compee on eGullet.

This doesn't mean that the food professional isn't free to write about it anywhere else if they so please. One assumes that articles in magazines are biased by comps, that reviews of events are by people who receive free tickets and so forth. Blogs are personal opinions and should be taken as such. (would anybody be in any doubt that French food focus is strictly MY opinions?). To me it's just that forums such as eGullet exist to be non-commercial, places where the membership express their opinions freely and fairly, not commercially.

The granddaddy of all review publications' the Michelin Guide insists upon anonymity got its reviewers and for good reason. No comps there.

Additionally, I think there is another common practice that is perfectly acceptable; this is what I term the 'freebie'. Your vegetable guy gives you an extra carrot or your regular Friday night restaurant throws in a free dessert. Any provider adds a little extra something either in the hopes of gaining your repeated custom or your good opinion . To me these are OK in almost all cases. They are a far different kettle of fish from the 'comp'.

Here in France the 'freebie' has almost become expected in up market restaurants; the amuse bouch is common in fact we had one the other night in Toulouse. Comps are another matter. The only personal example I can give is from when I was in business in a fairly small town in England. Whenever a new restaurant opened you could bet that I'd get an invitation for a free meal. This was because we were a relatively large company in the town and did a lot of business entertaining. Fair enough & all above board, but I certainly wouldn't have written up my opinion of these places in a blog or on a forum.

Anyway I lost the argument on eGullet as one tends to do. I'm starting to wonder why I bother with it. Well, I do know why I bother; its because there are some nice people who frequent it. Besides I like a good argument every so often although I can't say that I appreciate not being taken seriously and cut off.

Or at least that's how I think you spell it. Its supposed to be the South African word for a Barbeque. They are rightly famous for BBQ in South Africa or at least in my experience over several trips. In any case we have a South African neighbor, Tony, who shows up a the beginning of every summer. He's a nice guy and very hospitable. This time he has two couples from home with him; they'll be here for several weeks. In any case we got invited over for a brai the other night. Sounded good to us; we volunteered to make some salads.

As an aside. Make the opportunity to visit South Africa. Its a wonderful place especially the Western Cape around Cape town. Great people of all colours, wonderful scenery, superb food (both ingredients to buy & restaurants) and wines to savor. All at prices that are hard to believe. How much longer this will last is anybody's guess given the politics, but our friends from South Africa say that the elections held recently were encouraging. GO! is my advice.

Here we are watching the 'brai master' at work. He's built two fires from very well aged hardwood and has let them burn down to ashes.

Here are the two fires doing there job. If you look closely you can see that the sausages have been turned once. They ended up being turned multiple times to ensure even cooking.

Later, and u8nfortunatel I didn't get a picture of them, we had a whole passé of sheep's sweet breads that our friend Rob had bought from the local butcher. They were delicious. For my American readers they are known as 'Rocky Mountain Oysters".

So the brai was good and we enjoyed it. The other thing I wanted to share with you was my recipe for potato salad. Now, I'm perfectly aware that just about everyone has their own recipe for this, but this I think is a good one. I don't claim that its my own. I call it Mary's Potato Salad as it was Mary an Irish neighbor many years ago who was kind enough to share her recipe with me.

No, there's no such thing as a Chili Joint in France. Or at least I don't think so. Certainly not out here in the wilds of deepest France. Might be nice if there was, but there isn't. Besides, it was a national holiday today in France so nothing much was open & we couldn't shop. That's why Linda and I decided to make chili for dinner tonight. Sometimes we just get these cravings.

The 'joint' part is that we made this chili as a team. I tend to like things spicier than Linda so for this effort it was agreed that she would be in charge of adding all the condiments and I'd do the bulk ingredients.

So, I started off by making a miripoix (onions, carrots & celery) plus some garlic, then I fried up a goodly quantity of hamburger in a bit of duck fat (the hamburger here is 85% meat so can us a bit of extra fat). This was added to the miripoix and I then added a can of red beans plus a can of tomatoes. This simmered away nicely for while.

As that was happening Linda made up her spice mix. Alas, we discovered that our jar of chili spice mix was empty. No big deal. Linda just added red pepper flakes, lots of ground cumin, some cayenne and oregano. She ground these together in the mortar & pestle and added them to the mix along with some salt. The chili got a good stir and was left to simmer for a good while, well half an hour anyway.

We both had a taste and agreed that it was a bit 'wimpy' so more of most things especially cumin were added. Better. More simmering. Linda checked again and added Worchester sauce and chicken stock which further improved things.

We did some braised leeks and coco beans to lighten things up and served up the chili. It was pretty good. In fact very good. We both agreed that although good something was missing. For our next attempt we'll add some tomato puree and drain the beans as we thought their juice was too strong a flavour. And we'll think about the missing ingredient.

Thus we created our own chili joint right here in Parisot. I don't think we'll open it to the public, but the chili was good and we enjoyed making it. By the way, Rupert enjoyed licking the plates. A real gourmand is that dog.

Funny how things happen. Yesterday I was working in the garden in only my shorts (not a pretty sight) and wondering why Linda was taking so long to shop (she was relishing the chance to do so with nobody in tow) when here she came closely followed by an Audi convertible that was vaguely familiar. Yoikes I thought what's going on ere? I quickly grabbed a shirt and went over. Linda says "here's somebody who wants to talk to you". I leaned down and there was Charlie a local Real Estate Agent we know well. He explained that he had a writer with him who was doing an article about Americans living in our area of France. As they were driving around Charlie though of me. Not hard as they're aren't hardly any Americans who live in our part of France. Anyway, we asked them in.

Turns out that Steenie Harvey is the European Editor for a magazine called International Living and she's doing an article about Yanks in France. Her partner is taking pictures. So we get Charlie to show them around the house while Linda & I put away the perishable bits of her shopping. We then make everyone a cup of tea (not very American, what?). I get interviewed by Steenie which is fine and sort of pleasant as I haven't been interviewed by a journalist since I retired. She asked both the obvious questions and some non-obvious good ones.

The one that struck me the most was when she asked what I thought would most surprise an American coming to this part of France for the first time. An interesting question and one I've been thinking about ever since. Here are my answers now that I've had time to think. The only difference between these and my off the cuff answers is their completeness.

There are more points, but I think those are the ones that stand out to me. Anybody who reads this is welcome to chip in with another point or a disagreement.

I did go to the magazine's website (www.internationalliving.com) to have a look. Interesting, all about good places to live. According to their most recent research France is the best country in the world to live in! How about that? I'm glad they agree with Linda & I and I'm glad they reached their conclusion on a more scientific basis.

It only seems like 56 days since the last time we were home alone, but it's nice to be on our own for a few days. Mind you I'm not complaining. I love having our friends and family visit. They're all 'good' guests, they help out, share expenses, cook, BUY WINE! and are generally a pleasure to have around. Eventually, however, it becomes a bit too much of a good thing and Linda & I appreciate a few days on our own to relax & recoup.

Our friends from the states left yesterday for Northern Germany to visit a great Grand daughter and her parents. Its a long drive & we've loaned them a car for the journey. Its a good long distance car and has our newly acquired GPS system so navigation isn't a problem. They're stopping off overnight (in fact two nights so they have a day to explore the area where they're stopping. Smart idea I think.) in the Champagne region which should be a good break.

For their last night here I cooked the first BBQ meal of the year as it was a beautiful evening. We started with large mushrooms grilled stem side down then flipped and filled with garlic butter. Easy and delicious. For our main course we had grilled quail (split down their backs & sprinkled with thyme, salt & pepper and a very light coating of olive oil.) These were accompanied by twice baked potatoes. (small potatoes baked in the oven, let cool, insides scraped out and combined with a bit of butter and chopped chives & put back in. Then onto the BBQ to heat & crisp up.) and zucchini squash, quartered and coated with Herbs de Province, garlic granules and S&P and cooked on the grill. It all worked pretty well together.

For dessert I had made two mousses. One was a chocolate mousse uncooked with 85% chocolate, beaten egg whites and cream so it was light. The other was an uncooked lemon mousse with gelatin to stiffen it up. They were served side by side separated by bought Galatine cookies. The chocolate was topped by lemon zest and the lemon was topped by chocolate mint. (yes, it exists!) Absolutely delicious. This dessert with definitely go into my permanent repertoire of dishes. Sorry no pictures as I was too busy cooking.

It was a good send off for our friends and we now have a week on our own. Except for dinner out with local friends on Wednesday and Friday evenings. Well, somebody has to do it.

We've had a lot of rain lately; real spring weather. Unfortunately, the grass loves it. I seem to spend all of my time on the lawn mower. The good news is that I have a deal with a local farmer where he cuts the majority of our field in return for the hay. Unfortunately, again, that still leaves a lot that I have to cut.

It dried off and was a nice day today so I was out on the mower knowing that if I left it the grass would quickly become impossible. This was after a visit to the local quincaillerie.

Now, if you visit France you should make a point of visiting a quincaillerie; they're wonderful. Imagine an old fashioned hardware store combined it a dry goods store and you have an approximation. Today I wanted three things. A special mop head for doing the wooden floors, no problem. A bucket with enough for the mop head, no problem. A very fancy stopper for an IKEA sink, problem! It wasn't even the same size as the ones in the catalog. However, we found a normal plug that although not fancy seemed to be the right size (this after much discussion and measurement) so I bought it with many assurances that I could bring it back if it didn't fit. This for a 50 cent item. I didn't get to go down into the catacombs today mores the pity. They're not really catacombs, but a myriad of cellars under the main store stocked with all kinds of hardware goodies. Do find and visit a French quincaillerie if at all possible; guys will be in heaven and Ladies bemused, but intrigued.

Back to the lawn. Ran out of gas half way through. Local gas station closed for lunch. Nuts!

Decided to make lunch. Local whole wheat bread for tuna mix sandwiches (tuna, chopped onions, chopped celery, diced red pepper, diced Cornichons and low fat mayo) ; Celeri rave, salad parmentiere and julienned carrots; great Spanish potato chips and, of course, some white wine.

Filled up my gas can and finished the lawn. Planted some sweet corn brought over by an American friend and planted some beefsteak tomatoes he brought as well. He says its not too late for the tomatoes, but I'm not so sure. Will keep you posted. My cilantro & basil are doing well by the way.

Came in to watch some snooker (World Championship semi-finals) An addictive game if ever there was one.

Now finishing this and will get ready to go out to dinner at some friends house. They're both good cooks so I'm looking forward to it. They serve good wine as well so the evening will be nice.

Had a good nap and was ready to start cooking again. Linda reminded me that we didn't have any nibbles to feed our guests with their pre-dinner drinks. So, I had a look at what was available in the fridge and came up with two kinds of little snacks.

And these are salmon Rillets with fresh chives from the garden, again wrapped in flaky pastry.

These seemed to satisfy everyone as they drank their wine and caught up on the events of summer. I find it interesting how Europeans love to cluster together in small areas. In this case there were 16 people crammed into an area of maybe 10 by 10 feet even though at the other end of the room there was a space at least four times larger complete with sofa's and comfortable chairs. Go figure?

Anyway, we got everybody seated on our miscellany of chairs, made sure there was plenty of wine on the table and served the salad.

As previously mentioned this was a simple combination of lettuce, wild garlic, cilantro and chives (complete with flowers) with creamy vinaigrette dressing.

Nice and light to just wake up the taste buds in preparation for what was to come.

All three Cassoulet ready to come out of the oven. (Note: this is a good illustration of why having a full 36" oven is so handy. We also have a regular sized oven which gets most use, but the big oven is ideal for times like this and for big birds and such. If you have kitchen space I encourage you to have one.)
The small white container in the foreground is the separate cassoulet I did for our friend who is gluten intolerant so couldn't eat the bread crumb crust.

We lucked out as after seconds we still had enough left for us to freeze and save
for a nice dinner for Linda & I sometime in the future.

After a suitable interval. i.e. more wine drinking the cassoulet had settled enough to allow room for dessert. This was apricot pie or strawberry pie brought by our friends from up the hill. Delicious with either crème Franche or ice cream.

A good time was had by all, much wine imbibed, much food eaten, many jokes told. Just as it should be!

Spring is really with us and is roaring away. Not cold, but blustery with periodic showers, some heavy. Ideal weather for cassoulet before it gets too hot. I've written up a detailed pictorial of my method of making this dish elsewhere on this blog so won't go into any detail this time. I will, however, share with you some shortcuts and variations I used for this one. These were necessary due my having none of the ingredients on hand and having to get the cassoulet prepared after only one day back from our holiday in Spain.

Since I last posted my gregarious wife has upped the number of guests to 18. Good thing I made what are in effect two cassoulet. (A third if you count the little individual one for our friend who can't eat flour.) Fortunately, another friend has agreed to do the dessert. Wonderful apricot tarts by a superb local patisserie. Here's a few pictures of the preparations:

Flowers for the table. These are straight from our garden. Linda is very good at setting a beautiful table and currently is delighted with all of the flowers from the garden.

Here's a view of the table. Long so we have to go across our dining room of get everybody in.

Since its going to be a messy meal there's no fancy linen for tonight, besides I don't think we have a cloth big enough anyway.

As a starter we're having a very simple salad. Baby lettuce, cilantro and a creamy vinaigrette, but sprinkled with wild garlic. Here's the garlic straight out of the ground.

The cassoulet is ready to go back into the oven for a couple of hours having spent a good 4 hours in the oven yesterday.

What did I do differently? Mainly the meats. I roasted two pork loin roasts with salt, pepper and fresh sage then cooled them and cut then into large bite sized chunks for putting in the cassoulet. I used about 3 lbs of lamb breast which I cut into ribs and browned. Then made a miripoix added the lamb back in & made a stew with lots of tomato puree, herbs de province & oregano. After cooking this for 2 hours I fished out the lamb and added the beans (which I'd boiled for 3/4 hour then let soak) ad garlic. This was allowed to simmer for 2-3 hours then cool.

I was now ready to assemble the cassoulet. A layer of bean, then pork, then beans, then lamb, then beans, then sausage, more beans and finally the comfit. Into the oven for 4 hours then out to rest.

So far so good. More later with picture if I have time, but a nap is in order right now so as to be
rested for the evening's festivities.

As mentioned yesterday I went down the other day to watch Rob cut up our half a lamb. I've seen him do this before, but this time I took pictures. I promise that they're not too gruesome. Our half of a dressed lamb weighed almost exactly 10 kilo's (22 lbs); the other half slightly more as Rob hadn't cut exactly down the middle of the backbone.

Here's the whole half of lamb before any cutting. Rod has simply sawed the lamb in half ready to be cut into the cuts we would like.

Here are Rob's tools. As you can see a saw, a cleaver, two knives and a large barding needle. (you can look up barding if you don't know, I won't tell.)

Here's the whole hind leg separated from the front of the carcass. To the right is the leg after cutting the top bit.

This will all get boned out so that one has two leg roasts, ideal for us as we can use the smaller roast for the two of us and the larger will happily feed four to six people.

To the left you can see the two leg roasts in the foreground. In the bottom corner are the delicious kidney's.

Moving on from this Rod does the shoulder next. This is probably my favorite cut. In the shops & at the butcher's we normally just buy it whole then slow roast it, delicious. With Rob, however, I let him bone it out and tie it.

Unfortunately I didn't get a decent picture of the process of boning and tying the shoulder. The picture at right shows the end result.

Next came the breast which was carefully boned then rolled to make a really nice roast for two hungry people.

The end at the left which hasn't been cut as of yet is where the 'infamous' rack to lamb comes from. We don't both, but just go ahead a cut out the chops.

That's it really. Being an ex-master butcher Rob make it look easy. I still haven't figured our how he does his neat little knots that hold when he's tying the roasts. If we had more freezer space I'd buy a whole lamb so we could have a crown roast, but there are too many other things competing for space. Here's what was left of our half lamb.

No bones you say? Well I now have about a quart of delicious lamb stock that I made last night. All night in fact since I forgot to turn it off when I went to bed.

I tossed & turned until finally about 4 AM I remembered that I had forgotten. I was lucky it was still reducing, but not burning. I turned it off and went back to bed & slept well. I tested it this morning, added some water, let it simmer for a while longer, then passed it through a sieve.

This will be a short post just to say that I'll do something more robust tomorrow. The panic was today when I opened the program to write a blog post and all of the images had disappeared.

None in my header or in the body of the posts. Just the blank rectangles with the dreaded little red X's. I tried everything I could think of to fix it to no avail. Interestingly it was only my Frenchfoodfocus website that was affected; all of my other sites were Ok.

I even reinstalled the whole program to no avail. Finally, I went through every menu item by item. Still no luck. Finally as I went through the toolbars I noticed a red X in a circle. Low & behold clicking this solved my problem!

My pictures were back. Whoopee! All was well. As I was at it I deleted that link thing for Tips that I had inserted over on the Left pane. It was sort of intrusive. They claimed it would bring in more hits, but if it did I couldn't see the difference.

Speaking of hits I'd like to get more & have more people read & comment on the blog. Please pass the message along to your friends if you would. Also, I'm open to suggestions; just Make a Comment.

Tomorrow's blog with be a pictorial on my watching Rod cut up our spring lamb, I've commented on this before, but not with pictures. It not gory I promise you.

April 2009

Viva Espana!1 -- Ole!

Well, we just got back from our little vacation in Spain. A good time was had by all. The time share apartment that our friend's son had donated was fine, small, but nice & clean and close to everything in the resort town of Salou. We managed to find everything we needed without any difficulty and by and large the weather was good, especially for this time of year.

Unfortunately our friends had picked up a bad cold somewhere over the Atlantic so were not up to too much exploring. We did, however manage to find a really nice tapas bar just down the road from our apartment. We ordered a bottle of their house white wine and were shocked by what we got, It was an absolutely delicious chardonnay! Very fruity and light and just gorgeous! It tasted almost like a Sauvignon Blanc with muscles. Wow! is all I can say.

Our tapas were; calamari, gambas a la hijo, toasted bread, potatoes with a sauce to die for and chicken wings. All delicious, all perfectly done. They made a very nice meal indeed. We ordered some calamari & a half portion of potatoes for our friend who was feeling too bad to come with us. He was appreciative.

The next day we cooked. Nothing special, but it was fun to explore the local Supermarkets and notice what they did & did not have. Also, the ladies scouted out a 'nice' restaurant for lunch the next day as our friends wanted to treat us to lunch seeing as it was my birthday. (72ond, I'm not coy.) They chose well! The name of the restaurant was "Villa Alexander" and it is beautifully decorated and laid out. The ladies tell me that the rest rooms are superb, I didn't have occasion to use them so you'll have to take the expert's word for it.

The food lived up to the decor. The pick of the day was probably the sea bream that Linda had, gorgeous! All the starters and mains were good. My favorite was my dessert of lemon sorbet which was out standing. The wine list was long and I think outstanding. I say 'I think' because I'm no expert on Spanish wines, but it was long and seemed comprehensive. What I like about it was that the grape varieties used to make each wine were identified. Thus without knowing a lot I could choose a very nice Chardonnay (this one oaked, older and more substantial than our 'tapas' variety.) and a red from Cataluña which was a classic Bordeaux blend. (It turned out well, it was a 1998 and opened up very nicely.)

All in all a very nice meal over three hours in the Spanish style and much appreciated by the birthday boy.

More cooking at home followed. As our friends were still under the weather Linda & I went on a short excursion to Tarragona. This seemed a really nice small city with some outstanding Roman ruins, a very interesting 'old town' and lots of nice shops. Worth a visit.

Next day we did a trip to the nearby mountains. This was spectacular, not totally good for me with my vertigo, but some truly great views. We climbed from the coast to well over 3,000 feet and, of course, back down. All were feeling better so we went back to the tapas bar for dinner. Just as good second time around. We added delicious mushrooms and roasted pork to the tapas repertoire and managed two bottles of their wine. They didn't have dessert, but offered various ice cream concoctions. A very enjoyable evening.

Back home today. As soon as we hit the French border it started raining and it still hasn't stopped. Still, its nice to be home and Rupert was very happy to see us even though he's being spoiled rotten by Linda's sister & her husband.

No rest for the wicked. Shopping tomorrow then Cassoulet for 14 people on Tuesday.

Buying Wine - Locally!

Our next set of guests is arriving shortly; in fact Linda has gone down to Toulouse to pick them up and should back any time now. Anyway, I looked and realized that we were out of our favorite local red wine so my brother-in-law and Rupert hopped in the car and we went to buy some.

We drove just up the hill no more than half a mile to the 'cave'. Now I have to be honest this isn't really local wine. It comes from further South near Carcassonne and is an AOC Minervois. The reason I say local is that our friend Paul sells it from a cellar on his farm complex. He sells it because his daughter is married to the vintner. Low overhead operation, but good wine. Down South they have close to 200 hectares of vines (around 500 acres) which is a big operation.

As usual as we drove up the dogs raced out to greet us and to alert everyone to our prescience. When they realized that Rupert was in the car the barking got even louder and Roop responded in kind. A good bark was has by all and honor was satisfied on all sides. Paul was nearby pruning some trees so he stopped and greeted us, I introduced Derek, my beau frère. I love that My beau frère, my good brother. Somehow it sounds nicer than brother-in-law.

In any case Paul took Derek off to see the gite he's created. (Its very nice, I've seen it before, and would be a good place for a holiday) Meanwhile Paul's Mother has come out to see what's going on so she and I went into the cave so I could buy the wine. Now, they have a whole selection of wines that they make at the vineyard. In bottles all the way from about 3.50 Euros up to around 15.00 Euros per bottle. When I normally buy, however, is the 10 liter boxes. They sell a 10 liter box of AOC Minervois red for 19.90 Euros. That's what I bought today. Works out at less than 1.50 Euros per bottle. Don't laugh because if I decant it into a nice looking container, let it breath for a while and serve it to you, you will be delighted at the quality. They also sell a chardonnay for about the same price. Its quality is amazing! Not oaked of course as is the French custom, but absolutely delicious. Why pay more I ask?

Tour over, wine bought so with a last barking contest we were off. I do like buying wine here.

Sometime I'll describe buying wine at the wine shop over in Villefranche de Rouergue. No that's a long process if you're after a serious wine.

I apologize for the lack of pictures, but when I went to use it I discovered that our trusty Nikon's batteries were too low for picture taking.

In any case its not a particularly photogenic recipe, but do try it as its absolutely delicious.

Big Night Out!

Well, sort of. Our local restaurant, L' Auberge de La Castille was having a special meal yesterday evening so we went. We always wonder how Serge survives as a restaurateur since he normally doesn't have a lot of business. Its not that he's not a good chef because he isn't bad at all; its just that the menu seldom changes and isn't very adventurous to begin with. Still, he has to depend upon local custom and the locals like the familiar. Anyway the Auberge is a pleasant enough place and Serge has recently done some decorating to spruce the place up.

The special meal was mules- frites. This is a great favorite both of the locals and of ours. He had a full house for the evening, probably about 50 covers. The three course meal was 16 Euros. The started was a choice of a smoked salmon salad or a fois gras pate. I had the salad which was very good. Dessert was a chocolate gateau with a light mint sauce; again very tasty. The Moules and the frites were delicious and plentiful. Each table got two servings of both.

In addition we had live music. This was provided by an old gentleman who was a very good singer/ musician aided by two attractive ladies. The gentleman was, I think, someone who had in his younger days been well known throughout France, but was now retired. He was both good and professional. The ladies were, again I think, either his grown up daughters or, perhaps, a daughter and a Grand daughter. In any case both could sing well. Thus we had music throughout the evening, all French standards and easy to listen to. And, yes, he did have an accordion. This is somewhat of a standing joke among the local foreign community in that anytime the French get together like this there will be an accordion player. In this case he only used it once, mostly he played the keyboard or the drums.

Part of the crowd of diners were, obviously, his family. You could see the resemblance. As the evening wore on various of the family member got up to sing or to accompany the two lead singers. They were all good. By the end of the evening the tables had been cleared and pushed back and the dancing was going strong. We left about 12:30 AM and things were still in full swing.

Not bad for the wilds of France. It was a lot of fun and we got to have a chat with many of our local neighbors.

Kids go home tonight & their parents arrive. No rest for the wicked.

Getting Busy

My posts may start getting pretty erratic in the near future. Things are starting to get busy. We have a whole series of visitors arriving over the next days and weeks. The weather getting good and the visitors starting to come sort of go together; funny how that works. And good weather we've been having; it was up in the high 60's yesterday & today with sunny skies.

Currently we have our favorite niece and her fiancée staying with us. They're making plans for their wedding in June. HERE!! Don't ask why they want to get married in Franc, but they do. Should be a lot of fun. It won't be a big wedding only about 40 people in all. The Mayor will do the honors. (They were up at the town hall today sorting the incredible amount of paperwork it takes to get two English people married in France. Everything was OK except one form & Madam Bosc will be sorting that out.) As I write this they're up at the chateau trying to sort out how to get a wireless Internet connection out to where the marquee will be for the dinner and dancing. (Our friends kindly offered the chateau grounds to the kids.) Tomorrow Bavo, who is doing the catering, is coming over to discuss menus. (Fortunately, I only have to cook for one main meal for about 20, I think.)

When the kids go home on Sunday we pick up our Niece's parents who are coming for a visit. They'll be with us for a few days until our friends arrive from the states. (Get this! Our friends sold their house in Spokane in a week and have now bought a bank repossession in the Bay Area. They are determined to make this visit so everything is in storage and they will move into their new house when they get back. What housing crisis?) They'll be with us for several weeks.

Shortly after they arrive, however, the four of us are going to Spain for a week while our in-law's baby sit Rupert our dog. Then back home for a while.

So, please bear with me and keep checking in if I don't get the time to put up many posts over the next few weeks. I'll be thinking about it, however and may have some things to say about Spain. After all I did live there many years ago when things were very different.

Free Food - Living off the land

As those of you who have followed this blog for some time will know I'm a great believer in free food, that which one can forage for in our local countryside. I've posted, a couple of times I think, about Michael & I's forays in the fall for walnuts, apples, mushrooms and other goodies.

Now its springtime and things are growing again. You frequently see the French out walking the hedge rows and scouring the roadside ditches. They're looking for edible bounty. One of the local favorites in the spring is 'wild asparagus'. Its really not asparagus at all wild or otherwise, but it does look like skinny stalks of the real thing. It has a funny name in French; repariou.. something or other. Not only can I now spell it I can't pronounce it properly either.

Not that it matters since I don't like it. The locals rave about it. They steam it and pair it will hard boiled eggs and vinaigrette and pronounce it delicious. Sorry neighbors, I just don't like it.

This week though our local farmer showed Linda a new wild plant to eat. She in turn showed me what to look for. Its a form of wild garlic. Its found along the sides of the road mainly on steep banks. One needs a tool to dig it our or the bulbs will break off. There's lots of it not far from our house so we went out the other evening and picked some. Our Niece has arrived from England and wants to try it so we'll go out again this evening.

Here's what it looks like as it comes out of the ground.

A lot like spring onions except for the roots which are different.

Here's a close up of the bulb end.

Note the little modules growing around it.

Here are the bulbs after cleaning up.

The nodules are clearly visible now. As you can see the roots are very long which is why a tool and a deal of care are needed to get them out of the ground.

All trimmed and ready to eat.

Just add a bit of salt and eat as is or chop them up and add to a salad.

Either way they're good. The taste is somewhere between that of a spring onion and mild garlic.

They are best eaten as soon as possible after picking we found.

Delicious!

I'm really pleased to have been introduced to a new wild free food. These will feature permanently on our Spring menu from now on.

By the way, remember the rules off foraging for wild food.

- Only take what you plan to eat.
- Always left some to there will be seeds
for next year.

On a different topic entirely I was out in the garden taking a few pictures this morning so I thought I would share some of them with you.

Lets start with the Iris's that grow outside our bedroom window. As you can see they're just coming out.

Pretty aren't they? Won't be long until they're fully out.

Close to the Iris's you can see the dill just starting to sprout after it's severe cutting back. It was huge last fall

Here's just one of our self seeding chives. It seems that no matter how much I decimate these poor little plants for use in the kitchen they just keep coming back.

As you can see here they've spread out of the flower bed and onto the gravel of the path. There are lots of them . This guy, however, is the largest.

Fortunately, they're not on a part of the path where they would get walked on.

My favorite! A tiny little thyme plant.

Like the chives they are very persistent. Their big brothers from past years have grown spindly and woody from my repeated cutting for the kitchen, but these little guys (and there are a lot of them) are doing well.

Little do they know what I have in store for them! They're one of my favorite herbs so I use thyme a lot.

I'm happy to say that my cilantro (coriander) and basil seeds are prospering. They're up and doing well.

A little rant and, no, its not an April Fool joke

Before I start ranting a brief word about Rupert. He's doing fine and will get his stitches removed later today. We had to switch him to an even larger lampshade when the bandage came off as he could just reach his stitches. He'll be a happy dog when the lampshade comes off in a few days time!

My rant. I've been noticing lately or, perhaps, its just annoyed me more as of late that a lot of English speaking people who live here in France seem to like to lace their writings and conversations with French words. It drives me nuts! Please speak one language or the other. The golden rule is to speak one language at a time. The one that you and whomever you are communicating with both speak best. Thus, I speak French with my French friends (unless their English is better than my French.) and English with my English friends. ( I did live in England for many years so am reasonably fluent.) And, yes, I speak American to my American friends.

Don't say "....." just say I'll see you later if you're speaking or writing in English. I recently saw on one of the worst offenders blog the use of the French for swimming suit (or bathing costume if you're English.) in the midst of a blog in English. It was the only French in the whole piece. Why? The same person also fairly recently did a whole list of all the euphemisms the French use for death or dead. Very interesting to somebody learning French I suppose, but not of much interest to the average English speaking audience. (Its not as if we don't have plenty of ways to say death or dying in English)

To me its sheer pretension. Its saying "look at me, I speak French" or "wow, I live over here and speak the language". Aren't I clever? My response is; so what? Don't you know its rude to drop words and/or phrases that your audience is unlikely to understand into any communication? This is especially pretentious when writing or speaking in your native language to an audience who are mainly natives of your home country.

There's a simple rule that most multi-national, multi-lingual people follow when in the company of others. You speak the most common language. If for example you have a group of five people from five countries and three speak French, two English, but four speak Spanish then you all try to speak Spanish. Logical, no? The same goes when writing; if you are writing in English, write in English not franglaise.

Enough ranting! You get my point.

There are some words or expressions, however, that defy expression in another language. I will now use one, its French, to describe the pretentious, arrogant and rude people I've been ranting about.

They are arriviste. Unfortunately, the word does not translate well, but if of the people I'm referring to should read this they may just understand.

An Apology! In my agitation over Rupert I forgot to upload this

post. Its a week late! Sorry.

Saturday - Stuff happens

Well as you can read below Friday was looking pretty good when I wrote up my thoughts for the day.

I duly picked up Rupert from the groomers. He seemed fine & looked good as always. I went downstairs and Rupert & linda went up to the kitchen so Rupert could have his dinner.

After that Linda took Roop outside so he could do whatever he had to do. Suddenly she burst in shouting "come quick! Rupert's sick! He had been vomiting, then running, then vomiting. Now he was down in our field just laying down. I rushed down to see what the problem was. He couldn't get up, poor lad. When I tried to pick him up I noticed that his stomach was very hard and he whimpered when I tried to raise him. So I just stroked him and talked to him while Linda called a neighbor to help carry him. Before the neighbor could arrive Roop managed to get up and let me lead him back to the house. It was obvious that he was in great pain even though like most dogs he was stoic about it.

After some difficulty we managed to reach Huguette our vet. She was on her way home from another call so came to our place on the way back. She quickly diagnosed what she thought was a twisted stomach. This is a very dangerous condition and Rupert could die very quickly if it isn't treated. Huguette gets a hold of the vet practice in Negropolisse where they have all of the necessary equipment.

Off we go, its a 45 minute drive. The vet there confirms Huguette's diagnosis after an X-ray and a ultra sound scan. He immediately went in for an operation. We're told to go away & come back in an hour. We do. We get back and the vet announces that all is well. Rupert did indeed have a twisted stomach, but they've turned it and sewn it to the muscles on his right ribs so it can't happen again. We're relieved as you can imagine.

We're sent home with the advice to have a glass of wine & relax than call the vet's at 10:00AM the next morning. Meanwhile we're trying to get through to our friends in Toulouse to let them know why we aren't there. Turns our our cell phone is dead so we have to wait until we get home to leave them a message.

Looking on the Internet we find that a twisted stomach is something that affects large dogs with deep chests like standard poodles, great Danes and German Sheppard's. No body seems to know what causes it, but all agree that it can kill a dog very quickly if not operated on immediately. We certainly can't think of any cause for Rupert to have this affliction.

Today we called & he was OK so went to get him. He was, obviously, very happy to see us and although subdued and under par seemed Ok. We got lots of instructions from the vet as to care & feeding over the next few weeks and, of course we got the dreaded collar so the Roop can't lick his wounds. It seems unfair, but I did take some pictures of him.

Not looking very happy. You can just see his bandage over his incision.

Here's a close up of his bandage. Its quite a long incision with a lot of stitches.

Here he is looking very sorry for himself and rightly so.

We'll nurse him for the next few weeks and hope there aren't any complications.

He's got to be in good shape by June as he's got a role as Best Dog at our niece's wedding.

Anyway so much for T.G.I.F. Our Friday didn't quite work our as planned. According to our friends the Flamenco was brilliant. Ah well.

Friday ramblings

Thank God It's Friday, but I no longer say that since I retired. Actually Friday's are pretty nice these days. This Friday certainly was a busy one.

First I took Rupert for his walk. Well, this was after Linda served me coffee in bed and I read the last bits of The Economist. Anyway, we just did a circuit of the lake so Roop could do his stuff. Then we came home so he could have his breakfast before we left for Villefranche and the groomers.

This is the downside of poodle owning. They have to be clipped every 5-6 weeks. Its not cheap, but then when you think of how much hair there is to cut compared to a human it doesn't seem so bad. She spends 4 hours on him what with a bath & a blow dry before she even stats clipping. The shop is called Funky Toilettage, Toilettage being the French word for dog grooming. Rupert is conflicted when he goes in. One the one hand he adores the girl who clips him; on the other hand he hates having it done. (wouldn't you if you had to stand still for 4 hours.) So he greets her happily, but keeps his tail tucked between his legs. He looks at me accusingly as I leave.

I can't resist popping into the patisserie next door for a croissant, this one is filled with raspberry jam. Very sinful, but good.

Back home I stop at the Post Office, mail my letter then go around the corner to our little Friday market. After greeting a few people I notice that one of the local goat farmers is selling aged Cabecou. I can't resist a bargain so I buy 6 for 4 Euros. Here's a picture.

Aren't they pretty.

The thing about aged Cabecou is that the taste gets sharper with age. The older the sharper. But they also get harder & harder with age. These are just right; nice and sharp, but still soft enough to be chewed.

I'm in heaven and Linda is reminding me of my diet so I only eat one. I'll try to restrict myself to one per day.

Back at home I decided that just a plain picture of the cheeses was a bit boring so since it is another beautiful day I decided to take some pictures in the garden. See what you think.

My somewhat feeble attempts at artistic poses for the cheeses. Still, I had fun trying to set them up.

Here are a few pictures of our more spectacular bushes that are in pretty much full flower right now.

I'm happy to say that this year Linda has caught the gardening bug. She done a huge amount of work in the garden. All I've done is to haul away the debris and a bit of digging when it was too heavy for her.

If all of her seeds take I think we'll open our own flower stand later this year.

I'll take it easy for a while now then have lunch (Dare I try more Cabecou?) then I've got to pick up Rupert at two O'clock from the groomers. He'' be delighted to see me as always and will urge me to drive faster on the way home.

Linda will make a fuss of him which he loves then he'll water the garden and have a long nap as being groomed is hard work.

About four thirty we'll take off for Toulouse where we're meeting friends for dinner followed by a flamenco performance. Toulouse has a Flamenco Festival every year which attracts some of the top artists so we're expecting something pretty good.

We'll get home late, but having had a pretty nice day. Such is life in rural France.

Anticipation!

Surely Spring is coming; isn't it? Yesterday we thought it was here. The temperature was nearly 70 degrees and it was nice & sunny. Not so today, its overcast and quite a lot colder.

Linda, Rupert & I went down to the local lake to have a look.

Here's Roop looking. Not sure that he's finding much.

A downed tree that hasn't been cleaned up as of yet.

Then some very nice oak logs seasoning away.

Still the willows are trying to come out, but aren't quite there yet.

We love walking around this lake so do so frequently. Its about a mile and a half around so it makes a nice walk. Rupert absolutely adores it as he can chase the ducks to his heart's content. No matter how hard he tries they just laugh at him. He never gives up though and is convinced that one day.... ! Of course I don't think he'd know what to do if he actually did catch one.

Even our local heron is waiting. I saw the pair of them the other day so we must be getting close.

They seem to stay at the lake all year around, but I've never spotted their nest or any young ones.

The little barn where they keep the boating stuff is sitting there ready to go.

I even saw a bunch of fisher men yesterday so the season must have started.

The cafe is looking forlorn and abandoned, but will liven up later in the year and serve delicious cheap meals, good local wine and Stella Artois beer. What could be better on a warm summer evening. Something to look forward to.

Looks like the heron has given up and flying off to who knows where. He'll be back though.

Linda and Rupert have also given up and are heading back to the car. Guess I'll join them. We'll try another day as Spring can't be long now.

Here's the village on the way home. Looks pretty good.

Once home we can console ourselves with the evidence that the garden is waking up.

Even though we know its too early for Spring in our part of France we can't help anticipating. Who wouldn't?

Lamb; as purchased locally

Every year about this time we get a call from Bernard Rossignol who runs his family's farm. Its time to buy our Spring lamb. We do this every Spring and for that matter every fall since Bernard manages to get two sets of lamb every year.

Half of his ewes are kept indoors in a huge barn while the rest are outside in the fields. The indoor ewes are the pregnant ones. They switch places roughly every six months. Indoors or out they're well fed and cared for. It still amazes me that Bernard manages to keep the barn so clean. His lambs are of course all milk fed by their mothers so they taste delicious. Some of you may object to this, but all I can say is even though they lead short lives they're good ones.

No, that's not Bernard with his lambs, but it might as well be. He's passionate about his sheep and his farm. When the time comes his lambs are driven off to a special organic humane abattoir for butchering. He's very particular about the whole process.

Here's how the lamb is delivered. In a nice neat box. Our 1/2 lamb this year weighed 9.7 kg (just under 22 Lbs.) We only have freezer space for a half lamb otherwise we'd buy a whole one as its so good.

Here's how the lamb is packaged. These are packs with two or three chops in each pack. (Bernard will have the lamb cut up & packaged to your preference) The packs are all vacuum sealed and ready to go into the freezer.

As you can see at the right each package is carefully labeled.

The printing in Red is the standard data; the Abattoir name (SARL SALAS); their logo on the right; the 'grower (ferme de la Serin); the farm's registered number and at the bottom the keeping instructions (keep between 0 & 20 degrees).

The data in black is all of the variable data. The cut (cote= chop); the date it was butchered and the sell by date (without freezing); then the weight; followed by the lot number and finally the farm name & address.

Pretty complete data.

Here's the shoulder. Our favorite cut. This one weighs about six ponds and will be very slowly roasted with rosemary & garlic. Yummy!

Here's the leg. And its label.

We also got the breast & ribs and the abats (sounds better than the kidney's, liver & heart doesn't it?)

Finally, here a a couple of pictures of Bernard's brochure which he puts in every box.

We like buying locally and in this case we can see the farm up the hill from our house. The quality of his lamb is terrific. Besides we know spring is not far away when Bernard calls.

As an aside we had a nice chat with Bernard about the World Economic crisis. Most conversations seem to end up on that topic these days. He was very sorry for & sympathetic towards those economically distressed by this depression. At the same time as a farmer he hasn't been much effected. The price of lamb is down marginally, but not enough to be a worry. He & his family are mostly self sufficient and their farm so don't need a lot of cash income to be OK. I think that's the situation for a lot of our neighbors. Another large lot are pensioners which here in France means that they're pretty well provided for.

A cute story involving Bernard & his family to end on. A few years back he arranged for this son, then about 12 years old, to go to Scotland and stay with our local friends Rob & Jean's sons & Daughter at their hotel & sheep farm in Balquidder. He had a great time & picked up quite lot of English from the farm lads, hotel kitchen workers and waiters. He came home & both he & his parents were quite proud of his newly learned language skills. Some time later our friend's son, Tom who runs the family hotel, came for a visit. Naturally, they were invited to Bernard's for a meal. As they arrived Bernard & his wife plus Bernard's Mother & father were there to greet them. The young son wanting to show off his English walked up to Tom and said; "Tom, you old S.O.B, how the f___k are you?" His parents were beaming & our friend trying to keep a straight face and the lads who'd taught him this 'english' were in big trouble when Tom got back to Scotland.

Everything, but the quack

I've had some correspondence recently with a lady in Washington state who has a farm where they raise ducks amongst other things. (see the comments section) They raise Muscovy ducks which I remember as mean spirited devils from years ago when we had a pair. In any case it got me to thinking about ducks in French culture and how important they are and how the French use every bit of the bird.

Here in France they raise mainly the Mulard breed of duck. I don't know enough about ducks to have an opinion as to which breed is better. I do know that locally we see fairly large flocks, 100 to 200, in fenced fields. What amazes us is the way that every bit of the bird is used, nothing goes to waste. Here's a catalog:

The liver. This of course ends up as the fabled fois gras. Delicate, delicious and very expensive. We don't buy a lobe very often, but when we do its cooked very simply, served with good country bread toasted and local sweet dessert wine.
The breasts. Magret in French. A favorite dish of ours. Simply fried/baked, but kept rare with all of the fat rendered out of the skin which has been cut into a cross hatch then cooked slowly. The fat is poured off several times and saved. We serve Alliade de Toulouse with it. This is a sauce made of garlic and walnut oil. A single breast can way one pound.
The leg & thigh. Their are two main ways to use the cuisse as its called in French. One way is to just cook it; fried slowly or better yet combines with shallots, olives & garlic then cooked slowly in a covered pan.
The main way to use cuisse., however, is to make confit. For confit the leg & thigh (plus other parts like the wings) are seasoned then cooked slowly in rendered duck fat. Stored in jars or cans these can be preserved for months. I must admit that we don't make it any more as it somewhat mess with all the fat and we can easily buy just as good if not better than our own locally. The cook it one simply wipes off most of the fat & fries it in a pan. Or its an essential ingredient of a Cassoulette.
The feather & down. These of course are cleaned and used to stuff duvets. Not quite as good a goose I'm told, but a lot less expensive.
The carcass. Again, there are two ways to use this. The first id to pick off all the remaining bits of meat and cook them slowly in the duck fat. (Usually done in conjunction with confit making) The results is called confit just as the leg/thigh is. The resulting paste is delicious spread on crusty country bread.
Another way with the carcass is to fry it in duck fat then pick off all the little edible bits to eat. This is called friton.
Just to confuse things further there is another dish called friton which is a kind of rough pate made from the bits & piece of meat, kidney, skin & so forth. Can't say that I'm overly fond of it, but it does have the advantage of being cheap.

Just when you thought there was no more there's the neck. Yes, it gets used as well here's a link to a recipe. By the way you should have a look at "Lucy's Kitchen" it a most wonderful food blog by an American lady who lives in Lyon. I only wish I could cook as well as she dos.

That's it, there ain't no more duck left!

On the cheese again, just can't wait ..................

Those of you who have been following along with my recent health problems will know that one of the things I had to give up was cheese. Now, I love cheese and you will find a host of posts & pictures of cheese if you plow back through this blog. But orders are orders so no cheese since late December.

Last week, however I went for a check up with my cardiologist. He gave me a clean bill of health; good heart, good blood, good exercise and I've lost around 12 pounds. As a result I'm back on the cheese again, but cautiously. This was why the cheese pictured below caught my eye. (well that & the fact that it was on sale)

As you can see its called Lacandou and is made from raw sheep's milk. What you can't see too well in the picture is that it show two measurement of the materiel grasse or fat content. Its a law in France that the fat content be published on the label of the cheese. What's unusual here is the fact that there are TWO measurement whereas normally there is only ONE. I was intrigued so did some research.

It turns out that you can measure the fat content of cheese in two different ways. The percentage fat in the normal cheese after its made is one way. The other way is to measure the fat content as a percentage of the weight of the dry solids in the cheese. It is this second measurement that is required to be shown by law. Its logical if you think about it since the fat percentage of the total weight will vary with the age of the cheese because the cheese will lose water weight as it ages. Dry weight on the other hand won't vary.

So, now you (and I) know what 55% mat. gr means when we see it on a French cheese label. We also know what it means when there are two percentages shown. And we know that the lower (28% in this case) measurement if shown is the fat content of the whole cheese. Now, this is something that you probably didn't care whether you knew it or not, but I find it comforting to know that the cheese I just ate is only 28% fat, not the 55% I thought it was.

The Lacandou by the way was a sort of so so cheese. Smooth and nice enough, but no real character. Maybe I should have let it ripen some more before eating.

In the course of my investigation I turned up some nice websites dedicated to cheese. Her for you edification and use are a few of them:

www.frencheese.co.uk. A very comprehensive site. I think it was done to encourage the British to eat more French cheese. In any case its a nice resource.

www.fromages.com. Not as comprehensive, but good. Its a commercial site where you can buy cheese.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_French_cheeses. Can't leave out Wikipedia can I? Not as good as I would have hoped, but there are some very interesting articles on individual cheese.

www.frenchcheese.dk. Nice site by someone in Denmark. Obviously a labor of love and very useful.

http://about-france.com/cheese.htm. All kinds of information about France, but I do like their cheese section as it has good information in a concise form.

Probably more than you ever wanted to know about French cheese, but its one of my passions so bear with me.

Sunday Lunch on a cold day

Spring keeps trying, but its not quite here yet. Yes, our bulbs are up and in flower which is nice and I mowed the lawn for the first time yesterday, but still today was cold. So we had four friends over, got the fire place going and cooked a comforting lunch.

Linda made carrot soup with cumin & crème fraiche to get us going. It was lovely, nice and warming.

I made poule au pot. Normally this is chicken boiled in a pot with a range of vegetables then cooked in the stock from the chicken. Certain purists will insist that it be made with an old hen past her time and that it be cooked for days. They like to try to place a lot of mystique around the dish when in reality its a good old fashioned simple country dish with a lot of variations. Why make life complicated and why try to make the dish so that nobody who lives outside of France can duplicate it? So, here's what I did:

I used young roosters (cocquetes) instead of an old chicken. I did this because in France old chickens are expensive and it would have taken two of the to feed 6 people. I could buy 3 little roosters for a lot less money. If I were outside of France I would use whatever type of whole chicken is cheap. So, I boiled by little guys for about 10 minutes in plain water then added the herbs (bay leaf, thyme and rosemary) and boiled them for 15 more minutes. Because of my diet I used some artificial salt sparingly. (normally you should just lightly salt the stock.} After this 25 minutes of boiling I took the chicken out to cool. Once they were cool enough to handle I cut them in half down the backbone then peeled off the skin and removed the backbone and ribs so I have the boneless carcass with the legs, thighs and wings attached.
All the bones went back into the pot and got gently boiled for another hour. The meat got a bit of stock over it and was then covered to rest.

While this was going on I prepared the vegetables. Carrots (peeled) whole, leeks cut into long lengths, onions peeled (for 6 people I used 2 largish onions and cut them into 3rds), butternut squash peeled and cut into large chunks, a Savoy cabbage cur into 6 and 12 good sized mushrooms.

When the stock was ready I skimmed off as much fat as possible (these little roosters didn't have much) let it cool for while then strained it through paper towels - twice. This was all in advance in the morning.

About half an hour before serving I brought the stock back up to the boil and added all of the vegetable except the mushrooms. Everything boiled for 15 minutes and then I added the mushrooms and boiled for another 10 minutes. As I put the mushrooms in I also turned the heat on under the chickens so as to reheat them.

In this case we served half a chicken to each person, dipped out all of the veggies into two big tureens and let people serve themselves. To go with the poule au pot we served a big pot of Dijon mustard and a pot of Cornichons (little French pickles) These accompaniments are absolutely essential and really make the dish!
You'll find that the mustard is delicious with this dish and that the pickles enhance the flavors nicely.

Just the thing for a cold Sunday afternoon. Filling yet not at all calorific. Delicious and easy to make if you don't do a fussy version.

We had a really nice dessert of dried apricot pureed and baked it a timbale sort of custard. Good, but low calorie. I'm getting better at these 'healthy' meals. I think?

Saving money in hard times - Cheap wine.

I was reading somebody's blog today and they were going on about inexpensive wines here in France. They were only paying 5 Euros (about $6.25) a bottle at a local wine coop. I guess they're richer or less in tune with French ways than I since I don't find 5 Euros a bottle cheap. Not by French standards anyway.

Now, 75 centimes a bottle is cheap. That's for a nice Minervois red. Their chardonnay is about 1.20 Euro per bottle. This I get from Paul who lives up the hill. He gets it from his son-in-law who has a winery down near Carcassonne. There has to be a catch - right. Well. yes there is. I'm buying this wine in a box. The same wines in a bottle would cost a lot more, but still nowhere near 5 Euros a bottle.

Now, if I decant either of these wines and serve them as I do to guests who know their wines I get nothing but praise. Everyone likes them because they are nice wines. Not top Bordeaux or Chablis, but very nice acceptable wines that I am happy to serve. I've even served them to food writers & restaurant reviewers with good results. When serving them I just say where they're from and never mention the price.

Now, I also know that things are different back home in the states. Boxed wine have a deservedly bad reputation. I can't believe, however, that somebody out of the 1,00's of winery's in the states isn't putting some good wine in boxes. The trice is to find it. Also, there should be at least a few importers bringing in good boxed wine from Europe. I'd encourage you to look and sample.

You might just save a bunch of money.

Southwestern French cooking - A Paula Wolfert evening

Yesterday my friend Michael and I decided to do a dinner based upon recipes from Paula Wolfert's excellent book "The Cooking of Southwestern France". I've used this book quite a lot, but it was new to Michael. Along with "Goose Fat & Garlic" I think its the best book around for our regional cuisine.

Given my dietary restrictions I had to choose the recipes carefully to avoid as much fat & sugar as possible. I ended up with three dishes. "The Archbishops Tourain', 'Michael Guérard's Pureed Celery Root with Apples' and 'Batter Cake with Fresh Pears'. These meet my criteria which isn't easy given the richness of French cooking in the region. They also satisfied a long standing desire to find out what could be made from celery root other than remoulade. I also wanted to try the batter cake as if successful it could make the base for a variety of fruit topped desserts.

Michael agreed the menu and we headed off the the Sunday market at Limogne to buy our ingredients. Limogne is one of our favorite markets so we go on most Sundays. Yesterday the weather was nothing to brag about and as its a school holiday next week there were a number of missing stalls. (Lots of market stall holders take a break this time of year especially those who are local growers since they don't have a lot to sell at end of winter.) Still there were plenty of stalls to choose from.

For the Tourain we needed duck confit. This was easy at the charcouterie. We got 4 nice leg-thighs (cuisses) and a bit of extra fat. The vegetables we needed were easy; nothing special there.

There was ,as always, lots of celery root for sale. We just had to make sure that we got celeri-rave , not celeriac. They look fairly similar, but aren't the same thing at all. Next we needed sweet apples. Paula calls for Red Delicious which are easy to find in the states, but no known here in France. Or at least I don't think so. Never fear as there are more varieties of apple in France than there of cheese. (believe it or not!) and Limogne market has THE APPLE LADY. This lady, well into her 70's if not 80's, stocks about 15-20 varieties of apples and is a font of knowledge. Since the apples called for are sweet that's what I asked for. She recommended a large beautiful looking variety at first, but when I said they would be cooked she switched me to another variety. These were huge, yellow and firm. (I bough an extra one for tasting. They were indeed sweet and very delicious)

The next thing we needed was rye bread and I knew just where to get it. My favorite bread stand has a nice selection of all kinds of bread (if fact if you go into their shop in Villefranche the selection is superb, great cakes & pastry as well, but not the elaborate fancy stuff). In any case she had half a loaf of dark rye left. I wanted her to slice it along the long direction as I could have 4 slices, but she didn't want to do that as it would have left her an unsalable lump. So, she cut it in half the other way & I got a quarter loaf.

( An aside: When shopping at market in France don't be afraid to ask for a half or even a quarter loaf of bread if that's all you need or if the smaller size loaf you wanted is sold out. Also, you can take of of the bunch & buy a single stalk of celery if you so desire. Because these things are sold by weight you can within reason buy the quantity you like. Took me a while to realize this and to p-luck up the courage and the French to do it!)

The next item we needed was you pears; again we wanted sweet ones. Again I was able to ask a stall holder for advice. This lady said one variety was sweeter, but I'd have to keep them at room temperature for 4 days to bring out the sweetness. Another variety she had was sweet enough for immediate use.

We picked up our other bits & bods and headed for the cafe for a coffee. Some brave souls were drinking outside (the smokers I suspect), but we went in & chatted to some casual friends we only see at market. Then off to home again. Michael & I arranged to meet at his place later to do all of our preliminary cooking.

You can easily look up the recipes in Paula's book so I won't go over them in any detail here. I will, however, make a few comments:

The Tourain didn't thicken up much when we added the egg/vinegar combination. Don't know why. Perhaps we should have reduced the soup a bit more earlier in the recipe.
We tried to be clever and form the celery/apple mash into patties & fry them just before serving. It didn't work! So much for our brilliant ideas.
Our 'cake' didn't rise nearly as high as we expected. After Paula's write up we were expecting something pretty high, but we didn't get it. The other thing with the cake was that it definitely wants the sugar sprinkling over it to bring out the flavour. We left it off in deference to my diet.

All in all this meal turned out well. The cooking was straightforward and the results were good. Our wives enjoyed it which is pretty good going. Another aspect of this menu that I liked was that we were able to do all the preparation in advance. In fact the cake had to be rested for a couple of hours. This enabled up to do our prep, have some time off cooking, change clothes and have a rest.

We returned to Ruvé & Michaels about 6:30 and played poker for a while before putting the cake in the over. We played for a while more then quickly finished off the soup & the celery root. By the time we ate that dessert was ready.

All in all a successful experiment that we had a lot of fun doing.

Should have known better

I'm a slow learner I guess. We drove up to England all in one go. Leaving home in the evening, crossing under the channel in the very early morning and making it up to our in-laws by noon. Not a good idea!
After a nap we had dinner. Then I went funny again; yep another stroke. I just wanted to go to bed & did, but everybody else called for an ambulance. They carted me away to the hospital in Leeds.

The English are just as bad as the French in that they kept me in for the same amount of time. Had an MRI scan this time before they let me out. The English doctors out prescribed the French as I now have 6 pills to take every morning. We'll se how that goes as now we're back home I'm going to see my French GP this afternoon' I'm sure that Dr. Jean will prescribe at least as many things as the English.

Its an interesting experience being in the hospital in two different countries one after the other; especially for one who hasn't been in hospital for over 40 years. I must say that the staff in both hospitals were great. Very caring and competent. Believe it or not the food in the English hospital was better than in the French. That's not saying a lot, but it was defiantly better, at least partially because the French had me on a no salt, no fat diet. The French hospital was much newer than the English one, two bed rooms as opposed to wards, but the English one seemed to be better equipped. Possibly because it was a much larger hospital. Although I hope not to see either hospital again, I have no complaints, both treated me very well.

Now that I'm a stroke 'veteran' I find it notable that at no point did I feel bad for more than a very short time, tired yes, but not in pain or discomfort. Both episode lasted but a few minutes and then I was back to 'normal'. No pain, but tired feeling. I did suffer from some numbness in the right side of my face which has now gone away and some blurriness of vision in my right eye which also seems to be slowly lessening. Otherwise I seem to be OK. I think I've been lucky and have had two good warming shots without too much damage. I'll be good from now on regarding what I eat and drink.

Although I don't recommend it having strokes & spending time in hospital turns out to be a great weight loss program. I've lost between 10-12 pounds since this began. I'm down to 186 lbs which is close to where I need to be. If I can keep between 180 & 185 that will be ideal. In addition to the hospital regime I've been sticking to a low fat, low sugar diet. Lots of vegetables, modest meat portions, no cheese (this is very hard). no deserts and only one small glass of wine per day. I guess I'll get used to it.

I'll start experimenting with recipes that fit within this regime soon and if I come up with anything edible I'll let you know.

I've got a lot to report other than my health problems; but I'll save it for tomorrow. Meanwhile, I'm glad to be back home!