Just Another Summer Saturday

the mairie and the post office at Port Sainte Foy - note the beautiful flowers

A heavy grey sky this morning so we were off to the marché before 9.00 – early for us. Only a few locals out and about and some stallholders still setting up. We collected our organic eggs, rifled through the stock at the stall selling second hand English books, grabbed a pain for lunch and a couple of pain au raisins ( pastry snails) for breakfast and dashed home before the rain arrived.

Watched round two of the Bledisloe on tv while outside the wind blew and rain fell.

After lunch the sun came out and we were off to the Recyclerie at Pessac sur Dordogne. This is where everyone gets rid of their junk if they can’t be bothered taking a stall at a vide grenier. You can find everything from ‘pre-loved’  toys to electrical appliances to large furniture and perhaps even a kitchen sink or a bath. It’s only open two afternoons a week so you have to go regularly to find the ‘treasures’. We haven’t found any yet but we hear tales from others of wonderful finds being practically given away. We live in hope.

end of summer on the Dordogne

Back into Ste Foy for a rug sale. A dealer from Geneva had a collection of rugs from Turkey, Iran and Russia at ‘special’  prices. After much haggling  we walked away when he didn’t accept our offer and we went for a coffee. Half an hour later when we returned to our car which was parked where he could see us , he came out and agreed to our offer. We bought 2 silk Turkish rugs. After  three months of shopping for the house Graham is starting to get a bit twitchy whenever we spend money.

Home at last and we were able to watch the mountain bike event racing around our village.  Some of the streets, including ours, had been closed to traffic so we were expecting big things. The route took the riders from the mairie, along the street past our house, down to the riverbank and along the riverside for about  500 metres, then up the hill through the vineyards to the forest at the top, along the ridge and back down again into the village. Turned out to be a team relay race so only a handful of riders on the course at any time – not exactly Le Tour. Fun for the participants  I’m sure but not exactly exciting to watch. Retreated home to watch french rugby on tv.

We didn’t get to the big boules competition at the park at the end of our street and there’s a pasta night at our favourite café with local musicians providing the entertainment which we may or may not venture out for as it clashes with a rugby game on tv (you get the idea, yes the season has started here already).

Not our usual Saturday, but it is the tourist season and most french people are en vacance and obviously like to be entertained.

Two brocante/vide grenier marchés in town tomorrow so up early for another big day.

À bientôt mes amis

A good week for lunch

On Wednesday Graham took me to La Tour des Vents at Monbazillac for lunch for my birthday. I had read about this restaurant some time ago and thought it was the perfect spot for a summer lunch. We weren’t  disappointed. We were given a table on the terrace under roof, on a hillside surrounded by vines, and with a view across the Dordogne valley to Bergerac. The sun was warm, the sky a brilliant blue and a pleasant breeze kept us comfortable as we watched birds of prey soaring over the valley. We ordered the Menu Decouverte – 10 courses altogether. As Graham was driving we limited ourselves to just one bottle of Bergerac rosé, not easy for Graham as you all know. For those who are interested the menu follows the blog.

Graham had mentioned when he made the booking that it was my birthday, so, when one of the desserts arrived, a strawberry macaron, it came with a candle (thankfully this is not the place for singing “happy birthday”). Then one of the waitresses brought out a camera and took our photo and two minutes later returned with a print for us. It was very sweet and thoughtful and carried off as discreetly as you can do this sort of thing in a full restaurant. The food was great, the service excellent and the ambience perfect. It was the best afternoon and I hope we can repeat it with visiting friends sometime. Would love to make this our “local” as it’s only a 20 minute drive from home, but perhaps Michelin starred restaurants should be kept for special.

As we were not comfortable whipping out a camera here you can see the restaurant on the website. 

http://www.tourdesvents.com/

church at St Meard de Gurcon

old lavoir ( wash house) now home to waterlilies

ancient market hall

a cool spot for a drink beside the church

We had another lunch out on Sunday afternoon near St Meard de Gurcon.

The background – we had met Kate at our favourite café. We are friends with the dutch owner, Kees, who speaks perfect english, so when we were sitting around the café one day and Kate, an anglais, walked in with an Australian friend Kees made a comment along the lines of “not another Australian!”. We had to have a coffee together and share stories.

Kate lives here in the countryside not far from us and has become our friend. She invited us to lunch at her lovely house and introduced us to three of her friends – two anglais and one french. Kate is a great cook so we had a wonderful lunch sitting on the terrace and talking about, food, restaurants, life in France, etc.

She very kindly allowed us to take a few pictures of her garden.

view from the back garden

guest accommodation

the pool with a view

ready for lunch

Kerrie and Kate

Every Thursday evening for the last few weeks we have had a Marché des Producteurs in the square overlooking the river in Ste Foy. The local mairie puts out trestle tables and chairs and local producers set up stalls to provide dinner. Everything from foie gras, steak, mussels, duck and chicken, all served with frites, of course. There’s also ice cream, crepes, patisseries and wine and beer. Lots of tourists with their children and dogs, and lots of noise. And to entertain everyone a jazz band. As the sun doesn’t set until around 9.30 it’s a pleasant way to spend a summer evening.

Finally we have an electrician (english) who is here working on our lights. We found him on the internet, and it turns out that we know his wife from our French class. Small world and even smaller here.

The painter starts on Wednesday! He is going to paint virtually everything (and strip that french wallpaper) so we are going to have to live with him for a few weeks. We are looking forward to then being able to hang our pictures that we brought from Australia and a few new watercolours that we have bought here at markets.

We have had some interesting days discovering the wonders (and shortcomings) of French hardware stores (BRICOs). They have a few large chains similar to Bunning’s, but many gaps in what they offer. French plumbing and electricals are archaic. You can buy ultra-modern light fittings but the method used for wiring into the house is from the 1950s (if you’re lucky). So you can’t just buy a simple ceiling light and plug it into the batten as there’s no batten, just wires poking out of the ceiling. Hence the need for an electrician. The general opinion is that this is their way of keeping their “artisans” in work. On the other hand, the BRICOs offer a picture framing service, so I plan to try them out on this.

The herb garden is coming along and very useful, and I’ve been making Mirabelle jam using the fruit from our tree. As we don’t eat much jam this and the fig jam will last us until next summer, I’m sure. The potager is our next outdoor project.

We have been to a few more vide grenier and brocante markets, but it appears that prices go up when the tourists arrive, so we aren’t buying much until they all go home. The Saturday market at Ste Foy has been unpleasantly crowded so we only go if we need something specific, like organic eggs, and to have a coffee at our favourite café, then we dash across the bridge and home. We must learn to get up earlier on Saturdays and go when the locals do.

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The menu from our lunch at La Tour des Vents for those who are into this. Our english translation is in red.

La Tour des Vents

Amusée Buche

Mousseuse chou-fleur, pain grille aux des crevettes

Cauliflower foam with prawn toast

Langoustines rôties, poivrons confits, pain toasté jambon pata negra,

coulis de tomates estragon relevé à l'harissa, crème glacée langoustine

Langoustines with preserved roasted peppers , pata negra ham toasted bread,

tomato sauce with tarragon harissa,  lobster ice cream

Foie gras de canard poêlé, mangue-fruit de la passion-origan,

feuille à feuille de pain d'épices et mangue, réduction de Bergerac au cassis

Seared duck foie gras with mango,passionfruit and oregano,

Millefeuille of gingerbread and mango, blackcurrant reduction Bergerac

Merlu de ligne rôti sur une terrine de légumes, jus au pistou

Line of Hake on a bowl of roasted vegetables, pesto jus

Ris de veau à l’ancienne cuits en cocotte, pain aillé et fèvettes

Sweetbreads en cocotte with garlic bread and fava beans

Pigeonneau de Marie Le Guen en crapaudine, sauce salmis au Porto, 
la cuisse braisée, saladine à l’huile de noisette

Squab Marie Le Guen spatchcock, sauce Porto, 
braised thigh, Saladin in hazelnut oil

Macaron moelleux, fine marmelade de fraise,

glace verveine et coulis basilica

Soft macaron, fine strawberry jam,

verbena ice cream and basil sauce

En transparence crémeux de café, coulis de caramel,

mousseuse armagnac, cacahuètes caramélisées

Transparent creamy coffee, caramel sauce,

frothy armagnac, caramelized peanuts

Cafe and petit fours

A bientôt et bon appétit mes amis

August is here

After a long wait and some frustration, our latest furniture purchases arrived from IKEA. In all 16 cartons were delivered and needed to be “assembled” in the inevitable IKEA fashion and for those of you who have complained about lack of instructions, missing parts and other complications let me tell you that it took us nearly 3 days to put everything together successfully. For those of you who think that IKEA is swedish, some of our pieces came from Lithuania !

In that time we put together three sofas, three chests of drawers, an entertainment unit plus two Danish chairs and it is fair to say that we made it without any real problems ( the secret – always read the instructions at least 3 times, then discuss between you, and read the instructions again ). In fact, we even discussed setting up a business here to contract out the construction process for the many people who buy from IKEA. In the end I was a little uncertain whether Kerrie could take that amount of swearing and yelling. Oh well, we must look for other opportunities.

On the relaxation side of things, I was permitted to start buying some wine for my cellar and have so far purchased 12 x bottles of Bordeaux rouge, 12 x bottles of Montravel rouge (2006), 6 x bottles of Pecharmant rouge from Bergerac and 6 x bottles of blancs des blancs sparkling wine. While it is not a lot, it does give me a start and now I have to just learn not to keep going down to the cellar and coming up with a bottle each night. I need some cheap quaffing red for that purpose.  Just an excuse to get me to drive while Graham  tastes at all the caves ( wine shops) and co-ops ( producers groups) in the area.

To go with the very pleasant (and warm) weather that we have experienced recently, we decided to try out the existing BBQ set up in our hangar, which is an open sided barn. The BBQ requires an open fire with the ashes and coals used to grill the food on a low level grill (see our photo). We have tried this with some basic steak and rounds of chipolata sausages and to our surprise, they have cooked well while maintaining their moisture and flavour. No doubt we will need to explore this process further and it will be harder when cooking for more than the two of us.  Good options for future cook-outs include prawns (crevettes) which are quite cheap here as well as rabbit, for which we now have some interesting recipes. Should all go well with the expanding wine collection.

Steaks are not too bad here......just a different cut.

Indeed while on the cooking side of things, it was an ideal opportunity for me to buy a Kg of local mussels (moules) at our local fish market and put on a great batch of Moules Marinieres for myself as Kerrie does not eat shellfish. The mussels are a little smaller than the Australian version, but strong on flavour and also cheap (about $4 a kg). While Kerrie had to get by on a salad, I had no difficulty in putting away a good couple of bowls of moules and to be honest they were easy to prepare and cook. Another excuse for Graham to buy some more kitchenware.

We've been enjoying figs everyday from our tree to the point where we can’t use them up fast enough despite racing the birds to get them first, so today I made my first pot of fig jam. A great fresh taste and easy to do  so I guess I’ll have to keep making fig jam and, when they ripen, mirabelle jam as there’s thousands of them on our tree. We have planted out a herb garden near the back door and are planning a potager ( vegetable garden) down behind the pool. We did have some tomato plants there, but a bad storm on Friday night including two lots of hail made a bit of a mess of them and shredded leaves on everything in the garden. Not a total wipeout luckily, but messy. Even the grapes survived  ok, so we are looking forward to those in a couple of months.

not quite enough for a bottle of wine

the birds beat us to this one !

mirabelles

Our handyman, Richard,  has begun the long list of jobs around the house, and the painter has agreed to start in 2 weeks  so it feels, at last, as though we are getting somewhere with our plans for improvements. Now how do we get the French electrician to come back ?

Our French classes are now "en vacances"  for August so there was a “picnique” on the evening of the last day and both French and anglaise were invited to bring food and wine and celebrate summer together. Any excuse to share food and drink in this country. 

can you spot Graham ?

For those who thought Graham’s Peugeot in Sydney was a bit “lairy”, here’s a picture of a Peugeot that lives around the corner.

A few of our readers have suggested that they can tell the difference in our writing styles. Just to show that it is a collaborative effort, in today's blog we have one section in italics and one section in plain text. We will let you work out which sections are Graham's and which are Kerrie's.

A bientôt