Day three and more

We had a break from the cooking sessions today after spending all day yesterday in the kitchen. Gary hired a car and went off to explore the nearby countryside - and it was a fabulous day to do so, with unbroken blue skies and a mid afternoon high of 20 degrees.

I managed half an hour out in the sunshine - I took a coffee with Brigitte in the square after lunch - but aside from that interlude it was back to domestic chores for me today. I cleaned out the Apartment ready for the weekend guests and brought all the ironing up to date - three full room sets (bedlinen, towels, robes and napery) and several hours over the ironing board.

Whilst it was good to have a break from the cooking, I must admit that I enjoyed yesterday's all day kitchen marathon more than today's domestic necessities.

The all day session started with a visit to Les Halles to buy the meat for the casseroles, which involved a long discussion with M Campacci on the origins of his beef and veal - most of which, sadly, passed over my head because of my inability to comprehend French, especially when spoken with passion and at speed. He was, of course, as charming and polite and helpful as ever and threw in a bit of pork fat for nothing because he was out of beef bones.

When we got back to the kitchen I threw all the 'daube' ingredients into a big bowl with a mass of herbs and a bottle of red and left them to sit whilst we got on with making some soda bread and some french onion soup, which we ate for lunch, with some of the chicken liver pate to follow that we had made on Monday - top lunch that.

In the afternoon, we got the beef casserole going before making a couple of vegetable soups to demonstrate how easy soup is to make and also how the taste can be altered by the addition of various additives at the end, depending on what it needs (salt, pepper, sugar, vinegar, cream, herbs - etc). It inspires me every time I go through that process and Gary was absolutely amazed at the difference a relatively small amount of each ingredient made to the finished taste - which was the intention, so that was good.

We finished with a 'blanquette de veau', a classic french dish of veal in a creamy white sauce. It has no cream in the sauce, so the description is misleading, but allowed me to demonstrate the principles of a classic 'roux' - and the finished product does indeed feel creamy - which is a pretty clever trick. We devoured it all for supper with some rice and bottle of red wine.

Away from the cooking and the ironing, there hasn't really been much time for anything else. Through a friend of a friend who works at the local radio station, I now know some of the acts being lined up for this summer's music festival, which for the first time will feature concerts in the newly refurbished Place Gambetta (Depeche Mode apparently) as well as the usual venue in the Cité ( Lenny Kravitz and Seal) - it's all rumour, of course, but from a very good source - the same source that told me about the new Ryanair routes from Edinburgh and Bournemouth. So I'd put money on it happening.