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French Food Focus
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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.
Not that I will limit myself to food only. There are numerous posts
concerning life in France, comments on life in general and, certainly,
opinions about anything that strikes my fancy. |
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Comments
to: yankinparisot@gmail.com
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July 2010
Done & Dusted - then Missed it!
Well, the house sale is all done. It only took
about an hour & a half to read all of the French legalese. All
went well although because our Notaire was going on vacation we won't
actually get out money until a week from now. A little lost interest,
but 'c'est la vie' as they say. In any case we shook hands and everyone
is happy.
The day after the closing we went to down to our
old house to show the new owners how things worked. They offered us a
lovely glass of champagne & some nibbles. Rupert played with his new toy
that their sons had bought for him. He & the boys were in heaven
playing. After a while we went up to the swimming pool where I was going
to show how to change filter bags and vacuum the pool. No sooner had we
started than the heavens opened up. It was a real downpour. We had to
abandon pool maintenance lessons. I'm going down as soon as I finish
this to resume the instructions.
Ah! The missed it part. We went to a lunch
restaurant in Cassaude in Monday which is market day there. The 13€ menu
included a selection for casoulette! We were dying to try it, but we
were too late they'd sold the last portions. We saw some being served &
they looked very good indeed. Who ever heard of casoulette for 13€
including a starter (Linda has a salad & I had home made duck terrine),
1/4 liter of wine each, cheese & dessert. Anyway Linda had a very nice
pork chop & I had andoulette sausage. Both were very good. We had
a nice fresh peach salad for dessert and Linda had coffee. A very
pleasant lunch indeed, but we'll go back for the casoulette for sure.
Anyway, our big project for the next few days is
car hunting. We need a new one, but are having a hard time agreeing upon
which car to have.
Found it! Yep, we've found a house to buy. Took
a lot of looking, but we're happy now. The new house is completely different.
Its modern and in great condition. Three bedrooms, 21/2 baths, heating/
air conditioning, a modern kitchen and a separate double garage. Linda's
delighted because we have a swimming pool; I'm not so happy as I get to
maintain the thing; The garden is good size (over 1/2 acre I'd estimate)
and we have nice country views to the hills across the valley. We paid a bit more than we'd planned
on, but our friends who sold us the house had brought the price down
because they didn't have to pay Real Estate agents' fees then we were
able to meet half way. We're both happy. A good deal all-round. We'll close on the purchase about the
end of September. As you know from previous posts it takes time to buy a
house in France plus in this case the August vacation period gets in our
way. We complete on our house this coming Saturday and sign the 'comprimise'
later that afternoon. Being homeless to 6 weeks we'll be
imposing upon friends. One set are giving us the use of their newly
renovated studio; then another set of friends the use of their summer
house here in Parisot. PLus, we may just take a vacation to England to
visit friends & family. So, we're happy campers. Its nice to
have everything settled and to know where we're going. The whole thing
has worked out very well for us. A note: There may be some mix-up on
recent posts. I did a couple on my new computer using a new software
package, but now I'm back to Linda's laptop with the older software.
I'll get everything sorted out eventually. Also, I promise to get back to food
once we're settled in. The new house has an induction hob. Learning to
cook on the should be fun even though I think I'll have to give up my 20
year old copper clad pots & pans. .
Now Looking Well, the dreaded contract is finally signed.
All 19 pages of it in dense French. Thank goodness for Google Translate,
it really helped a lot. Its not perfect, but is far better than any
other translation program I've ever used. We're out of here on August
14th at 3:00PM. Final deeds signed & money handed over! Thus the search is really on now. We're burning
up the Internet and driving the Agents nuts. So far we've physically
looked at about ten houses. Only two are even close to what we want. Our
current favorite is pretty nice, a large, nice garden, stone walled
vegetable patch, huge underground water cistern. The house has 3 really
large bedrooms including one with a gallery, a huge living/ding room, a
smallish kitchen, two bathrooms and a nice 2 car garage & workshop. We
wouldn't have to do too much to it to make it the way we'd like. Our
second favorite has bags of space and a great garden, but its a bit
awkwardly arranged. On Monday we're off to a different area (South
from where we are) High hopes. I'm particularly interested in a place
that is partially renovated. Think they ran out of money. The price is
low & we could finish it off the way we'd like. We'll just have to see. Luckily we have good friends who are
giving us a place to rent while while we look. Should be a real adventure. By the way this is my first post using Lind's
new lap top. Don't like it much, but it'll do until I get my new preoper
machine.
Walnut wine from an
old Friend
Here is a recipe from a friend who is a formidable lover of France &
things French. This 'Vin de Noix' is very popular in our part of France
where many many walnuts are grown. Deborah has been kind enough to share
her recipe. Try it!
Hi David,
Progress?
Great Lunch !!!
Yesterday some friends & I made our annual Tour De France pilgrimage. We
try to do this every year. Since the route the TDF takes changes every
year we never quite know from year to year where it will be closest to
where we live. This is nice because most years we get to spend some time
in a place we don't know very well.
Our goal each year is to accomplish three things; see the start of a stage
of The Tour de France, Buy a TDF base ball cap (the design changes every
year) and to have a good lunch. A sort of informal goal is to explore the
town we're in.
Past years have taken us to Albi, Cahors, Cap Decouvert, Figeac, Lisle sur
Tarn and other places. Always interesting, always large crowds (did you
know that more people watch the Tour De France live than any other
sporting event?). Parking is always a challenge, but we usually luck out,
get close & don't get towed. The organization that goes into staging the
tour is awesome! Who ever said the French aren't organized?
This year our closest place was in Rodez which is about an hour away from
Parisot. Its a classic hilltop town dating way way back. The outskirts are
pretty ugly, lots of modern shopping places, but the center of town ,
especially the medieval part is very beautiful. As always the Tour
organizers find a large area for staging,, in this case a large park. All
around that there are sponsors stands. This is where I buy my hat each
year, I make sure its an 'official. hat. This year's is a nice dark blue
with Tour De France in white embroidery and a smll French flag. I'm
pleased with it.
Well before the race itself the 'caravan' drives along the route
dispensing goodies, mainly product samples from the sponsors; lots of
pretty girls on the floats of course. Its great fun with lots of noise,
the children go ape. After this we pick a good vantage point and wait for
the start. It is always spot on time. Before & after the riders you get
all the support teams with roof racks full of expensive bikes, Lots of
motorcycle riders with cameramen riding pillion. Finally, you get the
actual contestants, about 160 of them. This part around the town isn't
really a race, its more ceremonial, they actually start racing as they
leave the town. We like watching this way because you get all the buzz,
ceremony, excitement AND lunch!
Its my job each year to choose the restaurant. This year I found a place
caller "Gout et Couleurs". It got good write ups, modern French
cuisine. Like so many good French restaurants it was tucked away on a back
street near the center of town. Not much to look at or see from the
outside, my friends were somewhat skeptical, but we went in & made a lunch
reservation anyway. Once inside the decor was very nice, well spaced and
set up tables plus there was a very nice patio in the back. So, once the
race had started we made our way back to the restaurant.
The main menu was 35€ for four courses. We started with a little soup
'amuse' which was a cold vegetable soup with a tomato jus topping.
Delicious & refreshing. For my starter I had a smoked mackerel dish. The
mackerel had a light foam over it and a Courgette 'jelly' under. There was
also an inverted 'ice cream cone' filled with a delicate horseradish
sauce. Yummy. The other starter on offer was a fois gras dish which looked
great and according to my two friends who had it tasted great.
A nice day out, we'll try to keep up the tradition next year. |
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