Found this advert in todays London Independent- amazing !
I managed to persuade techno whizz son-in-law Aonghus
to transfer the same technology onto the net so now if you
lean forward and touch your tongue on that spot on the screen
where the asterisk is you will get a sinful shot of Russian Vodka.

The Grandson finds the notion of April Fools’ Day hilarious.

Photos by his mother

It is fun every so often to have a look at the statistics on my Movable Type Statcounter.
Everyone wants to feel that they are on the up all the time.
Well, I may not have a HUGE readership but at least according to the stats for the quarter that finishes today since 2006 I seem to have kept the few I started with and gathered a few on the way.
I am very grateful. Thanks all!

Liz Seeber is closing down her business, the last specialist in cookbooks has decided to go back to catering.
She is selling off her stock at bargain prices so be sure and have a last chance to view here.

As well as the Urbain Dubois (which she provided), I bought myself a job lot of paperbacks which were from the estate of one of my food heroes.
These are mostly about Languedoc food so couldn’t be more appropiate for me.
It is also exciting that they were bought and owned by the man who was the founder of Petits Propos Culinaire, the editor of the Oxford Companion to Food and the writer of, what must be the greatest fish book of all time, North Atlantic Seafood.
What is even better is that his personal bookplate is inside most of them.

When I wrote the piece about Thomas Fersen’s song: Pièce Monteé des Grands Jours, I searched the internet in vain for a picture of a real example of the same.
I eventually had to make do with a modern example, a Croque en Bouche which is indeed a Pièce Monteé but not what M. Fersen had in mind.
Yesterday when I got back from France I was greeted with a present for the Sixtieth Aniversaire of an early edition of Urbain Dubois classic French cookbook from 1860’s France, Cuisine de Tous les Pays Thanks again A&E)

The very first illustration was a classic shellfish Pièce Monteé , complete with Lobsters and Scallops.
These were recognised as the very acme of culinary skill in their day.

Voilá;

The beautiful elegant stairs of a building in the Chateau in Nantes.

As we were driving home from Languedoc last week we decided
to make a minor detour and head north up the Peninsula of the
Medoc, that strange finger of land between the mouth of the
Garonne and the Atlantic.

As anyone of a certain age who has been in the catering trade
will tell you this triangle of land has more famous vinyards per
square metre than anywhere else on earth.
The sign posts alone here could be accused of name-dropping.

It was wall to wall vines along the coastal part of the land.
The mind boggles at what the ultimate yield of any one of
these vines here could bring in when the wines are selling
for several hundred Euros a bottle..

Here were the famous names

And even the odd Irish connection.

This whimsical Campanile was over the gatway of
Clos d’Estourel

I didn’t even manage to name this impressive Chateau.

Then at the apex of the peninsula it was possible to get
a ferry to Royan and so slip painlessly back on to the
road north.

You have to live somewhere all year around to be able to get some idea of its micro climate.
Our two weeks in March were interesting, the nights were quite chilly, much like Ireland, but once the sun came out the change in temperature was dramatic.
It was usually around the mid twenties on the terrace at midday meaning that we could enjoy lunch al fresco.

So Clive Nunn and I have returned from yet another episode of our adventure in the Languedoc.
This time I am glad to relate we managed to avoid most of the health problems of the last time and had some excellent experiences with suppliers and tradesmen in particular.

I already said how the custom’s police in Cherbourg had melted into a large beam when he discovered we were carrying a kitchen south.

We spent some time comparing him with the customs lady who has sourly greeted us on our last arrival to Rosslare, demanded that we had receipts for the wine we carried and generally made us feel like naughty school boys.

As we left France, with a large haul of wine again (purely for home consumption)we were again asked by French customs what we were doing, and again when I said we had been making a kitchen, we were greeted with beams and waved on.

As we got off the boat in Rosslare we were expecting another sour interregation from the customs official and had all our documentation at the ready, our politest faces on and a profound hope that they were not going to take another dislike to us and maybe even force us to unload the van, they would have found no contraband but our journeys home to our wives would have been much delayed.

The customs man in the event couldn’t have been more pleasant.
Took one look at the two ol’ fellows attempting dignified expressons and said
“Back again lads with more Lourdes Water” gave us a huge grin and waved us through.
We cheered him all the way home.