The Enormous Easter Omelette

  Lately I've been a mauvaise blogger. There's just been too much else going on, mainly in the garden where the emerging forest of nettles and dandelions has to be wrestled with. You don't really want to see shots of those, do you? Thought not.

    Anyway, a week ago last Easter Monday, we drove into Mirepoix lured by the promise of hte making of a 1000-egg omelette. "Ooof," or rather "oeuf." Not having read the fine print on the poster meant that, by the time we found a parking spot and made our way into the square, all the communal tables were heaving with the about-to-be-fed.

    Still, we could at least watch. I'd somehow imagined that battalions of helpers would crack each egg individually until they'd reached the magic number and that they'd all then be beaten together and poured, in one enormous yellow slosh, into a colossal pan. Then--and I hadn't quite worked this bit out--an enormous flip would roll the cooked eggs into the traditional omelette "purse" shape. It wasn't quite like that. The egg-cracking had been done ahead of time, a series of omelettes was made, and the result looked more like scrambled eggs. 

   We couldn't eat the official version so we sat outside at a café and ordered, of course, omelettes. 

   Meanwhile, a man walked by with a giant bunch of shiny balloons, jazz musicians played and the carrousel twirled. Not a bad way to pass a Monday afternoon.

Small Dogs and Snails

    A rousing chorus of the Marseillaise and three resounding cheers. Vide-grenier season is back, the time when people empty their attics and sell what they find. This past Sunday we drove to one we'd seen advertised at Les Pujols, a small village that normally we speed through en route to Pamiers. 

   Truth to tell it wasn't the best of vide-greniers, being long on plastic toys, children's clothes and souvenir swizzle sticks but I did come upon a--well, I thought it would do very nicely as a laundry basket, especially at five euros. I could just picture myself piling it up with newly washed monogrammed linen sheets to hang out to dry in the garden. The woman selling it agreed but added I could also use it for "un petit chien" which makes me suspect that it wasn't actually meant for laundry. When rain started to patter down, it also functioned nicely as a hat. 

    Almost all these events offer food and drink in some shape or form. This time it was snails. A smiling couple stirred vast quantities of escargots simply cooked with parsley and garlic, and others prepared with tomatoes, Catalan style.

The First Lunch in the Garden

    Oh it was a glorious warm sunshiny day on Monday, warm enough to take the bistro table and chairs out on to the lawn, and load up the tray with lunch. Baguette, pâté, salad. 

  The recent showers followed by sun followed by showers followed by sun--you get the picture--have meant everything grows as you watch. Especially dandelions as you can see. 

    Wandering off on a sidetrack. I'm a devoted fan of Marie Claire Idées, a magazine crammed with crafts, decorating and food ideas. Recently I picked up an hors-série--a special issue--devoted to La folie des fleurs! Flowers on walls, flowers on frocks, flowers on hand-embroidered tablecloths that would take you a million years to hand-embroider, you get the idea. But also, flowers in food. A cake speckled with begonia blossoms. A salad of quail eggs and dandelions. And also, take another look at our lawn, a golden, glinting gelée de fleurs de pissenlit. Now wouldn't that look delectable spread on the breakfast slice of toasted baguette, I thought. 

    Dandelion flowers, green apples, sugar. The recipe looked easy enough. But I wasn't quite sure exactly how much 550 grams of dandelion flowers added up to. So I went and picked a few and weighed them. Six flowers equal three grams. Do the math. 

They're not weeds, they're salad.

   Around this time last year, I got into the habit of picking the young green pissenlit leaves, washing them well, and dressing them with vinaigrette. A couple of days ago, as I was weeding, I found some tidy little roots of bittercress. Any of you reading this with especially keen eyes will notice another green in the mix. The last of an enormous head of frisée that I bought at the market last week. 

   At the market today, I noticed these dandelion leaves for sale, as thin and pale as consumptive Victorian maidens. "Pass," I though, "I've got far more robust ones at home."

Lentils and more lentils

   In winter weather, your--or anyway my--body needs carbs. Steamed potatoes mashed with lashings of butter and crème fraîche. Pasta with pesto. Haricots blancs cooked with loads of garlic and tossed with plenty of finely chopped parsley. (Scissored parsley, to be honest. I strip the leaves into a coffee mug and snip away.)

   Recently, during this unseasonably chilly weather, we've been gorging on lentils, making a dark, earthy bed of them for a coil of grilled saucisses with red or green cabbage on the side. We also like them with pan-fried salmon. Hot olive oil in a non-stick pan, salmon in skin-side down, lid on, leave for eight minutes--and that's it. 

   So, lentils. Rather than faffing around with small quantities, I generally empty the entire 500 gram packet into the pan which means leftovers to reheat a day or so later, and soup the day after that. For the master batch, I simmer the lentils for 20 minutes, then add cubed carrot, potato and onion, minced garlic and whatever herbs are around--bay leaf and thyme usually--and simmer for 15 or 20 minutes more. 

   All you do to make soup is water down the leftovers (or you could use chicken or vegetable stock if you happen to have any festering in the fridge) and blitz with a hand-held blender. 

I'll be honest. Beautiful, it isn't but, as you can see, lentil soup looks very pretty once you tart it up with lardons, croutons and parsley.

A Sudden Blast of Winter and Signs of Spring

   Europe has had an insane winter. The weekend before last, the snow began falling and didn't stop until about 20 cm had settled. Forget any thoughts of gardening. It was time to close the shutters and light our wood-burning stove which throws off an astonishing amount of heat. 

    Until the past few days, temperatures have been too frigid for all that snow to melt. Small white patches still dot ditches and shady areas. 

    But despite this recent wintry weather, we've been able to buy bunches of screamingly yellow mimosa at Lavelanet and Mirepoix markets and locally-grown roquette too (with walnuts and a walnut-oil-based dressing, yum). Our own garden has already produced enough tiny roquette leaves, mâche, dandelion leaves and bittercress for several salads. 

    And temperatures are forecast to be in the high teens by the end of the week.

Carnival Time in Limoux

    Friends from Canada and elsewhere in France have been staying with us recently. Good reasons to head over the hills past the vines that make all that lovely blanquette and into Limoux. There, this time of the year, every weekend is carnival weekend. 

     Some weeks are better than others. A recent Saturday was a standout with costumed revelers from all over Europe. Each group enters the square, performs their particular ritual or dance, then winds into the back streets, back into the square and into the different cafes. 

   Kids get into the act too. Little girls dress up in fairy and princess costumes--usually pink. Boys don masks, like this petit garcon riding the merry-go-round.

    This is an old, old festival. The spookiest group were these men dressed in sheepskins. The man wearing the two sheep made them "kiss" occasionally. Kernels of corn were thrown. Bunches of wild greens hung from some of the costumes. Can you spell "ancient fertility rite"?