Thanks for joining me - happy that you are here !
So, like I said, I work in the shadow of the Iron Lady (la dame de fer – a French name for the Eiffel Tower, not the former British PM) but despite my dream location I dream of escaping to the wilds of Normandy, of heavenly heavy cream and the liquid gold of Calvados. A slower life.
On most weekends I manage to get away, most often to a little hamlet not far from Lisieux which is more known for the little rose St Therese (more on her later) than for its utterly amazing weekly market, probably the best produce I have ever seen, and I know my markets!
I will be sharing my marketing and other adventures, each week I plan to create simple dishes using the best of the season and introducing talented friends along the way. It won’t just be the Pays d’Auge, there will be a little bit of Paris as well as Provence and the Mediteranean, truffle hunting in Burgundy and some hearty après ski in the Alpes (these are the trips in the diary, I hope there will be more…) Come along for the ride
I started this year brimming with enthusiasm for new tastes, techniques, and projects. I decided to cook my way through the regions and the seasons.
I bought the amazing Ester cookbook on my annual trip back to Oz (I am Australian by birth - or should I say - Tasmanian - luckily for me !) at Christmas. It’s already been inspirational. I have a great love for making bread, making it brings me joy. I was inspired to try the fermented potato bread as a place to start. I generally follow a recipe ‘to a t’ before I start tweaking it. Time is something you need a lot of with this one and thankfully with the boss away, I duly fermented the potatoes, waited five days for the ferment to get to a perfect flavour, fed the sourdough and then waited for that to come to a healthy and happy stage in its growth cycle.
Finally, after six days, the bread project was in the can. Or on the bench top. After another three hours of folding and stretching the dough to form the gluten (giving it the strength to hold), into the fridge it went to rest overnight. Yes indeed, another 24 hours of waiting! I took the dough out of the fridge and then proceeded to roll it into buns which then went into a very hot oven. And all the waiting was worth it: rewarded with crunchy outside and fluffy inside buns of absolute burnished deliciousness. Lavishly spread them with more of the Normandian butter. Happy days!
Later in the week I had a formal lunch for 15 that ended up being such fun- and allowed me to cook in a way that I really enjoy: finding things that you think should not taste good together yet do. In this instance, burnt apple and lime puree paired with a piece of crispy fish was the fun discovery and one that I will use again. The acid and smoke and sweetness of the apple worked so well.
The dessert of caramel and chocolate tested my patience however with the pastry for the tarts refusing to play ball. The first five tart shells all broke and for someone who is not used to failing, it really challenged me. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try and try again! I persevered and finally managed to bake seventeen lovely chocolate shells which I then filled with caramel, a chocolate ganache and served with rosy quince and a milk ice. Word from the table was that it was the star of the show! Lessons learnt – don’t get too impatient and hang in there !
Thank god it was then Friday and a public holiday for Australians. We had just had a bout of snow and Paris showed its winter wonderland skirts, making me realise that I wanted (needed!) to see more.
There is nothing like a trip to the mountains to clear your head and happily for me I was invited to the French alps by my adopted Dutch family. And they say when the mountains are pink - its time to drink xx More on that on the next newsletter !
Setting the Table :
Being a chef, I have a love for setting a table. And as I live in a country that has many a brocante, I have collected a few lovely and fun things. I want to share with you a setting that I will make for every newsletter. Some of these items will be available for sale , in the near future. Here is the first one - enjoy X
Fun things seen in Paris this month :
A really cute play on Valentines’s day - couer = heart in French - I love the Coeur man ! oh and then the couercas and then the coeur-nichons! ..