I feel my kitchen is clean when my sink is , even though the sink itself is about 120 years old and pitted and stained and the tiles are much older and not one the same, look for yourself, as they predate the days of mass production.

I know that as a proper food blogger I am supposed to record in prose and pictures my kitchen successes , the following piece therefore starts badly.

Last year was the first time I made Membrillo , aka ; Quince Paste or Cheese, Marmalade de Coing , or in Provence ; Cotignac.
All went well last year and I recorded my efforts in my blog on 27th October 2010.

This year I headed out to pick some quinces by the roadside to repeat the experiment. I was determined to get more than the couple of kilos of membrillo I got last year as it is totally delicious with cheese and had proved so popular with customers that I had run out by March.

The best laid schemes however…..

Whether it was the wrong sort of weather at the wrong moment or other actions of the moon the crop of Quinces in Languedoc this year was very poor.
I managed to pick a mere couple of kilos of very worm eaten Quinces and then decided to stretch these out with some grape juice gleaned from the grapes which the harvesting had left on the vines and the juice of some pomegranates which were growing wild at the road side.
The quinces I covered with water, added the juices and boiled until all were soft.

Then I put this through the mouli-legumes to make a puree, added three quarters of their weight in sugar and proceeded to boil until the desired consistency was achieved.
(the text books say you should leave a line in the mixture when you draw your spoon through)
This however did not happen , but , undaunted I decided to pour the long boiled mixture (now a most glorious deep dark crimson) into my prepared tins and see what happened.

It looked brilliant while it was setting but as it set – and boy did it set- I realised that I had a disaster on my hands.
I have read about a sort of fruit pemmican called fruit leather, well I had achieved it- this stuff could sole shoes.
Despite all attempts to reboil with extra water it remained unusable so I cut some into little pieces to use as a sort of fruit stock cube and binned the rest.

Yesterday being a wet day (an unusual occurance) I decided to put my pride in my pocket and go and purchase Quinces in the supermarket.
I bought 4 Kilos (they are selling at the moment for the not exorbitant price of €1.15 a kilo)
I then bought 5 kilos of caster sugar and headed to the check out.
There (of course ) I had to explain to madame le checkout that , as it was a wet day I intended to settle in the kitchen for the day and make Membrillo. Madame agreed that this was a long arduous travail and when I said that this was the first year I hadn’t been able to get any from the hedgerows I suddenly found myself in the centre of a large discussion. The woman behind me, and the gentleman behind her, all agreed with me and agreed that there was a mysterious dearth of Quinces this year.

This marked the first time I have ever ended up in a conversation around the checkout as the French reserve was melted with their concern at the unfairness of the failure of the quince harvest.
I paid and left the counter accompanied with choruses of “Bon Courage !” from my new friends.
(There is nothing more uniting in France than the subject of food)

This time I decided to be extremely careful in my manufacture of the Membrillo.

First I cooked my chopped four kilos of Quinces (immaculate beauties from Provence) and boiled them until tender.
Then I put the lot through my muli legoume (a labour of love) measured the end result (it came to eight litres) added three quarters of the weight in caster sugar and brought the whole lot up to the boil in my large ham pot.

Once the sugar had melted and it had achieved a simmer I divided the lot between four of my largest pots to boil down to produce the paste- this to avoid what I reckoned the reason behind my fruit leather fiasco- trying to cook too much at the same time in one large pot.

You will I am sure be pleased to know that after about an hour the necessary thickness was achieved and I was able to pour the contents into my trays.
There followed an anxious couple of hours as I waited for them to set.

Success !

Perfect Membrillo and over 10 kilos of it.
Enough for the full year I hope and some left over to give as presents.

This was yesterdays work- made so much easier as the election results trickled in from Ireland- I think I will always associate Michael D’s victory with my own victory over the quince.

This is what the bunch of ladies pictured on my last entry sang as they marched.

THE LIPS THAT TOUCH LIQUOR
SHALL NEVER TOUCH MINE

The Demon of Wine is about in the land,
His victims are falling on every hand,
The wise and the simple, the brave and the fair,
No station too high for his vengence to spare.
O women, the sorrow and pain is with you,
And so be the joy and the victory, too;
With this for your motto, and succor divine,
The lips that touch liquor shall never touch mine,

The homes that were happy are ruined and gone.
The hearts that were merry are wretched and lone,
And lives full of promise of good things and fine,
Are ruined and wreck’d by the Demon of Wine.
Wives, maidens and mothers, to you it is giv’n,
To rescue the fallen and point them to heav’n.
With us for your guides you shall win by this sign,
The lips that touch liquor shall never touch mine.

O mothers, whose sons tarry long at the bowl,
Who love their good name as you love your own soul,
O maidens with fathers, and brothers and beaux;
Whose lives you would rescue from infinite woes,
Let war be your watchword, from shore unto shore,
Till Wine and his legions shall ruin no more,
And write on your banners, in letters that shine,
The lips that touch liquor shall never touch mine.

And so the year turns and November is nearly with us once more……….

Today , it being the first day after rain in the Languedoc for the bones of six weeks, we decided to go up to a place we know (neither wild horses nor thumbscrews would persuade me to divulge its location) to see if we could find some Ceps (my favourite mushroom and even possibly my favourite food of all time .)

This year we took an advantage with us.
Síle’s brother Colm , he from whom no flora remains hidden.
(It paid off.)

We arrived back with over a kilo of god’s own mushroom.
(all found by Colm)

Fantastic.

We had them for supper, very possibly (we all agreed) one of our best suppers ever.
Here’s what the chef did.

First I put on about a quarter kilo per person of potatoes to steam.
Then the Ceps were cleaned and sliced and fried-gently in butter with a scrape (a small clove, squashed and then removed at the last moment) of garlic, a squeeze of lemon and a whole heap of butter, salt and black pepper , until just soft – and then kept them warm.
Then I pushed the pots through a sieve (or mashed them very carefully) with milk butter salt and pepper and put them somewhere warm.
In the meantime I grilled three rashers (streakys please for best flavour) per person until crisp and then kept them warm.

Now (and in that pan) I fried in the minimum of two eggs per person until just set .

On each persons plate put a generous spoon of potato, put on top the rashers and the eggs , and then spoon over the ceps.

A Feast Fit For a King.

NB. We took the ceps into the chemist for verification before eating, a free and essential service here in France.

We have just finished a great week with a group of nature lovers whom Colm has led through the shores, lakes , mountains and maquis of the Languedoc.
This was at one of their quieter moments in the Mediterranean Garden in Roquebrun.

Something about the setting of the shot reminded me of Renoir’s Le Dejeuner des Canotiers

We have seemed to have passed the age of making and mending. We are too affluent and too rich in possessions, clothes and household goods are no longer treasured , they are ordinary essentials of life.
It is much cheaper, in real terms , to buy a new pair of socks than to spend an hour mending a hole in one.
Yet only in our parents generation everything was mended. My mother darned socks by the fire most winter evenings, my wife was taught how to mend and patch while in school (she once did me the amazing service of turning a collar in a shirt I loved)

Síle’s father was an amazing mender , I remember being so impressed to find, when I came first to visit them in Skerries , that when I lifted the toilet seat , her Da had replaced one of the rubber bungs on the bottom of the seat which had broken, with a cork from a bottle of wine, sliced in two and carefully glued in place.
It is there still, forty years later.

I have always loved to come across old artifacts which have been mended.

This glass which I found in Cornwall some years ago was carefully mended with a metal splint up the centre of its stem.

This one , which I found in France, had what looks like an old wooden door knob used to replace its broken base.

It was with great joy then last week , on our holiday in Provence , that we discovered this exhibition in the Musee de Salagon
The title means ; Objects Patched , Re-used and fixed up.
The cover picture shows a corn crushing machine made from parts of a bicycle and an old metal tundish.

This is a combination metal cheese safe and a ladies skirt used to make a beekeepers mask

This sheet had been mended so often that there were now darns on the patches which were on the original patches.

But, after my own heart , here a stylish coat hook had been made by cementing the broken stem and base of a glass on to a wall.

And, to add to my collection , an old polish tin used to provide the base for a glass.

By a strange coincidence Martine’s request for a recipe for fig tart was perfectly timed as it happened that I was making one for dessert .
So Martine, your wish is my command and here is the recipe.

Tart of Figs and Honey

Pastry;

180g Flour
90g Sugar
125g Butter
2 Tablespoons Cold Water
2 Tablespoons ground almonds

Filling.

1Kilo Fresh Figs
100ml. Creme Fraiche
Half Teaspoon Vanilla Extract
Half Teaspoon Almond Extract
2 Tablespoons Honey (Lavender is good)
1 Tablespoon Flour

Make the pastry either in a food processor, by crumbing together the cold butter with the flour and sugar and then adding the water to make a paste.
or
Rub the flour into the pastry and sugar then add in the water.
Either way let the pastry rest covered in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Roll it out and use it to line a 24 cm. tart tin.

(It is a sticky pastry but dont worry if it breaks up , patch and proceed it all comes together in the end)

Cover with non-stick paper and weigh down and bake blind at 180C for about 20 minutes.
Sprinkle the ground almonds on the base, this stops the filling making the pastry soggy.

Make the filling by whisking together the cream, egg,extracts and honey and then thoroughly beating in the flour (make sure there are no lumps.)

Cut each fig in half and put them , standing upright , in the pastry base in circles moving from the edge in.
Pour over the cream filling, put into the oven (still at 180C) and cook for about 50 mts to an hour or until it is set and golden.
This is best eaten warm or at room temperature with some cream or ice cream.