Thursday morning brought an end to the cooking part of the cooking week. We concentrated on fish and shellfish, a couple of simple salads and we finished off the week long French sourdough experiment.
The bread was good, much better than my last attempt, better texture and taste. We pan fried some red mullet fillets and served with tomato and black olive and finely chopped lettuce. We made classic French lunch salads of lardons and frisee and roquefort, pear and walnut. We sautéed some white fish fillets in noilly prat, lemon, cream and parsley and we finished off with a classic moules mariniere.
Gary used to eat mussels a lot when growing up in Holland but a bad experience had put him off and he hadn't touched them for years, but he said that watching and helping me with the whole process of making the dish - buying, washing, cleaning, sorting, discarding and finally cooking - gave him the confidence to try them again - which I thought was just brilliant and, by itself, made his whole cooking week worth while. As it is also one of his wife's favourite dishes, she should benefit too.
I've had an upset stomach for the past couple of days and I don't know if it was a mussel (probably not) or just an excess of rich food and drink this week (most likely) but I haven't mentioned it to Gary because I really don't want to discourage him now.
The final part of the week was one of VinEcole's excellent wine tastings. The weather at the end of the week was superb and we had the full benefit of a roof down motor out to Gayda, the majestic sweep of the snow-capped Pyrenees glistening in the sun before us and a good bit of fun and laughter and knowledge from an interesting mix of people at the tasting and the usual charm of our hosts, Matthew and Emma.
All in all, I think the week was a success and I hope Gary goes back to the UK armed with the confidence to try things out for himself.
Showing posts with label cooking week. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cooking week. Show all posts
Sunday, 1 March 2009
Sunday, 15 February 2009
Too cold
Debrah's few stolen days here have flown by and this afternoon she headed back to London again, without either of us having a firm flight booking and therefore not knowing when we will see each other again - a very unsatisfactory state of affairs.
Both sets of weekend guests also departed today so I am back to being here on my own. It won't be for long though - I have a party of four Americans arriving for two nights in midweek, a couple coming next weekend for three days and someone coming to spend a week cooking with me, which is very exciting.
Debrah and I spent a good part of the last few days working out the schedule for him and what I am going to show him, which will include market shopping and wine tasting as well as cooking. I am really looking forward to it.
The market produce is just beginning to show signs of spring with some early asparagus, artichokes, strawberries and broad beans making an appearance yesterday. It is still a bit too early for local produce and most of this stuff appeared to have been shipped across from North Africa - still, it will give me more options for showing cooking techniques next week even if the produce isn't yet the best.
One thing that was lacking in the market yesterday was eggs. We only came across one stall who had any and they had come from the Aveyron, which in the highly departmentalised nature of France means they were foreign and imported. They were very good though.
One woman, presumably after seeing the egg cartons on top of my shopping bag, chased me past a couple of stalls to stop me and ask where I had managed to buy them as she couldn't find any. Is it just too cold for the poor hens or being French, have they gone on strike or are they all knackered after a year of laying and having a well earned holiday? It would be nice to think of them all sat on a deckchair somewhere hot recharging their batteries - except that our local hens are undoubtedly free range.
It is still very cold though and even though the sun has shone for the last couple of days, the snow is still lying on top of the Montagne Noire and the wind is bitter, all of which won't be doing anything good for my electricity bill as the radiators do their best to heat our four metre ceiling spaces.
Enough now, it's time for spring, surely.
Both sets of weekend guests also departed today so I am back to being here on my own. It won't be for long though - I have a party of four Americans arriving for two nights in midweek, a couple coming next weekend for three days and someone coming to spend a week cooking with me, which is very exciting.
Debrah and I spent a good part of the last few days working out the schedule for him and what I am going to show him, which will include market shopping and wine tasting as well as cooking. I am really looking forward to it.
The market produce is just beginning to show signs of spring with some early asparagus, artichokes, strawberries and broad beans making an appearance yesterday. It is still a bit too early for local produce and most of this stuff appeared to have been shipped across from North Africa - still, it will give me more options for showing cooking techniques next week even if the produce isn't yet the best.
One thing that was lacking in the market yesterday was eggs. We only came across one stall who had any and they had come from the Aveyron, which in the highly departmentalised nature of France means they were foreign and imported. They were very good though.
One woman, presumably after seeing the egg cartons on top of my shopping bag, chased me past a couple of stalls to stop me and ask where I had managed to buy them as she couldn't find any. Is it just too cold for the poor hens or being French, have they gone on strike or are they all knackered after a year of laying and having a well earned holiday? It would be nice to think of them all sat on a deckchair somewhere hot recharging their batteries - except that our local hens are undoubtedly free range.
It is still very cold though and even though the sun has shone for the last couple of days, the snow is still lying on top of the Montagne Noire and the wind is bitter, all of which won't be doing anything good for my electricity bill as the radiators do their best to heat our four metre ceiling spaces.
Enough now, it's time for spring, surely.
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