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….

A far cry from peasant farming in France!

A friend of ours has just bought something wonderful!  It can’t really be classed as his new toy - it’s a 44 foot Lagoon catamaran with 3 ensuite double berths, kitchen, living room (all with a/c!) and an enormous amount of deck space and Tony and I were fortunate enough to enjoy a day on it yesterday - photos below....

As you all know, we miss our home in France very much but days like yesterday really do help to ease the sadness! :)

As for our farming adventures, we’ve started composting (results soon come in this heat I would imagine) and we’ve got cucumbers, tomatoes, okra, aubergine, rosemary and basil growing well in the planters Tony built a while ago (they’re all up but not yet fruiting with the exception of the aubergines so photos of our bounty to follow but a small crop of our aubergines pictured below on the bbq).

Hoping this finds you all well - we’re still in rainy/hurricane season here but so far no hurricanes just plenty of rain periodically for which our vegetables are very grateful.  Although with all the rain we’ve had lately, we must be diligent as they’ve just passed a new law out here and if you now splash a pedestrian by driving through a puddle you can get fined up to $500!

Happy week ahead - with love the ‘pretend farmers’ that weren’t pretending to do anything except experience how the other half live yesterday!

Oh What a beautiful morning.... (anyone seen the film “Oklahoma”?!)

The photo above was taken just moments ago - a truly spectacular morning here in Cayman - one of the many that I either take for granted or miss because I’m busy getting ready for work or on the weekends still in bed!

Although in the middle of summer here and with that, rainy and hurricane season too - the last few days we’ve had a little respite from the intense heat and due to lots of rain, we’ve had some cooler mornings and evenings which have been lovely if a little heavy with mosquitoes!  But we take the good with the bad and keep smiling :)

Today we have a couple of friends driving, as I type, down to ‘chez nous’ in France where they’ll be staying for perhaps a few weeks.  We’re both so pleased that the place is being used in our absence although a little nervous as the place is far from ‘guest ready’ - it’s hardly somewhere (yet) that one can turn the key and enjoy - there’ll be lots of unveiling - plastic sheets - throw cloths etc. to do as well as getting rid of the mouse and rat poison dotted around the place - but we’re hoping we left it in fairly good condition when we left in July and that they’ll have a really good time.

In order that our neighbours and lovely stonemasons aren’t surprised if happening by, we’ve written to them all and just got a lovely note back from the stonemasons this week to say that they’d hoped to strim the courtyard for our friends but have been unable to get round to it between too many work committments and the crazy heat they’ve had in August - so although there’ll be some yard work for our friends to do, we hope the weather will hold out and they’ll be lighting the bbq and not the fire inside!

On an ‘agricultural note’, Tony has decided that he’s going to start off the first of the tomatoes of the season.  Although it’s too hot right now for them to do anything, we think we can start them off indoors with the intention of transplanting them around early October so that we can have fresh vine ripened tomatoes once again and not pay over the odds for ones that flown in from goodness knows where - picked green and vine ripened by being sprayed with oxygen to turn them red in some cases!

Wishing you all spectacular sunrises or sunsets wherever you may be!  With love from us - the transplanted pretend farmers! x

New Life

Some of you may remember my blogging quite some time ago about saving a Poinciana tree that was about to be destroyed.  We had no idea if the poor thing would survive the transition and as evidenced from the photo above, it has not only survived it has since burst into ‘flame’ as they do at this time of year.  We’re so pleased to see the new life growing and hope this bodes well as the tree settles itself into its new home!

I haven’t posted a blog for a couple of months but hopefully have been in touch with most of you so you know what’s going on - since the last blog, I have taken my first set of STEP (Society of Trust Estate Practitioner) exams - the first of 4 - which thankfully I have passed - the next exam is in early November so I’ll be back to the books in August in preparation for that one.  The exams are an extension of what I’m currently doing which is Private Trust administration and I have to say being based in Cayman is a bonus given that the majority of the offshore trust and related legislation, Cayman was (and still is) the front runner with most other jurisdictions then basing their legislation on ours.

Since my last blog, we’ve also been to France for a very short visit and although the time just flew (we had less than 2 weeks over there), we still managed to pack in a fair amount of activity including a birthday (mine) lunch with the neighbours in one of the local restaurants (photo above) - these particular neighbours have been so welcoming since our arrival in the hamlet in 2006 and even take it upon themselves to collect our walnuts when we can’t be there at harvest time.  They very kindly greeted us this year with a sack  containing 14kg’s of our walnuts and felt it necessary to apologise that they couldn’t collect more but their backs were bothering them (they’re both nearly 80!).  So I managed to bring a few kg’s back in my suitcase along with the most spectacular walnut oil locally produced which has given us incentive to invest in a walnut press and have a go ourselves - having only tasted the slightly rancid walnut oil available on the shelves here it was a real joy to taste the good stuff!

We also had some good friends from Cayman come and visit and very kindly included us on some Bordeaux chateau tours they’d arranged - the photos above and below are taken at Chateau Pontet-Canet which we were both thoroughly impressed with - it’s an organic operation that still uses horses instead of tractors and all the grapes are handpicked - incredible!  So we splashed out and bought a bottle from the year we got married and now have a 1999 Chateau Pontet-Canet sitting in our wine fridge here in Cayman to enjoy on our anniversary this year - cheers!

We finished our french adventure with the most spectacular meal (photo below of the phenomenal dessert we finished the meal with) at the home of our stonemasons who are renovating the piggery for us.  Their son works in a 1 Michelin star restaurant in Perigueux and had a day off, so they asked him to cook for us.  We arrived, not really sure what to expect having never been to their home and were welcomed so warmly, and although being our last day in France and with lots to do to pack up the house were hoping we might escape with just a 2 or 3 hour lunch under our belts, it was a full 5 hours later that we were saying our goodbyes with regret - an absolutely amazing meal and one that has me worried about reciprocating when we return so I’m trying out new things and have just made a soup from a recipe given to me by a good friend and cooking guru which is so simple and yet so tasty I’ve included it below in case anyone else would like to give it a try.

Cold Pear & Red Pepper Soup

2 red peppers, deseeded and roughly chopped

2 pears, peeled and roughly chopped

1 shallot, peeled and chopped

pinch of salt and ground white pepper

1 can or about 1 1/2 cups of chicken stock

Saute the shallot until translucent but not discoloured, add the remaining ingredients and simmer until the pear and peppers are soft - leave to cool a little then puree until smooth.

Chill and then serve with a dollop of whipped cream or a splash of regular heavy cream or a dollop of creme fraiche - ENJOY!

Learning to harvest okra

The photo above is our first crop of okra harvested over the course of the past week - sadly we lost the very first crop - about a dozen okras - because we left it too long - they were enormous (apparently when it comes to okra bigger isn’t always better!) and when I cut them, they felt incredibly hard so I googled “how to harvest okra” to discover that you want to pick your okra when they’re about 2”-3” and no bigger - as they get too big, they are only good for harvesting the seeds which we’ve done so thankfully our very first crop wasn’t entirely wasted and we can use them for next years planting.

So, tonight we’re looking forward to some jamaican style fish parcels with our very own okra, onion & local scotch bonnet peppers served over local greens - if any of our aubergines look good for picking we may also bbq some of that sliced and brushed with olive oil - see the photos below of our aubergine plants which have seriously kicked off since Tony added Epsom salt to the soil - he’d read that if he added Epsom salts (1tbsp per gallon of water) to the soil, specifically to  aubergine, tomatoes and peppers that it would encourage prolific, healthy fruiting (apparently it’s the magnesium and sulfur which are macronutrients and foster fruiting) and it has done exactly what it said it would and we now have almost a dozen aubergines in the making with many more flowers popping up every day (photo below of some of the first aubergines still growing).

Although sad not to be harvesting from our vegetable patch in France, we’re still thoroughly grateful for the opportunities that returning to Cayman has afforded us (especially the ability to continue paying for work to continue on the piggery in France).  AND, we are today only 4 weeks away from returning to France for a very quick visit - just 2 weeks - and so Tony will be reunited with his tractor!!  Photos to follow as I’m sure it won’t be long after we’ve arrived before she’s out of the barn and being taken for a “spin” in the fields!

Tony will want to investigate our old traditional bread oven in France (found in one of the outbuildings) as he’s been taking his bread making very seriously and the photo above is a loaf we enjoyed with our breakfast last weekend - home made bread with scrambled local eggs made with fresh picked scotch bonnet peppers and basil - I am definitely going to have to see if I can encourage scotch bonnet peppers to grow in France - watch this space.....

We’ve been off line for some time - I’ve got some work related exams this coming week so the past few weeks have been spent being rather dull but studious and so we’re very much looking forward to our time in France - although short, it is looking like it will be fairly action packed - we have some friends from Cayman who will be visiting family in Normandy and then driving down to see us - they’re also planning on a few days in the Bordeaux/St. Emilion area and have a few vineyard tours and lunches arranged and have invited us to join them which we feel would be rude not to do and look forward to blogging about our wine-soaked adventures in the last 2 weeks in June...

In the meantime we shall keep you updated on progress with the aubergines and okras and hopefully come up with some interesting recipes to include (I’m thinking there’s definitely a vegetarian curry in our future) :)

Happy Sunday one and all - it’s a rainy one here which is fine by me as I’m supposed to stay indoors studying all day but I suppose quite depressing for those who were looking forward to a sunny bank holiday weekend (Discovery Day here in Cayman tomorrow) - as my sister commented on the phone earlier this morning, “What do you call a sunny day after a rainy bank holiday weekend?.....Tuesday!”  This won’t make sense to the retirees amongst my audience but will certainly ring true for my fellow cubicle dwellers!