In our living room in Le Presbytere when we bought the house in 2006 there was a stained wood dropped ceiling.

When we took that down the following year we discovered these plastered beams.

When we finally chipped off the plaster we found the original beams in the house , fairly battered and worn but still doing their job. This is how we left them.
I am quite sure that there are people who would have preferred the ceiling we found !

And on July 15th 1973 , the day after the wedding, thirty eight years ago , we doffed our bridal regalia , donned out going-away-outfits and went off on our honeymoon.

Wondering what starter I was going to put together for a dinner on the terrace of nine people , conscious that I wanted it to be something that could be served easily , Tranche St Remy , a standard from Wife of Bath in Kent where we both worked in the seventies , came to mind.

I had a very strong feeling that it came from an original recipe by Elizabeth David, Michael Waterfield the proprietor was as big a fan of hers as I was/am. (We actually fed her there once , on her way to a channel ferry, but that’s another story).
I scoured her French Cookbook indices , French Provincial Cooking , French Country Cooking and Mediterranean Food but without a sign at all of Le Tranche St. Remy.

We decided we would try and construct it from memory.

It was a large rectangular tart with three different fillings along its length , the base we remembered was puff pastry , one of the fillings was prawns in a tomato sauce , and one tuna (canned in ´70s England ) with green olives and the third , as served in The Wife of Bath was Mushrooms , quickly fried in butter and mixed with Chicken liver pate.
We both agreed that we could easily skip this last one which sounded too rich for the other fillings so I agreed to try it out just with the other two.

Convinced that I had found the recipe somewhere in Elizabeth David I took her to bed with me before I settled on the final version.
(The internet had proved singularly useless , nothing at all came up under Tranche St Remy)

But all was not lost .
In French Provincial Cooking ,under Hot Hors- d’Œuvres, and called Tartlettes Á La Provençale at last I found it.
Coming indeed from “the dusty sleepy town of St. Remy “ wrote Mrs. David in 1960 (St. Remy is now a trendy lively tourist trap )
“It consists of little open pastry cases with three different varieties of fillings : an onion and black olive mixture as described above (a recipe for Pissaladiére ), one of mushrooms and tomatoes and a third with prawns and green olives .”
So we clearly had another scenario on our hands.
All in all I think I preferred Michael Waterfield’s version of the dish but I now had a third filling from Mrs. David, the onion , and olive one , in through which I would certainly introduce some anchovies.
Having just a few weeks ago made myself a Salade Niçoise with fresh tuna instead of tinned , and very much enjoyed the result , I was determined to include this in the Tranche and decided to add a bit of zing to this mixture by adding green olives and capers.
For the base I decided to use my new found skill in making Rough Puff Pastry , a recipe I had pinched from Michel Roux on the internet but simplified by doing the rubbing in the food processor.
The end result was, I thought better than any commercial pastry I might buy.

La Tranche St Remy

(This will give you enough for 12 as a generous starter , I don’t think I would go through all the palaver for less)

You will need a baking tray which will take a piece of pastry 25cm by 35cm.
(an old Swiss roll tin will do fine)

Pastry :
300 g Strong Flour
300g Cold Butter diced into little cubes
Good Pinch Salt
120ml Ice cold water.

Filling One :

500g Prawns cooked and peeled
2 Med Onions
500g Ripe Tomatoes
Handful Basil
Teaspoon sugar
Teaspoon Vinegar
Salt and pepper.

Filling Two

500g Fresh Tuna
14 Green Olives (stoned)
1 Tablespoon Capers
175 g Mayonnaise (make your own if possible )

Filling Three

400g Peeled Sliced Onions
Olive oil
12 Anchovy Fillets
12 Stoned Black olives,

First make the pastry :

Put the flour and the butter in the processor and process.
Check every few seconds , the pieces of butter should still be about the size of small peas.
Now add the water and whizz briefly to amalgamate.
Tip this mixture out on a floured board and pull together to bind. Do not knead or work.
Tip this into a plastic bag and chill for a half hour in the fridge..
Take out and roll into a piece roughly 25cm by 12 cm.
Fold this into three and give it a quarter turn, .roll again into a 25 by 12 rectangle and then fold in three again and chill in a bag in the fridge for 30 minutes.
Repeat this process after 30 minutes and then leave for another 30 mts before using.

For the Tranche , roll this out to a piece 25 cm by 35 cm and bake blind (cover and weigh ) at 175 C , 350F , Gas 4 for about 20 to 30 mts until brown and crisp.
Leave this cool on a rack.

Filling One
Cook the Onion in a little olive oil in a covered pan until soft .
Add the tomatoes, sliced , and continue cooking until these melt.
Liquidise these (or push through a sieve) and season with salt, pepper, sugar and vinegar and the chopped Basil.
Put this into a pot with the prawns, bring to a simmer, take off the heat and cool in the fridge.

Filling Two

Take the tuna off the bone and skin.
Cut into little dice .
Heat some oil in a hot pan and sear the piece quickly on all sides.
Cool in the fridge.
Mix these with the halved olives (I used some stoned Spanish ones which are stuffed with anchovies) the capers and the mayonnaise.

Filling Three

Cook the sliced onions in some oil in a lidded pan on a gentle heat until very soft.
Now take off the lid and increase the heat until they go brown, do not let them burn.
Season these with salt and pepper and chill.

To assemble (about an hour before service.)

Cut the cooked pastry piece into two long strips.
Down the middle of each strip put a line of the onion.
Cross the anchovies down this line and put black olives in the spaces.

Spoon the prawn mixture on one side and the tuna mixture on the other.

Serve in slices like a custard slice . A lotta work but very much worth while.

La Tranche St. Remy , traditional Hors d’Oeuvres from the village of St. Remy in Provence , lines of Prawns in Tomato and Basil, Caramelized Onions with Anchovies and Black Olives , and Tuna in Olive Mayonnaise with Green olives and Capers all on puff pastry wating to be sliced for tonights starter for nine.

I’ll give you all the recipe as soon as I have a moment.

Caitriona , Fionn, Aonghus and Ruadhán have gone to Schull for a week.
Their cottage, over Colla pier, allows Fionn to be master of the sea.

We bought this this morning in a Brocante Fair in Narbonne for €40.
Love the picture and, bar finding another of this artists works selling in a website in Grenoble , know nothing about the painter, other than his name F. Nicollete and a suspicion that he painted this watercolour in the 1920’s.

or

Walnut Wine

I have made various oblique references to this nectar and its new place in my drinks cupboard over the last while so there may be a little repetition here , but then, as my wife would say , a little repetition never stopped me.

My love affair with Vin de Noix started about two or three summers ago here in Thezan when a couple with a house in the village, Patrick and Anne-Marie, who had befriended us , invited us to their house for aperos.
Their house had originally been a Maison de Vigneron for a vineyard belonging to her family so the original cave , now abandoned for many years lay untouched underneath.

They showed us around this treasure trove and on one shelf I spotted a very dusty but still full bottle of (we thought) wine.

When we brought it out to the light of day we discovered it was a bottle of Vin de Noix with a date of 1895 still just about legible through the grime.
The minute Patrick touched the cork with a corkscrew it dissolved into breadcrumbs so , he strained it through a muslin and we tasted it.
It was totally delicious.
Like the generous Frenchman that he is he strained the nectar into two Perrier bottles , and gave us one and the original bottle (comme souvenir) as we were going.
The Vin we brought back to Ireland with us and there, certain selected friends were allowed teaspoonfuls of this drink of the gods if they were particularly good.

But, like all good things, it soon came to an end.

Last summer Patrick and Anne-Marie again joined us for an Apero in Thezan.
Patrick produced a bottle from a bag which he presented to me .
It was labelled Eau de Vie , 90% , 1943.
Patrick said he reckoned that it was being put aside to turn into some sort of Vin Spiritueux when the wine production stopped.
He said (glancing at my stack of bottles of various home made liqueurs) that I might manage to find a use for it.

Er… em… Yes.

Now I continued to wonder for a long time what I should add to this spirit.
It surely must be graced with a flavour of great quality to match the venerable age and indeed strength of the Eau de Vie.

We went on an outing to St. Guillhem le Desert about a month ago.
There in the bookshop of the Cathedral I found a book of recipes for home made liqueurs , and , while we ate crepes in the restaurant under the huge Plane tree in the square , I came across a recipe for Vin de Noix.
But of course, the obvious solution was to use the alcohol as they probably originally intended and turn this relic of a former age into Vin de Noix.
Fate obviously highly approved of this as, when we went back to the car park, what happened to be growing there but a Chestnut tree , covered by green under-ripe nuts.We helped ourselves to about 15.
The only rule that was mentioned about the Vin de Noix was that the green walnuts should be picked before St. John’s Eve, so , as this was about ten days before, we reckoned all of the gods would be propitiated ( we are after all practically in Catalan country where St John’s Eve is celebrated with Bonfires on Mount Canigou )

Then I had merely to assemble all my ingredients the following day,I had my alcohol and walnuts, bought my sugar and orange and selected which three litres of red wine I was going to honour with mixing with the holy Eau de Vie (I eventually gave the honour to our house Red, a St. Chinian from Roquebrun )

It got tasted for the first time last week (a little before its official 40 days were up it is true )
It is indeed the finest nectar.
It has since been sampled with great approval by Irish , American, Swiss and French Taste Buds.
Today, the Quarantine being over , I filtered it from its orange and crushed nuts
and put it into more managable bottles .
I am now the proud possessor of nearly four litres of a liquid fit for the gods.

Should you be lucky enough to find a walnut tree in Ireland I think you would still have a couple of weeks leeway .
For my Eau de Vie my best solution would be some cheap Vodka or Rum from the Germans.
Here is the recipe I adapted, you could of course make it in smaller quantities (but you may end up regretting it)

Vin de Noix

3 ltrs Bon Vin Rouge
15 (or so) Green Walnuts
1 Orange
1 kg. Sugar
75 cl Eau de Vie (Vodka or some other spirit )

The story here is that the walnuts for Vin de Noix should be picked before St John’s Eve ( June 23rd) but I reckon in Irish terms that gives you another fortnight.

Crush coarsely the whole walnuts in a pestle and mortar .
(or bash in a solid bowl with the end of a rolling pin )
Quarter the whole orange.
Put everything into a large container with a lid and cover and leave for 40 days.
(Stir from time to time to make sure the sugar has dissolved)
After 40 days you can filter and bottle off.
The French like it as an aperitif, to me it is much better as a digestif.

About three months ago my friend Jim who lives in Mississippi sent me a link (here) to an interview with an American chef Dan Barber who is, it appears a bit of a guru.
He is a fascinating man because not only is he preaching the great sustainability message of Slow Food and similar organisations but he also does this with wit, intellegence and an amazing sense of comic timing , he is a seriously good communicator.
Since then I found his message about how to farm fish on youtube here which certainly inspires but it was this morning when I followed fellow chef Daithí Larkins link to this piece which is called Dan Barber’s Foie Gras Parable that I decided that I have got another hero , this man is such a good spokesperson for all that I hold important about food.
Certainly worth giving up a half hour of your day to be converted.

A couple of months ago I was getting a tyre changed in the garage near the Super U supermarket and as I left the car in I asked would they be long as I could go to the supermarket if they were going to be.
Madame indicated that it would be better if I went to “faire les courses ” a totally new expression to me but which I guessed correctly meant to do the shopping- it is thus that one learns a new language , often it is the most unlikely translations which tickle the imagination and stick.
This morning, Monday , with a French couple departing and an Irish family moving in tonight , I headed off to do mes courses.

My first shop is a new (about one year old) permanent farmers market called La Ferme Biterroise which is just a few kilometres down the road.
I had still not decided all of tonights menu and was searching for ideas.
I was in luck, the duck legs were on special offer , these are excellent free range local ducks which today cost me €7.50 for 12 legs , I also bought three of their excellent Magrets (Breasts) which are here much bigger than Irish Duck Breasts – this is not I hasten to add because of French Ducks being sexier, it is that the breasts are, to an extent , a by product of the fattening up of the ducks for the Foie Gras industry .
As I was there I stocked up on some new potatoes , the best I have found in the area , some very local tomatoes and then a farmer came in with a box of Violettes- bright purple potatoes. I asked him about them and he told me it was his first time growing them but he had tasted some and they had a delicious flavour of Hazelnuts- I bought a kilo to try.
I also bought a couple of kilo of local tomatoes – which turned out to be a bit under-ripe but still had more flavour than some bright red Belgian “Vine” tomatoes which I bought in Pezanas market last week.
Then to the Super U in Thezan to do the rest of the shopping,the washing powder , milk etc.
There I was also tempted by some little discs of goats cheeses from Rocamador up the road in the Lot and some St. Agur, a cow’s milk blue from the Auvergne- again not too far away. (There is actually very little cheese made in the Herault, the solo crop is the grape.)

As I left the Supermarket I spotted that a local woman was again selling her husbands vegetables from her garage, from her I got some very thin (but quite expensive- at €6 the kilo) Haricots verts and some wonderful and I know very sweet baby Aubergines whic are certainly very cheap at €1.50 a kilo.

And so I had my meal ready for tonight , a tomato tart (these tomatoes need cooking) made with goats cheese and basil to start with , A confit of duck thighs with some roast baby aubergine and purple potatoes for a main course and I had already made on Saturday and stored a Ginger Icecream which I will serve with a Walnut sauce and some almond biscuits which I will put together this afternoon.
In France getting meals together is much more about shopping than cooking.