This week the kids started school again*. Again. Strangely enough they were happy about it and so was I. Not because the house is quieter (and besides it’s not really that quiet with a 2-year-old and a newborn and loads of dogs), not because I’ve grown tired of summer and am now longing for autumn colors and mushrooms and chilly morning walks. Not because I need an excuse to buy a winter coat or because I’ve had too many tomatoes or because Christmas can’t come soon enough.

When I write this blog the words leave my head and I never really meet them again. I don’t reread my old blog posts for some reason. This means I may often repeat myself or even worse, contradict myself. There is no fact checking department in my brain. What’s happening then and there just falls onto the page or into the pot and then I move on until I have a new feeling or recipe to share. Even if it’s sometimes and old familiar feeling or the same exact feeling I had at the same exact time the year before.

I have this feeling that last year around the same time I wrote that everything was perfect. That this was the best season of all. That’s how I feel now, the glow of summer is still on my cheeks and the cheeks of my children. The tomato plants in the garden may be slowly winding down but they still have a few good crates of fruits left in them. The figs are out in force this week, the pumpkins are on the horizon. The weather is still great.

In other words: there is a lot to be happy about. But for me, this year, there is an added sense of excitement and anticipation in the air. Around the same time last year our pop-up restaurant here at 1 rue de Loudenne was in its final days, early in September we closed the doors for the last time, the little team went their separate ways. All that was left were recipes and memories and stories badly arranged in my head. Soon they got restless and cramped up there (I have a rather small head) and found their way onto the page – although not as soon as my editor would have liked (deadlines are not my forte). It’s all been coming to life, piece by piece, recipe by recipe over the course of the last year. But this summer things went silent. It was the period when the book is out of your hands, there is nothing more you can do, only wait. I’m not good at waiting.

As I am writing this I’m anxiously waiting for a first copy that’s ready (my editor says it’s stunning – her words) and was sent to me yesterday. Now it’s 5 o’clock and I think it won’t come today, a little disappointing but tomorrow it’s Friday and maybe that’s an even better day to receive it. At least that’s what I’m telling myself.

The question is, can I have Champagne tonight as consolation or do I have to wait for tomorrow’s celebration?

The book is coming out on October 25th, which is a little bit further away than tomorrow night I admit, and so I wanted to share two more recipes from the book that I think are very appropriate for this magical season of late summer, early fall.

Soon the last tomato will leave the stage, a stage already filling with gorgeous apples. Right now is the rare, beautiful season when we can enjoy them both.

*The kids may be happy about going back to school because with all the chores their father gives them in the summer in the vegetable garden, with the dogs and puppies and in our monstrously big house – school may seem like a vacation – at least that’s my theory 🙂

Tomato Gazpacho
serves 4 to 6

For the last two years we have been growing our own tomatoes in the little vegetable garden down the road from our house. We have experimented with several different varieties: small cherry tomatoes for my veal stew and for casual bruschetta, ripe green and yellow tomatoes that are great in salads. But my favorite is the deep red, meaty, coeur de boeuf that tastes so much better than anything you can buy in stores. I love slicing a big juicy one, giving it a generous glug of good olive oil, sprinkling it with fleur de sel, and savoring it. They also make excellent gazpacho. While I used to make gazpacho with cucumbers and peppers in addition to the tomatoes, when you have really, really good tomatoes, you don’t need anything more, only a little bread for substance and some garlic to spice everything up.

FOR THE GARNISH
½ cup / 120 ml heavy cream
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for serving
12 thin slices baguette
fine sea salt

FOR THE SOUP
1 ½ cups / 115 g crumbled stale white bread
2 pounds / 900 g very ripe tomatoes, diced
2 garlic cloves, smashed and peeled
2/3 cup / 150 ml extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon sherry vinegar
fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
¼ teaspoon piment d’espelette or mild chile powder, for serving

MAKE THE GARNISH. In a small bowl, whisk together the cream and minced garlic. Cover with plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour. Just before serving, pass the cream through a fine-mesh sieve, pressing on the garlic to release all its flavor.

In a large sauté pan, heat the olive oil over medium heat and cook the slices of bread until golden, about 30 seconds per side. Drain the croutons on a paper towel. Season with salt.

MAKE THE SOUP. Soak the bread in a bowl of cool water for 10 minutes, then drain, and squeeze out as much water as possible.

In a large bowl, combine the bread, tomatoes, garlic cloves, olive oil, and vinegar and season with salt and pepper. Purée the mixture, preferably using an immersion blender, until you have a smooth and velvety mixture. Pass the mixture through a fine-mesh sieve, then cover and refrigerate until well chilled, at least 1 hour.

If you didn’t read my last post, or have simply forgotten, we are offering a cute little kitchen notebook to those of you who already have or will order the cookbook before it comes out next month. I have noticed during the workshops that people like writing down their own notes and explanations and experiences with the recipes and while I have nothing against writing in the cookbook itself, sometimes you just need more space. Besides, it’s neater.

Anyone who preorders the book before October 25th will get a special, pocket-sized notebook for keeping notes and planning meals.

To receive the notebook all you have to do is sign up here and provide proof that you have preordered French Country Cooking. The many who have already preordered the book are of course also eligible for the notebook.

‘French Country Cooking‘ available for preorder at:

Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Indiebound

And for Canada

Indigo

Amazon.ca

Baked Apples with Spéculoos
serves 8

Spéculoos are simple, tasty, spiced cookies you can find almost everywhere in various versions and different levels of quality. I’ve always liked to play around with them, include them in tarts and desserts. They go very well with pears, apples, and plums; in summer I like to make a plum tart with a spéculoos-crusted base. In the months leading up to Christmas, we have so many apples around the house that I like to put them to use, often in tarts but also on their own, which I find is a chic way to serve them. This is a humble, uncomplicated dessert, perfect for the days before Christmas, when you have no time to make an elaborate recipe but are aching for a little sweet something to round off a meal.

8 apples
6 ½ tablespoons / 90 g unsalted butter
8 spéculoos cookies
¼ cup / 50 g sugar

Preheat the oven to 400°F / 200°C.

Slice off the top part of the apples, making a little “hat,” and core the apples, leaving a little of the bottom intact. Put the apples in a baking dish and stick about 1 teaspoon of butter into the center of each. Crumble a spéculoos cookie into each one and divide the remaining butter among the apples, dabbing it on top of the cookie. Sprinkle the sugar over the apples and top the apples with their “hats.”

Transfer the dish to the oven and bake until the apples are golden and tender, about 25 minutes. Serve immediately.

Around two years ago I was walking the streets of Toulouse after a wonderful meal: the local Cassoulet and some heavenly desserts. We had invited my aunt, Francine, who more than anyone inspired me to start cooking and I was in high spirits as I walked the streets of the “pink” city in the beautiful afternoon light. Then came the blow. One phone call from my banker telling me that the loan everybody had told me we would get, wouldn’t be coming after all. It was complicated, it had gone fairly smoothly through the system but stopped at the top. But he wished me a great weekend. I still remember the street I stood in, the pretty rose-colored patina of the house next to me, the joyful sounds of my children walking ahead of us. The worried look on my husband’s face.

We had found the house of our dreams, and through the kindness of the man selling us the house we had already spent precious moments there, made little visits, had picnics. The kids had been scared by the ghosts, the bat and the cat. We had peeled off some wallpaper, found an old gramophone, we had danced in that house. And now it might never be ours. After an hour of some anger, some frustration, we got optimistic again. That house would always become ours, one way or the other. Then we had pizza. I even had spritz. And I don’t like spritz that much.

1 rue de Loudenne was always more than just a house to us, even more than a home. It is an idea, a project, one that will keep evolving. I knew from the first day I set foot in it that this house could only lead to good things. It has, wonderful workshops, countless family meals and moments, a long list of beautiful feasts with people we care about. That crazy pop-up ‘family restaurant’ we did last summer.

And last but not least …
… the cookbook I wrote last year.

I had already written one cookbook but I was overflowing with ideas for new recipes and eager to include some classic ones. Oddur said the other day “that’s a good recipe I think”. I looked at him and answered “they are all good recipes”. And I mean it. Why would they ever have gotten in there if I didn’t think that. I just love this book so much, in some ways it was harder to make than the first one, we were after all, renovating a house at the same time, and raising a little girl, uh-hum and a few other kids.

The pop-up family ‘restaurant’, what an adventure. We assembled a very curious team, we had so much fun. Perhaps most meaningful of all, I think the guests who came loved it. At least I was satisfied. We set out to do something, sort of impossible, and at the end it all my goal was this: a restaurant I would have liked to have gone to and been happy I did. I think we managed that.

‘French Country Cooking’ is my new love and I can’t wait to have her in my hands in a few weeks. The best feeling is that for better or for worse, I wouldn’t change a thing.

Like I say somewhere in the book, it’s the cookbook that wrote itself, these are the recipes I love and the memories I treasure.

October 25th can’t come soon enough so I can share it all with you.

I’m so excited about this book and of course I want as many of you as possible to have it … which means, at least in most cases, to buy it. I think that’s what any creator wants, for people to enjoy what he has made. So we came up with this little incentive, for those of you who are as impatient as I am. Anyone who preorders the book before October 25th will get a special, pocket-sized notebook for keeping notes and planning meals.

To receive the notebook all you have to do is sign up here and provide proof that you have preordered French Country Cooking. The many who have already preordered the book are of course also eligible for the notebook.

I’m very happy with this idea of a little kitchen notebook, in fact I can’t wait to have a few of them myself, very useful in the kitchen these little books. This time we had a French illustrator help us with a few images and one of them will be on the notebook, a Smooth Fox Terrier – of course.

‘French Country Cooking‘ available for preorder at:

Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Indiebound

We decided to share two recipes from the book, something light and easy that everybody would like. By the way, the book is divided into several sections and these two I’m sharing come from Goûter (the special snack time in the afternoon for children of all ages) and Staff Meals (inspired from our moments before or after service last summer).

All I can say is that I’m waiting very anxiously for this book and I hope that at least some of you are a little bit excited too.

Love
Mimi xx

Mimolette and Comté Mac and Cheese
Serves 6 to 8

This section of the book turned out to be a who’s who of comfort food—and it wouldn’t be complete without the king of comfort foods: mac and cheese. As a kid in Hong Kong, I remember reading about this exciting dish and desperately wanting to try it. I also remember my disappointment when, having coaxed my mother or some nanny into buying a ready-made version, I realized that maybe it wasn’t the best food in the world after all. But all that is relative. You reap as you sow. I still believe in the power of mac and cheese when it is done right. With just enough glorious, pungent cheese, it can still be, on a good day, the best food that a little girl ever dreamed existed.

1 cup fresh bread crumbs
1 garlic clove, halved
5 tablespoons/60 g unsalted butter, plus more for the pan
Fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 ½ cups / 600 ml whole milk
1 tablespoon dijon mustard
Pinch of nutmeg
Pinch of piment d’espelette or mild chile powder
1 pound/500 g dried small penne or macaroni pasta
10 ounces/300 g mimolette cheese, grated (about 2 2/3 cups)
5 ounces/150 g comté cheese, grated (about 1 1/3 cups)

1.Preheat the oven to 350°F/180°C. Butter a large ovenproof skillet.
2.Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.
3.In a food processor, pulse the bread crumbs with the garlic and 1 tablespoon / 15 g of the butter.
4.In a medium skillet, melt the remaining 3 tablespoons / 45 g butter over medium heat. Whisk in the flour. Immediately whisk in the milk, little by little, and simmer until the sauce thickens, about 2 minutes. Whisk in the mustard, nutmeg, and piment d’Espelette and season with salt and pepper.
5.Add the pasta to the boiling water and cook to al dente according to the package directions.
6.Whisk half of each cheese into the sauce. When the pasta is al dente, drain and mix the pasta into the sauce in the pan until well combined along with the rest of the grated cheese.
7.Pour the pasta mixture into the buttered ovenproof skillet. Scatter the breadcrumb mixture all over the dish and transfer to the oven. Bake until bubbling and golden brown, 30 to 35 minutes. Serve hot.

Fig and Pistachio Cake
Serves 6

This is my garden party cake, the one I’d make if the Queen of England ever came to visit. She’d have to come in fig season, of course, and we’d have tea and a slice each of this moist cake. We would sit there and discuss our dogs and she would comment that fox terriers have a terrible reputation and that, in her opinion, corgis are a much more interesting breed. She’s the Queen so I wouldn’t argue with that; afterwards we’d just stick to the weather and have more cake.

1 1/3 cups/200 g unsalted pistachios, plus more for garnish
8 tablespoons/120 g unsalted butter, plus more for the pan
¾ cup / 150 g sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
6 large egg yolks
6 large egg whites pinch of fine sea salt
½ cup / 120 ml heavy cream
¼ cup / 60 ml mascarpone cheese
2 tablespoons honey, plus more for drizzling
2 tablespoons orange flower water
10 small fresh figs, quartered

1.Preheat the oven to 350°F / 180°C.
2.In a food processor, combine the pistachios, butter, ½ cup/100 g of the sugar, and the vanilla and pulse for a minute or until you get a smooth paste. Add the egg yolks, one by one, and pulse until well combined. Transfer the pistachio mixture to a large bowl.
3.Using an electric mixer, whip the egg whites, and when the mixture starts to foam, add the salt. Continue to whip on high-speed, gradually adding the remaining ¼ cup/50 g sugar, until the whites hold stiff peaks. Fold the egg whites into the pistachio mixture.
4.Grease an 8-inch/20 cm cake pan with butter. Pour the batter into the pan and bake until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean, about 25 minutes. Let cool in the pan for 10 minutes before unmolding onto a wire rack to cool completely.
5.Using an electric mixer, whip together the heavy cream, mascarpone, honey, and orange flower water until the cream holds stiff peaks, about 3 minutes.
6.Spread the cream on top of the cooled cake and arrange the quartered figs on top. Crush some pistachios and scatter all over. Finish with a drizzle of honey to gloss it up. Serve immediately.

June 5

I had opted for my friend’s neat and tidy, but albeit very small Fiat over my husband’s “hard to get into”, “hard to get out of” Land Rover that has no music, no air-condition and is always filled with dogs, vegetables and numerous kids. On sunny days like this one it’s a fantasy world of dog hair and dust flying through the air, perfectly backlit and almost pretty. Almost. We were comfortably trailing the Land Rover on what promised to be a spectacularly beautiful Sunday, following a week of less spectacular, rainy days. Hudson and Mia had opted to stay at home but the rest of us were in for a long-awaited treat. We were headed for the “Château of Women” an indescribably beautiful wine-making property that has been run by women of the same family for over 500 years. This deserves and explanation.

In 1581 a man with big dreams and an even bigger appetite for gambling laid out the plans for a magnificent château in Médoc. It all started well, the outhouses and servants quarters were fit for kings, the gardens, the gate. Then the money ran out and the cherry on top, the château itself never got built. So the women in the family, like women do, found the best solution, modified the servants quarters into a most beautiful château and have been running the property ever since, one woman succeeding another. I guess they decided that after that original fiasco, no gamblers (read men) should interfere with château business.

So why where we going there in search of a feast on a beautiful Sunday morning? That also deserves an explanation. Some years ago we were invited for lunch at château Lafon-Rochet, a grand cru in the St-Estèphe appellation. It’s the “yellow château” we had been seeing for years as we drove by on our way to Pauillac and it turned out that the young manager, Basile Tesseron, whose family owns the château was married to another young estate manager, Bérangère, whose family owns château Larrivaux, the “château of women”. On that first visit the splendors of Lafon-Rochet were enough for our appetites but on a subsequent visit Basile took us to his wife’s property, only a 5 minutes drive away. Unlike Lafon-Rochet, which is proudly perched on one of the hills of St-Estèphe, plain for all who drive by to see (if only for the yellow color), château Larrivaux is a hidden gem, a bend in the road, a dreamy place hidden from plain sight, guarded by a small forest. When Basile took us there for the first time we could see the excitement in his face, it feel to him to show us the property, Bérangère was hard at work in the winery.

“I fell in love with my wife twice” he said. “First when I met her and the second time was when she took me here”. “I had spent much of my childhood only a few miles away but I never knew of this magical place until I fell in love with its owner”.

He fell in love twice and I guess I fell in love as well, once at least. It the kind of place movie producers only dream of or, more likely, have to dream up and produce for their movies so the rest of us can simply dream. We always hope that these magical places exist for real, that they’re not only in the movies – and when we find them…

Bérangère and I had talked about cooking together with our families at her château forever. But timing was never on our side. We have a big family. They have three boys, very auspicious considering they have one boy roughly the same age as each of our three youngest daughters. All very Jane Austen. And recently we’ve both been pregnant.

But we decided to give it a go, before we’d be too caught up in baby duties, to have a wonderful feast of two families coming together on a Sunday in their beloved Médoc.

And we all do love Médoc. Basile and Bérangère, me and Oddur, we all truly believe in this region, its beauty, its specialness. We all want to do something exciting here, whether it is to make fabulous wine, write cookbooks, or do just about anything to help people discover this place. But first: Lunch!

The menu was up to Bérangère and the other women of Larrivaux, her mother Sabine and her mother’s sister Armelle. I did make one request though. We needed to include Basile’s grandmother’s recipe for pancake cake. Yes you read right – gâteau de crêpes. We’d had it recently at a dinner at Lafon-Rochet in May and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since. It’s the most simple, most unusual dessert you can imagine.

There were lots of tidbits, pâtés, tomato salads , more tomato salads but it all got serious when Bérangère’s mother brought out the family’s cheese beignets (fritters). They were delicious. Next was the “veal bread” in other words meatloaf, with two types of tomato sauce – very Italian, but somehow also very Médocain. We started with a lovely Champagne form a very small producer (so many good ones these days), no sugar added, no sugar needed. Then we moved on to the wine. The Larrivaux. It’s quite special and unusual for Médoc, more Merlot than Cabernet Sauvignon which usually only happens on the right bank (St-Emilion, Pomerol). Château Larrivaux has a unique clay soil, more suited for growing Merlot and may be the only place in Médoc where that’s the case. It’s a delicious wine and I’ll be drinking it for years to come with fond memories in my heart.

So another perfect Sunday with equally perfect mishaps, on this dry day Louise stepped into a wet hole (the only one on the estate) leaving her ballerinas fit for a pig stie. Oddur, typically, forgot to charge his battery so he sent Thorir and Allegra to get a fresh one. They, equally typically, couldn’t find their way back so we would have had to wait for them until lunch got cold if, most typically of all, lunch hadn’t been so behind schedule that they arrived right on time.

As I mentioned earlier we were both pregnant that day, Bérangère and I. Both due in June. That wonderful day at the château of women, having a lunch together we both knew what we were expecting. We were both expecting boys.

As I am writing this, they are both born, there will be no more lunches without them. I hope they will be friends, Lucian and Till. We’ll have many more feasts together and maybe even weddings. Who knows?

Because Bérangère and Basile only have sons it seems that the line of women is destined to be broken one day. Larrivaux will be run by a man. In a way it seems oddly modern, breaking traditions by finally giving a man a chance. Bérangère told me she hopes that her sons will have the good fortune when they take over the château to at least have strong wifes to guide them. I suppose some things are just too important to be left entirely to men. Maybe one of them will even be my daughter.

Time will tell.

A few days later, Lucian, I was bumping about in your father’s Land Rover on my way to the clinic. Hair and dust orbiting around me, every whack feeling strong enough to push you out. And then you came.

Lucian, this is where your story begins…

Cheese fritters/ Beignets from my grandmother

1/4 liter/ 1 cup of water
40 g/ 3 tablespoons butter
1 pinch of salt
150 g/ 1 & ¼ cup flour
100 g/ 1 cup grated cheese (Emmental county or type)
4 eggs, separated
Vegetable oil, for frying

Separate the eggs. Whisk the egg whites till stiff peaks and set aside.
Bring the water to a boil, add the butter and salt and stir until melted.
Add the flour in one go and stir.
Add the egg yolks one by one, stirring continuously, then fold in the egg whites, followed by the grated cheese.

Heat the oil in a deep fryer to 170°C/ 330°F.
Using 2 teaspoons, shape little balls (about the size of a walnut) and fry them until golden brown. Season with salt and pepper and serve immediately.

Beignets au fromage de ma grand-mère

1/4 de litre d’eau
40 gr de beurre
1 pincée de sel
150 gr de farine
100 gr de fromage rapé ( type comté ou emmental )
4 oeufs

Fair bouillir l’eau avec le beurre et le sel
Ajouter la farine.
Remuer.
Ajouter un à un les jaunes d’oeufs puis les blancs battus en neige, puis le fromage râpé.

Chauffer l’huile d’une friteuse à 170°C
Faire à l’aide de 2 petites cuillères des tas de pâte à beignet et les plonger dans la friteuse jusqu’à l’obtention d’une belle coloration dorée.

Ces beignets au fromage ont vraiment bercé mon enfance à LARRIVAUX, nous en avions tous les week ends!!!

Veal and basil meatloaf

1.2 kg/ 2 & ¾ pound of minced veal
3 slices of stale bread
1 small can of tomato paste (concentrate)/ 140 g/ 5 ounces
1 egg
1 bunch of fresh basil
60 ml/¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
Fleur de sel and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 210°C/ 410°F.

In a food processor, combine the minced veal, tomato paste, bread, salt, pepper and olive oil and mix everything together.
Add the basil and the egg, pulse a few more times.

Spoon the mixture into a rectangular cake pan and transfer to the preheated oven. Cook for about 40 minutes. Set aside to cool and unmold into a serving plate.

Tip: You can serve this veal meatloaf with a tomato sauce or freshly diced tomatoes and olive oil. It’s a family favourite for picnics.

Pain de veau au basilic

1,2 kg de veau haché
3 tranches de pain de mie
1 boite de concentré de tomate de taille moyenne/ 140 g
sel/poivre
1 oeuf entier
1 bouquet de basilic
huile d’olive

Mélanger et mixer le veau haché, le concentré de tomate, le pain de mie, sel poivre et huile d’olive.
Ajouter le bouquet de basilic et l’oeuf entier.
Mixer à nouveau.

Dans un plat à cake mettre la préparation, puis faire cuire environ 40 minutes à 210°C.

Laisser refroidir.
On peut le servir avec un coulis de tomates ou un concassé de tomates fraiches et huile d’olive.

Quel bonheur de partager ce pain de veau au basilic lors de nos pique-niques!

Pancake cake

1/2 liter/ 2 cups milk
125 g/ 2/3 cup sugar
6 eggs, separated
8 tablespoons unsalted butter
4 tablespoons of plain flour
1 sachet (7 g/ approx 1 teaspoon) of vanilla sugar
Confectionner’s sugar

In a large bowl, mix together the flour and the egg yolks until you get smooth paste.
Heat the milk in a saucepan and add the butter. Stir until melted. Set aside and leave to cool.
Pour the milk mixture into the egg and flour paste. Whisk until smooth.
In another bowl, whisk the egg whites until stiff. Fold in to the batter – make sure to leave the egg white ‘lumps’ in the batter (they will make the pancakes extra fluffy).

Heat the frying pan (non-stick pancake pan) and melt ½ teaspoon butter. Pour enough batter to cover the pan and cook on a medium heat on one side only. Transfer to a serving plate. Sprinkle each pancake with a dash of vanilla sugar and a dash of confectionner’s sugar. Repeat this step and continue to stack them one on top of each other. For the last pancake, place it brown side on top.

Gâteau de crêpes

1/2 litre de lait
125 gr de sucre
6 oeufs
125 g beurre doux
4 cuillère à soupe de farine
1 sachet de sucre vanillé
Du sucre en poudre

Mélanger la farine et les jaunes d’oeuf
Faire fondre le beurre dans le lait.
Laisser tiédir le lait et l’incorporer au mélange farine oeuf.
Battre les blancs en neige et les incorporer grossièrement à la pâte.
Il doit rester des grumeaux de blancs en neige dans la pâte.
Enduire la poêle à crêpe d’un mélange beurre/huile et commencer à faire les crêpes en les faisant cuire que d’un seul coté.
Superposer chaque crêpes les unes sur les autres en les saupoudrant entre chacune de mélange sucre vanillé/sucre en poudre.
Retourner la dernière crêpe coté cuit vers le gâteau.

“I shall always think of you and feel about you the way it was that Fourth of July day three years ago when you met me at the boat, and we went out on the cafe on the river and had a drink and later went on top of the tall building, and all the strangeness and the glory and the power of life and of the city was below.”

Thomas Wolfe in his final letter to Maxwell Perkins

Is it possible to have a memory of something that happened before we were even born? And is it possible to remember someone before they were born? Lucian and I had many moments together before his birth on the 8th of June. He lived in my body but even more in my mind and my imagination. In the last weeks before his birth I was consumed by one thought. This would be my last pregnancy and looking around me, at my beautiful family they would be the people he would grow up with. Our house would be his magic world, filled with puppies and flowers and delicious food. As his arrival approached these thoughts intensified, everything seemed so calm and clear.

Lucian, I will always remember you before you could be remembered. This is who we were before you were born and this is how I would like you to remember the days before you could remember.

This is your world before you could live in it.

May 15

The seeds for this glorious Sunday had been planted 10 day earlier when we gave Oddur his birthday present. They were more than seeds actually, a whole olive tree that sat in its black plastic pot for 10 days, relentlessly attacked by puppies who tried their best to destroy it. Fortunately olive trees are tough and the tree survived until we had time to do what we had decided, which was to have a meal together in the garden next time the weather was good and then plant the tree after lunch. It felt like the hottest day of summer (so far), and may have been for real. The dogs searched lethargically for shadows to lie in and the kids thought it best to steal all my winter hats (I guess they couldn’t find the summer ones) to protect themselves from the sun.

In March I was invited to Provence and stayed at the Couvent des Minimes where I had a wonderful almond-flaked cod served on a bed of artichoke and almond purée cooked by the fantastic chef Jérôme Roy. It was so delicious I ordered it two nights in a row. I had recreated it for one of my workshops to rave reviews and wanted to have it again as soon as possible and of course to share it with you. That day we had no fresh artichokes and I guess I was feeling a bit lazy so we used frozen artichokes which I rarely do. It turns out it was a good thing because now that I am finally posting this artichokes are slowly going out of season and the frozen ones work perfectly as a substitute. For dessert I couldn’t think of anything better than Véronique Courrian’s lemon tart which has already featured on this blog some years ago but is so good and so simple that it deserves to be here twice. We were having such a good time that we almost forgot the tart in the oven, burning it slightly but in all honesty, that’s how I prefer it – generously caramelized.

After lunch Francesco planted the olive tree or rather made an attempt at it. He dug a little hole is more accurate. His shovel was just to weak for our stubborn, hard and dry clay soil. The tree would be planted a few days later but at least the place had been chosen and marked.

This was right in the middle of artichoke season and the most beautiful artichoke fields I have ever seen are at our friends vegetable farm, about half an hour’s drive from our house. What better activity on a Sunday than to visit an artichoke farm? Next to the artichoke farm is a strawberry farm, also owned by friends and mid-May is peak time for strawberries in Médoc. It was where I took Audrey for a visit when she was just a few days old two years ago and it felt wonderful to revisit, with a mouth filled with freshly picked strawberries, flanked by my girls in (strawberry stained) summer dresses.

Of course we got overly enthusiastic with our artichoke cutting and cut two baskets worth, a problem solved the next day with stuffed artichokes for all. This time there was no shortage of artichokes.

I would like to pretend there was something wrong with that Sunday, a little detail, an unpleasant incident but I’m afraid there wasn’t anything negative to say about the whole thing. It was all one big perfect perfection (well, apart from the frozen artichokes). Which, I admit, can be boring, especially to read about. That’s why we need the mess, and bad weather and unfortunate incidents of everyday life.

But when you are waiting for a baby boy, and you’re getting a little tired of it all and impatience creeps in. A perfect day is much-needed.

… to be continued (on Wednesday)

Workshops 2016 – 2017

Just a quick message here at the end to let you know that we still have some availability for Autumn and Winter workshops. September is impossibly full and so is the second October workshop. I still might have some space in the wine tasting class at the beginning of October though, due to some people moving their dates.

We have some limited availability in both November classes and December is not yet full.

And speaking of the future I announced the 2016 dates in September last year and that seemed perfect. I have, however, been getting a large number of emails requesting dates for 2017 from people who (admirably I must say) like to plan ahead. So I’m considering announcing the dates very soon and we have a lot of new things to introduce next year.

Mimi xx

ps: The dress I am wearing is by 1 et 1 font 3. Louise and Gaïa’s dresses by Marie-Puce. xx

Sage fritters

Approx 20 sage leaves

300 g/ 2 & 1/2 cups plain flour
125 ml/ 1/2 cup of ice-cold beer (to make a sticky thick batter – not too liquid not too thick, it should coat the sage leaves)
1 teaspoon of sugar
salt

Sift the flour and sugar together in a bowl. Whisk in the beer until combined and allow to rest for at least 30 minutes in the fridge.

Take the batter out of the fridge and add the salt. Mix well.

Heat the vegetable oil on a medium heat in a saucepan and test with a drop of batter. If the batter immediately floats up golden brown then it’s ready for frying. Dip the sage leaves in the batter and fry them in hot vegetable oil until golden brown on both sides. Drain on kitchen paper and season lightly with salt. Serve immediately.

Pan-fried almond cod with almond artichoke purée
(inspired by Jérôme Roy’s dish at Le Couvent des Minimes in Provence)

For 4 people

150 g/ 1/3 pound x 4 cod fillets
1 kg/ 2 pounds approx. chopped large artichoke hearts
60 ml/ ¼ cup heavy cream
60 ml/ ¼ cup milk
90 g/ ¾ cup almond flour
Fleur de sel and freshly ground black pepper
Extra-virgin olive oil
8 ounces/ 230 g slivered almonds, toasted
A dash of piment d’Espelette
A dash of plain flour
Fleur de sel and freshly ground black pepper
A bunch of chives, finely chopped

Cook the artichoke hearts in a large pot of salted boiling water for about 20 minutes, or until tender. Drain the pot and transfer the artichoke hearts to a blender (I use my magimix). Pour the cream and milk , add the almond flour and blend until smooth. Season with salt and pepper. Set aside in a saucepan and re-heat just before serving.

Dredge the cod fillets in the flour and season with salt and pepper.

Preheat the oven to 160°C/320°F

Place slivered almonds on a baking tray and toast them for about 8 to 10 minutes, or until golden brown. Set aside.

Heat a large sauté pan with olive oil on a medium to high heat and fry the cod (by batch if necessary) for about a minute and a half on each side. Transfer to the baking tray and continue to cook in the oven for 6 minutes.

Place the pureed artichoke hearts in the center of the plate, followed by the cod on top. Scatter the slivered almonds and finely chopped chives on top. Season with a dash of fleur de sel and piment d’Espelette. Drizzle with olive oil just before serving.

Asparagus and Roquefort tart

8 ounces/ 230 g puff pastry
6 tablepoons of crème fraîche
200 g/ 7 ounces approx. Roquefort cheese
Approx 10 white asparagus, peeled and halved, ends trimmed
A drizzle of olive oil

Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F

Roll out the puff pastry into a rectangular shape and place on the parchment paper covered baking tray. Fold the edges, about 1 cm. Spread the crème fraîche all over the pastry, place the peeled and halved asparagus all over (see photos). Crumble the Roquefort cheese and scatter on top if the asparagus and add a drizzle of olive oil.

Place in the preheated oven and cook for 20 minutes, or until puffy, sizzling and golden brown.

Stuffed artichokes

Serves 4

4 large artichokes
120 g/1 & ½ cup fresh breadcrumbs
130 g/ 1 & ½ cup grated Pecorino
2 cloves garlic, minced
80 ml/ 1 /3 cup olive oil
3 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
A dash of piment d’Espelette
Fleur de sel and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 180°C/ 350°F

In a large bowl, combine the breadcrumbs, ground garlic, grated Pecorino, olive oil, chopped parsley, salt and freshly ground black pepper

Trim the bottom of each artichoke and cut the top spiky tips with kitchen scissors. Separate the leaves to open up the artichokes. Place the artichoke in a large deep pan and pour water  ¾ high. Cover with a lid and cook for 15 minutes on a medium heat. Take out the artichokes and set aside. Reserve the cooking liquid.

When the artichokes have cooled down, stuff the filling mixture between all the leaves.

Place the artichokes in a large and deep baking dish. Fill the dish with 3 cm/ 1 inch of the reserved cooking liquid. Cook in the preheated oven for 45 minutes. Serve immediately.

Véronique’s lemon tart

For this recipe, please click on this link.

This is my husband’s annual blogpost, enjoy!

Mimi x

On a typical night in our house, Mimi will leave the kitchen after dinner and not return. She will ask me when I’m coming to bed and though I have every intention of coming early I usually come late. My duties in this house start earlier, end later than everybody else’s in the family and while this sounds like I’m complaining, I’m not. These extra hours are spent on a special duty, in the service of dogs. It’s tempting to paint a picture of myself as the lord of the dogs, a master of small things. In reality it is, at best, an entertaining circus of which I have limited control. We have dogs that can never meet, dogs that can sometimes meet but not when the females are in season (and someone is always in season) or not too many at once. That’s not even mentioning the puppies who need extra care and the eccentric gourmands that like to socialize, but just not when they eat. It’s complicated.

There are rules to follow, like not having too many terriers, or at least not too many males. But I don’t follow any of them. When I’m finally in bed Mimi will sometimes ask me why I give myself such chores to do. If it wouldn’t be simpler to have slightly fewer dogs. And it would, of course.

But why, why indeed …

The Weatherman

Sometimes the best lines come from otherwise forgettable films. Like the Weatherman with Nicolas Cage. Not a bad movie, but hardly up there with the classics. It has Michael Caine in it which automatically makes it worth watching and one of the things his character says to his adult son is this:

“To get anything of value you have to sacrifice. The harder thing to do and the right thing to do are usually the same thing. Nothing that has meaning is easy. Easy doesn’t enter into grown-up life.”

I only saw that movie once but that stuck with me and I repeat it to my children all the time. Very young people tend to think that things should happen by themselves and often we don’t appreciate the value of what we’re doing until much later. When I was a young boy in Iceland I wanted to be a veterinarian and I thought the best way to achieve that would be to spend the summer on my uncle’s farm. Once there I quickly realized that my job had very little to do with nursing lambs and puppies and everything to do with boring chores. My days started with shoveling bullshit and ended with collecting rocks into piles in a place so vast that it would have taken me a hundred summers to finish the job. Still, I found a way to tolerate it, making the best possible piles of bullshit and rocks.

It wasn’t fun but it was the right thing to do.

The man who loved radishes

Our children are fortunate. They have a mother who is a fabulous cook and as a result they eat fabulous food every day. They may not realise how fortunate they are now but one day they will (actually I think they already do). I wasn’t that keen of vegetables as a kid, a few I loved, many I liked, others I loathed. One of my grandmothers let me skip all the vegetables if I wanted, the other one tried to force me to eat a suspicious blend from a can. I do remember that I loved the salad bar at Pizza Hut. Later, going to vegetarian restaurants only meant something ranging from totally fine to nothing special. Various stews in Indian disguise, all OK, none great.

When I moved to France vegetables to me were pleasant distractions, or preludes to the all important piece of protein that had to follow and dominate. In Paris we lived next door to a market and since fruits and vegetables look great on a table and I’ve always had a penchant for creating still lifes we bought more than we needed. Which also meant we ate more of them than I had planned. Slowly I fell in love with vegetables and while many chefs and many greens played a part I give credit mainly to two people. My wife (who you know intimately through this blog) and Alain Passard.

He is of course a 3-star chef and in my opinion, beyond his 3 stars, simply the finest chef in the world. The first dish I ever had at his restaurant Arpège, was a salad – with radishes. At the price they charged I was expecting a surprise and I got it. The salad was just a salad. But a glorious one. We went there every year for my birthday, Mimi even interviewed him once (the man is not short on confidence by the way) and I took his portrait. When she asked him why he didn’t have more restaurants than one he simply answered “I am one man, I can not be in several places at once”. Others could learn from that. Sacrifice.

The story of Alain Passard is something like this: He rose through the ranks at the restaurant of his mentor and finally bought it. When he had claimed 3 Michelin stars in his own right he announced that rather than resting on his laurels and churn out more of the same, he would now follow his heart and introduce a new menu dominated by vegetables. Critics were surprised, the competition laughed. He kept his three stars. With vegetables. Mind you, grands crus vegetables from his own orchards.

It can’t have been easy.

But it was the right thing to do.

Eat your vegetables

For the last two years my wife (and in a small way myself) has been hosting wonderful cooking workshops here in our home in Médoc. The first lunch is often vegetarian and always delicious. People don’t even notice that it’s vegetarian. When I bring up the fact they seem surprised. If someone told me tomorrow that I could never eat meat again that would be fine. 10 years ago I would have felt different. In reality I don’t think I’ll ever willingly give up meat but I find myself gravitating towards the greens. They’re just so damn good. Blanched asparagus with olive oil and lemon. Radishes and Champagne with butter (I didn’t say vegan). Mimi’s red salad. Endive tartlets. Mushroom carpaccio. Anything with fava beans. Anything with chard. Tomatoes, pumpkins, onions. Gazpacho, oh la la.

We have a puppy now who’s a special little bugger. He’s very energetic and very stubborn. And a little bit aggressive. He’s called John Ray after the Dunhill designer (long story). He’s on the cover of Mimi’s new book and he looks adorable there. I cook a lot for the dogs. Rice, liver, meat leftovers, carrots, green beans etc. I notice that out of all the pups he kept leaving out the vegetables and only eating the meat. So I stopped giving him meat and only coated the vegetables in broth. Now he loves vegetables.

It was the right thing to do.

The one who got away

In February we had a litter (or rather Dick and Jeanie had) of 5 very beautiful Smooth Fox Terrier puppies. 2 girls, 3 boys. I meant to keep a girl but in the end we kept a boy, just because he reminded me of his grandfather Humfri. One girl, Willow, went to Switzerland to the kindest family imaginable. They proved themselves worthy in every way you could possibly hope. The father, a Sicilian, shook my hand almost with tears in his eyes when they left and said he hadn’t stopped crying since he lost his other dog in November. Willow, you lucked out!

Irving is going to NY in late May, John Ray is staying here but Helmut, the sweetest of all is still without a family.

Which leaves us with Arden. She was perhaps the prettiest of the litter, split face, black and white and the most outgoing character, everybody’s favorite little girl. Mimi and I had gone to Paris in January and upon the recommendation of a friend had decided to spend some of our precious, Parisian hours of liberty at Verjus, a restaurant in the Palais Royal. We had known about Verjus for some time, but never been. We used to go to the same spot when it was another restaurant, Alfred, but had never been back. Our friend, Sarah from Colette, practically made us go. We had the greatest evening. Starting with a Champagne from a small producer (I can’t remember which – it was that good) and simply enjoying every bite of every course and every wine pairing (and much of Mimi’s wine too, she is pregnant after all) it was the perfect date night, and we don’t have many of those.

Soon after we were contacted by Braden and Laura, the proprietors of Verjus who had just lost their dog and wanted to try to fill the void left by his departure. So we arranged a trip down to Médoc and in a very improvised manner I suggested they might cook something to share on the blog. Braden brought his own nettle and carefully sourced Reblochon and before Mimi’s crème fraîche chicken, treated us to a delicious potato salad (see recipe). It was one of those charmed days, warm, sunny, windy. Magical. Meeting old friends for the first time if that makes sense. I though they’d pick a boy, I thought I could keep Arden a bit longer. They sent pictures for the train ride to Paris. They send regular photos from her adventures as resident restaurant dog of Verjus. Tonight, as I was writing this post Hudson brought in the mail (his parents are very good at ignoring the mail box) and in tonight’s batch was a letter from Arden. 5 photos and essay in her own words. And very funny too.

Giving up Arden was hard.

It was the right thing to do.

The boy who wore a blazer

My son Hudson really likes dressing up. He tricked me into buying him a suit on a recent trip to NY and every chance he gets he puts on formal wear. He buttons every shirt up to the top. I don’t believe in spoiling children and I try hard to make them understand the value of things. One thing I believe in is buying better, often more expensive things, respecting them, maintaining them and preserving them. I like to tell him that someone made his jacket with pride so he should wear it with pride and treat it with care. The tweed he’s wearing used to belong to his older brother Þórir, he took good care of it and hopefully Hudson will too. I have, after all, another son coming.

I give the kids all sorts of chores, many to do with dogs but also other more unpleasant things. Kids need duties and they need to sometimes fail their duties. And I need to be angry with them when they do, even if I’m not.

It’s the right thing to do.

He who is coming

My wife and I are expecting a son.I don’t know how she does it. At 8 months she still does everything like she always does. With style and thoughtfulness. My son is lucky to have her as his mother. Lucian, that’s his name.. He will not have the same father as my first son who turns 19 this month. I will be older, greyer, slower when he’s a teenager. But maybe I’ll be, in some ways, better. You have to try to learn, to improve. And when that fails to try harder still. Every night I say to myself, tomorrow I’ll be a better man. And usually I’m not.

But I have to try.

It’s the right thing to do.

Back to the dogs

So why do I like to have so many dogs. What’s the real reason?

It’s called indulging, allowing yourself to make your dreams come true, even if it makes no sense to other people. Of course it’s all a little bit selfish. But at least I’m honest about it.

It’s the right thing to do.

… and besides, I think it’s more fun than playing golf.

Nettle Pesto Potato Salad

As I said earlier, Braden was a good sport and made us this wonderful potato salad with nettle and Reblochon cheese when he and Laura visited in April. He sourced his own cheese and nettle which wasn’t really necessary as we are up to our ankles in nettle here in St Yzans. In iceland we call this “fetching the water over the stream”.

Here’s Braden’s recipe.

Nettle Pesto

200 g/ 7 ounces wild nettles
2 garlic cloves
200 ml/ 7 ounces good olive oil
100 g/ 1 cup grated parmesan
50 ml/ 3 tbsp lemon juice
50 g/ 1/3 cup toasted pine nuts/walnuts/or omit

Soak nettles in ice water.
With two layers of plastic gloves, remove the leaves from the nettles.
Blanche nettles for 1 minute and place into an ice bath to stop the cooking.
Squeeze out all the water and moisture from the nettles.
Using a mortar and pestle or a food processor mix the above ingredients to a fine paste.

Reblochon Espuma

180 g/ 6-7 ounces raw cream or heavy cream
180 g/ 6-7 ounces reblochon cheese cut into small pieces
1 sheet of gelatine
2 nitrous charger
1 isi Siphon

Warm cream in a pot over low heat.
Add piece of reblochon and stir until cheese is melted.
Pass mixture through a strainer to remove any clumps.
Add gelatine sheet and stir until melted.
Pour mixture into a siphon and charge with 2 nitrous chargers.
Keep siphon at or near 38ºC.

New potato/Leek sauce

500 ml/ 2 cups water
100 g new potatoes (peeled)
100 g leeks (green parts removed)
25 ml/ 1 &1/2 tbsp lemon juice
50 g/3-4 tbsp butter

Cook potatoes in water at simmer until potatoes are soft and cooked through.
Add leeks and continue to cook for another minute until leeks soften.
Blend potatoes, leeks and cooking liquid.
Season with lemon juice, butter, salt and pepper.

Roasted new potatoes

1 kilo/ a bit more than 2 pounds new potatoes

Gently scrub new potatoes with a vegetable brush.
Toss potatoes with a neutral oil like sunflower, salt and pepper.
Roast at 200ºc for 25 minutes or until coloured and cooked through.

Peas

250 g/ 1 & 1/2 cup shelled peas (blanched and iced)

Assembling

Warm potatoes in a pan to color edges.
Warm potato and leek mixture in a small sauce pan.
Spoon nettle pesto into the base of the serving bowl.
Spoon roasted potatoes onto the nettle pesto.
Warm peas in the potato/leak sauce, then spoon onto the potatoes in the serving bowl.
Holding the siphon upright, squeeze reblochon espuma over everything.

If I was making this at home, I would leave the gelatine out of the reblochon espuma and rather than aerating it, I would just spoon the fondue over the potatoes.

Asparagus ravioli

Green and white asparagus has been a dominating influence in our lives and Mimi’s cooking for the better part of two months. I think (without exaggerating) that we’ve had asparagus every single day for two months. A lot of the time we just blanche the green asparagus and drizzle it with olive oil and lemon. Other times Mimi goes more elaborate. This time I told her I would mention Alain Passard and she decided to make a version of a recipe of his, albeit with an Asian twist. Her parents were visiting in April (see photos) and brought us a load of goodies from their visit to an Asian supermarket in Bordeaux . We’ve had them several times since and will continue to have them as long as there is green asparagus.

Asparagus Raviolis

Serves 4

25 round ravioli sheets (I used wonton wrappers)
A bunch of asparagus, tips reserved
A large handful of fresh peas
1 glass of Jura wine
250 g/ 1&1/2 cup morel/ morilles mushrooms
A bunch of chopped fresh sorrel leaves
2 tablespoons unsalted buttter
grated zest of 1 lemon
Freshly grated Parmesan, for garnishing
Olive oil

Cut off asparagus tips, then halve each tip lengthwise and reserve.
Place a piece of asparagus, about an inch and a half/ 3cm in the center on each wonton sheet.
Brush pasta around mounds of filling lightly with water, then lift half of sheet and drape over mounds.
Press down firmly around each mound, forcing out air.

Bring a pot of salted water to a boil over a high heat, then reduce heat to a gentle boil.
Add the raviolis to gently boiling water, carefully stirring to separate, and cook for 2 minutes, keeping them al dente.
Lift raviolis with a slotted spoon, and transfer to a plate.
In a large pan, heat olive oil and butter until sizzling. Sauté the morel mushrooms and asparagus tips. Season with salt and pepper and add a dash of Jura wine. Add the fresh peas, the raviolis, lemon zest, and toss everything gently together.
Serve immediately with a drizzle of olive oil and grated parmesan.

Strawberry shortcake

T’is the season for strawberries and basically Mimi wanted to please the kids. I have been bringing home organic strawberries for weeks now and while we have most of them straight out of the box sometimes it’s nice to go a little more fancy. This is a recipe from one of Mimi’s episodes of ‘La Table de Mimi’ on Canal+.

Strawberry Shortcake

For the sponge cakes

4 eggs
125 g flour/ 1 cup, sifted
1 teaspoon baking powder
125 g/ 2/3 cup caster sugar
A pinch of salt

For the cream

125 ml/ 1/2 cup mascarpone
125 ml heavy cream/ 1/2 cup
1 vanilla pod, split lengthwise
Strawberries

Preheat oven to 180°C/350°F.

Separate the egg whites from the yolks. Add a pinch of salt in the egg whites.
In another bowl, beat the sugar with the egg yolks, until light and fluffy.
Sift the baking powder and the flour together. Add to the egg yolk mixture.
Whisk the egg white until stiff peaks. Gently fold in the egg whites with a spatula.

Fill muffin tin two-thirds full and bake for 15 mins, until golden, risen and firm to the touch. Leave to cool for a few minutes and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

For the cream
In a large bowl, whisk the heavy cream with the mascarpone until smooth and thick. Add a few tablespoons of icing sugar and vanilla seeds (according to your taste, I prefer not too sweet) .
Slice the strawberries, halve the little sponge cakes and assemble.

Hi it’s Mimi again, signing off after my husband’s (long) post. Which I loved by the way 🙂

I just wanted to share the cover of my new book, I’m so proud of it, so happy with it. When we started talking about it, even before the first one came out I dreamt it would end up in a certain way, and it did.

I’m usually a summer girl but this year October can’t come early enough.

Love,
Mimi x

French Country Cooking – in stores October 25th but available for preorder now on:

Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Indiebound

Right now we are in early February which in Médoc means rain. The winter has been mild, not too many cold days and throughout December, not too many wet days either. December was simply glorious. I was beginning to think we’d get away with it, that the bursts of rain that often wash over us before the new year had gone somewhere else. They hadn’t. When it comes to nature everything has its price. Two days of sun and one grey day come at the cost of at least one rainy day. Three whole weeks of brilliant sunshine will be matched by at least a week of pure rain. It is worth it? Yes.

What if we could negotiate with the weather gods, reach a compromise. They stop the rain and cold, we give up the sun and the heat. Every day would be the same, grey, comfortable, unsurprising and intolerable. Let’s keep the sun … and the rain.

But how do you deal with all that rain? The first few nights are charming. I say to my husband in bed “isn’t it comforting to hear the rain and storm outside and we are all cuddled up inside safe and warm” (well apart from the fact that rain has a way of getting inside the house). Then it becomes slightly irritating and boring. Wet dogs are less fun than dry ones. Finally it becomes depressing. That’s where we’re now. Or let me rephrase that. That’s where we were. Now we are beyond that stage. Rain is no longer comforting, irritating or depressing. We are the rain now, it’s part of us “just keep it coming” we say, to quote U2 “There is nothing you can throw at us that we haven’t already seen”.

Besides, we know it will soon be over. January is already gone, February is still on stage. The dour duet. Of course the latter sometimes sings a sunny tune but whatever happens, the next act is March, and March never fails to shine. March in Médoc is always beautiful!

This blog is now in its fourth year. It’s also the fourth time I find myself in exactly the same situation. The villages outside is quiet. Well it’s always quiet but now it feels like we woke up and everybody left. Some of them did actually. When we brave the rain and wind to go to the markets nothing spectacular is ever happening. No crates of cherries or stacks of fresh tomatoes. No man shouting that he’s got the best mushrooms. It’s just the usual suspects. Cabbage, beets, carrots etc. But somehow there is always something to get a little worked up over. One day it might be a shiny (shiny because it’s wet) bunch of spinach or swiss chard or even just particularly nice looking apples. This weekend we had the first artichokes. That was exciting. Apparently everything is early this year and even the magnolias are opening which is a terrible idea for them as they will just be struck down by wind and rain. It’s almost as if they’re sacrificing themselves to bring hope. Like they are saying “I should probably wait a while so you could enjoy me longer but I think you need me more now!”

As I said it’s the fourth time I write to you at this time of year. Things don’t change much in Médoc. But this time something actually has. Not the rain. Not the banging of shutters against the walls of the house on stormy nights. But I’ve changed. I can wait for spring. I used to be more impatient. I know it will come and I know it will be wonderful. I can already see all the colors and the flowers. I can close my eyes and imagine the little puppies we are expecting in March playing with each other in the vineyards. I can see my girls in summer dresses and beyond that I can see a little boy in blue pyjamas that I already bought for him.

I can wait because on any given Sunday I can walk into my kitchen and take what’s available to me and cook a meal that makes me happy and makes my family happy.

I was going to say that thinking about good food, making it, eating it, is the perfect antidote to dreary winter months. But it’s actually the antidote to … everything.

Cervelas de Lyon sausage with pistachios and warm potato salad.

Cervelas is a typical Lyonnaise pork sausage filled with pistachios. Everytime I go to Paris I pass by the charcutier Gilles Verot to pick up a few sausages to go!

1 large unsmoked pork sausage, traditionally the Lyonnaise use “Saucisson Pistache”– pistachio sausage)
900 g/ 2 pounds new potatoes
2 1/2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
3 tablespoons minced shallots
3 tablespoons roughly chopped shelled pistachios
Parsley, chopped
Olive oil
Salt & freshly ground black pepper

Cook the sausage in boiling water for 15 minutes. Take the skin off and slice into 1 cm thick slices.

In a large saucepan, place the sausage and cover with cold water. Bring to a gentle simmer and cook about 20 minutes. Set aside and leave to cool. Peel the skin off and slice into 1 cm thick slices.

In a large saucepan, place the potatoes, in salted water and bring to a boil. Cook until tender, about 15 minutes. Drain and leave to cool. Cut into thick slices.

In a large bowl, prepare a vinaigrette. Whisk olive oil, red wine vinegar, Dijon mustard, salt and pepper until smooth. Add the thinly sliced shallots and chopped parsley. Add the potatoes and toss everything together.

Heat a little olive oil in a pan on a medium heat and sauté the sausage slices until slightly browned on both sides, about a minute or two. Place the sausages on top of salad and sprinkle with chopped pistachios. Season if necessary.

Beef cheeks pot pie with root vegetables

Serves 6-8 (depending on ramekin size)

This is a perfect dish for a Sunday lunch, so I usually prepare the stew the night before. Then all you’ll have to do the next day is scoop the delicious stew into little pots or ramekins and cover with puff pastry.

1 kg/ 2 pounds approx beef cheeks, or beef cuts for braising
3 tablespoons flour
300 g/ 2/3 pounds Bayonne ham
6 medium-sized pearl onions
6 carrots (2 oranges, 2 white , 2 purple )
2 turnips, peeled and diced
3-4 Jerusalem artichokes, peeled and diced
240 ml/1 cup Bordeaux red wine
3 tablespoons tomato concentrate paste
350 ml/ 1 & ½ cup beef or vegetable stock
1 bouquet garni
Extra-virgin olive oil
Fine sea-salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the pastry

2 sheets of puff pastry
1 egg and 1 tablespoon of milk, for the eggwash

Preheat oven to 160°C/ 320°F. Cut the meat into 3 cm cubes and dredge them lightly in the flour.

Slice the Bayonne ham into chunky sticks. Peel the onions and vegetables. Dice the ​​carrots, Jerusalem artichokes and turnips into small cubes.
Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a cast iron pot on a medium heat and cook the Bayonne ham and onions for 3 minutes. Set aside.
Add another tablespoon of olive and brown the beef on all sides. Add the red wine and reduce for 2 minutes. Return the Bayonne ham and onions, add the vegetables, tomato paste, and bouquet garni. Season with salt and pepper. Add the stock, bring to a simmer and cover. Transfer the pot to the oven and cook for 2 hours, stirring occasionally (add a bit of water if necessary).

To make the pot pies:

Heat oven to 180°C/ 350°F.

Spoon the stew into each ramekins.

Using a rolling-pin, roll puff pastry until 0.5 cm/1⁄8 inch thick and cut out 6-8 circles, large enough to cover the ramekins with extra hang. Using a pastry brush, brush the rim of each ramekin with egg wash and cover with a pastry circle. Press lightly around the edges and decorate with small pastry leaves (see photos). Brush again with egg wash all over. Bake until golden brown, about 25 minutes. Leave to cool 10 minutes before serving.

Clémentine soufflé

A delightful old-fashioned recipe, this is the kind of dessert I often order in my favorite restaurants. I love the combination of prunes with clémentines, it’s hot and cold and turns your soufflé into a whirlwind of flavors.

Serves 6

6 large clémentines, juice squeezed
60 g/1/4 cup unsalted butter + extra for lining the ramekins
60 g/ 1/2 cup cornstarch
150 g/ 3/4 cup of sugar + extra for sprinkling
5 eggs, separated
1 tablespoon Cointreau
1 pinch of fine salt

Preheat the oven to 200°C/ 400°F

Line the ramekins with butter and sprinkle with sugar all over. Place them in the freezer.

Squeeze the juice of the clémentines into a bowl and set aside.

In a medium-sized saucepan, heat the butter on a medium-to-low heat and add the cornstarch, whisking constantly.
Pour the clémentine juice immediately and continue to whisk. Add the sugar and Cointreau. Whisk until the mixture thickens slightly and coats the back of a spoon.
Off the heat, add the egg yolks to the mixture and whisk until smooth. Set aside and leave to cool.
Meanwhile, whisk the egg whites. When the whites start to foam, add a pinch of salt and continue to whisk until stiff peaks. Fold the egg whites gently into the clémentine mixture.

Take the ramekins out of the freezer and pour the mixture into the ramekins up to 1.5 cm to the rim.

Cook in the preheated oven 15 to 20 minutes, until golden and risen.

Serve immediately, adding a scoop of prune sorbet in the center.

Prune Sorbet

For one tub

500 g/ 1 pound + 2 ounces dried prunes, pitted
150 g/ ¾ cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon cinnamon
60 ml/1/4 cup Pineau de Charentes (or a sweet dessert wine, like Vin Santo)
Juice of one lemon
820 ml/ 3 & ½ cup water

Combine all the ingredients except the lemon juice in a medium-sized saucepan and bring to a soft boil on a medium heat for 15 minutes.
Turn the heat off and add the lemon juice. Pass the mixture through a sieve into a large bowl.
Leave to cool completely and refrigerate. Churn ice-cream in ice-cream machine according to manufacturer’s directions.

Sometime last summer I (hopefully – delusionally) announced that from autumn onwards we would launch a redesigned blog with more frequent posts and contributions from my friends. What happened instead was that posts became less frequent, there was no redesign. It’s not a cancellation though, it is simply a postponement. When I started this blog some years ago I had no idea what I wanted to do with it, it happened naturally and this winter, equally naturally, posts have been few and far between. It’s natural because we’ve been so busy, with the workshops but mainly with my new baby, my second cookbook. It took all my best efforts to finish it in time, and when I say in time I mean so late that it would have been too late if my wonderful editor, Rica, hadn’t moved the finish line for me so that I could make it.

I believe that, with very few exceptions, things need to change and grow to blossom. This blog has not changed since the beginning but the question facing me this January is how do we keep what’s good, build on it, make posts more frequent, keep the purity and simplicity, yet make it more accessible and easy to find older recipes. I want to keep this blog exactly how it is. I also want to change it and make it better. I’ve decided to do both. I’m terrible with deadlines but let’s try aim for late February and if not I hope you will be as understanding as my editor and allow me to move the finish line.

In a few days I’ll publish a traditional post with a delicious winter menu but I thought it would be fun to look back at 2015, remember a few things we did, share them with you and, in some cases, think about how they will affect 2016. Oddur, my husband, is my partner in all I do, the blog would be very different without him – I like to say we are a dragon with two heads. So I asked him to contribute to this post and we decided to each talk about five things. 5 songs each on a 10 album LP. When I was growing up in Hong Kong my mother loved John Lennon, especially Double Fantasy which was on practically every day. Sometimes she’d have a tiny glass of sherry, flick through French magazines (I am named after one of those – Marie-France) and reminisce about her days as a young girl in France and a young woman in London. She loves living in Hong Kong, she loves the culture, the climate, the massages, the food. But Europe always made her fell a little nostalgic and sometimes Double Fantasy (oddly enough) was the soundtrack to that nostalgia.

Just like on Double Fantasy we’ll take turns, Oddur will go first, then I etc. I picked being John Lennon first so Oddur is Yoko …

The Year of the dog 

Hi it’s Yoko here. Happy new year! Sometime soon we’ll leave the year of the goat behind and enter the year of the monkey. But not in this house, in this house every year is the year of the dog. And one dog in particular, my dog Humfri. He’s not the smartest dog and he’s a little grumpy in the morning. He sleeps on a little ugly bed in the corner of our bedroom and growls when the kids come near him. He likes to sleep in. There was that incident when he tried to assassinate a Pomeranian in Orvieto. And that incident when he peed on the leg of the diner next to us. He causes all sorts of problems, like most dogs do, but he does it with panache.
He fills my eye every day with his beauty and my heart with his distinctively odd character.

Here’s to another year together my friend.

The Restaurant 

I’m back (Mimi – sorry John)
The first time I visited 1 rue de Loudenne I had a book in my head. I called my editor, Rica Allannic, and spilled my beans. “That sounds wonderful but shouldn’t we finish book number 1 first?” was her response. I have a tendency to get ahead of myself. The idea of opening a restaurant in my home, my dream restaurant, and writing a book about it sounded a little crazy but mainly great and I can’t believe that we actually did it. The restaurant was magic, I’m so excited about the new book and can’t wait to share it with all of you.

It will be called  “French Country Cooking” and is out this year in October published by Clarkson Potter like my previous book. I was very happy with the last book and though you shouldn’t have favorites when it comes to your children I think I like this one even more, so many hours went into it, so much love and laughter.

It’s the best feeling in the world, to finish something so meaningful and wait for it to come to life.

The Miles

Talking about distinctively odd characters, remembering last year wouldn’t be possible without mentioning Miles. He was the cook (sorry Miles, chef) who assisted Mimi in the kitchen. His effort were worthy of a reality show (one that I would actually watch) and took the phrase “full or surprises” to a new level. I had many good moments with him in the “boucherie“, where we shared wine and stories. He knew how to win my heart. He said “we are just like Captain Aubrey and Dr. Maturin” me being the Master and Commander. Miles was rather well read and any man who refers to me as Master and Commander is off to a rather fantastic start. You can read more about Miles in my wife’s upcoming book but I thought I’d share a pairing that Miles introduced to me and I named after him.

I don’t love sweet potatoes but I like the idea of them. I love the smell and aroma of Cognac but seldom drink it. Miles told me he eats a baked sweet potato every day to improve his eyesight and always with Cognac. Considering the source that may be an exaggeration but I find this a most interesting pairing. Very sophisticated and primal at once. A mélange straight out of a Hemingway short story.

I encourage you to try this at home, just prick the potato with a fork and place it in a hot oven for 30 minutes, then slash open and fill with butter. The Cognac should be smooth.

Mouhalabieh – Orange Blossom and pistachio flan

Even if this is not a conventional post I thought I must share at least one recipe (the Miles isn’t really a recipe is it?) When I lived in Paris we sometimes ordered Lebanese takeaway and when we did I always included Mouhalabieh in the order. Two for me was the standard. It’s a wonderful flan like pudding drenched with orange flower syrup and topped with pistachios. I hadn’t thought about this little friendly dish for a very long time until I had a sudden craving late last fall and I’ve made it countless times since. While this is a great dessert I love to make it any time of the day and have it when I feel like it.

Let’s call it winter indulgence.

Orange blossom flan with pistachios/ Mouhalabieh

For 5 to 6 servings

For the flan

400 ml/ 1 & 1/2 cup + 3 tablespoons milk
30 g/1/4 cup cornstarch
40 g/ 3 tablespoons sugar (more or less to your taste)
2 tablespoon orange flower water
A handful of roasted pistachios and chopped

For the syrup

2 tablespoons water
2 tablespoon honey
2 tablespoons orange blossom flower
1 tablespoon granulated sugar

In a medium-sized saucepan, heat the milk and sugar on a medium heat and add the sifted cornstarch. Whisk until the mixture thickens and coats the back on a spoon, about 5 minutes. At this point take the pan off the heat and whisk in the orange blossom water.
Pour the mixture into ramekins and leave to cool completely. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours before serving.
Prepare the syrup:
In a small saucepan, heat the water, honey, sugar on a medium heat. When the mixture starts to thicken slightly about 3 minutes, add the orange blossom water.
Take off the heat and leave to cool completely.
Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F. Spread the pistachios on a baking tray and roast for 3 to 5 minutes. Remove from the oven and leave to cool. Chop the pistachios coarsely and reserve.
To serve.
Drizzle the syrup on the flans and scatter the pistachios on top. Serve immediately.

The Vehicle

2015 is the year I finally got a Land Rover. Old, huge, beautiful and monstrous. I’ve never been a particular car buff and though I appreciate beautiful cars there was always something else more interesting or important to get. This car landed in my lap and what a happy coincidence that was. Driving through the muddy roads of Médoc, unstoppable, is better than I thought. Driving all the way to Rome, with no music or air condition in sweltering heat is not as bad as I thought. Not in a Land Rover.

The Workshop Playlist

Last year we hosted so many wonderful workshops, met incredible people from all over the world. Such a mixed group of all sorts of people who love food and wine … and music.
We have a good selection of music we tend to listen to a lot but some of the guests also pitched in. It takes a lot to make it into the Manger workshop playlist, like somebody said “this is good stuff”

Billie Holiday – You go to my head

Chet Baker – Let’s get lost sessions

Barbara – Dis, quand reviendras-tu?

Marilyn Monroe – Let’s make love

Dan Penn (Theresa Ghoulson) Power of love

Swamp Dogg (Dewey Nicks) Synthetic world

Sam Cooke (Hannah Barry) You send me

Dave Brubeck – Audrey

Robbie Williams – If I only had a brain

Charles Trenet – La Mer

Julie London – Fly me to the moon

Jacques Dutronc – J’aime les filles

Rosemary Clooney – Botch-a-Me

and the song no one likes but my husband

Richard Hawley – Tonight the streets are ours

Here is the link to our playlist on Spotify.

The wines of the year

It was a very good year. For the wine being made in the vineyards (look out for 2015) and for me personally, because of the wine I drank. It’ almost impossible to pick favorites but let me try.

Early in the year we had the pleasure of dining with Mr. Jean-Michel Cazes, the owner of Château Lynch Bages. He brought the wine. 1991 Domaine de Chevalier (white), 1985 Mouton Rothschild, 1962 Château Montrose, 1959 Château Lynch-Bages and the 1952 Lynch-Bages, made by his grandfather. The ’59 was my favorite, maybe, of the whole year.

Other extremely memorable sips were the ´89 and ´99 of Margaux, a privilege made possible by the WSJ who sent me to Château Margaux for a story, yet I ended up in a lavish lunch with Madame Mentzelopoulos, the owner, and Paul Pontallier the winemaker.

An epic wine day was had in autumn at Château Ducru-Beaucaillou where we had the pleasure of tasting many of the best vintages of the last 20 years. That’s the night Mimi said to the person next to her that she actually preferred Italian wine. It was a joke of course, a bold funny one. There weren’t too many laughs though.

All this is probably fairly meaningless, these wines are hard to get your hands on and if you can you may have to sell your house.

So here is the list of the best wines I had at home in 2015, for what it’s worth, many are not given but they’re all great and in most cases they should be obtainable.

1. Château Lynch-Bages 1996 
I fell in love with this vintage years ago and the romance just won’t end. A very Médoc, Médoc. The 2000 is supposed to be better and maybe it will catch up but this is my coup de coeur.

2. Château Ducru-Beaucaillou 2003
A hot year and a beautiful wine, more or less ready to drink now.

3. Château Calon Ségur 2005 
A little young but really opening up this year, smooth and lovely, pleases everyone. You should try to get at least two bottles, drink one now, keep the other one.

4. Château Léoville las Cases 2004
We had this bottle with Mimi’s editor, Rica, and her husband Cyrille, a French master chef when they visited us in the summer. We served it with an andouille sausage from Brittany and though the pairing might not have worked it did. Everything works with this wine.

5. Château Rauzan-Ségla 1989
This bottle was the star of one of the workshops – remember Jerry?

6. Château Tour Haut Caussan 2003 (Cuvee Mathis)
Our dear friend Fabien, aka the best man in Médoc, makes this wine and in 2003 he put all his efforts into it as it saw the birth of his only son Mathis. He says it’s the best he’s made and I agree.

7. I Sodi di San Niccolo 2010. 
For the sake of variety we have to include at least one Italian wine. My wife picked the bottle on a trip to Milano, it has a little bird on it. Judging a wine by its label never felt so right. This was also the year I really got into the Sagrantino grape from Umbria and the year of a decent amount of Barolo’s from … and Brunello’s from Biondi Santi. In Rome I had the 2007 Rosso di Montalcino from Biondi Santi, it tasted great … but then I was in Rome.

8. Clos du Marquis 1996 (Magnum)
Another long-standing favorite. I got my hands on a small stash of Magnums – it’s all gone
now.

Honorable mentions go to the (often more affordable) 2011 Clos Manou (our neighbors), the 2010 Château Haut Marbuzet, the 2010 Croix de Beaucaillou (a real crowd pleaser).

Whites we couldn’t get enough of were the Blanc de Lynch-Bages, the Cygne Blanc from Château Fonréaud, Elise from Château le Pey (our friends) and Caillou Blanc from Château Talbot. Château Smith Haut Lafitte was much-loved but we had it less simply because of the price.

The travel discovery and the buttoned up shirt

Last year I went an incredible 6 times to Italy. First with Mimi in May when she was invited to cook at a food festival but after that mainly to Umbria. I knew Umbria a little from before, we have decent knowledge of Toscana and Marche, the neighboring regions but apart from a few fleeting visits to Perugia, Umbria remained a mystery. I have CN Traveler to thank, they sent me on many missions there throughout the year and most of them ended up as road trips. The first assignment was to shoot Brunello Cucinelli and “his” Umbria. My boys came with me, Thorir & Hudson and of course Humfri and his son Dick (this was before they fell out). Hudson took the trip very seriously and always wore a blue blazer and a white shirt buttoned up to the top. I always told him to unbutton claiming he looked too much like a Belgian fashion designer. That’s how it went. He buttoned up, I made him button down etc. Then we met Brunello who passed his judgement. “Buttoning up in this case is more chic”. Hudson won, I lost.

The food in Umbria is incredible, the landscape so hilly and unusual and part of it reminds me of Iceland but with much better weather and olive trees. My favorite subject of last year was one of Brunello’s tailors, a humble, quiet, elegant man who wore his clothes with enormous dignity.

Many times this year we were happy in Umbria.

The cherry on the cake – 8 is my lucky number

So it’s up to me to finish this account. With a baby boy. He’ll arrive in late June and though he has more to do with this year his roots were planted in the fall of 2015. I have said time and again on this blog that we were done. I have confidently stated that the baby shop was closed for good. It seems it wasn’t and I couldn’t be happier. Four girls in a row would have been wonderful  and even a little funny but I have to admit that a baby boy right now feels right.
It will be the last beautiful chapter in a book that is turning out much longer than I ever expected. It’s also the second time in two years that I’m expecting a child in early summer and a book in late fall. It’s double fantasy. Twice.

I wish you all a happy and exciting new year and thank you once again for coming to my obscure little corner of the world, whether it’s in person or simply by visiting this blog.

Mimi xx

The man who liked olive trees

Several years ago I interviewed a Swedish chef in Paris. A young man with good looks and pretty dreams. He told me that one day he’d like to live in the countryside, grow his own vegetables, have dogs. I asked him if he wanted to realize these dreams back home in Sweden. He thought about it for a few seconds and said “No, not that I don’t like Sweden but my farm must have olive trees so I need to be somewhere south. Probably Italy or southern France.” I never saw him again and frankly I had all but forgotten about him until last year when we were planning to move into our new house and needed to tidy up the garden. When 1 rue de Loudenne was known as “Hotel de France” they had big trees in the courtyard in front of the house and even some, rather out of place, palm trees, probably to add an exotic touch. But when we came into the story there was nothing left but weeds, a few out of shape bushes and a handful of roses that were surviving against the odds. We always knew that we’d want to a Magnolia tree so that went in first but what else should we plant?
Oddur and I love olives and olive trees but somehow Médoc had never felt like that kind of place. You can see a few olive trees here and there but this is hardly olive country. We consulted our gardener, Nicolas, about the wisdom of investing in several olive trees and got the typical “French” answer. Normalement it would be fine … unless it wouldn’t be fine. When pressed he was ready to go further and say that the chances of the trees being fine were greater than of them not being fine. Oddur (who thinks a 20% chance of something happening is pretty good) took that as an absolute green light and since I’m not without a sense of risk taking myself I jumped on board.
So now we have a little or rather a tiny olive grove in front of our house, we have many dogs, we grow our own vegetables and we live in the south of France.
Next time someone tells you their dreams you should listen carefully, they might in fact be disclosing your own.

The olives that vanished

In November last year, a few weeks before we finally moved in, we planted one 70 year old, big olive tree and a few smaller ones in the courtyard in front of 1 rue de Loudenne. It felt a bit like cheating but the big ones had tons of olives on it already when we got it. And when I say tons I mean something like 15 – 20 kilos, which in new olive farmer language translates as tons. Nicolas, the gardener, and his wife were helping us out with painting the rooms and every day we’d take a look at the olives and debate if they were ready. Oddur was impatient, so was I but Nicolas insisted we wait a little, they “need a few more days” he always said. Then one evening at dusk, during our daily olive talk and deliberations about the best way to handle them once picked (plain water or salted and then after which herbs and oils to use) Nicolas lost his patience and said “let’s just pick them now”. So out we went, buckets in hand to finally get our hands on those purple black, glistening olives. But they were gone, every single one. They had been there yesterday, but it seemed as if they had evaporated before our eyes during the night or even during the day as we were painting. We searched the ground for clues and found, where there should have been at least some evidence, not a single olive, not a broken branch. Nothing at all.
The garden was left unguarded during the nights as we hadn’t moved in yet but who would steal olives in the night, with such precision and neatness. Surely the most meticulous thief would drop some olives in the dark, or at least one. So we turned our attention to birds. Do they like olives? We thought not. We knew they liked cherries but those are sweet. Olives, freshyly picked let’s face it, taste terrible. So we just scratched our heads, finished the painting and were left to wonder what had happened. The mystery of the evaporated olives remained just that. Not of the sort maybe to bring Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot out of retirement but big enough to get a little village quitely talking.
Oddur and I discussed how this was the perfect material for a short story. The disappearing olives in the quiet village. Of course we have different litterary takes on it. My husband likes realism, he likes Chekhov and Lucien Freud. I like South American litterature and Gustav Klimt. His fictional version of events goes like this (of course the dogs are the heroes in his story): One day when we’re walking the dogs in the village they pick up a familiar scent, something they recognize from our garden, and lead us to a beat up but beautifull house just outside St Yzans. It’s walls are terracotta pink and there is a single, beautiful olive tree just in front of the house. We politely knock on the door and the man who greets us, olive-skinned and big nosed, hesitantly invites us into his humble dining room. It’s sparsely decorated but the outstanding piece is a crystal bowl filled with the most luscious olives. The man knows that the game is up and graciously invites us to his cellar where there are hundreds of jars of cured olives lining the humid walls. Every one is meticulously numbered and signed. The man readily admits his crime but instead of showing any sign of remorse he offers, as penance, to cook us a meal, starred with olives. He takes out the finest cuts of ham, the best wines and together we cook an olive-macerated feast that carries on into the night. Then we leave, happy. My (more accurate version – for this is what really happened) is like this: One night I wake up and something calls me to my bedroom window towering over the garden and all the olive trees. The dogs are sleeping and don’t notice anything but what at first seems like bird or bats swirling around the trees are in fact legions of women in black dresses floating in the air, picking olives and placing them carefully in baskets lined with the finest silks and chiffons. Having no fear of them I grab a dress of my chair, that happens to be black also, and glide down the stairs to join them. They lead me into my kithcen, which is now their kitchen and together we wash the olives, cure them in saltwater and lay them in carefully crafted crystal jars with silver lids. The floors are covered in olive branches and leaves and though we are barefoot, walking on them feels like walking on the finest velvet carpet. We make a simple soup together, not with olives but with herbs and vegetables and have it with the most delicious wine I have ever tasted. Then each of the women takes a jar, clutches it to her chest and glides into the darkness outside. The last one, Plantia, takes the last jar and places it in my hand, then floats into the night. The next morning I wake up happy and run down the stairs to find my olives. They are gone but a few months later, in the cellar under our house, when the olives are ready, I find the jar again. I use them to cook a meal for my family. The best meal we’ve ever had.
My fantastcial story makes much more sense than my husband’s because, if you think about it, an army of flying women is much more likely to gently pick the olives without a trace than one old man. But to each his own!

The wet lunch

This year we were determined not to lose our olives at any cost and decided to harvest before December. But it had to be special. The harvest this year, despite us planting even more trees, is smaller than last year – the trees need time to adjust. We decided to do it on a Wednesday, when kids don’t have school and we thought it was a good idea to invite our dear friends Fabien and Florence who have a winemaking Château and have invited us to so many harvest lunches (where there’s actually a real harvest). The Wednesday in question arrived and though it was pouring with rain Oddur was upbeat. “It’s even better” he said – “who wants to pick olives in the sun”. I wasn’t really convinced “hum, probably everyone” was my answer. But we went ahead and though it was wet it was wonderful. Fabien, as always, brought a case of his wine, Château Tour Haut-Caussan, this time the 2012 which we hadn’t tasted before. It’s young, but I liked it, already round and lovely … as wine experts would say. Mathis (Fab and Flo’s son) charmed the girls, who won’t admit it but they all want to marry him, except maybe Mia who’s in his class. Allegra and I prepared the apples, cooked the pork, baked the madeleines. Gaïa and Louise pouted and shouted a lot. There were two colors of Champagne, courtesy of a very lovely guy called Nicolas who is the brand manager at Ruinart. He’s French, lives in NY but was back home on some family business. When a mutual friend (Mr W. M. Brown) told Nicolas that Ruinart Rosé was my favorite Champagne he decided to stop by a workshop and treated everybody to loads of Champagne. And luckily he left us a few more bottles. He also told us some good champagne stories. Nicolas told us that the first customers of Champagne were the king at Versailles and his court. They liked the bubbly feeling and wanted more. One of the king’s advisers, a monk, and Mr. Ruinart’s cousin, noticed the trend and told his cousin to use the family lands to make this new, refreshing drink. The rest is history – à votre santé!
Our crop in tons or kilos is a bowl. A big one that’s now filled with water that my husband changes religiously every day. As I am writing this the olives are still terribly bitter but beautiful to look at. They live in the “boucherie” (my other kitchen) far from the grasps of old men and flying ladies in black.
We will enjoy having them in the spring, but first Christmas!

p.s.
Talking of Christmas and the presents that go with it I wanted to give you all an update of the workshops and their availability. We’ve had such incredible response to the announcement of the 2016 workshops that by now most of them are full. But, perhaps luckily for some of you, not all. There are still some spaces left in the March and April ones. May through September is completely full to say the least. October is getting there but November and December still have a few spaces left. So if any of you are interested please send a mail to [email protected] Here’s a link to the post explaining the workshops.

Baked apples with goat’s cheese, lardons & walnuts

8 medium-sized apples
230 g/8 ounces goat’s cheese
230 g/8 ounces lardons
A handful of walnuts
2 tablespoons honey
Salt & pepper

Preheat the oven to 350°F/180°C

In a sauté pan, cook the lardons on a medium heat and cook until golden.

Slice the top of the apple and set aside. Core and slightly hollow out the apples with a spoon, leaving the bottom of the apples intact to create a well for the filling. Stuff about a tablespoon of goat’s cheese, a few crumble walnuts and the lardons. Place in a baking dish, drizzle with honey. Transfer baking dish in the preheated oven for 15 minutes, or until apples are golden.
Serve with a mâche salad.

Pommes farçies au fromage de chèvre, lardons et noix

8 pommes de taille moyenne
230 g/ 8 ounces fromage de chèvre
230 g/ 8 ounces lardons
Une poignée de noix, légèrement hachées
2 cuillères à soupe de miel
Sel et poivre

Préchauffer le four à 350 °F/ 180 °C

Faites dorer les lardons dans une poêle. Réserver.

Laver les pommes et couper le haut (pour obtenir un petit chapeau). Mettez de côté.
Creuser la pomme légèrement avec une petite cuillère afin d’avoir assez de place pour le fromage, les noix et les lardons – faites attention de ne pas percer le fond.
Mettre environ une cuillère à soupe de fromage, puis quelques lardons et noix. Ajouter un filet de miel et quelques tours de poivre du moulin. Remettre les petits chapeaux, arroser encore de miel et enfourner pour environ 15 minutes. Servir chaud avec une petite salade de mâche.

Roast Pork loin with Balsamic vinegar and red wine

2 kg/4.2 pounds approx boneless pork loin
A few sprigs of fresh thyme
1 tablespoon fennel seeds
Olive oil
240 ml/ 1 cup balsamic vinegar
15 cloves of garlic, unpeeled
2 bay leaves
120 ml /½ cup red wine
Coarse sea-salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 350°F/ 180°C.

Score the pork loin skin side and season with salt and pepper. Crush the fennel seeds with a mortar and pestle. Sprinkle the thyme and fennel seeds on both sides.
In a large frying pan, (or stove-proof/oven-proof roasting pan), heat olive oil on a high heat. Brown the pork loin skin side first, until the skin is golden. Turn on the other side and cook for a couple of minutes. Pour the balsamic vinegar and turn the pork loin on both sides. Leave to bubble and reduce for 2 minutes and transfer to the roasting pan along with all the juices.
Place 15 unpeeled slightly crushed garlic cloves around the meat. Check the oven regularly and add a bit of water if needed. Place in the preheated oven for 1 hour and 10 minutes, or until the meat is cooked through. Halfway though, pour the red wine.

Leave the meat to rest for 10 good minutes before carving. Serve with mashed potatoes.

Rôti de porc au vinaigre balsamique

2 kg rôti de porc (échine ou filet), désossée
Quelques brins de thym frais
1 cuillère à soupe de graines de fenouil
Huile d’olive
240 ml vinaigre balsamique
15 gousses d’ail en chemise
2 feuilles de laurier
120 ml vin rouge
Gros sel de mer et poivre noir fraîchement moulu

Préchauffer le four à 350 °F/ 180°C.

Faites un quadrillage sur le côté peau du porc et assaisonner avec le sel et poivre. Ecrasez les graines de fenouil avec un mortier et pilon. Saupoudrer le thym ainsi que les grains de fenouil sur les deux côtés.

Faire chauffer l’huile à feu vif dans une grande cocotte pouvant aller au four et faire revenir le porc des deux côtés pendant quelques minutes. Le côté peau doit être doré.
Déglacer avec le vinaigre balsamique. Retirer du feu, ajouter les gousses d’ail, les feuilles de laurier.
Surveiller la cuisson pour ne pas laisser la sauce brûler. Ajouter un peu d’eau si necessaire. À mi-cuisson, verser le vin rouge. Enfourner pour 1 heure et 10 minutes, environ.

Laisser la viande reposer pendant 10 minutes avant de server. Servir avec une purée de pommes de terre.

Vanilla chestnut cream madeleines

For about 20 madeleines

200 g/ 7 ounces chestnut cream
100 g/ ½ cup sugar
2 eggs
100 g/ ¾ cup + 2 tablespoons flour
90 g/ 6 tablespoons butter, melted
2 tablespoons rum
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

In a bowl, mix the eggs and sugar.
Then stir in the flour and baking powder. In another bowl, combine the butter, rum, vanilla
and chestnut purée.
Mix both mixtures with a wooden spoon.
Butter a madeleine pan, bake at 200°C/ 400°F for 5 min, then 180°C/ 350°F another 8 min or until golden brown. Unmold immediately and leave to cool on a pastry rack.

Madeleines à la crème de marrons

200 g crème de marrons
100 g sucre en poudre
2 oeufs
100 g farine tamisée
90 g beurre doux, fondu
2 cuillères à soupe de rhum
1 cuillère à café d’extrait de vanille
1 cuillère à café de levure chimique

Dans une grand bol, mélangez les oeufs et le sucre.
Ajouter la farine tamisée et la levure. Dans un autre bol, mélanger la crème de marron, le beurre ramolli, le rhum et la vanille. Incorporer au mélange oeufs/farine.
Beurrer un moule à madeleines, verser la pâte dans à trois quart de hauteur. Enfourner à 200°C pendant 5 minutes, puis baisser la temperature à 180°C et continuer la cuisson pendant 8 minutes. Sorter les madeleines du four, démouler-les immédiatement sur une grille pour laissez refroidir.

September 10th 2015

Early in the morning, at Bordeaux (Mérignac) airport our one big group splits into two smaller ones. In my group I have four girls: Mia 12, Louise 7, Gaïa 4 and Audrey 1. Oddur has: Gunnhildur 19 and Hudson 9 + two dogs, Humfri and his 10-month old son Dick (for all humorous suggestions regarding that name please contact Yolanda Edwards at Condé Nast Publications – she will love it!) Oddur dubs his team, who are taking the Land Rover all the way to Rome, “the brave team”, and us, the high-flyers, “the primadonnas”. When Gaïa asks who will arrive there first I realize she hasn’t traveled much. Hudson, though, is optimistic and thinks they have a small chance of beating us. “Maybe there will be a delay” he says. “That would be some delay” I think to myself as I kiss them all goodbye.
It turns out there is no delay and “the primadonnas” arrive in Rome on schedule ready to face the eternal city. A big lunch is first on the menu. I stop at the first place I see that looks decent. Zucchini fritters, amatriciana pasta, lamb chops with chicory! None of the girls have been to Rome before so we make all the necessary stops, the Panthéon, the Spanish steps, the obligatory ice cream every 15 minutes. We walk so much that in the evening we are exhausted and just stay in our rooms that night, making an improvised dinner with Italian delicacies. News reaches us that the other, braver team is still in France but about to cross the border.

September 11th 2015

I wake up with a huge smile on my face, my bed filled with girls of all ages. Within minutes I am strolling the streets of Rome, 4 girls in tow, heading to one of my favorite places in the whole world – The Galleria Doria Pamphilj. This city agrees with me. Big time. On the way to Doria Pamphilj I have a Macchiato AND a Cappucino at Café Tassa d’Oro and then we spend a good 3 hours at the museum. By now I have been informed that the brave team arrived around 11 O’clock the night before at a rather funny hotel in a place in Liguria called St. Bartolomeo and checked into a hotel where, in the lobby, an aging DJ was entertaining the crowds who at some point got swept into a full-blown Conga. They had a very late lunch at one of about a million places in Italy called Da Luigi and though the atmosphere was wanting the food, apparently was close to great. They are now heading for Rome and should meet us for lunch at a family favorite, La Matricianella, near piazza San Lorenzo.
I am bad with directions and worse with names and though I am very late, having gotten carried away at Doria Pamphilj, I arrive proudly on time at the wrong place called Amatricianella, instead of the preferred Matricianella. When I finally land at the right restaurant my husband is already there and Hudson, shouts through the rain that is by now flooding Roman streets “We won, we won”. Louise, ever competitive, refuses to grant him the victory and gets stubbornly soaked as she won’t sit at the victor’s table on the terrace. We have a wonderful lunch, more pastas, lamb, chicory, pannacottas and a nice bottle of Rosso di Montalcino.
After wandering the wet streets of Rome we decide to have dinner at the conveniently located Dal Bolognese, just a few steps from our hotel, the Locarno. A restaurant more famous for flair than food, but an enjoyable spot nonetheless and somehow part of my regular Rome experience. When it comes to restaurant I often go for the old-fashioned rather than the latest and the greatest. Sitting on the terrace of Dal Bolognese, admiring the beauty of Piazza del Popolo, we spot a paparazzi (just one – usually there are more). Louise asks if he’s there for me. When I realize that she actually thinks that, I tell her that though my book has admittedly been translated into Italian, the chances of that are, well, slim. We soon find out who he’s targeting. At the next table are two lovely ladies who between them have graced the walls of more teenage rooms than probably any other in history. James Bond’s first lover Honey Rider (I’m talking of Ursula of course) and her friend, the original 10, Bo Derek. They pose patiently for a few “selfies” with fans and when they leave, Mia suddenly runs after them and chases them to their taxi. They are already in and she doesn’t get her shot. When she comes back she says in her thick French accent “It’s OK, I don’t even know who they are”. Then she shrugs her shoulders and finishes her dessert.

September 12th 2015

Getting ready for our ride to Umbria we have one last lunch in Rome, again close to the hotel at a very good pizzeria called Pizza Ré. It’s exactly what we need before our trip, cold beer, delicious pizza, deep-fried mozzarella and crispy salads. Umbria, here we come.
This time the teams are different. I may be one of the original “primadonnas” but a couple of hours driving won’t kill me. We are still the “primadonnas” but Oddur joins our team (yes he joins my team, not the other way round) and Mia joins the “brave team” who will take the train to Terni, Umbria. We the “primadonnas” arrive safely at our destination, a lovely house, with an even lovelier pool, near Todi, Umbria. Later that night Oddur drives to Todi to pick up the others who are arriving there via train and two buses. He spends some time waiting at a very good wine bar, where he strikes up a friendship with the owner talking about wine, French and Italian. The other team is delayed so I use what is left to me by the gods of the house, garlic, onion, tomato passata and spaghetti to make a surprisingly satisfying dinner for me and the rest of the “primadonnas”.
Later that night Oddur cooks, what he confesses, is a below par meal of wild boar sausages, my leftover pasta and some other oddities. That night we all sleep well.

September 13 – 18 2015

What follows that first night of lacklustre cooking is a week of spectacular food, at the house (or casa as we say in Italian) or in restaurants. Documenting every day, every meal, would be fun for me but perhaps tedious for you guys – think the uncle with the three-hour slide show – so let me just stick to the highlights.
Our first meal out is with Oddur’s new friends at a somewhat modern, yet traditional wine bar in Todi. Great wine and food! The showstopper: the outstanding cured ham and the aubergine gratin with tomatoes. In fact it’s so good that it inspires me to make it myself the next day when I prepare my 4 monthly recipes for Elle France – this time with an Italian twist. Between dips in the pool and cooking dinners and lunches I find time to gather my thoughts and announce the dates for my 2016 workshops. It’s a strategic move as I know that in the quiet of the Umbrian countryside I will have time to answer all the incoming inquires and requests, some of my answers are written poolside – they are probably the sunniest ones.
And taking a pause from this little diary I just want to say that it makes me incredibly happy and humbled how many emails I have received and how fast the classes are filling up. (We still have places though, especially in April and November but some availability here and there, even if some classes are completely full). Thank you all so much for your interest in our little adventure here in Médoc.
Talking of holiday highlights we seem to always gravitate back to the same places once found. If a restaurant is that good, why go anywhere else. This time it’s a little place in Todi, called “Pane e Vino” that gets our vote. The décor is nothing out of the ordinary, even a bit tired. Had I not read somewhere that it was worth going to I might not have. But here is where we had our best food moments. The fried wild boar mortadella with creamy balsamic vinegar, the pumpkin risotto, the ricotta with thick, dark chocolate. In my dreams since I’ve been back to France I go back there every night.
When our trip is winding down, after walks in olive groves and fancy piazzas, after one too many bumpy vertical drives in the Umbrian hills with the whole family hanging on for their life, we decide to make a blog post with Umbrian recipes – I am inspired. On our last days I get all the necessary ingredients, start chopping, soaking the beans, preheat the oven. Just before I’m about to get really started Oddur pops into the kitchen and says “let’s go to Orvieto, I heard about this great place there called La Palomba”. Moments later the apron is off, the cooking will have to wait. If food is to be discovered, new places are there to be found – I may be one of the “primadonnas” but I will never be the girl who missed out.
La Palomba turns out to be a delightful family trattoria where we have our last meal out in Italy this time around. It’s all more or less delicious, the truffle pasta, the pigeon but my favorite is the walnut cake and the owner’s sunny attitude. In the evening Augusta, the ever smiling, amazing housekeeper cooks up a big feast for us back at the casa, an Italian barbecue extravaganza with so much food she must have thought we had 20 children. We might have known because earlier in the week she gave us a pizza lesson that resulted in 4 large pizzas, also for 20 people. Our favorites were the potato, mozzarella and oregano pizza, and the one with the most flavorful, fresh, cherry tomatoes. She told us to have the leftovers for breakfast and we did.

September 19 2015

The “Primadonnas” say goodbye to Oddur at the train station in Terni and we head to Rome where we will catch a direct flight to France. I am comfortably back in my own kitchen that same afternoon, cooking for 4 girls who are hungry from the trip. Well not so much cooking as sandwich making. The next two days are spent being entertained / frightened by reports from the “brave team”.
The brave team who are supposed to arrive in France that night get derailed looking for a tailor in Umbria, miss out on a luxury hotel in Provence and due to lack of hotel space end up sleeping in the car in Portofino. I suppose if you have to sleep in the car somewhere you might as well choose the poshest place you can possibly find. They have car trouble near Aix-en-Provence, end up sleeping in a very cool hotel in Arles and due to the delay Gunnhildur has to take a plane from Montpellier rather than Bordeaux to catch her connecting flight to Iceland. Oddur says their car trouble is nothing serious but later Mr. Souslikoff, our resident gentleman car mechanic, tells me that one of the front wheels nearly came off. I guess I have to admit that their travel story would probably be a better read than mine … but mine has better food.
Now, the recipes!

ps Some time after our return to France I got behind the stove and cooked up an Umbrian feast, the recipes I had meant to cook that day when our sense of adventure got the better of us and we went to Orvieto. It was a lovely lunch, and brought back memories of our holiday. Those are the photos you see accompanying the recipes.

For those who are interested, we stayed at a lovely villa near Todi in Umbria which we found through Tuscany Now. A special thanks to the wonderful team, especially Augusta, for the warm hospitality!

Imagine being by the fireplace on an Umbrian hill, sipping this comforting and delicious soup, dipping a grilled rustic slice of country bread drizzled with the best olive oil. I love farro and its surprising texture; this soup is a meal on its own. The chili flakes are optional, but with cold weather just around the corner, a little bit of extra heat is most welcome!

Farro Bean Soup

Serves 4-6

Ingredients

2 ounces finely sliced Prosciutto
1 onion finely diced
1 celery stalk, finely diced
2 small carrots, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 (14 Ounce) can chopped tomatoes
1 zucchini, diced
100 g/ 3/4 cup green lentils
150 g/ 1 cup farro
A good handful of freshly chopped fresh Basil
Red hot pepper flakes (optional)
Salt & Pepper
To Serve:
Extra Virgin Olive Oil or
Grated Parmesan, to garnish

Heat the olive oil in a large pot and cook the prosciutto for a few minutes. Add the carrot, celery and onion and continue to cook for 5 minutes. Add the garlic and zucchini, continue to cook for 2 minutes. Add the can of diced tomatoes. Season with salt & pepper, and half a teaspoon of chilli flakes (optional).
Add the equivalent of 3 to 4 cans of water. Bring to a simmer.
Add the farro and green lentils. Reduce the heat to low, cover and continue to cook for about 20 minutes, or until the vegetables, farro and lentils are tender. If the soup is too thick, add more water and season accordingly.
Serve with leaves of basil, grated parmesan and a drizzle of olive oil.

Scaloppine alla Perugina

Ingredients

Serves 4

450g/ 1 pound of thinly sliced veal fillet/scaloppine
55 g/ 2 ounces of prosciutto, diced finely
3 salted anchovies, bones removed
1 chicken liver, chopped as finely as possible
2 cloves of garlic, minced
8 sage leaves, finely chopped
1 tablespoon capers
The juice and zest of half a lemon
½ glass dry white wine
Plain flour, for dredging
A few sprigs of parsley leaves picked and chopped finely
A few tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Chop the prosciutto, anchovies, chicken liver and sage leaves as finely as possible.
In a sauté pan, heat the olive oil and cook the anchovies, prosciutto, chicken liver and sage leaves for 3 minutes. Add the capers, lemon zest and lemon juice. Stir constantly until all the ingredients are combined and soft. Season with salt and pepper. Add the white wine and leave to reduce for a minute or two. Add a tablespoon of butter and mix well. Set aside and keep warm.

Dust the veal fillets with the flour. In a large pan, heat the olive oil and butter on a high heat. Cook the veal for a minute on each side. Season with salt and pepper and transfer to a plate.
Serve the veal and pour the sauce on top. Scatter parsley leaves on top. Serve with rosemary potatoes.

This was my favorite dessert of all during my stay in Umbria, served at Pane e Vino in the village of Todi (Via Ciufelli 33, 06059 Todi). Amazing creamy ricotta served with warm chocolate sauce and chunks of orange. I improvised and made my own version, added cream to the ricotta to make it creamier, and added orange zest.

Vanilla ricotta cream with chocolate sauce and orange zest

Serves 4

2 pots ricotta, strained
1 cup heavy cream
1 vanilla pod, split lengthwise and seeds scraped
150 g black chocolate (70% cocoa)
Zest of orange

Strain the ricotta though a sieve. In a large bowl, whisk the ricotta, heavy cream and the vanilla beans until thick and creamy with soft peaks.

Melt the chocolate until thick and glossy au bain-marie/ in a bowl over simmering water.

Scrape the zest of the orange.

On a serving plate, place a little nest of cream. Drizzle with the chocolate sauce and sprinkle the orange zest.

Before summer came and went, or more precisely before August came and went there was talk in the little village of a restaurant about to open in the big house in the center of town. Nobody really knew what it would be like or if it was even true, the annoying little dogs that were guarding the gates certainly didn’t seem very inviting. There was no sign over the door saying restaurant or bistrot or even table d’hotes. No backdoor deliveries, no menu on the side of the house. From time to time the habitants of St Yzans would catch a glimpse of that Russian guy working in the only room of the house that touches the street, the one that used to be Madame Ladra’s washroom. One day an old man saw them summon the crew doing demolition work across the street to help them carry a very heavy old butcher’s table into the former washroom and after that another table with eight legs. That one, a young boy remarked, they had put in the big dining room that opens up into the garden. Mainly the villagers just didn’t really think about it or care. Whatever it was it wasn’t going to affect their lives much. And it certainly wouldn’t be worse than those damn dogs.

Then people started coming to the big house, sometimes at lunchtime, sometimes for dinner. They were usually very smartly dressed (some of them too smartly was the general opinion in the town), seemed to have come from afar and they always stayed for hours. Hours! An old lady who has lived in the village all her life even commented. « They must be coming for both lunch and dinner », then she shook her head, not in disapproval but more as to imply that this was all very much out of the local norm. Due to the very unusual acoustics in the crossroads right in front of the house, music could be heard into the streets, even when it was just in the most polite and gentle form of Chet Baker or Billie Holiday. One night they seemed to be hosting a private dinner and everybody sang Happy Birthday. That’s when the local buffoon had enough and made his tri-annual call to the police who ended up reprimanding him more than those at the root of the singing. It should be noted that the other two times he has called the boys in blue in the past year it was because, firstly a pair of 10-year-old boys threatened to shoot him with a stick and secondly because he needed the phone number of a very good exorcist and thought the police might have it.

Other than that, as far as anyone could tell, nothing interesting happened in August and by early September the restaurant that never really was, seemed to wind down as quietly as it had begun. One day the nicely dressed people stopped arriving as suddenly as they had started. In the eyes of the village it was as if the restaurant had never been.

It was all very … St Yzans style.

Yes August came and went without as much as a blog post. I think it’s the first time I’ve ever let a calendar month pass by without posting anything. But I won’t make it a habit. The blog may have been quiet, the house may have looked quiet from the outside (well apart from all that birthday singing). Inside things were anything but. I guess the best way to describe it would to say that No 1 rue de Loudenne was like a volcano before it erupts. Nobody notices anything from the outside but all of a sudden the animals start running away. Never have I seen so many dirty dishes, such clammer of silverware. Did you know that the average person in our restaurant used 6 – 7 glasses (none of which goes into the dishwasher) and sometimes much more especially when my husband made them try various wines in differently shaped glasses. Tablecloths were drying on the roof minutes before they were supposed to be used, Miles, the NYC “dude” who assisted me in the kitchen only arrived at midnight on opening night. April, my friend and head waiter disappeared to Barcelona when things heated up (she came back though – thanks girlfriend). My editor Rica took orders, waited tables and organized the place to a fault two days in a row (in impeccable style I might add) while her French chef husband guest starred in the kitchen. Matt, our soon to be next door neighbor, man about town and style editor in NYC did a Negroni night. Some people brought dogs, many brought their kids and one couple even brought a baby bed (not a crib – a BED). I could give you statistics, like bottles of Champagne emptied, duck legs eaten, meringues baked. But instead I’m going to give you the one statistic that means the most to me.

Out of all the guests that came to our restaurant about half asked to come again, even if that meant, in some cases, driving for an hour or much more. Almost every service had a repeat client and there were many more that we simply couldn’t accomodate.
To all of you, thanks for coming, we enjoyed every minute and we’ll be happy to see you all again … someday. Whatever happens this little pop-up restaurant that we poured our hearts into will live forever in our hearts and in the book I am currently finishing.

In the midst of all this excitement we somehow managed to find time and escape St Yzans, albeit only down the road to a nearby Château where we found lodgings for all the wonderful people working with us. Allegra, the assistant I couldn’t live without and of course April and Miles, the odd couple whose cohabitation of a sparsely decorated flat could have made for a reality show that would make any good producer cry.
It was just a little picnic, a break in the middle of everything and there isn’t so much to say about it other than perhaps we needed to get out of the house for a few hours.
Summer means a lot of things to me, peaches and plums, and plum tomatoes. Trips to the beach, sunbathing on the roof, cold rosé and hot summer nights. But I always have one eye on autumn, the mushrooms and pumpkins, apples and pears and those irresistible fall colors. I do, however, always forget that in-between stage, the one that has no other name than late summer or early autumn (although it is neither). It’s the season of the fig. It’s still warm but not quite as warm, sometimes it’s a little windy but not in a bad way, it’s more like a gentle breeze on a movie set that serves no other purpose than to rearrange the clouds so they look better in photos. We still have most of the summer fruits, we are still tanned, we’re already getting a sneak peek or autumn’s offerings.

Right now may be the best time of the year.

ps: We still have a few places available here and there for the fall workshops. This is due to people either cancelling or asking me to transfer their booking to 2016 due to personal circumstances.

Right now we have spots available in the October 4-day workshop, the November 3 and 4-day workshops and the December workshop. These are only very few places so if you are interested I encourage you to act fast 🙂

Here is a link to the post on this blog explaining the workshops.

Looking forward to hearing from you!

Garlic and shallots deviled eggs
(for 10-12 eggs)

10-12 hard-boiled eggs, peeled
2 shallots, minced
1 clove garlic, minced
80 ml/ 1/3 cup mayonnaise
1 tablespoon crème fraîche
A dash of piment d’Espellette
A few sprigs of fresh chives, finely chopped
Salt & freshly ground black pepper

When the eggs have cooled, cut each egg in half and scoop out the yolk. Place the hard yolks in a bowl and mash them. Set aside. Add the mayonnaise, crème fraîche, salt and pepper. Mix well until all the ingredients are combined and creamy.

Heat olive oil in a small pan and cook the minced garlic and shallots on a medium heat for 2 minutes. Set aside until cool and add to egg mixture.

Spoon the filling into each halved egg white (you can also use a pastry bag if you wish). Sprinkle each halved egg with piment d’Espellette and fresh chives.

Chorizo and black olives cake

250 g/ 2 cups plain flour, sifted
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 pinch of salt
3 eggs
90 ml/ 6 tablespoons olive oil
4 tablespoons crème fraîche
150g/ 1 cup chorizo sausage, diced
100 g/ 2/3 cup pitted black olives
150 g/ 3/4 cup Comté cheese, diced
2 tablespoons sun-dried tomatoes, chopped coarsely
1 tablespoon chopped oregano leaves

Preheat oven to 180°C/ 350°F.

In a large bowl, mix sifted flour, salt and baking powder. Break the eggs and place them in the center, pour the olive oil and mix well. Gradually add the crème fraîche, chorizo, olives, cheese, herbs and chopped sun-dried tomatoes.

Pour the batter in a large buttered loaf pan.

Bake 45 min at 180 ° C/ 350°F until golden and cooked through.

Honey and orange blossom water fresh fig tart

230 g/ 8 ounces puff pastry
10 fresh figs, quartered
80 ml/ 1/3 cup mascarpone cream
250 ml/ 1 cup heavy cream
1 vanilla pod, split lengthwise and seeds scraped
5 tablespoons orange blossom water
4-5 tablespoons honey + extra to drizzle
40 g/ 1/4 cup slivered almonds, slightly roasted

Roll out the pastry in a rectangular shape and fold the borders. Place on a parchment paper covered baking tray. Prick the pastry with a fork.
Place a piece of parchment paper and cover with baking beans. Blind bake for 15 minutes until pastry is golden and puffy. Leave to cool.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the mascarpone cream, heavy cream, vanilla beans and honey. When the mixture starts to thickens, add the orange blossom water. Whisk until the cream is thick and dense, as well as easy to spread.

When the pastry is cool, spread the cream all over and arrange the quartered figs. Scatter the roasted slivered almonds and drizzle honey all over.