ORGANIC VEGETABLES

For the past two years, and up to last October, I had been fetching an organic vegatable basket in Loctudy, some 20km or more from Quimper. The vegetables were good quality, my basket cost me 8€ a week, but I had no choice, it was all prepared in advance, and although if you told them you really hated a certain type of vegetable (chard in my case) they'd change it, you always got a lot of root vegetables for instance in winter, that are not as pleasant to use as salad and tomatoes in summer. When the price of fuel went up, it was costing me a ridiculous sum of money just to go and fetch my basket, all the more so as I stopped off at the organic supermarket near the farm and did my weekly shop there - superb quality, but pricey. So I opted out in October.

I was a bit lost at first, I had to make "decisions" about what to buy, instead of just taking what was given to me, and I'd lost the habit. I will not buy vegetables in supermarkets, I try not to buy vegetables that come from outside France. Which meant I had to go to a small vegetable store, with fairly limited choice and which was again, a bit expensive. I still go there sometimes.

Then I heard about a farmer's wife three kms down the road who sells vegetables, not organic vegetables, but fresh. Three times a week, she has a little shop in her barn. You can choose just what you want, she has a good choice, and is sooo cheap!

A couple of days ago, I bought 4 leeks to do in vinaigrette, a huge cooked beetroot, three red onions, a bagful of spinach, nice small leaves, a large bunch of parsley, a green pepper, four or five carrots, all for 3€.

I did cooked oysters with spinach, cream and gruyère that night. Have a look at my new blog project http://onefrenchword.wordpress.com for pictures and the recipe.

DID YOU HAVE A GOOD CHRISTMAS ?

I missed saying "Happy Christmas" to you all. So, did you have a nice Christmas? With good meals and lots of presents?

We did. I fetched Nicholas from Brest airport on Tuesday 21st, his birthday! He was one of the lucky ones to leave London and get to his destination, and on time if you please! We have been having a good, quiet time together, as we always do. With a series of excellent meals, no restaurants, we seem to be able to do better at home. What did you have for Christmas meals?

The temperatures are going up down, up down, we have lovely sunny days (although as usual the weather forecast for the Finistère is awful) but rather cold nights. I have to put thick socks on over my shoes to get across the terrace to the north side of the house, the one that leads to the garden, so that I don't slip and kill myself while peeing the dog.

My load of wood for the winter was delivered last week. All neatly cut into 40cm lengths, split and stacked on a pallet.  Last year it cost me 225€, expensive enough, this year it's 275€. Can't do without unfortunately: a woodburder means wood. That being said, my little house is lovely and warm.

I've finally got photos of my two grandsons wearing the sleeveless pullovers I knitted for them just before going to the States in September. I forgot to take photos of the finished product and had to wait for Cécile to put photos she had taken on her blog.

This week I have made quick and not very expensive curtains to block out the draft that comes up from the veranda into the sitting room in the evenings in winter. There is a sort of archway about 1m70 wide, and a couple of metres high. I bought a steel curtain rod and some rings with clips on them. The things to hold the rod up with are placed too high for me to screw them in, so I stuck them with super glue. Then I bought 6 metres of fleece, really cheap, in a nice off white. I cut the edge and tore it into two pieces 3m long, turned over the top into a pelmet of about 25cm and clipped it to the curtain rings! It trails on the ground and makes sure that drafts don't get under it, and it needs no hemming, it doesn't fray. I'm really pleased with the result, which took me a couple of hours in all, not even. It looks good and is very efficient, in fact, with the woodburner going, the sitting room is almost too warm now!

I can show you my pre-Christmas knitting, now the presents have been given. I did a jacket for Marius, with toggles, a sleeveless pullover for Leif, a bit pink, but I really need to knit pink sometimes and it's not easy having two grandsons. And a sleeveless pullover for my brother Michael. They all seem to have liked their presents!

So, on to food: for Nicholas' birthday we had a bottle of nice champagne, the most enormous snails, then fish, then a sort of pavlova with a difference (meringue, fresh heavy cream and raspberries in a champagne glass. For Christmas Eve, we had a plateau de fruits de mer, which actually almost went wrong, because the fishmonger seemed to have forgotten my order, and gave me all the shellfish unopened, and the fairly large lobster I had ordered turned into two very small ones, but it was all good, and too much, so last night we had the rest of  peeled shrimps, langoustines, a few praires topped with the meat from the tail of one of the lobsters in a cocktail sauce (fresh mayonnaise, a teeny bit of ketchup, tabasco and cognac) in a champagne glass, with a bit of salad at the bottom! For our Christmas lunch we had a glass of champagne with three frozen raspberries in it, a few nibbles, a shoulder of lamb with roast potatoes, roast parsnips and peas, and no dessert, not hungry enough. Before Christmas, Nicholas made me onion soup, lovely. And today he did me a lamb curry which was quite delicious, lovely not to have to cook!

Plateau de fruits de mer before I opened the oysters (there are all sorts of things hiding underneath...)

Lamb curry

 A bit of a blurry photo of onion soup

Salade tière de coquilles St Jacques

 Foie gras maison and champagne (with a bit of saucisson lurking in the middle)...

Lobster cocktail

On Christmas Eve, just after lunch, we took the car and went up into central Finistère, the Monts d'Arrée, to visit the Montagne St Michel and the prehistoric burial chamber (allée couverte) at Mougau Bihan. Nicholas was looking for photo material. There was a bitter wind, but lots of sun, and the Montagne St Michel was still covered in snow. Quite different from the summer painting trips that Yves and I often make.

Mougau Bihan, Finistère

Nicholas at the top of the Montagne St Michel

Ellie at the top of the Montagne St Michel

The path to the top of the Montagne St Michel, Finistère

This afternoon we went for a walk along the banks of the river Odet just outside Quimper, but it was bitterly cold. Then we went to the Anse St Laurent near Concarneau so that Nicholas could photograph old fishing boats that are falling apart on the mud flats. And now it's time to sit in front of the fire as darkness falls and catch up with my blog.

Done.

A very Happy New Year to all of you should I not manage to post again before then.



Back from England

I travelled to England betwen 13 and 17 September to visit the family. My Tatie Zizon was there from the States. I'd not seen her for quite a few years, so we good fun catching up and having a giggle! Nicholas came down from London by train on Friday evening. Nicholas, Zizon and I went down to Weymouth for a seafood lunch on Saturday. My GPS got us there with no errors except just the last few metres... What a lovely restaurant - "The Crab House" off Portland Bill. Had to book, but it was a beautiful sunny, hot day and we ate outside with a view of the sun on the sea. That's what life is about. Nicholas and I had the most enormous crabs I have ever seen, and Zizon had a very large sole. Plus ice cream and a bottle of Pinot Grigio.

Back to a roast lamb supper - all we do is eat in our family - then out on Sunday to Little Barwick near Yeovil for lunch to celebrate Zizon's 86th birthday. I didn't feel that good in the evening, so I forewent supper!

Grama cooking lamb and 3 veg for 5 people aged 90!

Nicholas and I left on Monday morning, I drove him (sorry, he drove me!) to Heathrow where he could take the tube into London to work, and I continued on to Dover to get the ferry. After a weekend of wonderful weather in England, it poured once I got back to France.

I stopped in Paris and had dinner with Yves at the Nouveau Village Tao Tao on Boulevard Vincent Auriol, 13e. We hadn't been there for a while, and the menu and the cook had changed, it was even better than before. I had a salade de pattes de poulet, my favourite dish, and the waiter as usual gave me a lecture before writing my order down to the effect that it was real chickens' feet, did I know? When I got out of the restaurant, I found that some hooligan had broken all the wing mirrors of the cars down my side of the street, so I had to get out of Paris half blind, not quite seeing where I was going.

Back to clearing out and trips to the dump before my move which is getting frighteningly close... and I have people staying in B&B this week which takes up time.

It's Yves birthday today, and my brother Michael's. Yves couldn't come down 'cos it's the weekend. Soon he'll have to take the plane to see me...!