Signs of Autumn in Southern France

   Recently, it's been really chilly at night to the point that last Sunday, after a terrific outdoor party, we walked home and made ourselves mugs of cocoa. As I write this, late on a Saturday afternoon, the hills are swathed in what looks like a thin layer of cotton wool but is actually rain, it's a cool 11 degrees outside, and we're talking about lighting a fire. Two cubic metres of 50 cm oak logs were delivered last week. We're ready.

   But even without all this, just by wandering around Lavelanet market, you'd still know that winter is looming. 

 For a start, all the cloches have been reduced in price.

    These are the invaluable folding covers that keep flies and other insects off food when you're eating outside. While there will be many days still when it's warm enough for pâté, salads and rosé in the garden, the long candle-lit dinners on the terrace are over for this year.

   But there are compensations. Like girolles and ceps to cook gently in butter with garlic and eat on toasted baguette, or to add to scrambled eggs or a risotto.

    Lucques is the name of a meaty and delicious olive that's grown mainly in the Languedoc. Green, with pointy ends, shaped a little like a half-moon, they're known as "Les Rolls Royces" of olives.

 And of course it's apple season...

 ...and quince season. Three euros for two kilos is a bargain.

 Best of all, this is the time when the grape growers bring their harvest to the market. Muscat grapes are dark, sweet, filled with sticky juice. Pressed and made into a sweet aperitif, muscat is the traditional tipple for madames while messieurs sip pastis. On their own, the grapes go beautifully with a little round of pungent white goat cheese, and the new season's walnuts.

There's always a queue at this producer's stall.

   You have to warm your outside too. All the flimsy cotton frocks, and tiny tops of summer have been marked down to five euros. Replacing them are long sleeves and warmer colours.

 Charentaises are the kind of cosy slipper worn by grandads in storybooks. It's easy enough to get romantic about tiled floors in the summer but the reality is that they're cold on the feet.

    Can you imagine how comforting it would be to slip your bare tootsies into these when you get out of bed on a chilly morning?

The Mainstays of Summer

   Summertime and the living should be as easy as you can make it. All the more time to spend out in the garden. Who wants to slave away for hours in the kitchen on a hot day?  Me neither.
   By mainstays, I mean dead-simple, tasty dishes that get along comfortably with others, or exist happily on their own. Like the best kind of people, in fact.
   Stop reading here if I've written about the tortilla before. My mind is foggy partly because of the gorgeous 27 degree heat out there and partly due to the glass of chilled muscadet I'm rapidly downing.
   When I say "tortilla," don't even think of the Mexican variety. This is the Spanish version, more of a hefty fat omelette like the one I first tasted getting off a train in Barcelona, starving, and finding tortilla served in a split baguette (or whatever the Spanish is for baguette). Crusty bread full of golden-y goodness. I've made tortilla so often now that I can do it from memory. It's definitely not fancy but it has two enormous things in its favour:
  Firstly, you don't need to make a special trip to the shops. You've almost certainly got all the ingredients on hand (which makes it useful when aperos turn into supper, or someone shows up unexpectedly).
  Secondly, it's good straight from the pan, at room temperature, or the next day. Even, as we discovered this lunchtime, sliced and jammed in a split baguette along with grainy mustard, ham, lettuce and tomato.
   You start by slicing one pound of potatoes about 1 cm thick (and I know I'm mixing weights and measures. Sooooorry). Boil them for five minutes and drain.
    During that five minutes, gently soften a sliced onion and several cloves of sliced garlic in a quarter cup of olive oil, in a non-stick frying pan over medium heat.
    Add your potatoes, as well as a generous handful of chopped parsley. Press everything down with a spatula.
    Finally add six eggs beaten together with a teaspoon of salt and a teaspoon of pepper.
    Cover the pan, turn the heat to medium-low and let the tortilla cook for 20 minutes.
    Serve it in wedges with salads and bread, or cut in cubes, a tooth-pick in each, for an apero snack. This is the tortilla at its most basic. Little cubes of ham or chorizo, chopped green onion, snippets of sun-dried tomato, feel free to improvise.
    I love my tortillas. One of those around and pulling drinks, supper or a light dinner together takes minutes. (Real minutes too, not the TV food show ten-minions-have-been-chopping-away-for-half-an-hour-kind-of-"quick-dish"). As you can see from the photo below, it's not really a "wow" visual moment although it does have an honest, rustic look that I rather like.

    On to the next mainstay.
    You can buy black, pungent tapenade everywhere in France but personally I find it far more satisfying to go through all the little plastic containers in the fridge containing a dozen olives each, and the one with the few remaining anchovies in it, and make something that--like the tortilla--equals more than the sum of its parts.
    Recipes are everywhere. Just Google. But basically olives, anchovies (or not, if you're vegetarian), capers, garlic and olive oil get whizzed together in a food processor, and that's it.  One night recently, we'd run out of fresh bread and the boulangerie was inexplicably shut, so I sliced stale baguette, brushed it lightly with olive oil, toasted it under the grill, turned it, added more olive oil and repeated the process. Then I spread the wee toasts with tapenade. Delish. We had it with grilled something or other.

All the tapenade ingredients together at last. 

    Third and last mainstay. Well, last one for today.  For this, you just have to have ripe tomatoes, fresh basil and a fresh mozzarella around. Slice tomatoes and cheese, arrange in a pretty circle, one red, one white, one red, one white, drizzle with olive oil, and tear up basil leaves to sprinkle over the top.
    Bon appétit. And do let me know if you'd like me to blog more ways to make your summer eating easy.

Anchovies and olives

Hmm, salt. Not great for you in vast quantities but so good in things like anchovies and olives. Usually we have a bottle of anchovies on the go and olives are always kicking around in the fridge. Both got used in the pissaladière I made the other night. 

   It hardly needs a recipe. All you do is unroll some pastry into a pie tin (and, once again, let me put in a good word for the ready-to-roll pastry I can buy here). On top of that goes a thick layer of onions that have been cooked and cooked and cooked for ages over low heat so they become brown, soft, sweet and unctuous. A latticework of anchovy fillets on top, olives where they join and it all goes into the oven for half an hour at mark 7. We ate it with the last of the tabbouleh left over from dinner the other night.