The Duck At Camont

Autumn (and we) have arrived in Gascony. At least it's supposed to be autumn...the leaves are turning and there are horse chestnuts littered everywhere underfoot, but it's been 30 degrees Celcius most days with deliciously blue skies and long, light evenings. The locals say this is the hottest October in a century, I am definitely not complaining!







We've done a little bit of exploring over recent days, a little bit more eating and a whole lot of cooking. Renting a car (and buying a GPS) was genius, as we've been able to get out and explore the beautiful, rolling countryside and the medieval villages and market towns scattered over the Gascon hills and woods.







We ate on Sunday at a little restaurant next to a fortified village where we devoured lunch on the terrace, complete with local wine. The cassoulet - a local stew of white beans, duck and bacon - was everything I had imagined (we'll be learning how to cook it this week) although a little heavy in this heat compared with my lightly-fried river fish and an entree of the house foie gras and charcuterie.





Charcuterie seems to be a growing theme in this week's journey. The French love nothing more than a platter of charcuterie (cured hams, pates and rillette) laid out on a platter to nibble over a glass of wine in the evening, or any time really. But here in Gascony the charcuterie tradition seems to be a way of life.







Yesterday we were swept up by Kate Hill, along with our fellow classmates, from our inn in the lovely town of Nerac and driven to our first stop, the home and butchery of Kate's good friends, the Chapolards - a family of local butchers who were busy making their famous sausages and cured haunches of pork when we pulled up. We picked up a selection of these incredible, lightly-smoked and cured meats - and one pink pork belly - to use in our afternoon of cooking (apparently the sausages spend a few days hanging inside Mr Chapolard's chimney while they cure). You'll see in the photos that this bounty of meat, along with locally-grown legumes, provided the inspiration for our dinner feast cooked in Kate's kitchen on the canal in Camont.

But the food of Gascony is about more than cured meats and sausages, although those are pretty special, it has to be said. The duck, the pork, the armagnac and crisp white wines, the foie gras for which they are rightly famous, and the beans and lentils, all flavoured with pepper and salt, bay and thyme and pimento, and the sunlight of the south.

Enroute to Camont we made for a local winery and armagnac house for a tasting. Now, at this point in the post, I must confess to a dark prejudice of mine...I don't like red wines. I don't know why, but the tannin in red wine which everyone else seems to enjoy leaves me cold. I have on occasion enjoyed a small amount of very, very good red wine, but in general I go straight to the white portion of any wine list. So, while I am told the local Gascon red (tannat) is excellent, I have been gushing over the quality of the whites. As demand for the local armagnac has dwindled, the growers of the white grapes used for it have been turning increasingly to white wine to utilise the leftover grapes at harvest time, and diversify their profit base. Well, it's wonderful stuff, and incredibly well priced at around $6 a bottle for some terrific light, well-flavored white wines. The roses are also fantastic, not at all the sickly sweet stuff we often find back home, and perfect for the robust Gascon food and the hot weather.









That said, after a tasting of a number of different years of armagnac, I am very happy that production of this wonderful spirit continues in this part of the work. I might have splashed out on a few bottles to lug home, and Kate also assures me it goes great in cooking as well.

Next, with a supply of delicious local wine in the car to drink with our week's cooking around Kate's table, we ventured to Camont to roll up our sleeves, tie on our aprons and get chopping.





In deference to the hot weather, Kate postponed the cassoulet, and instead guided us through the soaking, simmering and sautéing of local white beans, tossed through with leeks sautéed in duck fat and butter, which served as the based for a long spiral of local sausage.

Next, we simmered some local, tiny green puys lentils with lovage, thyme and shallots. Salted and tossed through with a vinaigrette, we lay slices of the charcuterie bought earlier in the day on top and scattered the dish with chopped cornichons (teeny, tiny gherkins). Finally, Kate scored a small piece of pork belly - the flesh a bright pink not normally seen on Australian pork - and rubbed it with a mix of salt, pepper, ground ginger, nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon and pimento. She popped it in a hot oven to crisp, turning down the heat for the majority of the cooking, and sliced it, juicy and dripping, on an antique wooden chopping board. (Don't worry, when I get home I will make sure and offer up the recipes!)







This feast was carried to the table, wine bottles in hand, and served up over laughter in the early dusk under the grapevines. I can't imagine a better way to end a day.

Paris Foodie Top Four

My friend Kate frequently makes everyone around a dinner table recount their "top four" - this means your list of your Top Four of absolutely everything in the world. Friends' top fours shift over the years, but Kate seems to have an endless memory for every permutation over time and can recount various "top fours" and place them in a time line. For instance, she recalls with glee the day that "comfortable silences" replaced "great sex" on my Top Four. I still maintain this was not a deliberate exchange!

More recently my Top Four has included 1) fresh sheets, 2) reading a can't-put-it-down novel under my doona on a cold day, and - as a result of this week in Paris - two new additions: 3)French champagne aperitifs and 4) nutmeg (especially in a chilled leek soup on a hot night). Of course, all Top Four entries are subject to change without notice.



So, what exactly have we been up to in Paris, you might ask? Well, in the spirit of Kate, I give you my Paris Foodie Top Four (so far...again, subject to change without notice). These are not in any order!

1) Unexpectedly good treats in the most unexpected of places... For example, a fresh baked brioche on the way to buy a GPS for our road trip to Gascony. It was still warm and studded with melted chocolate chips, wrapped in a twist of paper and devoured while walking the streets. I even licked my fingers. Also, a spur-of-the-moment canele (an incredibly moist cake dipped in some sort of clear, vanilla bean laden glaze) bought on the Ile Saint-Louis as I wandered past a tiny little bakery. I am not sure what is in it, but if you ever see one, buy it. Or the bijoux street market we came across today in Place de Madeleine, complete with haughty fish monger and the most beautiful roses. All unexpected treats when they are least anticipated. Maybe that's what makes them so good.







2) White truffles. We spent our lunch break in the Maison de la Truffe, the House of Truffles, eating delicious pasta with white truffle - we were told it's currently in season - shaved over the top. Divine! More subtle that black truffle, with all the earthy flavor I love. Mum ordered the truffle ice cream, and I have to say my taste of it was pretty fabulous. The Maison de la Truffe is still a family owned business, serving up truffles since 1932, and well worth the visit.








3) Pine nut flavored ice-cream from Berthillon, a Parisian institution, on the Ile Saint-Louis. The salted caramel ice-cream came a close second.







4) Dinner at Gaspard de la Nuit, a family-owned old style bistro near the Marais (6 Rue Des Tournelles) where the tradition of unpretentious French cuisine is alive and well - along with a trolley laden with just as venerable armagnac. The hostess was welcoming and the food delicious. My attempt to replicate the chilled leek soup with a hint of nutmeg will be hitting Four Figs in due course.





A close fifth has to be dinner tonight at which I sampled roast grouse stuffed with fois grois for the first time - grouse should be more common on Australian tables!

Tomorrow we are off to Gascony, so I of course reserve the right to amend my French Top Four accordingly...

Bon Voyage!

So we have arrived in Paris and even in 24 hours we've already packed more foodie moments into our day (and two nights) than I usually cram into weeks in Canberra. My feet are also aching from all the walking, but I am pretty sure - given the good food and wine we've been consuming - that all this exercise is probably for the best!

Here are some of the highlights so far - I cannot believe we have a whole week in Paris to enjoy!



You see some weird and wonderful things on the streets of Paris. Our jet lag took us walking on the streets in the dark of early morning, watching the delivery vans unloading produce and the street cleaners going about their business. In small cafes staff were setting up their tables and joggers sweating their way along the cobbled back streets.



There's something beautiful in the quiet, hushed dark of the earlier morning. But finally, the sun was up. We consumed a morning cafe au lait and were on our way, walking through the Tuileries and down the Seine on our way to find Julia and Paul Childs' Parisian apartment on the Left Bank.



Several photo ops and rest breaks (thank god for the cafes on every corner) we found it! Photos were taken, a small dog walking past was petted and our only regret for the morning's excursion was that we had neglected to buy a pat of butter to leave as an offering on Julia's old doorstep. I can't imagine what the dog's well-heeled owner would have thought of that little eccentricity.



Next on the Julia Child Tour of Paris was a walk back across the Seine and through the financial district (La Bourse) to Dehellerin, an kitchen ware store reminiscent of old hardware stores and one of Julia's favorite spots. We indulged in a pair of sturdy chicken scissors (the kind you use to chop whole chickens onto pieces) and a good sharp knife for the journey to Gascony later this week. The fact that everything in the store needed a good dust and the store room with the copper pots is a bit of a fire death trap just served to make the place that much more magical. Strange how the French manage that!



Then onto the Marais for a spot of lunch. Our feet aching, we decided on a cafe famous for its Breton buckwheat crepes and apple cider. Sadly for us, on arrival following a long, sweaty walk past the Pompidou Centre we found the place closed for renovations and our hopes of a nice chair and hot cider dashed. It was really for the best, as it turned out, because it meant we wandered a bit further and found the marvelous Le Loir Dans La Theiere (The Doormouse in the Teapot) on Rue Des Rosiers. And what a find it was!





One perfectly cooked steak with caramelized red onion, one deliciously light linguine with rocket and lemon zest, and two glasses of vin blanc later and we were refreshed and relaxed enough for me to turn my attention to the desserts. Incredible! The tarte aux nectarines was a wonderful combination of crisp pastry, sweet nectarine and smooth custard, but they also had a lemon meringue pie that looked as if a mountain of fluffy meringue cloud had touched lightly on top of it, a fig tart that was a close second for my nectarine choice, and an millefille of vanilla cream and crisp, dark puff pastry that looked delicious. Even the service was fabulous - friendly, fast and very understanding of our incredibly poor French language skills...some would say non-existent. And it was a revelation to me that nectarines and rosemary work so well together!








Restored, refreshed and slightly more relaxed from the wine, we wandered down Rue Des Rosiers to admire the Jewish bakeries lining the street. Filled with a sweet melange of Middle Eastern, Eastern European and French-with-a-twist baked goods, these are a must see - just make sure you go before you eat your two course lunch, and not after like we did!

Sugar 'N Spice Loaf Cake (...with a Sidetrip to France)

To those of you who have spent any time with me in the last month, you would be aware that I am heading off for a wonderful holiday in France with the Cooking Fairy Godmother (aka my mum).  We're going on the mother of all girly holidays and, given our foodie tendencies, it will be no surprise to any of you that the second part of the trip will be spent at Kate Hill's lovely cooking school in Gascony.    The first week will be spent in Paris following in the footsteps of Julia Child, finding the perfect macaron and taking as many opportunities to sample champagne as possible!

I will be checking in as often as possible with photos and updates on our foodie adventures.  In the meantime, I leave you with a delicious loaf cake with spicy flavours from one of my retro-favourite cookbooks, The Southern Living Cookbook.

The cinnamon and nutmeg (it originally called for ground cloves, but this appears to be the one spice I don't have in my pantry) undertones in the cake are all you need to make this loaf cake a little bit special - no frosting required.  Although, I'm sure a little light glaze would not have hurt at all.

I was making this to package up for my Grandma to have in the afternoon with a cup of coffee while Mum and I are away.  It's a quick and basic recipe that's perfect if you're looking for something to take along to the office morning tea.  I also think this would go nicely with a cup of mulled wine by the fire, but maybe that's just me!

Sugar 'N Spice Loaf Cake

Ingredients

-  3/4 cup butter (softened)
-  1 cup white sugar
-  3/4 cup dark brown sugar
-  3 eggs
-  2 1/4 cup plain flour
-  1 teaspoon baking powder
-  3/4 teaspoon baking soda
-  1/2 teaspoon salt
-  3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
-  1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
-  1 cup buttermilk
-  1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celcius and butter/line a loaf tin.

Cream the butter and add the two sugars until fluffy and a lovely caramel colour.  Add the eggs, one at a time, while the beater is on a medium speed.  Make sure it's combined well and scrape the sides down.

In a separate bowl, whisk the flour, rising agents, salt and spices together - this sure beats the hell out of sifting it!   Now add the flour, one third at a time, alternating with the buttermilk.  Add the vanilla extract.  Don't over beat it, just use the mixer on a medium speed and stop as soon as it's combined and smooth.  If you mix it too much, it will toughen up the result.

Dollop into the prepared cake tin and pop in the oven for approximately 40 minutes, or until the cake tester comes out clean.  Allow to cool in its tin before removing or it will split!