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About 'My' France

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        Life in rural France - Food - Friends - Wine - Cheese - Comments

   Welcome to French Food Focus. The name describes the intent of this blog. I'll focus on food and because I live in rural   
   France the stress will be upon French food.  There are numerous posts concerning life in France and, certainly, opinions
   about anything that strikes my fancy.
   If you have some good recipes  or if you want to rave about any great French restaurants this  is the place to do it.

 I hope you enjoy my ramblings about rural France! 

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This is our village. Our house is the white one at the top right.                      

Just Wonderful!

Just wonderful is the only way to describe the concert we went to the other night. The music was great. We had Schubert by a very accomplished violinist  accompanied by an equally talented pianist. Then we had Stravinsky with the same pianist and a young cello player from Finland. She was terrific. So, the music was wonderful.

The setting, however, was at least equally wonderful. Imagine yourself on a perfect summer evening sitting in an open courtyard surrounded on three side by a magnificent chateau. The fourth side has a parapet overlooking a 100 foot drop to the river Lot. The valley is superb; there is a small village nestled in the hills above the river about 1/2 a mile away and you watch it slowly light up as darkness falls. Now, that is the way to listen to a concert! Just wonderful!

Another thing that was just wonderful was the Caponata that I made yesterday evening. I haven't made this for a long time, but Linda came home with a couple of aubergines (eggplants) from a friend so I was inspired to have a go. I suspect that this is a dish with many many variations, but I must say that my variation turned out well. Here goes:

• Ingredients:
      2 lbs aubergine
      1 large onion
      2-3 stalks of celery
      1 large red or green bell pepper
      2-3 cloves of garlic
      15-20 olives, pitted either green or black to your taste.
     1 tablespoon of capers
     5-6 tablespoons of good olive oil
     1 tablespoon of sugar
     1 tablespoon of white wine vinegar
     Salt & pepper to taste (easy on the salt as the capers are normally quite salty.)

Method:

1. Cut the aubergine into about !/2 inch cubes. You can peel them if you like, but I don't bother. Likewise you can salt & then rinse them as well. Again I don't bother.
2. Heat up the olive oil in a large skillet (but one that you have a lid for) then dump in the aubergines. Toss frequently and cook until slightly browned and soft. This will take about 10 minutes
3. While that's happening chop the onion, celery and pepper into bite sized chunks. Minch the garlic.
4. When the aubergines have browned nicely dump all of the other vegetables into the pan and stir well to coat.  Add the capers.
5. Let this cook for a couple of minutes then add the sugar and the vinegar.
6. Cover the pan and continue cooking until all of the vegetables have softened. Stir frequently.
7. Take the cover off and cook for a couple of minutes more .(if the Caponata looks too dry at any stage just add a tablespoon of water)
8. Take off the heat and let cool. This is a dish best eaten at room temperature. Serve with really crusty country bread and a lusty red wine.

Wonderfully delicious and a great way to use up any aubergines you have grown. Try your own variations.  Zucchini instead of or in addition to the aubergines go well for instance.