Some New Articles – Rosamond Richardson and Mat Follas. Wednesday 7th July.

I love it when I have a new article published. It’s a chance to be lazy. Happy days as this month I have three articles due to be published.
So, without further ado, here are two from Flavour Magazine, featuring Mat Follas and Rosamond Richardson. Enjoy.

Meeting Mat Follas – Masterchef 2009.

I was in the UK last week on a whistle stop visit to friends and family.
Unusually, I was working as well. I was assigned by my daughter (AKA Editor in Chief of Flavour Magazine) to interview Mat Follas, winner of this year’s Masterchef competition.
I was delighted to meet him, and was impressed by the calm and unruffled manner he was displaying whilst getting his new restaurant, the Wild Garlic up and running.
The article itself will be out in a few weeks, so I will not elaborate here as to the content of our discussion.
Suffice to say I wish him well for his launch tomorrow evening.
Mat is currently blogging for the Guardian Word of Mouth Blog, although it is one of the Seven Wonders of the World how he finds time to do it.
I feel, like our Star Trek friends, he has learned to fold Space and create the 36 hour day.
Note to self: E mail Mat to find out if indeed a 48 hour day is similarly possible

The UK Foodbloggers Association – Monday 8th June 2009

For all those interested parties out there, the excavation of the summer kitchen has been completed.
It is now possible to get past the first metre of the room.
Equipment has been gathered, the fridge has been stocked, and excess debris has been cleared. We’re ready for business.
I am attempting to overlook the fact that it is pouring with rain today, it blew a gale yesterday, and there is no let up in the weather until at least Wednesday.
I have also switched the central heating on.
Anyway, on to brighter things…………………….
I have recently joined the UK Food Bloggers Association on their new web site.
I don’t know if I should say it’s Facebook for foodies, as some may recoil in horror.
So I won’t
Instead suffice to say it is a superb site with lots of interaction and a membership in excess of 300.
Friends of foodies, food lovers and ex pats like myself are all welcome to join.
It’s user friendly (especially for those like myself who are IT impaired), newsy and is well on its way to becoming at the epicentre of the UK food scene.
Take a look and join.

Time To Unearth The Summer Kitchen

It’s a French thing, a summer kitchen.
As food is high up there on the agenda here, its focal location is momentarily displaced during the warm long days of summer to an outside place.
At the very least the new location will have a roof, and for some (like mine) it will be a room in an adjacent outbuilding.
Preserving is one activity that has recently started in the summer kitchens throughout the land – bottled fruit is alive and well here, and there is little or no evidence of the inbred suspicion the British have of bottled veg.
As I write asparagus, apricots and cherries are the first to hit the KIlner jar.
Pungent aromas are best relinquished to the summer kitchen – pickling vinegar brewing has a linger factor about 2 weeks, so it’s best left outside.
I enquired of my neighbour as to the “true” usage of this temporary culinary headquarters. Her answer was startling simple:
It keeps the cooking heat out of the house when it is hot, thereby maintaining a cool, shuttered sanctum to retreat to when it’s unbearable outside.
My stone sink is my favourite part of my summer kitchen. It is flat, with a very shallow lip and I have a tin wash up bowl on it. The fireplace is currently closed in, but I have plans……………….because the summer kitchen is additionally used in Autumn for open fire cooking with friends. You can buy a long handled grill here especially for cooking direct on hot embers for around 20 euros. Cheap at half the price. It’s a bit like an indoor barbecue. Great fun when it’s time to close the doors on the cool Autumn weather. As I said, those are the plans for another day. Today’s priority is to shut off the Aga, and open up for business outside.

Retro Cooks – Jocasta Innes

This month is the fourth article I have written featuring a “retro cook” for Flavour Magazine.
Jocasta Innes is a little different to the rest because she is better known for interior design.
She’s a good food writer too.
Here’s the article

Shattering The Myth. Thursday 4th June 2009.

Over the literary years, I feel it has become the accepted fashion to romanticise life in Rural France: The grape harvest, long leisurely meals under shady boughs, cooking from armfuls of produce from a lovingly tended garden, wine with friends……………..oh you get the picture.
Well, wake up people! Lets get a sense of reality here.
Life goes on, and the day to day trivia is alive and well, and expecting your fullest attention.
Take today’s job list for example:
1. Visit accountant to check tax return for on line submission (can’t wait)
2. Take cat to vets. (if I can catch him)
3. Change the beds. (and iron the sheets from ironing mountain hiding in summer kitchen)
4. Food shopping (to include toilet roll and bin bags).
5. Water the lawn twice (plus grapple with ancient well pump that works to rule)
6. Take the recycling down to communal depository. (Why does it smell so much when you have washed it all?)
I have left out the housework, the washing, and the shovelling out of the bomb zone that is my daughter’s bedroom.
So, sunshine apart, there’s not a lot to excite here today.
Except maybe picking up my husband from the airport, (back home after three long weeks away) a dip in our family swimming pool. a few early evening drinks with my sister and her family, picking some cherries to eat for tea, watching the sun go down…………………..it’s a hard life.

Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall, Gorse Wine And Other Delights

Let me dispense with the formalities. I love Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall. He is one of the few people with a stranger surname than mine, and he inspires me at many levels.
Amongst our female family members, he is affectionately referred to as “St Hugh of Whittingstall” – If you are reading this Hugh, please take this as the most sincere of compliments.
Frivolity to one side, he seems to have effortlessly captured the essence of the British desire to “grow their own” with the inspired LANDSHARE scheme. This is one of many initiatives to afford people to grow their own produce who would not ordinarily be able to do so.The Church of England and the National Trust are helping to facilitate this need.
I was fortunate enough to acquire a portion of railway embankment by “enclosing” it along with my neighbours many years ago. It cost us nothing and was encouraged by British Rail – It was almost a gentleman’s agreement. How very British.
As I now own a very generously sized garden, it is easy to overlook the fact that so many people have nothing. Growing your own is such an uplifting experience and is enjoyed by all ages – The scenes in tonight’s programme of the family groups getting stuck in on their new veggie plots accents the positive of this scheme. It provides, unites and educates. Well done Hugh!

We’d Like A Place With Outbuildings And Some Land Please.

The Coach House

We bought our first home in France nine years ago. Seems like a lifetime……so much cement dust has has blown over our lives since then.
I used to help with sourcing property for some business associates of my husband’s, mainly as a go between where there was the usual Anglo-Franco language barrier. It was an interesting experience, but certainly one I would not want to continue as part of my life here in France today. There were times when I felt my patience was exhausted – The title of this piece refers to the all familiar request so often made of me.
Whilst there were those amongst their number who had thought the whole thing through, there were others who clearly had not
I thought they had lost sight of all practical consideration and in some severe cases, reality.
I never felt that as a go between it was my role to offer opinion – the choice was ultimately to be theirs.

It did however lead me after time to the theory that there existed somewhere, an archetypical house that all British people wanted
By and large, the British purchase in France seemed to have many common “must haves”
This is the list I have drawn up.

1. A big place – the bigger and draughtier the better – dodgy roof was good as well, as that allowed room for tenacious negotiation and of course lots of water leaks into bedrooms, thereby giving the place the “Year in Provence” feel and vibe.
2. Outbuildings to convert into various projects – animal sanctuaries, retreats, meditation centres, gites, games rooms, guest quarters, work areas, and occasionally dance or art studios (oh yes!)
3. Land – lots of it – generally to gaze at with no particular use other than for it to cause a constant headache as to how to cut the grass.
4. A place on its own with no neighbours – A bit like Napoleon had on Elba or St Helena. Nothing as far as the eye can see with no facilities and limited access was high up there on the wants list. Happy days if it was in a natural conservation area or within sight of one of the many “Monuments de la France”. This helped to manacle every attempt at renovation , but made great dinner party conversation .
5. Old. old, old, country, country, country. – You get my drift here.
6. NEVER , EVER, located on a road. Perish the thought.

Our first property we bought here saw us trekking a few kilometres down the lane away from the house. (it’s not far, claimed the owner) to view a sprawling plot with extremely bad drainage, no access for vehicles of any kind and thistles that were, lets say well established. Sort of sunflower sized.
We were horrified as the property itself stood on an overly large piece of land with a small overgrown wood – in short there was a hell of a lot of work there, which clearly wasn’t getting done by the present incumbents.

At the time I had the particular problem of not having my husband here during the week. (This is still the case). It made me quickly realise that I was going to have to organise the renovation of a home and look after what amounted to an small holding sized piece of property. That notion came at a price. We had to pay to get it maintained.

It took me little time to reassess our needs.

We needed to have a place that had the elements of French country charm, without the hassle.
For that reason we chose a “maison bourgeoise” that was located in the heart of the same village.
We have land, about 5 acres, which runs alongside our mature walled gardens – It is flat and manageable, and maintained by our farming neighbour for hay production.
We are on a small road, with virtually no traffic, but discreetly recessed from this with a small front garden and huge gates. Lots of twirly things going on and they really clang shut with attitude.
Our gardens are to the side and at the back of the house – both well hidden, flat, easily tended and laid mainly to lawns.
We have some handsome outbuildings in the form of a small stable block at the end of the garden and an impressive coach house that straddles the front boundary along with the main house. The buildings are all sound and dry, with good roofing. Doubtless we will concoct a “project|” for one or two of them. I am seriously thinking of a sound proofed padded cell – cum – flat for my teenage daughter and her noisy friends.
The house needs re-decorating, and a wiring upgrade, and is centrally heated. A home from home comfort that should never be underestimated.

I know it’s easy to get on your high horse about these things. Many people do have a second move in France once they have fallen into some of the traps I have outlined here. We did.
So do yourself a favour when property hunting
Run you eye over this article once or twice, ask your friends who have bought here, keep a sense of proportion on the whole thing, choose wisely, and enjoy.

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Don’t You Just Love Spam? Saturday 29th May 2009.

I can’t help myself. The spam folder of my e mail account has a forbidden fruit aura. A bit like Pandora’s Box. I am irresistibly drawn to read the contents from time to time.
It did make me smile today as I ran my eye over today’s selection.
For those who know me, dieting and I have been at different corners of the ring for longer than I care to mention.
However, I did smile when I saw this e mail
“Get Thin! – Eat all you want! Stop exerting yourself attempting to lose weight!”
If only………………………………………………..

Theft Alert In The Poitou Charentes – Someone has stolen the Sun! Thursday 28th May 2009

I tumbled out of bed in the early hours and fumbled around closing all the windows. No easy feat wandering about over three floors with eyes glued shut.
There was a chilly breeze edging its way under the duvet and the ambient temperature was decidedly uncomfortable.
When I came downstairs this morning, I wistfully ran my hand over my very cold Aga and toyed with the idea of switching it back on.
So, own up who’s taken it? – Scotland, Iceland, Russia?…………..you’ve got until midday to turn it back over to us in France. We’ve got wine to grow, and barbecues to organise – and I simply refuse to drag those wooden steamer chairs back into the barn if it rains. They weigh a ton! Clock’s ticking, midday’s the deadline. Actually, make that 2,30. Just remembered the local gendarmerie shuts for lunch…………………