Advent Day Four, baguettes, boulangeries and Père Noel

Today's lunch of soup and flat bread

Advent Day Four

We started today by making a batch of flat breads that will keep nicely in the freezer and enable us to have one each with our lunchtime soup for the next ten days. Soup quickly became a winter lunch staple for us when we moved to France in 2004. I can’t even remember if it started with the summer glut of courgettes that became a freezer stocked with soup, or from the realisation that despite gloriously warm summers when our old stone house remained cool inside, winters in rural France turned out to be so much colder than I’d imagined. The cool stone quickly became cold and damp with icy air invading through draughty gaps. Nothing warms you up from the inside quite like a bowl of chunky soup, served piping hot and topped with melted cheese. 

Here is a fun French fact - did you know that despite the French accompanying most meals with a baguette, the one meal they don’t serve with bread is soup?

The baguette vending machine in our village

 

This week the French baguette was granted a UNESCO world heritage status. Buying their daily bread is part of the rhythm of life for French people with twelve million of them shopping in a boulangerie every day and with over six billion baguettes being baked every year, it is the most popular of all French breads. This prompted our local French newspaper to run a poll, asking “do you still eat baguettes daily?” and I was surprised that only 70% of respondents said they did. Sadly, we fell in the 30% who don’t – shh, don’t let on to my French friends, but even when we had a boulangerie down the road, a daily baguette intake just doesn’t agree with my English digestive system, and I’ve yet to use the baguette vending machine that was installed in our village in April. 

Envelopes and post box for Père Noel at our local boulangerie

 

We did visit one of the local boulangeries this week, for a croissant to have with a coffee, and I couldn’t help smiling when I saw it has become a temporary Christmas post office. Isn’t this just the sweetest Père Noel post box? 

 

If you want to know more about French bread, you might like this post from two years ago:

How to eat your bread

 

Here are the links to my previous 2022 Advent posts, just in case you missed any of them this week:

Farewell November

Back in the Creuse with a great fun cosy Christmas who dunnit

Festive fun with French words 

Lockdown diaries day forty-two, Advent day ten, moules et huîtres

Advent day ten, sparking rosé and biere triple

Day forty-two, Thursday 10^th December 2020

 

Advent day ten

Moules

It was much milder today and I even managed to get the washing dried outside, but I think the sparkling pale rosé I pulled from the advent calendar will be another one to sit in the fridge until I feel the need for a bit of sparkle in my life. The mulled wine was lovely yesterday and the longer it sits mulling, the better it becomes, so although it might not be the ideal apéro for moules frites, that’s what I’ll be pouring myself later.

 

We knew this day would come, but it was still quite sad when the moules lady weighed out our kilo of mussels and said this would be the last week she’d have them. It will probably be late spring before we get to enjoy them again, so tonight’s meal, served with homemade oven chips, will need to be savoured. 

 

Moules night is a pretty easy night for the chef as there is very little to prepare; sauté an onion and some garlic, add thyme and when softened throw in a glass of white wine. Once there is plenty of heat, add the moules and they are done in minutes. The oven takes care of the chips and the preparation of cutting the potatoes, seasoning and oiling them, isn’t too hard either. I’ll certainly miss them, but last night’s mushroom stroganoff was pretty easy and quick to prepare too, and it was deemed a success. 

 

#DecemberChallenge mushroom stroganoff

Adrian and Ed might be easy to please, but Ed ranked it as top meal of the week, even though it was only Wednesday and he almost swooned at the cottage pie (with meat) I’d served on Tuesday. I almost didn’t want to admit that this morning I noticed the jar of cornichons in the fridge, and remembered I was supposed to have added 50g of them to the finished stroganoff just before serving. Oh, well, I will be making it again (it might even become our new Thursday regular) and next time I will try to remember all the ingredients. For some, following a recipe is easy, for me it really is a challenge.

 

This week's veggie pannier

While Adrian worked outside on some of the pots that need a bit of protection over winter, I had fun in the kitchen cake baking and soup making. The soup used up some of last week’s veggies, making sure there was plenty of room for the contents of this week’s veggie pannier. There is something quite satisfying and reassuring to know the cupboards are well-stocked heading into the weekend. One thing we are running low on are mincepies as I have just noticed there is only one left, so I guess tomorrow I will be making another batch of them.

 

A typical French seafood platter for Christmas or New Year

France Trivia advent calendar, day ten, oysters (huîtres)

The moules might be over for the season, but our seafood lady will still visit the village each week selling her oysters. Most French family Christmas Eve and/or New Year’s Eve celebrations will include oysters and to ensure she has enough, she has been encouraging us to place our end of year orders already. Our local Atlantic coast oyster beds, from the area around La Rochelle, Ile de Ré, Ile d’Oléron and Marennes are renowned in France. They get their own special mention in my Larousse guide and when I accompanied Ed’s class on a school trip in 2006, they might only have been aged six, but a visit to an oyster farm (ostréicole) was one of the highlights and most of them were already accustomed to eating them.

 

The baby oysters spend many years in the oyster beds at sea before being brought in for their final ‘refining’ (claire) process. This is done in the old salt marshes along the coast and it’s here they come into contact with a microscopic algae that gives them their characteristic green colour. The oysters are classified as ‘fines de claire’ or ‘spéciales claires’ depending on the conditions of the refining process and how long they spent there. 

Lockdown diaries, day twenty-six a new challenge

Another day, another batch of soup

Day twenty-six, Tuesday 24^th November 2020

 

Tuesday rolls around once more bringing with it my favourite yoga class of the week; Rise and Shine Yoga for Conditioning. Not being one to enjoy rushing my morning routine, the alarm goes off before the sun has risen, to ensure I’m relaxed and happy on my mat by 9 o’clock. There is just something about this class and its extra focus on the breathing and the body, that leaves me feeling strong and energised to face the day. 

 

We are now three and a half weeks into lockdown and President Macron will speak tonight about what to expect next. Adrian was working online all day and then set off on the turbo trainer to virtually cycle up Mont Ventoux (again) on Zwift. Ed (who conveniently has no lectures on Tuesdays) took himself off to Ruffec to do the weekly shop for us and returned home delighted he had done most of his Christmas shopping too. I think a DNA test might be necessary as I am never that organised or in control when it comes to Christmas. A good skill he is picking up from me during lockdown though, is learning to compare the prices per kilo when doing the shopping. 

 

I might not have had the most exciting of days, but I was happy in the kitchen. A batch of soup, another cake and a lasagne for dinner this evening, plus all the clearing up that goes with it, certainly kept me out of trouble. The soup might not look much, but I can assure you my frugal cauliflower soup, made from the leaves and stalk of a cauliflower, with lots of garlic, a green chilli and some crème fraiche, is delicious and creamy, with just a hint of heat.

 

With December getting closer, I need something to look forward to, and I’m not talking about Christmas. I realise I am becoming quite comfortable with life in lockdown, enjoying us all being at home together and things slipping into an easy routine. Since moving to France 16 years ago, I've often found myself out of my comfort zone and knowing how good this is for me, I always try to say yes to things, no matter how scary they may at first seem. Running an English language club at the local secondary school was one big gulp moment, as was agreeing to stand for election on the village council and accepting a part time job at a local library. This year, there have been very few opportunities to push myself or try something different, although I did set myself some cycling challenges and even climbed a mountain or two. 

 

A small selection of my recipe books

Inspired by author Sophie Claire and her new Christmas book A Winter’s Dream (see my review here), I have decided I need a December challenge. Something to focus on, that gives me the opportunity try new things and break from routine. We are a little restricted with lockdown, but I think I’ve come up with a great idea; the December recipe challenge. It’s time to dig out a cookery book, or two, and do more than just flick through looking at the pictures. I am notoriously bad at following a recipe, always tweaking it to add or substitute something, so my weekly challenge will be to choose a dish I’ve never cooked before and stick to it, ingredient for ingredient. I might even let Adrian and Ed do the choosing. If nothing else, it should make mealtimes a little less routine. 

Lockdown diaries, day fifteen, Friday 13th

Cauliflower and leek soup

Day fifteen, Friday 13^th November 2020

Ooh it is Friday 13^th, in a year that has already thrown in a global pandemic, a six-month drought in work for Adrian and loss in our family. I might not be overly suspicious, but I wasn’t looking forward to today. It seemed to become one of those days when I struggled to commit to anything, and nothing on my ‘to do’ list, that is supposed to help relieve moments of boredom, appealed. I applied my tried and tested method to keep motivated and happy, heading to the kitchen to bake a cake, prepare the dough for a batch of naan breads, plan a veggie curry for dinner and put the finishing touches to a batch of leek and cauliflower soup. I think sometimes we all need to accept that some days are not for achieving the big things, just keeping things ticking over is enough.

 

His and Her haircuts

One job we did manage to tick off was our regular haircuts. Lockdown part one put paid to the short bob that I’d had for years and I now realise being able to tie my hair up is so much more practical for yoga, gardening, cycling and decorating. I might have embraced my longer locks, but I have no desire to become Rapunzel, so whenever I get the clippers out to do Adrian’s hair, he gets the scissors out to trim mine and it’s become one of those special shared moments of domestic bliss.

 

A spot of filling

I can’t believe a week has gone by already since I foresaw a weekend of wallpapering, and yet, no wallpapering has yet happened. Before you think this is due to laziness, I’ll try my best to persuade you it isn’t. This time last week, I’d forgotten the ceilings needed painting and with a landing split into three (not so small) parts, and each part needing two or three coats, this took time. Once Adrian had finished those, and I’d finished clearing up the paint he managed to walk around the rest of the house, his work schedule had changed once more. There is, and never has been, any routine or normal rhythm to his work. Some jobs are pencilled in weeks in advance and then come to nothing, others come in at very short notice and if he wants the work, he drops everything to be available. At least for the moment this doesn’t mean trying to pack, book the next available flight, plus accommodation, and head off for the airport, all within an hour, but it does mean decorating was put on hold and with a couple of busy weeks in the calendar, things will just have to take their time. We did manage a bit more essential preparation this afternoon, but starting the wallpapering, on Friday 13^th, didn’t seem the best of ideas.

 

What did seem like a good idea was a bike ride in the sun and a quick look in the fruit bowl revealed not enough bananas to fuel our addiction this weekend. A return trip to Chef Boutonne, a quick in and out of the supermarket for the few bits we needed, stopping only to chat to some beautiful cream Charolais cattle on the way home, and I felt so much better. I know it’s not quite over yet, but fingers crossed, we may have survived another Friday 13^th.

The Marie Antoinette Diet by Karen Wheeler

It is at this time of year that I’m celebrating a soup fest once again – the hazy salad days of summer are long behind us and despite this not being my favourite time of year there is something very comforting about homemade soup. I have long believed soup to be the ace up my sleeve when it comes to comfort eating but not putting on weight and those of you who have been reading for a while will know cake is another daily staple in my diet, especially my Fat Free recipe. I was therefore intrigued by Karen Wheeler’s book The Marie Antoinette Diet where she claims the French queen’s diet of cake and soup can help you to lose weight. To be honest, although I was interested in this book, I didn’t think there was anything I could learn from it. The cake I eat is homemade and low in fat, the soups I make with the ingredients from our garden are healthy and hearty and having lost over 15 kilos since arriving in France, and kept them off for over five years, I was expecting to nod along in agreement and benefit from some of her recipes.

It just goes to show that you are never too old to learn something new. Whilst it was reassuring to read that the expert dietician Dr Mabel Blades BSC RD, who helped Karen with this book, agrees with most of my ideas there are definite improvements I can make to my diet.

I was always a soup for lunch girl, having my main meal in the evening as I struggle to be organized to serve a full meal at lunchtime, but having read this book I have had to rethink my day. Karen and Dr Mabel say serving my soup in the evening will really benefit my digestive system. This is in agreement with the Viva Mayr Diet I read last year. Although they both have their own good (and different) ideas, there are no conflicting opinions between Karen’s book and the Viva Mayr way. With two experts telling me similar things I’ve been given the kick I needed to make positive changes.

This book is clear, easy to read and with lots of ideas for changes you can make without too much hassle. It is not always what you eat, although that does have to be taken into account, but also when you eat and how you cook, especially what fat you use. It goes without saying homemade will always be better than processed foods. Karen also includes some great soup suggestions and delicious cake recipes as well as her tips as to how she fitted the changes into her life.

If you are looking to shed some post-Christmas kilos, but don’t want to feel you are on a diet; The Marie Antoinette Diet: Eat Cake and Still Lose Weight could be the book for you. Originally available in ebook format, since the beginning of January it is also available in paperback. Links to Amazon can be found below.

I was lucky to chat to Karen last year and we discussed a few tips from this book and her life in France. To read more see my France et Moi interview with her.

Karen is also the author of three very readable and moving memoirs of her life in Poitou-Charentes, Tout Sweet, Toute Allure and Tout Soul.

The Monster in the Compost

The Mutant Monster Squash

One of the most important corners of our potager is the compost heap where all year round we add the kitchen peelings, floor sweepings, bunny droppings, grass cuttings, chicken bedding, prunings and newspaper, amongst other things. Once it is rotted down to the most delicious mix it is then dug into the veggie garden in the spring to improve our soil. The collecting process then begins again. Sometimes we get a bit of a weed problem in the leftover compost, but this year we have been invaded by a monster mutant squash. It has not only completely taken over the compost heap but it is on a direct course across the grass to the tomato patch in the potager. 

However, I was never tempted to weed it out as neat and tidy really isn't me - I'm more of a 'live and let live' gardener and it has rewarded my kindness generously. So far we have harvested five huge green squash (that are rapidly turning orange) and there are at least another twenty fruits still growing. Can you imagine how much soup, chutney, relish, caviar, curry, risotto and brownies this little lot will make? I'm trembling with excitement!

First pickings of the monster squash

Silent Sunday

It has been a mixed week here, Wednesday saw our first snowfall of the winter, Thursday was clear and bright, but more snow and ice on Friday followed by a very wet Saturday and another dusting of white this morning. Ed managed a long weekend as there was no school bus on Friday and Ade survived a week in Belfast where he could see petrol bombs and car fires from his office window, but despite the weather was only two hours delayed on his flight home. Today we are enjoying being back together. Here are a selection of pics from this week.

A perfect January harvest from the garden www.frenchvillagediaries.com

Looking forward to sowing these www.frenchvillagediaries.com

Mini in the snow www.frenchvillagediaries.com

Time for tea www.frenchvillagediaries.com

Snowy fields one day www.frenchvillagediaries.com

Sunshine and deer the next day www.frenchvillagediaries.com

Soup keeps us warm www.frenchvillagediaries.com