Apples, juniper and sage--and where they come from.

     That sprig of sage is from the huge bush in the garden, grown from a cutting given me four years ago.
     Trying to avoid the prickly spikes surrounding them, we picked the juniper berries in Provence last October when we visited Jean-Marc and Annick. Months later, the colours are still gorgeous, and opening that little glass jar unleashes a heady smell of gin.
      Yesterday, I bought a 2 kg bag of Chantecler apples in SuperU which, like most supermarkets here, strongly supports local producers and growers. These pommes grew in Cazals des Bayles, about 20 km away.
      All went into Nigel Slater's recipe for pork with apples and cider, nice on a rainy night. Here's the link to the recipe http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/porkchopswithapplesa_92491

Guess what I found in Léran!

   More days than not, I go for a walk through some part of our village. Sometimes it's just down to the halles to buy a baguette. Other times it's because I've been writing all morning (or afternoon) and need a break. Often it's out into the open countryside all of five minutes away, or along by the river.
   Almost always, I see something new. It could be a tiny passageway that threads between houses, or a date carved in stone over a door, or simply the changes in the seasons.
    But rarely is it as good a surprise as this.

    A duck pond with chateau view, sandwiched into a little gap down by the river. Apologies for the quality of the image. To be honest, it's not that photogenic a pond but I was delighted that it even exists.

       Here's a closer look at the ducks. What I'm wondering if whether they're kept as pets or....?
After all, this is serious confit and foie gras country.

Two recipes that taught me to love endives.

    For as far back as I can remember, I've been ambivalent about endives. Chicory, witloof, those little pale green torpedos that come at you under various names. On the one hand, unlike loose floppy lettuce leaves, they don't need much hands-on work, if any. On the other, they can be unappealingly bitter.
    The most I can say on their behalf is that they can survive in the fridge, unloved and unused, for a long time before turning slimy. The other thing is that, this time of year, they're cheap. And my OH is a huge fan of them.
     Endives do occasionally find their way into a salad but mostly all I've done is wrap them in ham. bathe them in a mustard-zapped cheese sauce, and top the dish with grated cheese--usually Cantal--before bunging it in the oven.
     Then, about a week ago, one of the Sunday papers published a piece by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall on how to use up your Christmas leftovers--and he wasn't talking about turkey. What appealed to me was a pasta dish. Any dish I can make from memory after a trial run is a keeper--and this one definitely is.

    So here you go:

    Endive Recipe Number One:

    For two people, you need two endives plus about 50 grams of pitted black olives. Chop both of these roughly.
    Once you've put your pasta into merrily boiling water, heat a couple of tablespoons of olive oil, and throw in a finely chopped clove of garlic. Give it a couple of minutes, then add the endives and olives. Stir it around until the endives have wilted but still have some crunch. Mix in two or three tablespoons of crème fraîche (sour cream would do, I reckon, or even ordinary whipping cream, just something naughty).
   Toss pasta with sauce, strew with plenty of grated Parmesan. I know this sounds easy but it's honestly  far better than the sum of its parts.

   Endive Recipe Number Two

   Next up, a terrific salad from Thomasina Miers. This looked so scrumptious when I watched her make it on Food Network UK, that I tried it a few days later. The original calls for large, costly scallops. I've since tried it with prawns and it works. I think monkfish would be fine too, and probably skate, each cut into scallop-sized chunks. I've even made it without fish and it's still good (if you take this route, halve the marinade quantities).

 
      Here's my version of her recipe. This makes a lunch or light supper for two, though you might want to add a baguette. 

Marinade/dressing
       1 tsp cumin seeds
       1 tsp coriander seeds
       1/4 tsp chili flakes
       1 large clove of garlic
       1/4 tsp salt
       2 Tbsp or more olive oil

       A dozen or more large prawns (uncooked and shelled) or 6 to 8 large scallops (or monkfish or even squid, I'm still experimenting)
       2 heads of endive
       2 avocados, peeled and cut into chunks (sprinkle with lemon juice to stop them going brown if      
          you're not going to use them immediately)
       1 large orange
       Fresh coriander/cilantro leaves to taste
   
In a small frying pan, dry roast the cumin, coriander and chili flakes till fragrant. Mash the garlic clove in a mortar, and pound in the roasted spices. Add 2 tsp of the olive oil, and the salt, and keep pounding till you have a thick, smooth-ish paste.

Toss the prawns in half this marinade and leave them for a couple of hours if you can. If you can't, let them sit while you get the rest of the ingredients ready.

Cut the skin off the orange, and remove the flesh in tidy sections. Squeeze the remains of the orange into a bowl. Whisk in 1 Tbsp olive oil, and the other half of the marinade.

Break the endives into separate leaves, add the orange, toss with the dressing, and divide into two bowls.

Heat a frying pan, and add what's left of the olive oil. Stir fry the prawns just until pink. Divide them between the salads, along with the avocado chunks. Sprinkle with coriander leaves.

This really hits the spot: the sweet spiciness of the prawns, the fleshy avocado, crunchy endive, and tangy orange. Try to get some of each in each bite.  Get all your prep work done beforehand and it comes together in minutes.

Let it snow....

   As seen through the kitchen window: our garden a couple of hours ago. Those large, drifting cotton-wool flakes have now turned to rain.
    It's an ideal day to be indoors with trips to plan, emails to write, books to be read, the fire lit and delicious-smelling pans simmering away.

On knitting and wool in France...

   Those who know me well know that I'm just as passionate about crafts as I am about cooking and eating. It's total joy having more free time than I used to because it means I've been able to set to with my knitting needles and begin to consume a yarn stash that literally fills an entire armoire.
    A true cupboard of delights. it's crammed with gorgeously coloured skeins collected over the years in the UK and in North America. I've bought from yarn shops, from thrift stores, from flea markets, and even recycled wool from secondhand sweaters and cardigans that I've ripped apart.
   In the unlikely event that I do ever run short (and even if I don't) I can sleep at night knowing that I have an extraordinary source right in my neighbourhood.
   Specializing in lusciously soft wools tinted with natural plant dyes, my friend Andie Luijk runs Renaissance Dyeing http://www.renaissancedyeing.com/en/ in Lieurac, a hilltop village on the back road to Foix. Want to mend the rips in a medieval tapestry, or knit a pair of heirloom socks? She's the person to turn to.
    Among the many French crafts magazines, Marie-Claire Idées is probably the most inspirational. A couple of copies ago, an entire page featured the most gorgeous blanket crocheted from Andie's wools.
    It's available as a kit and, if you're tempted, know that she send mail orders all over the world.

Photo: Valerie Lhomme, Marie Claire Idées

 
   \

Salt and pepper squid French style

    It took me a long while to feel comfortable with the idea of cooking non-French food in France. God knows why but it was as if being here meant that, to the exclusion of all else, I should immerse myself completely in duck, foie gras, daubes, grilled  fish, ratatouille and all the other dishes that you flash on when you hear the words "French cuisine".
    (Another misty day, nothing much on the agenda apart from making stock from frozen turkey bones, and catching up with The Archers on BBC so if this is a more rambly post than usual, excuse me.)
    Backing up a bit, there's a terrific organization in France that provides help and support to English speakers with cancer. In our house, we're so, so lucky that we don't need their assistance, but what we can do--and it's not entirely altruistic--is go and buy books by the dozen when their travelling stall comes to the village every couple of months.
    This past Saturday, I managed to get my hands on a few cookbooks, including Rick Stein's Seafood Lovers' Guide, which includes a couple of must-trys: an omelette Arnold Bennett (made with smoked haddock, cream and parmesan) and devilled mackerel with mint and tomato salad. And then there's the recipe for salt and pepper squid. Light, fresh, zingy, just the thing for post-holiday appetites.

     In the UK, or in any large North American city, you could pick up all the ingredients you need year round. Here, in la France rustique, it's more of a safari, as well as thinking on your feet about what can stand in for...I dunno...bean sprouts.
     But there bean sprouts were at Mirepoix market, a bowl of them on a little stall near the Indian restaurant. Elsewhere, long vividly scarlet peppers from Morocco looked piquant but I checked, and the stallholder said that they were. No surprise that there was no watercress anywhere, so I forgot about that for the moment but I did find the necessary cucumber and green onions at SuperU.
     However, the only "squid" at the fish counter were large white oblongs obviously cut from the tentacles of some colossal denizen of the deep. So, mea culpa, I bought the frozen kind, tubes, all cleaned and ready to use.
     Back home, I started thinking about what I could substitute for watercress. Any green really with flavour and crunch. The vegetable beds in the middle of the lawn are almost empty at present apart from a spectacular resurgence of fennel. Not the right taste but the red chard plants that keep producing and producing would do. I thought I'd ripped up the last of the Asian greens but one mustard variety survived. Altogether, I had the necessary 50 grams (see top right) of greenery to go with the cucumber and bean sprouts, all to be dressed with soy sauce, sesame oil and a dash of sugar.
     Squid takes only minutes to cook. As instructed, I pinecone-cut, then flash fried, them in two batches, before adding lots of chopped red chili and green onion. The squid and salad are meant as a starter but adding rice turned it into a meal. Definitely a keeper.

A new restaurant discovery in Carcassonne

    Back sometime in December. Rainy, slate-grey skies, bitingly cold...why would I take my camera on a day-trip toCarcassonne when the plans were just to have lunch, shop and drop a friend off at the airport?
    We did squeeze in some browsing later that afternoon, trawling Sephora and Monoprix and dismayed to find that Maisons du Monde had closed. (Not that I ever seriously wanted a chest-of-drawers emblazoned with Marilyn Monroe but it was nice to know where to find one if I did.)
    Lunch first. The Carcassonne you think of when you hear the name is the ancient walled Cité. It may be riddled with tourists most of the time, but it's surprisingly full of decent, affordable places to eat. Unless you're in the market for plastic swords and helmets, you're better off shopping in the lower town, sometimes called the "new" town because it only dates back to the 13th century.
    Place Carnot is its centre. A square that's just the right convivial size, it was currently being made ready for Christmas festivities with chalets and an ice rink.

    Fake icicles hung around the fountain in the middle (this shot was obviously taken earlier in the year).
    At some time or another, we've eaten our way through most of the cafés and restaurants around it but this was our first venture into Le Saint Roch. What sucked us in was the menu posted outside.
    It was a chilly day so we were ready for the full three courses. My entrée was a miniature paella pan--about the size of a tea-plate--holding an egg "Catalan style" on a base of cooked tomato, peppers and onion. Two orders of gesiers salad, prepared a little differently "very, very tasty," (I'm transcribing as he speaks). Samosa filled with spice-inflected tuna (and that side salad) were described as "the best samosas in France." Not sure if that's damning with faint praise though for someone who just arrived from Asia.
     On to the mains. I'm obsessed with seiches at the moment. Two fat ones, perfectly cooked a la plancha, came with roasted potatoes and a scoop of sweet potato purée. Those who had ordered the steak and duck confit got the same veg. A commendable pear-and-chocolate crumble to finish with rather too much whipped cream drizzled with chocolate sauce at its side.
     Three course lunch menu, 14.50 euros. Details: Restaurant Le Saint Roch, 15 place Carnot, Carcassonne, 04-68-71-62-43
  

Snuggly knees with your vin rouge.

       This is Le Rendez-Vous, our village bar and café run by Marek and Shirley. You can read all about it, menus, happenings, everything, at http://www.lerendezvous.eu/ 
       Last Saturday was warm enough for us to drink a café crème outside. A few mornings later, ambling around, I noticed that there are now bright red fleece blankets to tuck round your knees if you're chilly.

First sign of Spring...

    We woke to a bone-chillingly cold morning. Damp. Foggy. Should have worn a hat and gloves to Mirepoix market. Didn't, regretted it, and felt sorry for the stall-holders standing there on such a freezing day, even if they were mittened, hatted and scarved up to the eyebrows.

    Not all of them were there. I suspect some woke up, checked the temperature, rolled over and went back to sleep. The moules man from Sete had gone missing (not surprising as he has to get up at 3 a.m. and be on the road by four). My favourite vegetable stall wasn't there either. But, making up for the minuses was this huge plus, a blaze of stinging yellow that stood out from all the fog-muted colours.
    The mimosa man brings his flowers from Ceret, not far from Perpignan. It would almost be worth the trip to see them growing.
    Each bouquet cost three euros, which seemed an amazingly good deal for such a huge bunch of cheerfulness.

Festive tables 2012

 Dinner at home on Christmas Eve. Nine of us for aperos, five at the table. A Quebecois-French menu of corn bisque, tourtière, and bûche de Noêl (that's the scrumptious traditional Christmas dessert that looks like a log). Cooking notes: I'd forgotten that ground pork is so much leaner here in France (and much more roughly chopped) than in Canada. A buzz or two in the Moulinex did the trick. I'd also forgotten that lard is hard to find (in the end I cheated and used all-butter in the pastry). I forgot the tomatillos in the freezer that I'd planned to make chutney from, thinking that their acidity would temper the rich pork pie. Still, it was all good.

   A day later, an incredible feast at friends John and Lee-anne's on Christmas Day. In true traditional style, we began with oysters, foie gras, prawns and smoked salmon...

   Fourteen of us all together. We're now into some serious eating...roasts of turkey, capon and pork...we began at 1 p.m. and ended many hours later. Our contribution was cauliflower gratin, red cabbage, and a classic English trifle.
   No problem finding the sponge cake to spread with jam to line the bottom of the bowl. Easy to find tinned apricots to go under the top layer of whipped cream. I even got my hands on some angelica as the rather naff, but definitely traditional, garnish.
  What I had a real problem making was the layer of custard. Our local supermarkets all have shelves dedicated to "British" groceries. Tinned steak-and-kidney pie, Branston pickle, Heinz Baked Beanz, that kind of thing. I assumed that's where the Bird's Custard Powder would be. Not in Intermarché, and--surprisingly--not in SuperU in Mirepoix which, on Christmas Eve, was so jammed with customers that the queue of cars trying to park stretched back beyond the roundabout.
   Thinking hard, I decided that crème Anglaise would work if I thickened it. I checked the bakery products shelf. Uh-uh. I looked along the coolers, thinking maybe it would be among the tubs of crème fraiche. Nope.
   Flailing around for ideas, I ran into a friend and told him the whole sad story. He led me over to the shelves of UHT milk, UHT cream and there it was--a contained of crème Anglaise. Why there? Good question. Long story short, back home, I tipped out the contents into a saucepan, added two, and then three, beaten eggs and ended up with lovely thick yellow English custard.

   Finally, our usual family Christmas breakfast of smoked salmon, caviar, scrambled eggs and bubbly made festively red with raspberry juice. Eaten on Boxing Day this year because we'd got up very late on The Day and realized that a big breakfast a couple of hours before a big lunch wasn't a bright idea.

Happy 2013--and a catch-up

   So what happened was this...Kate flew in for Christmas, there were meals and parties galore and--probably the biggest contributing factor to the recent paucity of posts: I couldn't find my camera. How it came to be in the cupboard where vases and candles live is still a total mystery....
   A quick catch-up starting with a look at a long lunch on December 13 with a bunch of friends in the village of Espazel.

    A cold and snowy day in the lee of the Pyrenees...

    This restaurant doesn't look like much from the outside but wait till you see the menu.

    "I'm ready for my closeup, Mr. DeMille."

  This is the entry level menu for 22 euros (tax, tip, all included). Pay more and you get two further courses of foie gras and ceps. This was plenty for us.
   Like the wine, the aperitif came to the table in unmarked bottles. I think it was the deceptively powerful vin de noix, made from walnuts.

   Here's one of the charcuterie platters. Colossal sausages, high-intensity ham, pâté--and remember that, at this point, we were still in the preliminary stages...

    Everything was served family-style, including this gésiers salad (and a reminder: gésiers are duck gizzards), accompanied, as was the entire meal, by baskets of chewy bread.

    Some went for steak as their main course, others for duck or venison. We had one of the tastiest beefc daubes that I've ever eaten, wine-dark, huge in flavour and tender as anything.

     All the while, we'd been wondering about these large jars of preserves on a tray on the bar. After the cheese course, those of us who went for crèpes for dessert were given the tray, as well as an enormous bowl of whipped cream to add.
      I don't think any of us ate dinner that night.

Frostiness in Léran

    So, it's such a gorgeous morning that, after I'd swung by the mairie, and dropped into the market (pains aux raisins all sold out. Desolé,) I wandered down to the river....

   Frost on the bushes and trees, sequins on the water...sparkle, sparkle.

  
   Nature can really outdo most Christmas decorations. Check out these leaves, each one outlined in white. Beyond, those hedges mark what was once the Duke of Mirepoix's potager. Sheep graze there now, and occasionally a donkey. Those dark shapes in the trees in the middle are mistletoe, which grows everywhere around here.

Frosty morning in France

     Today's date, I just realized, is 12/12/12
     That's the last of the sequence that launched 11 years ago with 01/01/01. There won't be another one for 89 years--so make the most of it. Write cheques, or letters, or the first page of a novel...
     In the meantime, here's what we've woken up to. Frost and sunshine.
     All that white stuff reminds me I'd better go and get out the icing pump to add eyes and noses to the gingerbread men I've made for tonight's carol concert.

Léran's new village library.

   One of the differences between France and North America is its sheer numbers of bookshops. Mirepoix (population around 4,000) has a good independently run one on the main square. Even the nearby SuperU has a commendable book selection. Pamiers--four times as large--has three bookshops that I know of. The departmental capital, Foix, a town of around 10,000, has the huge Majuscule store--one of a chain--and a couple more. And on it goes.... 

   And libraries are everywhere.

   (Drifting off-topic for a moment. You would think that librairie is French for "library." It's not. A librairie is a bookshop. A library, as we know it, is called a bibliothèque.)

   For the past several months, work has been underway on Léran's new library, which now occupies a brand-new space above the former mairie. 

   Some days ago, invitations were hand-delivered to all residents, with a request to respond if we were attending. 

   Official red-white-and-blue ribbon-cutting by our mayor, Henri Barrou, took place around 5:30 p.m., and the crowd and the queue outside all ascended the brand-new flight of stairs into the new, bright space. It's terrific with upbeat orange walls, lots of seating and books for little kids, and a collection of fiction and non-fiction that I can't wait to get my teeth into, metaphorically speaking.

   Our next-door neighbour, David Hilton (of www.davidhiltontableware.co.uk/) created the official signage.

   That's our mayor giving an official welcome. Local and regional representatives, who also spoke, consistently referred to his tenacité in getting this vastly improved library up and running. Yay, Henri!

       Over to the Salle des Tilleuls for cork-popping, a spread of charcuterie, and a story-telling performance.

Tapas night chez nous...

   I'm so relieved. We had a serious tapas night back in the summer and I really thought I'd posted about it, but no, which means I can now.

    But first a short digression.

    One of these days, I'm going to write a doctorate length paper on food and hospitality. Hear me out, this may be a bit of a ramble.

    Some years ago, we were lucky enough to be semi-adopted by some friends from Crete who then lived in Vancouver. We visited Crete twice and, on each occasion, I became spellbound by the ease and simplicity with which people there entertained. What it came down to was this: a number of dishes meant for sharing. Serving temperature not too critical. Emphasis on simple ingredients and ballsy flavours. Lots of wine. All ages squashed around the table. And, where possible, live music.

     It's a formula that still works and I'll take it over any chef-ly multi-course menu, any time.

     So, one warm and torpid evening this past summer, we invited a bunch of friends over for tapas and it turned out to be one of the easiest dinners I'd ever cooked. I'm not saying that some chopping and sizzling didn't go on that afternoon but by the time everyone was settled out on the terrace with the first of many glasses of rosé, kitchen work was essentially done.

     Gleaming black olives, and a couple of cold (or rather room temperature) tapas as they arrived. More cold tapas as the hours went by. A couple of quick trips into the kitchen to 1) put patatas bravas in the oven and 2) to pull them out again. Fruit for dessert, I think. Can't really remember.

    A couple of days ago, I did a scaled-down version of this. Dishes so simple that you really should think about adding them to your repertoire. I've posted about tortilla before. I would have made one of those but I was short of eggs.

    What I did have were lovely shiny red peppers:

   Here they are ready to go under the grill till they blister and turn black in places. Out of the oven, in to a bowl, on with the plastic wrap...Meanwhile, I sliced plenty of garlic, added fresh thyme, a bay leaf, then made a dressing with olive oil, wine vinegar and paprika. Skin the peppers and slice into strips about as wide as a pencil. Toss with everything else, and chill. Bring to room temperature a few hours before you start eating.

    There they are on the left. On the right is some country ham. Bread in the basket. Wine in the glass. Tea-light in the holder.

     The haricots verts dish on the left is so insanely easy that I'm almost embarrassed to write about it. Cut the stem end off the beans, and cut the beans in half. Scissors are easier than a knife. Cook in boiling water for seven minutes, just till crisp. Drain, and run cold water over them. Meanwhile...sizzle lots of chopped garlic in olive oil. Throw in the beans and stir them around so they soak up the oil. Eat at room temperature.
     On the right, a chopped onion, and more garlic, softened in olive oil. Quartered chorizo added, and cooked a bit more. A jar or a can of drained chickpeas added. Toss the mixture around and then add plenty of chopped parsley. Room temperature.
     With all of these recipes, ingredient quantities really aren't that important. Just make considerably more than you think you need.
     PS: It's just occurred to me that this is a fantastic way to feed a table-ful if it includes vegetarians.

Another restaurant find in Foix,

     The Pyrenees glistened as though their peaks and slopes had been dipped in sugar, and a herd of cows ambled in leisurely fashion ahead of us on the main road as a friend and I headed for Foix in search of mince-pies. The quest was---dreadful pun alert--dried-fruitless (they won't be around for another ten days). Never mind. We did have time for a stationery trawl at Majuscule. Better still, we came on another discovery for the restaurant list, this one focussing on tapas. 

     Even though we're within an olive's throw of the Spanish border, surprisingly few tapas bars have set up shop locally. La Bodequita (25, rue des Marchands) only opened a couple of months ago. What caught our eye initially was the table outside set with a cheery yellow-and-white gingham cloth, with a crate of kakis--bright orange persimmons--set on it, free for the taking.

    

     

    Inside, a large blackboard spelled out so many choices that I envied the party sitting under it who could order with abandon.

      Albondigas, little cod cakes, escalivada-- Catalan grilled vegetables--I wanted the lot. Can you make out the prices? Apart from push-the-boat-out prawns à la plancha at 8.50, most hover around the 4 euro mark....

     While we debated, the server brought us a plate of pan con tomate on the house. Simple as anything, it's foundation is bread rubbed with garlic and tomato.

    Any time I can get my hands on patatas bravas...These were blisteringly hot, with a spicy kick to their sauce.

    Calamar rings almost as big as bracelets, the batter light, the dish straight from the fryer. Our server was surprised we could only handle two tapas between us--most people order four, she said. I will too, next time because everything that was being carted out to neighbouring tables looked awfully good.
  

     So did the plats du jour: salmon with mustard and fried potatoes, and a lasagne of pumpkin and blue cheese with a salad, 8.50 euros including a glass of wine and a coffee.
    Nice people, nice atmosphere. I can't remember the hours it's open--most lunchtimes and some evenings--but here's the phone number if you're in the 'hood and want to call and find out: 05-61-01-83-65.

An unexpectedly good lunch in Foix

   A week or so back, we needed to buy art and crafts supplies in Foix, which called for a trip to Majuscule, my favourite stationery shop in this part of France. We also had to be somewhere near Foix at 2:15 p.m., so doing the math meant there were two hours to occupy in the middle of the day because, around here, almost all shops close at noon.  (On the bright side, parking is almost always free between noon and 2 p.m. and you generally get 15 minutes thrown in free as well.)

   Sooooo.... what you do is have lunch. Not a swift trip into the sandwich shop for a bacon-lettuce-and-tomato on wholewheat but a proper sit-down meal in like-minded company.

   It's a while since we last ate at Le Jeu de l'Oie (named after a kids' game) but I think they've changed ownership. Where meals here were always reliable, they weren't especially surprising. You did sort of know that the entrée would always be pâté or something else, and I could recite the dessert choice from memory.
  When I say this was "unexpectedly good"(see title of this post) I don't just mean for what we paid. Not that entrée and plat du jour or plat du jour and dessert with a glass of wine or a coffee, and the usual basket of bread, all for 9.80 euros isn't a bargain--and that's including taxes and tip.
   What was unusual was the care and thought that had gone into it.

   In the open kitchen, we could see two young guys working seamlessly and at ferocious speed, with the occasional blaze of flame from the stove. It was incredible teamwork that was a joy to watch. 

   Medals all round too for the wisely-chosen menu du jour. They served a single entrée--potage Crécy--vegetable soup, which was clever. You could make it ahead, reheat it, and garnish, as needed.

    Two plats to choose from, one of them tartiflette with a little salad. The ingredients in tartiflette are Reblochon cheese, bacon, potatoes and onions. Does that sound good? It is. Delicious, satisfying, tummy-comforting and available everywhere, including at local markets where you can buy it dolloped into take-away containers. 

   So you could pick familiar comfort food, or...

    I'm a huge fan of squid and its relatives. On the menu today were tiny seiches, cooked for just the right amount of time so that they cut like butter. These were seriously good, and topped with what the menu said was "persillade". Normally this translates as a mixture of garlic, parsley and olive oil. This version was several rungs up the culinary ladder with the addition of tiny cubes of courgette and red pepper. Linguini dressed with pesto on the side. All in all, very satisfying.

 

    For dessert, there was familiar tarte tatin or a milles feuilles, the pastry topped with a commendably crackly caramel, and sandwiching a mousse combining whipped cream and puréed starfruit. We could see the one serveuse pause briefly between kitchen and table to scribble some raspberry coulis on the plate. She was also taking care of tables one floor above too, racing up the stairs with three plates balanced on her arm.
    Meanwhile, the little room hummed happily with people eating, drinking and talking. Judging from all the bisou-ing going on, all are regulars. You can see why.
  
  

How to Make Christmas Shortbread Mice.

     "Cute" doesn't begin to describe these festive little creatures and "onerous" doesn't start to describe the work involved in making them. Do you really want to hear the entire step-by-step process? Right, you asked for it.

      The night before.... mouse-making, the recipe told me to make my shortbread dough. Easy-peasy. Whack some butter into the Cuisinart, add flour, vanilla and egg, and it all turns into a single perfect ball of dough, ready to rest in the fridge overnight. 

      Except that it didn't. 

     It was more like fine shingle on a Norfolk beach. Gravelly anyway. My fault entirely. Mea culpa, ten times over. I'd only seen the word "butter" in the recipe, and not the term "softened." This had come straight from the freezer. Thinking fast but not very sensibly, I beat up another egg, and threw about half of it into the dough, which appeared to help. 

     Except that it didn't, as I found out the next evening. 

     Initially the dough felt alright. Though a bit sticky, I could still shape it into mice. I indented the eye sockets, stuck in two delicate pieces of almond for ears, did that 20 times and placed the baking sheet in the preheated oven.  

      And....as I watched....as the warmth hit them....they slowly spread into primeval flattish shapes. Mouse roadkill. 

      We ate them. I didn't bother with applying ickle chocolate eyes and noses (melt a chocolate bar; use a toothpick) but I did use the first batch to practice my tail insertion skills. (Poke skewer up mouse's derrière while it's still warm and insert length of licorice.)

      Made with properly softened butter, the second batch went better...

    Still not sure if I'd make them again. But it's seeded the idea for a separate post on how the world is divided into those who bake and those who don't. 

    

Thinking about veggies at the market

   Now that the tourist season is well and truly over, the locals have repossessed Mirepoix market--and we don't feel that we must be there before 9 a.m. Besides, we know at least three secret parking spots. One is by the canal, the other is opposite the tax office and I'm not telling you the other one.
   So, I've probably posted before about my habitual trawl around the stalls, the amazing smells from the paella and couscous stands, and the fleshy delights of the butchers' trucks (sorry, vegetarians, but I'm unrepentant).
   Eventually, I always end up here.

   And you know something? I'm seriously thinking of writing/drawing a bande dessinée (comic book in America but it sounds so much better in French) about the thought processes I go through when I'm faced with the Great Wall of Vegetables.
   Closeup of Ange, wide-eyed as she scans the greens. Over her head appears a thought bubble..."Oh my, that roquette looks incredible and would go so well with those walnuts we've got at home."
   Series of drawings of beautiful Savoy cabbage, strange, demonic black radishes and beetroot/beets/silverbeet (depending if you're Brit, American or Australian), wrinkled and dark, like something rather nasty in a pathology lab. The thing is, they're cooked, and how sensible is that. How many of us, raise your hands, have bought beetroot/beets/silverbeet and never got round to doing anything with them until they grew hair and/or became suspiciously squashy and ended up in the compost bucket.
    So, anyway, cooked beetroot/beets/silverbeet. A brilliant idea. Although, to be truthful, I didn't actually buy any last week.

  You help yourself to a round plastic basket and pile it high. In mine this week was a wedge of pumpkin, which ended up in soup, some frisée, earmarked for a salade Lyonnaise (that's the one with lardons and poached egg) but, for whatever reason, that never happened so it's showed up as part of the nightly green salad instead, some potatoes that just looked too tasty to turn down (not a sentence I'd ever thought I'd write), a red onion or two and, as usual, a big bunch of parsley.
   The only decision after that, after it's weighed, is whether to have everything tipped directly into your basket or to have it packed in plastic bags.
  

Celebrating new wine and chestnuts.

   A couple of hours ago, we came home from a community event that lasted most of the day. Billed as castanhas e vin novèl  ("chestnuts and new wine" in the Occitan language) and announced by leaflets hand-delivered to our post-boxes, it was organized by L'Amicale des Léranais (the Association of people who live in Léran) whose goal is to gather together Léranais and their friends to share memories, experiences, local culture and--inevitably--good food and wine. If you read French, you can follow our adventures at http://amicaledesleranais.centerblog.net
   Shortly after the church bells rang ten o'clock, we met up in the Salle des Tilleuls (one of our village halls) for a quick coffee before we set off on a balade. More amble or saunter than serious hike, this one took us along the river bank and up to the little road that runs from the crossroads just beyond the chateau.
     I'm always delighted by how deeply many Léranais are immersed in their village's history. We learning that grapes have grown locally for over a thousand years. Some people revealed that they remembered wine being made around here too.
    Even though the day was cloudy, as we ambled down through the forest and back to the village, we still had excellent views of the Pyrenees and the glorious autumn colours. Love those russets and browns against the blue-greys.

    By 12:30 or so, we were back at the Salle des Tilleuls where a table was already set with bottles and snacks (including the lethally good fritons, basically unctuous morsels of deep-fried duck skin sprinkled with salt). We all set out the food we'd brought--chestnut inclusion was a good idea, we'd heard--and got stuck into the aperos.

    I'd brought along a pork, chestnut and apple pie that I'd made yesterday. The recipe's so easy that I'll give it to you right now: 250 g each of ground pork, crumbled cooked chestnuts and finely chopped apple plus a beaten egg, 100 ml of Madeira, salt and pepper. Mix that all together and pat it into a 24 or 25 cm flan tin that you've previously buttered and lined with pastry (that you've pricked with a fork). Dollop in the pork mixture, top with another circle of pastry, crimp the edges and brush with beaten egg. Cut a small hole in the middle and bake at 190°C/375°F for 45 minutes. The recipe said to serve it warm but it was fine cold, with curried apple chutney.

    
    Platters were passed up and down the table. Chicken with squash and chestnuts, chestnut and pork patties, a chicken recipe that originated in the French island of Réunion, endive leaves filled with creamed Roquefort, and much, much, much, much more. Many bottles of "new" wine were opened. Everyone shared everything. At some point, an oozingly ripe Brie was passed around, then chestnut cake, marrons glacés, clementines....and finally coffee.

    The age range spanned single figures to mid-80s. There was dancing, singing and, at some point, someone brought out a small trampoline from another room and jumped on it. It was that kind of afternoon.
    And let's not forget the poetry. Going back to that initial announcement...it also included an invitation to contribute a poem or story. So, when I phoned Mauricette (one of the organizers) to RSVP, I added that I would bring a poem...in French.
     And I did. "Châtaigne" is another word for "chestnut."

Elle est belle, elle est ronde, elle est bonne à manger

Avec un verre de vin ou un verre de Champagne

Elle est si delicieuse, ce beau fruit d’hiver

Je parle naturellement de la châtaigne

On peux faire un farce pour un poulet ou un dinde

On peux faire une bonne tarte pour la famille

On peux l’utiliser dans une daube ou une soupe

Je parle naturellement de la châtaigne

Elle commence avec une fleur de printemps

Qui décore l’arbre comme une chandelle

Et après elle porte un manteau verte

Toujours la châtaigne est belle

Mais la châtaigne est une mixe des humeurs

A l’exterieur elle est dure, épineuse

Mais apprendre à la connaitre et vous decouvrez

A sa coeur, elle est douce, delicieuse

Quand il fait froid en hiver, en Decembre

C’est plaisant de s’asseoir au coin du feu sain

Et là, de rotir les belles fruits du saison

Je parle naturellement des châtaignes.

   It fills me with pride to boast that this was judged adequate enough to win me a lovely bar of soap.      What a thoroughly pleasurable day.