I did not manage to write a blog during the whole of March. I don’t know how this has happened - it’s not as if I’ve been dong other things. Projects lie unfinished in my workroom, books lie unread all over the house as well as on my kindle, and photo books haven’t been started. Shocking. March has certainly been a month for the garden with extra work needed because we have had no rain for some weeks.
So there have been seedlings needing cosseting and planting out while the greenhouse and my plastic tunnel are full of pots waiting for the moment when there will be no more frosts. Unusually, we have had quite a few late frosts - the agriculteurs around here are already asking for compensation for lost vines and fruit. More of the garden later.
I want to talk food.
One of the most difficult things about lockdown - certainly since November last year - has been that restaurants have been closed. Our life has always been pretty full of restaurants visits - more so in London but also in France where we eat out less often but more seriously. No chance of that recently. But it has to be said that we enjoy our food and while restaurants might be closed, there are very good ingredients to be sourced in the supermarkets as well as speciality stores and the local markets. However I haven’t been to a market in more than a year. Peter has appointed himself chief market shopper and has used our local Saturday market at Montaigu de Quercy exclusively. Wanting to avoid the general hustle and bustle of shopping in a market he goes very early and orders quite a few things in advance.
M Lofthouse’s fortnightly chicken from local farmer Thierry
My favourite spot is a food shop called Grand Frais which sells excellent fresh food. Our latest lockdown allows us - because we are near the border of our department - to travel 30km to shop. After a sweaty moment or two Peter worked out that Grand Frais is 29.8 km from us! So I can continue to go and find my buffalo burrata, fresh fish and a huge range of vegetables.
January and February in Southwest France means the delicious black truffle. Every year we hold a big lunch for friends in London and truffles have been on the menu for many many years. This was not going to be an option this year so we decided to hold what had to be a series of lunches given the 6pm curfew and a recommendation to have no more than 6 in the house at the time.
Peter went to see his Marchand de Truffes over the other side of the department and came back beaming from ear to ear.
We devised simple lunches around the truffle sandwich - a combination of slices of country bread slathered with truffle butter and loaded with thin truffle slices - put in the oven for the ingredients to meld together with rather outstanding results. Just a simple sandwich. We managed fishy starters: home smoked mackerel salad, prawn and coriander fish cakes and potted smoked salmon. Then a choice of delicious cheeses with Peter’s bread followed by a small pud: mini steamed puds, or bitter chocolate creams. Peter managed to find suitable wines in the cellar to accompany things!!
The good thing was - because of the restriction to 6 people - we ended up having truffle sandwiches five times!!
After the excitement of the truffles - and the delight of company, we returned to our ‘regular’ meals. However, I reckoned that we weren’t making adequate efforts to cook new things and use different ingredients. It was just not good enough to serve a delicious chicken (bought every other week from the local market) first as plain roast and then in lunch sandwiches or a chicken pie. Our dwindling stocks of English sausages were invariably served with mash. Having sourced some excellent plaice in the supermarket even our home made fish and chips were not extending our culinary skills as comforting as they were. So we agreed to stretch ourselves a bit and use new ingredients and new recipes as much as possible.
Peter is the bread maker. He found someone in the market selling wholewheat flour and since then we have had a regular supply of excellent wholemeal bread.
He regularly bakes focaccia but was persuaded when provided with some sundried tomatoes to incorporate them into the dough - the result was amazing and he then tried another delicious recipe with smoked ham and onions on the top. I have been feasting on a chunk of focaccia for breakfast every day.
So we expanded our menus. Our English sausages were supplanted by local chipolatas from the pig butcher in the market. We cooked them in a mustard and garlic batter with slow simmered onions and sage. We bought bream and cooked it with fennel, baby potatoes and vine tomatoes.
And as for our regular roast chicken - this has been replaced by a string of delicious new recipes: bourbon and marmalade glazed chicken with watercrress and shaved fennel salad, roast chicken, garlic and potatoes with watercress, roquefort and walnut butter and green beans, chicken fricassee with morels (made successfully with frozen morels from the supermarket) and steamed vegetables with black garlic butter, cumin and turmeric roast chicken with corn cakes and avocado cream. The list goes on but these have been some of our favourites.
What gal wouldn’t be delighted when her husband made some excellent puff pastry which went to make vol au vents stuffed with wild mushrooms - a classic dish but not so fashionable these days. Our asparagus is now in season so Peter has been making more puff pastry for feuillete aux asperges with chervil butter. Oh so naughty but one of the super treats of the season.
It’s quite hard work cooking from scratch everyday but here in the country there’s not too much on offer in the way of takeaway food. An email from our favourite restaurant near Cahors got Peter into the car and off on the 50 minute journey to buy some delicacies from their conserverie - things that would last about 10 days in the fridge. Everything was beautifully packaged and presented and we feasted on morels stuffed with foie gras, soup of baby rock fish and coquillages, veal sweetbreads cooked in a rustic style, and the most delicious rum babas. Not surprisingly we’ve since been back for more! We long to go back and sit on their beautiful terrace but Madame said that they did not want to open until it was possible to eat inside as the weather in May is not good enough for outdoor eating only. No dates in sight for restaurants opening yet.
Purple sprouting broccoli and asparagus and Peter’s entire pea crop!!
So Peter spends time in his potager. We have just finished our purple sprouting broccoli, the asparagus is in full swing and last night we had some wonderful baby broad beans. Lots of wonderful things to come before too long and I am hoping to make a taste satin with baby beets as well as wonderful salads with the various leaves available.