Culinary gifts of a good-fairy house

The very year I was born, my parents, who were then working as expatriates in Indonesia, bought their first house, with my grandmother's help. La Nouvelle Terrebonne, as they named it(after my father's French-Canadian ancestors' grand manor house at Terrebonne near Montreal—the house still exists though it's no longer in the family), was at the time a large, beautiful but crumbling late-eighteenth and nineteenth century house, with dilapidated seventeenth century outbuildings, in a south-western French village called Empeaux. It was an unfashionable, eccentric—and cheap--buy at the time—for back then Empeaux was thought to be much too remote from the city--a whole thirty-five kilometres from Toulouse-- for most middle-class people to want to live there. Besides, the house had been allowed to go to rack and ruin, and there was heaps of work to do in it and in the large overgrown parklands that surrounded it, with its ancient trees. Much too much, most people thought.
Well, nothing daunted, my parents set to work or rather set their expatriate salaries to work, first in Indonesia and then in Australia, paying a succession of masons, tilers, electricians, roofers, painters, carpenters and lots more local tradesmen, who slowly but surely, under my parents' guiding hand, turned neglected Cinderella into a beautiful princess admired by all, at considerable expense it must be said. And as we settled into a routine of three years in Australia, three months in France, the house became our French base.
We loved it. It was an utterly magical place. In that enchanted Narnia-like space, everything was extraordinary. The house had an amazing history, full of strange, sad and mysterious stories: stories of the haunted red room, where a young man had hung himself, a hundred years before; of the well, where a witch had been thrown, centuries ago; of the majestic elm tree outside my parents’ bedroom window, planted by one of Louis XIV’s ministers in the late seventeenth century(which was protected by order of the French state, though later, very sadly, it died in the Dutch elm epidemic of the 1980's). The stairs creaked, the attic was spooky, the cellar dim and creepy; there were storage antechambers off just about every room. Each of these storage rooms had its own exotic cargo: a huge oak wardrobe full of old fur coats, including my great-grandmother’s Canadian wolf-skin coat; an old wicker doll’s pram with my aunt’s doll in it, sporting a wig made of her own, blond childhood hair; and in another, the baskets brought back by my parents from Indonesia, full of red and gold and green and gold costumes. And tall pottery jars full of goose and duck confit in the winter, for it was so cold in those unheated antechambers in winter that they might as well have been fridges, and you had to quickly ladle out what you needed from the pottery confit jars before your fingers dropped off!
It was a house that breathed presence; a presence that despite the many terrible stories associated with it radiated a kind of good-fairy benevolence. It was a presence that nurtured people, especially children, and all of us children remember it with huge fondness and a real melancholy, for it is lost to us now--in the early 90's, after they'd returned permanently to France, my parents finally sold La Nouvelle Terrebonne and moved to another region. But I still go and visit it when I am back in France, as do my siblings; it is a house that haunts anyone who's ever lived in it—even when we were living there, former residents would sometimes drop by to look at it again just like we do now--a house that forever becomes a part of your emotional and imaginative DNA.
But if, like a good fairy at a christening, La Nouvelle Terrebonne and the village of Empeaux(we tend to conflate them, and just say 'Empeaux') have given me an integral part of my creative inner landscape and in different guises have emerged in many of my books, they are also a part of my culinary DNA—of my most cherished memories of food, influencing how we eat now. It wasn't just the jars of confit in the storage-room. It was also the thrill of finding, when we would first arrive from our long and gruelling voyage from Australia, that the wonderful Madame Baron, a local farmer's wife who looked after the house in our absence, had laid the scrubbed old kitchen table with a cheerful tablecloth and a fantastic simple local lunch: a big pat of creamy golden butter she'd made from the milk of her own cows; a big round loaf of fresh local pain de campagne; a plateful of thickly-sliced local air-dried ham, jambon de pays, with its gorgeous pepper-flavoured rim of fat and delicious texture; a selection of local cheeses; fresh fruit in season and a big salad, ready to be tossed. It was also looking up at the huge jambon de pays she'd cut the slices from, which swung snugly in its pillowcase from the ancient bullock-yoke suspended above the table on chains; the garlic and onions in their tresses beside it. It was stepping down into the earthern-walled pantry just off the kitchen which breathed the cool of ages, with its shelves lined with preserves and bottles and groceries of all sorts(though I was always a bit scared that one of my mischievous brothers would take the opportunity to lock me in there—it was windowless with a very low ceiling!)It was gorging yourself on fruit from your own trees—the cherry, the fig, the apple, the reine-claude,(greengage), and picking mushrooms and hazelnuts in the woods with Dad if we were there in the autumn. I wasn't so keen on another kind of picking—dandelion leaves, which my parents, especially Dad, were very fond of for salads but I didn't like much at all, not only because of its slightly bitter taste but because of its name(in French, it's pissenlit—literally 'piss-the-bed'--!) It was about going to another farm, the Miquel place, where a black-clad Madame Miquel, with her wisps of grey hair, crooked nose and few teeth she displayed in a crocodiley smile that was meant to be friendly, put me irresistibly but banally in mind of a witch(though I knew she wasn't—the real village witch was a striking youngish brunette!). My parents bought eggs, chickens and ducks and geese from the Miquels(the ducks and geese were turned into that confit that sat in the pottery jars), and also some vegetables and the occasional rabbit. But we bought butter and milk from Madame Baron, whose farm had a much more sympathique atmosphere and who always invited us in to have a little snack and a glass of something with her family. If it was afternoon—and it generally was—it'd be a small glass of fiery home-made gnole for the adults and mint or pomegranate or berry cordial for the children sometimes with the extra of a tiny cube of sugar soaked in a little gnole once you reached a certain age. It was about going to the markets in l'Isle-Jourdain or St Lys and buying fresh pates and terrines made from deer and boar and hare and partridge hunted locally—for there are fine rich hunting woods around there—and hearing the joyful toot-toot of the baker's van or the greengrocer's or the fishmonger's or butcher's or horse-butcher that would come tootling into the village once every couple of days or so, for Empeaux did not have any shops. It was about going off on our bikes to the next village, Saint-Thomas, only three or four kms away and possessed of a great attraction: a cafe, where you could get a meal or an icecream or cake or coffee or a glass of wine(if you were an adult of course!)Yes, it was about all those gorgeous, wonderful things that people now think of as slow food, of the regional, the local, the intimate—nothing to do with fashion or fad but just the way people had always eaten around there. And that has stayed with me ever since.

(Photographs are 1/the house from the back, with dependencies on right hand side and beginning of the parkland garden in front, and looming over it on the right also is the castle of Empeaux. 2/my parents and three youngest siblings at the Nouvelle Terrebonne kitchen table in 1984--my brother Louis is holding my then 2 year old daughter Pippa.)

Hare delights

I've eaten plenty of rabbit over the years both in France and Australia, mostly farmed but some wild as well, but seldom eaten hare. The reason of course is that the meat is not as easily available, as hares cannot be farmed--solitary animals which range widely, they simply do not thrive in captivity, unlike their more sedentary cousins. But the other day we were lucky enough to get hold to get hold of some hare meat, and were able to try out a couple of recipes: a delicious hare stew, made from the most fleshy part of the animal, its saddle(the back and flanks) and a lovely terrine made from the other parts.
The hare meat was much denser and darker than rabbit, especially farmed rabbit, and it was very lean, with a rich but not particularly 'gamey' taste. Stewing seemed to bring out those flavours much more than roasting could have done(there'd have been a danger of the meat drying out.)Note that while the hare terrine can feed up to 8 people, the hare stew is just for two.These recipes could also be adapted for rabbit meat.
For the hare terrine: Two rashers bacon, about 500 g pork mince or 4 thick pure pork sausages opened up, back and front legs and other bits of hare, liver and heart of hare, two eggs, breadcrumbs, thyme, nutmeg, a little coriander seed, salt, pepper. First debone the hare meat and put the meat in a dish ready to mix with other stuff. Boil the bones up for stock(for next recipe). Cook the liver and heart. Now mix the cooked chopped liver and heart, the hare meat, pork mince, add the eggs, breadcrumbs, herbs and spices, salt and pepper. The terrine mixture needs to be not sloppy and not crumbly either but well mixed. Oil a log-shaped Pyrex or earthenware baking dish, drape one rasher bacon on bottom. fill dish with terrine mix and drape the bacon over the top, tucking in the sides. Cook in a bain-marie(standing in a dish part-filled with water)in a slow oven--175 C--for about 2 and a half hours. When cooked, let it sit in a cool place. Serve cold, sliced. (You can also serve it hot with a tomato sauce if you like, like a meatloaf, but it's even nicer cold, as a lunch dish or an entree.)
For the hare stew: 1 saddle of hare cut into two or four pieces, 2 rashers bacon, onion, garlic, sage, parsley, creme de cassis(blackcurrant liqueur) or similar, some hare stock(see above),a little oil to fry initially, salt, pepper.
First marinade the hare in the creme de cassis or similar liqueur(or even red wine)for a couple of hours. Fry the onion, the chopped up bacon, and then add the hare, without its marinade first. Add crushed garlic, herbs, and then the marinade. Add enough stock to cover. Simmer for about 45 minutes or until meat is tender. Serve with mashed potato(we made ours with lovely home-grown Tasmanian pink-eyes, which produce a gorgeous yellow fluffy mash)and sweet and sour red cabbage(cooked with brown sugar and vinegar, a little red wine and a little hare or beef stock.)

The olive harvest

We've never had a great deal of luck with olive trees. The very first one we planted, at least seventeen years ago, right at the beginning of living here, still survives, but has had a very chequered history over the years, producing one good crop years ago, one a much smaller crop a couple of years later, and then nothing for ages, getting setbacks from scale and drought and all sorts of things. Other olive trees have bitten the dust very early; only one other one has survived despite multiple plantings David's done over the years, and this year it's been joined by one further one which looks as though it might survive. The trouble is that though the climate's fine for it--cold winters but plenty of sunshine, and rain mostly in the winter and summer--the weather can be unpredictable in the Northern Tablelands, with freak frosts starting early and finishing late. But that's not the main trouble, it's the quality of the soil, at least outside the kitchen garden proper. Under a thin layer of topsoil, it's a mixture of large patches of impermeable, badly-drained clay--or rock! The kitchen garden is different, as not only was it a patch that had a bit more topsoil, but over the years David's built it up with plenty of compost, mulch, and horse and sheep manure into a rich deep matetial that now grows pretty much whatever he wants(although very deep-rooted things still have a bit of a struggle.) But in the orchard it's been a constant battle to keep the trees not only alive but doing anything other than grow sluggishly and produce lots of leaf but no fruit. This year's seen a real change, with lots of fruit appearing--and the olives have been no exception.

The first olive tree(a Verdale, incidentally) was planted on top of a sub-soil rocky ridge which is why it's managed to survive despite its many struggles; the second survives because it's over a drain, the third no doubt will for the same reason. Anyway, it's the first tree, the gnarly old survivor, that's done us proud this year again--though because there wasn't as much sun as usual this summer, because of the long periods of rainy and overcast weather we've had over months now, the cold weather--and the first of the big frosts--started early before the fruit had a change to completely ripen, so David had to pick them green and not black like last time. We love green olives too though, and these, succulent and fleshy though small are particularly delicious.

It's quite a palaver, the whole olive-preparation thing. I'd never really realised before we started doing it that you most certainly can't eat olives straight off the tree--they are very bitter, and that bitterness has to be extracted with a caustic soda solution(and then the olives are washed over and over very thoroughly for a week before putting them in brine.)We've got a fabulous book called Preserving the Italian Way, written and self-published by Italo-Australian writer Pietro Demaio--it's very highly recommended for all kinds of tips and recipes for doing everything from curing olives to making sausage and bottling artichokes etc--you can read about it and order it at http://www.preservingtheitalianway.com.au/ It's also a lovely warm, individual sort of book with memoir and ancedote mixed in with the recipes. We used the methods described in that to cure the olives. (You do have to be pretty careful.)

Anyway, we've got a big bucketful of brined olives now and yesterday I began to bottle some of the harvest, taking some of the fruit out of the brine in which it's been sitting for over a week now and putting them in jars with olive oil, garlic, thyme, pepper and a little lemon peel. I want to try out other mixtures for others--maybe with chillis, for instance, or with balsamic vinegar, or with different herbs, or maybe some just dry-salted. Though I love green olives stuffed with anchovies, I don't think I'll try that with these--the olives are too small, the stone too tight in the centre of the flesh. But there's so many other ways to eat them--and so many aperitifs and entrees that they'll enliven for the next few months!

Home-made millas: Toulouse cornmeal fritters

Corn and maize are rarely found in French cuisine--maize is mostly considered 'pig food' and sweet corn is practically unknown(more's the pity for French people; we always love it when it's sweet corn season in our garden!). But there's one area of France where maize has a much better press, and that's in the south-west, in the Toulouse region. Maize is grown there mostly to feed the region's famous fat geese and ducks, it's true, but it's also widely used for a variety of traditional dishes, from the rich, golden, moist cake, Gateau de Mais to the ubiquitous millas or cornmeal fritters which appear on restaurant menus, on home dinner tables and can be bought in readymade squares, ready-to-fry in traiteurs and bakeries and markets in Toulouse and its region.

Millas are versatile: they can be eaten with both sweet and savoury things: they are delicious as a side-dish with duck magrets(as Camille had in her recipe)or lamb or pork or indeed any kind of meat. They are also delicious served as a sweet snack or dessert, fried golden and sprinkled with sugar or honey or whatever you like. They are best hot but are also pretty nice cold, if you have leftovers.

Millas are not difficult to make from scratch, but they do take some time to prepare, which is why many people in France buy them ready-made(they are usually excellent, incidentally.) But of course you can't buy them here in Australia--at least certainly not in our country region!--so having had a sudden craving for millas the other day, I had to make mine from scratch, with the invaluable advice of Ginette Mathiot's I Know how to Cook, which I wrote about in my last post. (She has lots of recipes for classic regional basics like that which most other cookbooks simply do not have.)

The millas you buy in Toulouse is made from white maize meal, finely ground; as I could not get that here, mine had to be made with the readily-available polenta, or yellow maizemeal(pretty finely-ground also). I had no idea if it would turn out or not but I wanted to give it a go. And it did turn out really well, despite the fact my millas didn't look at all like the tidy pale squares I remember from childhood, when Maman used to buy them at the markets in l'Isle-Jourdain near our place in the Toulousain countryside. Intensely yellow and rather untidy, these frangourou millas were nevertheless delicious and went superlatively well with the lamb in tomato and red pepper and basil sauce I had made. And despite the difference in maize meal, they tasted pretty much as millas ought to, as well--a minor miracle in itself!

Here's how to make them(proportions are for two people): Take 90 g polenta meal(the finest grade you can find), 150 ml boiling water, 150 ml milk, 1 egg, 1 tablespoon butter, a pinch salt. First mix the polenta with a little water to make a paste, then add the rest of the water and cook till polenta has absorbed all the water and become stiff(takes about 10 mins).You need to stir it all the time--do not let it burn. Add the milk and egg, beat thorougly till well-mixed, then add butter and keep cooking over low heat till the mixture is like a ball of dough(or something like choux pastry) and comes away from sides and bottom of pan. Take it off the heat, let cool a little then shape into either circles or squares or any other shape you want--mine were a little crumbly at the edges so the shapes weren't exactly perfect, but the dough kept together well still. Fry in hot oil till very golden and crisp on outside. Serve hot, a little salted and peppered, as a side dish with meat and sauce(or vegetables)or as a simple dessert--sprinkled with sugar or served with honey, maple syrup, etc. You can also have them sugared, with whipped cream on top.

The charm of Ginette Mathiot

One of the many lovely presents I got for my birthday this year was the English-language edition of the classic French home cookbook, Ginette Mathiot's Je sais cuisiner(I Know how to Cook), which my three wonderful grown-up children, Pippa, Xavier and Bevis gave me. It's a huge tome, which covers absolutely everything you could possibly want to know, and is written in a direct, charming and unpretentious manner. Nothing is assumed and yet no-one is talked down to. It was first published in 1932, and hasn't been out of print since. Generations of French home cooks have grown up with it, and kids are given it as a leaving-home present.

Ginette(Genevieve was her real first --Ginette being her nickname) was only twenty-five and a home economics teacher when she was asked by a publisher to compile a book of recipes that would be of use both to young people starting out and for more mature home cooks looking for more ideas. Actually it's more like a combination of cookbook and cooking encyclopedia! The freshness of her style and the fact her recipes can indeed be within the range of beginners as well as those more experienced, have assured the book's longevity. There are recipes for everything from making your own chestnut puree from scratch to how to boil the perfect egg, from the most spectacular of cakes to the simplest sauce, and it is also remarkably well-organised and carefully explained yet not in the least bit precious. There's also advice on wines, table settings, menu planning and more, and lots of mouth-watering photographs. This lovely English-language edition by Phaidon Books also features menus and recipes from celebrated French chefs practising around the world, including our very own Guillaume Brahimi from Bennelong restaurant at the Sydney Opera House!

Anyway I've always heard lots about this book but this is the first time I've owned a copy--and how much I'm enjoying trying out new things and cooking up variations on old themes. And you can adapt Ginette's recipes very easily to your individual needs and likes and as the inspiration strikes you--there's nothing of the precious 'don't change a grain of salt' feeling about her work, which suits me just fine as I'm constitutionally resistant to following orders!

Here's a couple of (adapted) very simple and delicious recipes of hers I cooked recently, which worked brilliantly:

Fresh mushroom soup (serves two)shown in foreground of photo:

Ingredients: 1/2 kilo small field mushrooms, couple sprigs fresh thyme(dried thyme can also be used),a little butter, some chives, chopped, salt,pepper, chicken or vegetable stock, 100 ml cream, a tablespoon cornflour or potato flour or rice flour, 1 egg yolk.

Slice most of the mushrooms thinly, reserving some for putting later in the soup as decoration. Fry the sliced mushrooms in butter, add half the chopped herbs, then salt, pepper, chicken stock. Simmer for about fifteen minutes, then blend soup till smooth(or mash with a masher). Beat the egg yolk into the cream, dissolve the flour in the liquid(there should be no lumps) and add to the soup blend, stirring through on stove till well-blended and thickening. Separately fry the remaining mushrooms(sliced) and add to the soup, stirring through with remaining bits of herbs. Serve. It's absolutely delicious the day it's made but is even better the day after!

Perch fillets in a milk anchovy sauce(I've adapted this from a couple of recipes of hers--so you won't find that title in the book!)--photo of dish just behind the soup. Also serves two.

Ingredients: To poach fish: 4 small ocean perch fillets, a little butter, court-bouillon(I use a French court-bouillon stock cube for this but you can make a version using some sliced onion fried in butter, with a little splash of white wine added, salt, pepper, tarragon or thyme, and some water, boiled together and then a squeeze of lemon juice in it.) For milk anchovy sauce: a tablespoon soft butter, some finely chopped parsley, pepper, about five or six flat anchovy fillets, crushed, one garlic clove, crushed, a little more butter for the roux, teaspoon flour(wheat or rice or cornflour etc), some milk.

Melt a little butter in pan, quickly sear fish then add the court-bouillon liquid to just cover the fish. Simmer. It only needs to cook for about 7 mins or so. Meanwhile make some anchovy butter with the crushed anchovies, garlic, parsley, pepper, mashed into the butter. Make a roux, melting the butter, adding the flour, and then the milk till nice and thick. Take off stove, and add the anchovy butter to the milk sauce, stirring well till the butter has melted and everything is all blended in. Serve on top of the fish.

(I served the fish with carrots cooked in a little stock too and some sweet and sour red cabbage, which worked very well. But it'll go with pretty much anything you like--good mashed potato made with waxy spuds would be lovely for instance.)

Family recipes 6: David's beautiful 'Russe-style' special occasion cake

Whenever we went back to Biarritz, when I was a kid, and were taken on one of our favourite outings, to the wonderful Dodin patisserie, I would always ask for the same cake: a 'Russe', or'Russian'. This wonderful cake, made of hazelnut or almond meringue, layered with butter cream that was either flavoured with coffee or hazelnut, tasted like a slice of heaven to me, with its combination of breautiful crunchy meringue and lusciously smooth flavourful butter cream. It's a cake you only ever find in patisseries in the South of France, and only in the south-west at that--you never see it in the patisseries of Paris, or anywhere else in France. So you could get it in Toulouse and Biarritz but not Marseille, for instance. I didn't know why it was called a 'Russe'. Later, I heard that originally it was made with the best almonds imported from Crimea. But now I think that it must have been in fact a kind of adaptation of a beautiful Russian meringue cake called 'Swallow's Nest'--and though I'm not sure who first devised it, I'd hazard a guess its origin might be in Biarritz, which was full of Russian exiles after 1917. Dodin's Patisserie has been going since the 19th century and though it lays claim to being the originator of the famous (and delicious)chocolate cake, the 'Beret Basque'(so-called because its shape ressembles the famous Basque headgear) it does not claim to have birthed the Russe, though its examples were always wonderful. (By the way, if you want to drool over some of Dodin's beauties, here is their website: http://www.dodin.eu/ )

Anyway to get back to my Russe, it's something that I not only loved in childhood but now too. But I always thought I had to wait to get back to South-west France to indulge in it again. I thought it would be one of those sorts of cakes that would be too difficult to pull off for a home cook and so each birthday in Australia, I'd put in a request for my second-favourite cake, the Gateau Moka. This is also a gorgeous cake--a Genoise sponge layered with coffee butter cream, and David, my husband, has made it superlatively well for many years. But a Gateau Moka is not easy to make too far ahead of time and transport and as my birthday was going to be in Sydney this year, I knew I'd have to think again. I remembered seeing the 'Swallow's Nest' cake in the Russian cookbook we bought in Moscow and thought, how about that, and then started thinking, that sounds a bit like a 'Russe'--and then David said, well, meringue's much easier to make ahead of time, why don't I have a go at a Russe? He made me describe it and started looking up recipes--and then made his own version which turned out spectacularly well and which proved a huge hit at the birthday party!

Here's his recipe for a beautiful 'Davidov' which I think I'll dub his version of the 'Russe'! And it shows that a home cook can indeed pull off a Russe as well as any patissier--all my siblings, who'd tasted the 'real' Russes, agreed that it reproduced exactly the look and texture and flavours we all loved at Dodin's!

The various bits of the Davidov cake can be made well ahead of time--several days ahead in fact. If you do that you need to conserve the meringue in an airtight tin and the coffee butter cream in the fridge. As the butter cream will harden in the fridge, you'll need to warm it up slightly when you are assembling the cake, or you'll break the meringue. This cake will serve up to 15 people. (It did at the party anyway!)

Ingredients for meringue layers and individual meringue rosettes for decoration: 10 egg whites, 400 g castor sugar, 2 tablespoons cornflour, 150 g hazelnut meal. You will also need, for decoration on last meringue layer, some crushed roasted hazelnuts.

Method: Beat egg whites till stiff, add sugar bit by bit, beating well after each addition till you get a beautiful glossy meringue. Mix cornflour and hazelnut meal together, fold into meringue mix. On one greased or baking-papered tray, pipe some meringue rosettes for decoration; on another two or three, the meringue layers(this one had three layers). Bake in a slow oven(150 C) for an hour or so, till done(biscuit-coloured and reasonably dry.)

Ingredients for coffee butter cream: 6 egg yolks, 450 g butter(David used a mixture of 300 g unsalted, 150 g salted, but you can use just unsalted if you like), 2/3 cup castor sugar, 1/2 cup hazelnut syrup(or light corn syrup, or pure maple syrup--David used the hazelnut syrup--Monin from France which can be used to flavour coffee etc), coffee essence or make your own as David did with 2 tablespoons instant coffee and two tablespoons boiling water--it should be a thick gooey mixture--you can also use a small amount of strong espresso).

Method: Dissolve the sugar in the syrup in a pan on stove. Take off stove and let cool a little. Meanwhile beat egg yolks till pale and foamy. Little by little, mix the warm(but not hot)sweet syrup into the egg mixture. When you have incorporated it all, cut the butter into small pieces and add to the mixture, beating in well so butter melts and makes a thick cream(you can make this in the food processor if you have one.) The cream can now be used if you are putting together the cake or it can go in fridge till you put the cake together. (Remember to warm it before use.)

Putting cake together: Put the first layer of nut meringue on the plate, spread with some of the butter cake. Layer the next round of meringue, repeat, till you have used up the meringue layers and most of the butter cream(but keep some for the top and maybe the sides if you want. On the last layer, spread the rest of the butter cream, and decorate with the meringue rosettes and crushed roasted hazelnuts.

Birthday menu

I celebrated my birthday in Sydney with all the family last week, it was a lovely day even if a bit cold. And the menu was sumptuous--and a joint effort between all of us! Here's what we had:

Aperitifs:

Selection prosciuttos, salamis, olives and lots more. Thank you, Bertrand and Margot!

Entrees:

Home-made houmous with fresh bread. This was made by my younger son Bevis, it had a beautiful tangy flavour and lovely smooth texture.

Georgian(Caucasus)-style braised eggplants with pomegranate seeds. This was made by my sister Camille(who learned it from Georgian friends): the eggplant was sliced and braised in an electric wok with a little olive oil, salt and pepper and the pomegranates seeded and served with the eggplant on the plate. A gorgeous contrast of flavour, texture and colour.

Home made tuna ceviche with Nundle smoked trout and Nundle smoked trout pate. This was made by me(at least the ceviche! I bought the Nundle trout things--absolutely delicious. I made the ceviche with fresh tuna, sliced thinly and then simply marinaded in lemon juice, salt and pepper for a couple of hours. If you prefer, you can also leave it overnight--the tuna will then go completely white.

Prawns. Just served as is!

Selection of wonderful French cheeses. Served with water-crackers. Thank you, Pippa!

Main courses:

Pickled pork slow-cooked in a cranberry and brandy sweet and sour sauce. I made this, it's a Russian-influenced dish which can be cooked the night before and then reheated the next day(increases the flavour.) I simply braise a piece of pickled pork(from butcher or supermarket)in some butter, sear it all over then add pepper, herbs(I use tarragon or sage but you can experiment), splash brandy, cognac, armagnac or whisky over it, reduce, add the cranberries(I use dried) and then (meat or herb)stock to go up to about half of the piece of meat. Put a lid tight on, simmer for about 30 minutes, then add cranberry juice if you want or cranberry jelly, some brown sugar and a splash of balsamic vinegar. Taste(it should be rich and a little tangy.) Keep cooking slowly for another 45 minutes or so so meat is very tender. Add a little more brandy if necessary. If you are cooking it early and reheating, do this when you reheat, along with a touch more cranberry juice if you want. Take the pork out, slice it, reduce the sauce till thick then return the pork to the dish and warm through.

Roast chicken. Simply roasted by Louis with olive oil, salt and pepper.

Filipino-style Pancit(see Fran's recipe in previous post.)

Sauteed potatoes with garlic and parsley. Camille made these, they are thickly sliced, and cooked in electric wok slowly in olive oil and butter till they get a lovely melting texture.

Big bowl salad with lots of different ingredients.

Cake:

My birthday cake, on special request, was a spectacular home made 'Russe' style cake of hazelnut meringue layered with coffee butter cream--my husband David's creation, which I'll write about at length in the next post!

Bought Black Forest Gateau(which everyone was too full to do more than nibble at the edges!)

Washed down with champagne or at least 'blanquette' style sparkling wine, and various other wines. A fantastic gourmet meal, and a beautiful day, thanks to all!