Reinventing the week

Posted with permission of Someecards.com

After limping through a 7 hour lunch with our French friends on Sunday, Tony and I realized that the thing we most dislike about ‘big Sundays’ are that they precede Mondays which always bring dread – or certainly used to when we had desks to report to first thing on Monday mornings and so we decided that at least for the summer we are going to reinvent the week and incorporate Monday into the weekend thereby elongating the weekend and doing away with ‘that Monday feeling’!

And so for the foreseeable future our week shall begin on Tuesday morning and end on Friday (we thought lunchtime was a civilized quitting time on Fridays) – this way we can still get in our 35 hour French work week (10 hours on each of Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday and 5 hours on Friday), which of course is easy to do in the summer as it’s light at about 6am and not dark before about 9.30pm!

This is in the experimental stage so far and should incorporating Monday into the weekend prove to be a success we may think about also including all of Friday and perhaps shortening the French work week even further – after all we don’t wish to overdo things at this early stage of the game.

So what to do with today?  We’ve had a few rainy days so sadly it’s a bit wet to be picking cherries however it’s the perfect weather for more planting as the ground is nice and soft so not too taxing to be digging holes and rotovating more of the veggie patch and so I think we’ll get our 6 new strawberry plants in the ground today (we have 3 different varieties picked up at the market last Saturday) and plan next Sunday’s lunch party when we’ll be having our nearest neighbours over – planning a bouillabaisse for them – the fish market seems to have lots of lovely fresh fish including mussels (there’s a massive amount of fresh oysters at the markets right now that all look fabulous – we’ve yet to try them) and so we shall give that a go.  If it perks up this afternoon we’ll get back into the fields to fill a few more buckets with cherries – hopefully I shall be making some more jam this evening – I’ve found a good ‘no recipe recipe’ which simply relies on volumes e.g. if you have 4 cups of cherries you add ¾ that amount of sugar (i.e. 3 cups) and then just add some zest and juice of a couple of lemons (to add the necessary pectin in order to help the jam ‘set’) and voila – after some time stirring you have cherry jam and then just before canning/jarring – add a shot of Kirsch to help bring out the flavor then pop into jam jars and store for future consumption.  There are enormous quantities of strawberries at the markets right now – large punnets for EUR1 or EUR2 each depending on the variety and so I may also try my hand at some strawberry jam for a little variety – it will be good to perfect the recipe before the peaches and plums come into season in a few months' time.

Tony had his tractor out on Sunday in anticipation of the roofers coming first thing Monday to clear up the piles of broken tiles in the courtyard – they brought a trailer and wanted to use Tony’s tractor with the bucket for scooping up the tiles and so the tractor finally made an appearance as Tony checked the engine and gave it a pressure wash – this is Sunday car washing in rural France – photo below!

Quand il pleut, je cuisine!

After the nasty storm on Wednesday, we had a glorious day yesterday and thankfully the roofers got nearly a full day in but had to knock off a little early to help a neighbour who had some fallen trees on his land from the storm so the roof work will continue next week however we shall be seeing the roofers again on Sunday as they’ve invited us to Sunday lunch to meet their new grandsons, twins born to their eldest son and his wife in February of this year – we’d sent them a bottle of champagne at the time to congratulate them and they’ve kept it to share with us upon our return which is what we shall be enjoying with them on Sunday!  Their second son is a chef and works in a one Michelin star restaurant in our nearest big town – we’ve been to their home for lunch once before a few years ago and I have to say, the quality of the food and presentation does indeed help us to get over our fear of having to speak French throughout – bear in mind these ‘lunches’ usually start around noon and go on until approximately 7pm!  I find after limping through the first couple of hours once we’ve all had a glass of champers and a few glasses of good local red, the conversation does seem to get easier…..or perhaps we’re simply the entertainment!

In the meantime, today (Friday) dawned a little gloomy but initially dry and so having made a big batch of cherry preserves on Wednesday after our cherry picking fest (we have given cherries to all our neighbours, made a batch of cherry & red wine sauce to accompany future duck breasts and made a big batch of preserves – I didn’t have enough sugar to make jam so preserves it is!), I decided to jog to the ‘boulangerie’ this morning to buy some croissants so we could try the cherry preserves – it was well worth the fast jog/slow run and the fresh cherry preserves goes far too well with the fresh croissants so we are only allowing ourselves this indulgence if it’s obtained by walking/cycling or jogging!  Photos of the scene whilst we were picking cherries yesterday – very lovely indeed!

And so what to do with the rest of the day – it’s far too wet to pick cherries so I bottled my elderflower cordial and set about making Ina Garten’s beef bourgignon – we’ve promised lunch to our nearest neighbours next week and so I thought I’d get a start on those preparations…if you haven’t tried Ina Garten’s recipe – it is a good one – but what’s not to like with beef, cognac, red wine, onions, carrots, mushrooms and fresh thyme?!  Link to the recipe below…

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/beef-bourguignon-recipe.html

This is especially good made with local beef – I do love going to our local butcher and although they don’t have their own abbatoir anymore they do have a sign in the butchers entitled ‘Provenance’ which lists each type of meat they sell, the name of the farmer and his or her telephone number – very nice to be able to trace where your food comes from!

If this weather keeps up the beef bourgignon will be the perfect thing to serve over a long leisurely lunch – if the sun comes back out I shall simply freeze it for a few meals in our future and rethink what to serve the neighbours – on a previous occasion, we fed them Julia Child’s Chicken Fricasse, and so perhaps we should try something less ‘french’ and see what they make of a traditional English Sunday roast……will have to report back once a decision has been reached but given these particular neighbours are in their 80’s and we still have piles of tiles in the courtyard, I think our invitation to them will have to wait until the roof over the main house is finished and the courtyard isn’t such an assault course!

On a completely separate note, many of you know we recently raised funds to provide 200 Cleanwater kits (and replacement filters) which will provide every family in the Mngolongolo village near Mbeya in Tanzania with access to clean water in their homes – I’m pleased to report these kits have just arrived in Mbeya and will be taken to Mngolongolo village in approximately 2 weeks time when Arthur promises to send photos of the kits being delivered and installed – I shall provide an update as soon as I’ve heard more from Arthur.  In the meantime, please see below photos of the buckets and cleanwaterkits currently being stored in the church in Manga in Mbeya.  Thank you to everyone who so generously donated to provide clean water for 200 families (approximately 1,000 people) in this area.

From the garden to the table …..soon come

‘We are what we eat’….If that’s to be believed, Tony and I should have probably turned into ducks by now!  We’d only been here 5 nights and had duck three times (2 nights of ‘magret’ (duck breast) and 1 night of ‘confit’ (duck thigh cooked in it’s own fat) each night the duck was accompanied by potatoes sautéed in duck fat and washed down with a healthy amount of inexpensive local red.  That said, we’ve not quite turned into ducks but possibly put on a few pounds and so the ‘regime’ begins next week as I’ve just taken the bikes out of the barn and cleaned them up so we shall be getting into our cycling routine – we have a beautiful bike ride that does a loop through the adjoining hamlets, passing a chateau and some beautiful old stone houses which we hope will take our minds off the pain of cycling up various hills that although quite small can feel quite mountainous coming from Cayman!

Back to our eating – or actually our growing….Tony and I are determined that by the end of the summer we shall be eating home made cherry jam with our croissants (photos of our first cherries picked from our trees below) and enjoying salads for lunch comprised entirely of what’s in the veggie patch and with the selection of seeds planted today it’s all looking quite positive – as an example and almost entirely made up of heirloom varieties we’ve been collecting, we have 10 different types of lettuce, 2 different types of courgette, 3 different types of beetroot, radishes, 2 different types of kale, 3 different types of cucumber and now 12 different types of tomatoes – in addition we have a variety of herbs, some onions, and potatoes, brussel sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, 2 different types of melons and some sweetcorn – if we can’t make a meal from that lot, we should probably think about a ‘Plan B’!  (our first plants in the ground pictured below).

We just enjoyed a traditional English roast today (I’m writing this on a Sunday!) – not something we normally do but having been to the market yesterday we couldn’t resist – the ‘poulet fermier’ looked too good to pass up even if it still had it’s head on!  The butcher was kind enough to take it off but I later discovered the giblets were still attached which I was brave enough to un-attach and make a rather nice giblet gravy out of (if I do say so myself).

In addition to the serious stuff, I’ve also planted approximately 200 sunflowers including a variety we discovered called ‘Titan’ which I’m a little afraid of – the stalks grow up to 12 feet tall with flowers spanning up to 2 feet across…..photos to follow (in 75 days apparently)!

The work on the roof is progressing, although we’ve already gone over budget (as far as what the insurance company paid out) given the initial quote was for 6 pallets of tiles and so far we have 10 pallets of tiles in the courtyard (2 have already been used for half of the main house) which we’ll easily need for all the buildings but the good news is our roofers are true artisans and are salvaging what they can of the existing tiles to mix them in with the new ones so that the end result is still quite authentic.  Photo below of the finished 1^st half – it’s amusing to see that tyres are used to secure the tarps – there’s been a real market for 2^nd hand tyres in this area!

I popped to the ‘Mairie’ yesterday to stock up on ‘sacs jaunes’ – these are the large yellow bin bags that all recycling material goes in to (aluminium, paper, plastic etc.) and can only be obtained from the Mairie who take your name and write down the numbers of the bags they give you so that if at any time anyone finds non recyclable material in the ‘sacs jaunes’, the offensive ‘sac’ can be traced to an individual – France really is a fascinating place and although lots to learn and a few rules to follow – it all does seem to work fairly seamlessly – at least in rural areas!  Whilst chatting with the ladies there, they expressed concern at not being able to get hold of us after ‘la grande tempete’ last year – it seems the local ‘Mairie’ did in fact attempt to get hold of everyone to check in with them after the storm, to ensure everyone was accounted for but also to provide an extensive list of local roofers to help with the rebuilding efforts.  They’ve asked if/when we next leave we can leave them with a contact number so they can get hold of us if need be in the future – I was so thrilled and it really feels as though we’re a part of this lovely little community.

We’ve caught up with most of our neighbours having been hijacked for ‘aperitifs’ at odd times of the morning and evening and have to visit with the butcher today to make a date for a meal or an ‘apero’ with them also – sadly, our butcher’s cousin (who ran the local ‘tabac’) died 2 weeks ago – he was one of only 2 very unfortunate people who were caught out in the storm last year and had the hail rain down on him and suffered a tragic head injury (not surprising given we’re told the hail was the size of golf and some even as large as tennis balls all falling at about 200kms/hour)  which sadly he never recovered from.  The local farmers also lost a large amount of livestock and our local duck farmer lost ‘une centaine’ (approximately 100!) ducks.  So all in all we do feel fairly fortunate even if our friends who were staying ‘chez nous’ during the storm didn’t feel quite so lucky, firstly to have suffered the storm and secondly to have their car written off as a result (photos below of the post storm destruction).

La Belle France!

Well – we’ve arrived and in response to our neighbour’s question as to whether we were content to be in ‘La Belle France’, we both honestly replied that yes, we are very content especially now that the sun has arrived.

Not one to normally complain about the weather (even if I am English!) but we were understandably concerned to arrive ‘home’ on Monday during the traditional French 2 hour lunch in the pouring rain to discover that our roofers had not replaced the tarp on the roof before going off to take their 2 hour lunch (apparently it had been a lovely sunny morning!).  Photos below of the sight that greeted us….

Anyway, sure enough they returned to cover the roof and no damage was done – they are machines – it’s a husband and wife team who are stone masons by profession and who we hired to work on the ‘piggery’ which involved a lot of stone work and we wanted true artisans which we discovered they really are – lucky for us, the wife just finished a roofing and soldering course last year and is now a fully qualified roofer which is spectacular given the massive destruction caused by the hailstorm of 2^nd August last year. 

Having experienced the 100 year storm, Hurricane Ivan, the better news is that we have 2 neighbours both in their 80’s and both having lived their entire lives here who’ve both independently confirmed that this is the first time they have ever witnessed a hailstorm of this magnitude – the ridiculous thing is apparently is was over in less than 10 minutes and yet as we drove towards our hamlet on Monday we saw so many homes still with tarps on them – so reminiscent of Hurricane Ivan and so very sad – another friend tells us that it will be 3-5 years until everyone can get fixed up either due to insurance issues or the more simple issue of just not being able to find a roofer available to do the work so although we thought it was all taking a long time apparently we’re in the elite group of people who are getting their roofs done less than a year after the storm – incroyable!

We’ve cleaned house and are getting settled – finding our routines and getting over jet lag  - and today we managed to get out to the garden to try and get the ground prepared to plant as much as possible – we’re told we’ve got to be quick but we’re not too late – PHEW!  We also discovered our rhubarb still growing strong in the veggie patch and our cherry trees are overloaded with soon to be ripe cherries so I also managed to nip out and buy some jars for canning – I have plans for much cherry jam making in the future.  Photos below.

 The elderflowers are also out in force and I have some elderflowers stewing for elderflower cordial that I shall bottle tomorrow – nothing like a little elderflower cordial in a glass of French sparkling (we just picked up 24 bottles of ‘Saumur’ which is perfectly acceptable (actually quite nice) sparkling French wine for under EUR80 for the lot!)

So just to say ‘Sante’!  I shall try to get into regular posting and provide updates when the veggie patch is feeding us and if/when I discover any interesting recipes along the way….