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

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.

Would you call this fusion food?

   You haven't lived till you've tasted my lardons fried rice, a cross-cultural dish that's hardly likely to find its way into any foodie magazine. But good, fast and cheap? Exceptionellement.
   First you need lardons, those invaluable little bacon-bit-like things that I pick up as regularly as I buy eggs, milk and bread....I was going to write this out in a classic recipe format but there's so much wiggle room in the recipe that I'll just tell you the ingredients and technique, and let you take it from there.
    Begin by browning your lardons (or chopped rashers of bacon) in a frying pan, about 50 grams per person should be enough although more doesn't hurt. Then add cold leftover rice, about a cupful for two maybe, although, to reiterate, more is fine too.
    Break up the rice with a fork as you heat it up in the bacon fat so that the grains are approaching separateness. Then beat two eggs and add those, stirring and stirring so that the eggs get cooked but don't coagulate into large eggy lumps. Almost there.
   Chop a couple of green onions, add those and heat them through. Add one or two sloshes of soy sauce.
   Stir everything together, and season with ground black pepper. Now, the French component...dish up your fried rice into a couple of bowls and strew with finely chopped chives from your potager.
 

Thanks, Jamie...

    Apart from one recent cloudy day, our spell of summer heat and sunniness just keeps going and going. From about 10 a.m. on, it's too hot to garden, too hot to do anything much outside beyond find a patch of shade, settle into one of our growing collection of vintage deckchairs and read or snooze or watch the butterflies and honeybees hovering around the lavender. I love thinking that the end result of a bee on an oregano flower will eventually find its way into a jar of honey. Worker bees indeed. 

    What we're eating are mostly salads. Salade Niçoise shows up about once every ten days.Also salade Lyonnaise--that's the one made with frisée, lardons, croutons and a poached egg. Adding cubes of potato or, even yummier, tiny new potatoes (or, as I'm doing today, haricots verts) makes it more of a meal. 

   Backtracking: a couple of years ago, I watched Jamie Oliver put together a summer dish of new potatoes, smoked salmon and horseradish cream that looked so incredible I knew I'd be making it someday. That day came last week. 

    I've got most of Oliver's books but my favourite, by far, is Jamie at Home which combines gardening, harvesting and cooking. This particular salad calls for new potatoes, smoked salmon, capers, dill or fennel fronds, crème fraîche and horseradish. I could probably find jars of horseradish in the "English aisle" at various local supermarkets but I didn't have any on hand so I simply left it out--and it was still brilliant. 

    Here's my adaptation with notes for future riffs. This is enough for two as a main course on a hot summer night. Maybe fresh drippy peaches afterwards. 

 Smoked Salmon and Potato Salad

1/2 pound new potatoes, all the same size or cut into same-sized chunks

2 tsp fresh lemon zest

2 Tbsps fresh lemon juice

2 tsp red wine vinegar

olive oil

1 Tbsp capers, drained

3 Tbsp crème fraîche (store-bought or home-made)

6 oz smoked salmom

1/4 cup snipped dill or fennel tops

Steam the potatoes and, while still warm, toss with a dressing you've made from the lemon zest, 1 Tbsp lemon juice, 3-4 Tbsp olive oil and the capers. Season to taste.

Mix the rest of the lemon juice with the crème fraîche. 

Arrange the slices of smoked salmon on a plate. Top with potatoes. Spoon the crème fraîche over the salmon and sprinkle the whole plate with chopped dill or fennel.

Salad riffs:

Add one or more of the following:

- Fine, thin haricots verts

- Just-cooked fresh peas

- Rings of thinly sliced red onion

As Julia would say: "Bon appétit!"