Rural Life

From fruit to juice

I am getting very behind with things, but did download a fascinating series of photos from the big camera, which need to be shared.  During September - season of mellow fruitfulness - we and John's clients were inundated with fruit of all sorts.  We are fortunate to have a juicing press in the area however, which makes dealing with this sort of excess much easier.

Between 3 families, we managed to gather together about 250 kilos of grapes.  Actually if John and I hadn't run out of buckets, patience and flexible back muscles, we could have raised that to 350 kilos, but there we go.  This is what 250 kilos of grapes looks like!

 

Once it is our turn at the press, the grapes get fed into a special machine that whacks them off the tresses - you have to be tall to feed the grapes in.

 

From there, the stalky bits get chucked into one bucket, while the grapes go into the press and the juice comes out into a nice plastic tank.

 

John was daring and got a picture of the inner workings of the press.

 

From the plastic tank, the juice is sucked through a pipe in the wall to the steriliser before being pumped back out into the bottling machine.

 

The juice is bottled at about 90 degrees C, and closed immediately, and the bottles laid on their side so a slight vacuum is created as the juice cools.  Because of this, the juice keeps for 2 years.

Our 250 kilos of grapes produced about 127 bottles of juice, of which our share was 47 bottles - don't they all look pretty?

 
A couple of weeks later, we were part of a consortium doing apple juice.  Despite the best efforts of Dave and Pauline and their tree, we only had 60 kilos of apples, but the consortium as a whole had 550 kilos, producing over 200 bottles of juice.  Our share of that was 31 bottles.  The juices cost about 96 cents a litre, including processing and bottles, and we all know they are free from pesticides, added sugar, and added water.  As well as tasting good, we feel smug that we have made the best use of this year's bumper harvest.

Restaurant Review: Hotel du Chateau, Bauge

Life has been a bit hectic recently with John's birthday party organisation, so it was a wonderful surprise and very welcome to be taken out to dinner by our friends Angela and Ian the night before the big event.  We went to the Hotel du Chateau in Bauge as it was close, open and not full up.

I include the link above so you can see for yourselves what you get.  The dining room is light and airy with a few weapons of painful destruction around the walls.  There are a number of menus, but we went for the Menu du Chateau at 18,60 Euros a head.

We chose different starters.  The chaps had red mullet fillets on a sort of pizza style base, which was nicely balanced.  I had the goat cheese starter which turned out to be a sort of mousse and was very nice indeed with a well dressed salad to complement it.  Angela had the rabbit terrine which was also good and liberally spliced with pistachio nuts to make an interesting change.

We also managed to cover all the main courses on the menu!  I had the salmon escalope, which in true French fashion was served with beurre blanc sauce and rice.  If I am being ultra picky, I would have to say that the edges of the escalope were a little crunchy - no doubt from sitting under a heat lamp until the other dishes were ready, but the flavours were lovely.  Angela had the duck filet with Layon sauce - a very nicely judged dish, while the chaps had beef kebabs with a shallot sauce.  The meat was meltingly tender and they understood the "a point" cooking instruction.

On the pudding front, the panacotta was very good and well judged with the acidity of the fruit.  My tea mousse was nice but didn't go with the lime sorbet, so I ate one after the other, and both were fab.  The chocolate pudding was pronounced to be a suitable chocolate hit.  We had a nice pichet of local rose wine and a big jug of tap water that was refilled when down to a quarter.  Service was fine, and all in all it was a nice, convivial experience, with good food, nicely cooked - not haute cuisine with all that entails.

Many thanks to Angela and Ian for treating us.

There will be tales from the Party shortly, but as the Comice will be on us shortly, time is getting rather precious so apologies now for any delays!

Restaurant review: Aux P'tits Oignons, Echimire

It seemed like an awful long time since I did one of these, so John thought we needed to go out and find a nice menu ouvrier so that I would have something to write about.  Today it was one of the places nearest to us, in the next village, but on the main road from Bauge to Angers - Aux P'tits Oignons in Echimire.

As by lunchtime, it was over 28 degrees in the shade, no one was interested in eating out on the terrace - besides despite it being in a village, lorries hurtle by all the time in a most alarming manner.

We have resisted trying here for quite a while on a rather philosophical point - you can see the blackboard by the road, and they write the lunch menu on it each day, but so small you can only read it by stopping the car and getting out, which defeats the point.  However, today we succumbed and we are glad we did.

This is one of the cheaper menus ouvrier (9.50 Euros including wine or cider, coffee extra), taking advantage of the VAT reduction.  You can get a meal if you turn up until about 1:30pm, and there are a lot of smallish tables so you don't have to share.  When you turn up and have found a table, you are given a bowl of bread and can go to the buffet of starters.  There was perhaps not enough raw salads (only radishes - tomatoes and slices of cucumber might have been nice), but otherwise a very fine selection and the rillauds and pate were very tasty.  

For main there was a choice of four main dishes, and most of them came with a choice of salad, chips, haricot beans, broccoli or salsify.  The mains were steak, andouillette (if you know what it is, you will know if you like it or not, but most English loathe it), fish in sauce and pasta gratin with bolognaise sauce.  We had the fish and the pasta and both were good, plain, tasty home cooking and generous portions.  The steaks looked good.

The cheese course was a plate left at the table with a selection of seven well kept cheeses, while pudding could be selected from the chill cupboard and there were about eight different things.  We went for creme brulee, which was much richer and creamier than usual and well dosed with vanilla.

Overall, we thought it was excellent value, the rose wine was perfectly pleasant, and while not haute cuisine, it was designed to do what was needed - feed a worker so that he has the energy for an afternoon's hard graft, and be an enjoyable experience so that he will go back again.  Don't make the mistake of expecting fine and fiddly food at one of these lunchtime stops.  In general they can also spot a tourist from a worker, so John and I generally get moved through courses quickly (we look like workers, even if we speak funny), whereas obvious holiday makers seem to go at a more leisurely pace.

Aux P'tits Oignons is also a hotel with a small number of rooms (no idea of the quality or price of these) and does do evening food and caters for parties there or at your own venue.  We have been there (a couple of years ago now) for a cous cous evening where the pudding was a Baked Alaska - we thought that a bit expensive, but things might have changed now.

 

Fruit and eggs

Today is a great day - after weeks of no eggs of our own, indeed having to buy eggs - I found an egg in the hen house.  You can see it in the picture below (left), and I am pretty sure that either Salt or Pepper is responsible as it is a bit of an odd shape, as would be the case of a first offering.  It takes a few days to get the shape just right and even then, something can happen and affect it.  Looking at it (the one on the left) against the market bought egg, I suspect it was actually Salt who produced it, as she is a hybrid Light Sussex like White was and they seem to produce quite light coloured eggs.  I thought Pepper was nearly ready to lay, as I was putting her back in the run after one of her escapes on Saturday and instead of running away, she squatted and "assumed the position".  Billy next door would have been delighted I'm sure!  Anyway, they are both getting near maturity.

The weekend has been spent picking blackcurrants and making jam - 26 pots of it!  What I picked is shown below - about 9 pounds in total.  John went to admire the stripped clean bushes and came back to enquire as to whether someone had given me them as I didn't seem to have made much impact on the bushes.  I must pick more shortly but think I will try making cordial this time - we still have two litres of cassis we made in Worcester, so I don't think I want to go down that route, although it is very easy to do.

The final picture is pretty shonky, but gives you an idea of what I am keeping an eye on each day at least once a day!  I love fresh figs and while one of John's clients has a fabulous tree, clients come and go and cannot be relied on to supply our needs in the long term.  About 4 years ago I bought a fig tree at the local garden centre and last year in September it thought about having its first fig, and then changed its mind.  In March it had another go, and then got fed up of that too.  Those little nodules at the base of two of the leaf stalks could be more figs trying to come through.  There are loads more of them too.  If only the weather would warm up, the tree might start to get a move on and put me out of my misery of not knowing!  I'll keep you posted anyway.

  

A Night on the Town

We are just back from a quick visit to Paris to meet up with friends.  It was mighty cold in Paris but this morning it was also sunny and bright so we were able to wander around the Latin Quarter and drawn in the ambiance without getting wet.  We got very cold, but it is still winter, so we can't really complain.

We were meeting friends staying at the Novotel Eiffel Tower, but we stayed in a small hotel near the Ecole Militaire, so we walked over to their hotel to admire one or two sights in between.  The Ecole Militaire itself is a rather fine building with a wonderful view down the Champ de Mars.  The paths in the park were rather soggy after the rain and snow and frosts, not helped by the City doing some tree chopping work, taking out some of the London Planes.  The stumps and cut surfaces had gone practically vermillion - an interesting effect.

There is also a little bit of iron work at the end of the Champ de Mars with a restaurant part way up.  I believe Alain Ducasse has this concession currently - the menus looked fabulous but with prices to match (300 Euros per head including wine for the Menu Decouvert).

We ate at a much more workaday corner bistrot near the Novotel - the food was OK but the way the staff coped with our friend's three sons in wheelchairs was particularly impressive - Paris is not known for being wheelchair friendly.

This morning we had a hot chocolate and a croissant in a Bistrot near St Michel, within sight of the Sainte Chapelle.  Paris is expensive, but it is so pretty and chic and full of atmosphere!

Restaurant Review - L'Oeil de Boeuf at Auverse

Our mission continues, and today we tried a very newly opened restaurant at Auverse, on the road between Noyant and Bauge.  L'Oeil de Boeuf (translates as The Bull's Eye) opened three weeks ago, having been closed for we reckon about 5 years, and is situated opposite the established Le Relais - a familiar haunt of truckers doing the run between Angers and Tours and points beyond.

The menu is 10,50 Euros and includes a pichet of wine (red, white or rose), cider and naturally tap water, and a coffee - bottled water is extra, which is only fair.  As with all menu ouvriers, there is limited (or indeed no) choice, but you do get all four courses recited to you by a charming waitress.  Today's offer was a fish terrine with bread and a marie rose sauce, steak and chips (I'll explain), cheese and a fondant au chocolat.  We chose to have a pichet of white with it, which was fresh and welcome.

The fish terrine was nice and portions were generous - I know that particular terrine of old (Epigram for those in the know).  The steak was a really good bit of meat, full of flavour and tender though a little overdone for "a point" - perhaps I should have asked for saignant?  It came with a small dish of English mustard rather than the darker French variety.  The chips were real English chips, not thin frites.  The cheese selection was a bit limited but the camembert was very good.  The fondant au chocolat was excellent - I would guess the base was bought, but it was cooked to perfection so that it really was fondant in the middle and also had some caramel in the middle which made a very interesting change.  The coffee was filter rather than espresso - that worked for us, as we are not big on caffeine.

Our hostess is English and talking to her as we paid up, we discovered that they had only been open three weeks and that due to the chef having to attend a course, they were on a substitute chef for the week and were a bit dismayed at so many people coming in for lunch!  This means of course that we will have to go back when the proper chef is in the kitchen and does explain the starter.

There are two dining rooms, and tables to seat four at a go, so less intimidating than the long tables of some more basic establishments.  You pay at the bar on the way out.

Overall, we reckoned it was good, but had a way to go to compete with Linieres-Bouton, but that was before we knew about the main chef being on a course, so not really a fair comparison.  It is certainly convenient for the main road, and for the English passing through or staying in the area.  Good luck and carry on the good work!

Restaurant review - Restaurant de la Gare, Linieres-Bouton

There is a wonderful tradition in rural France - the menu ouvrier.  In general it is somewhere between 10 and 12 Euros (more in chi-chi towns) and will include four courses, wine or cider, coffee but have limited choice.  These menus are designed for those workers who cannot get home in a reasonable time for lunch (reasonable being 10 kilometers at most it appears).  As we test out the facilities at regional restaurants, we will let you know about them in case you are in the area.

Sneeze and you will miss Linieres-Bouton - it has 96 inhabitants, not all of them in the village itself but is not the smallest commune in Maine et Loire - that prize goes to Chartrene.  It is just off the main road between Vernantes and Noyant, so is not far off your route if you are heading to or from Saumur.  It has hardly changed in the past century apart from the closure of the railway and the opening of a foundry, which has managed to survive the economic downturn.

The Restaurant de la Gare has a large restaurant and a small bar at the back, and is open weekdays between 12 and 2pm for the Menu Ouvrier (the bar is open longer).  We went there on Monday 21st December.  There are very few small tables, you basically take your place at long tables and may be joined by others, though they do tend to leave an empty space between you and them.  There is wine (red) on the table and cider and mineral water (still) is produced when you sit down along with a big basket of good bread.

The buffet starter is excellent - yesterday there were about 12 different salads, a meat mousse, ham, garlic sausage, rillettes and pate to heap onto your plate.  There was a choice of steak (cooked bloody or medium, but the medium would be most English people's description of bloody) which was very good, or beef stew which was also delicious, both served with cooked green beans.  The cheese board had a selection of 8 cheeses, including a blue, and there was a good range of plain puddings. The pear tart was delicious and the iles flottant a true vanilla hit.  The coffee was good but was extra to the meal.  As we were on our regular no drinking days, we didn't try the wine or cider - not even in the interests of research.

It was 10,50 Euros a head with the coffee extra at 1 Euro each, but was excellent and with a good friendly atmosphere - highly recommended.

My LaCanche Cooker - at last!

Before Christmas I wrote a blog about the trials and tribulations of getting my lovely new cooker in for Christmas.

Actually, while it was in the room for Christmas, it wasn't connected to the gas so I couldn't use it.  Nor could I use it for New Year - still no gas.  All through January and February I couldn't use it other than to stack things on as there was still no gas.  This was all due to the slowest and least efficient donor of Certificates of Conformity somewhere in Briollay, whose list of why we didn't have the certificate went through - well there was Christmas, New Year, snow, 'flu, a computer virus, half term and not answering his telephone.  Finally however it was delivered, and with 2 weeks delay, a meter was delivered and connected up and now I am cooking with gas (yes, I am indeed a former British Gas employee) and on my lovely new cooker.

The sales blah from the company says that it is the piano of the virtuoso cook, or some other flowery phrase.  All I know is that I have cooked 5 meals on it now and every one has worked perfectly and been delicious, from a simple pasta sauce and spaghetti, through scrambled eggs to last night's stir fried satay chicken.

If I weren't so full of cold, I would be in 7th heaven, but right now in any case my world is a better place - and soon our ground floor room will be back to normality.  Here is the wonderous beast in all its glory.

New Cooker for Christmas

No - not a reference to my Christmas present from my beloved - more a howl of pain for trying to get stuff organised so that I can use my new cooker at Christmas and not have to eat dinner in the bathroom!

Back in September I ordered my lovely new cooker - a LaCanche - customised as befits a major element of our main room decor to our taste, so brushed steel knobs, brushed steel central heat plate and British Racing Green enamel bodywork.  It would take some time to be made and delivered to the kitchen suppliers, but not a problem apart from the plummeting Euro exchange rate.

As ours is a totally new gas installation (the year has been blighted by perpetual road works and similar), we have to get pipework installed and and a certificate of conformity before we can have gas and a meter.  The gas fitter is very busy but will fit us in on Monday, having been booked in September.

Once I have the certificate of conformity, Gaz de France will come round and put in my meter and put gas into the pipe - they have just asked if I can wait until the 30th December for that, as I am not really a priority.

The gas cooker arrives on Monday or Tuesday - it is big.  It will go where my current crockery and ingredients shelves go.  Those shelves will move on a temporary basis to where the old cooker (a bit of a beast like a small range but with a gas bottle hidden away in it) currently sits, once the new cooker is linked up with the gas and is working.  As the final stage, the old cooker will go into a cellar until we can clean it up to sell it or think of another use for it.  Think of one of those children's puzzles with the 15 squares to move round to get the numbers in the right order - that is how our house works, and finding the space to move a block into to move others around is a nightmare.

So if I waited until the 30th to get linked up, all the crockery and ingredients would be spread over the living room and at risk of being broken or eaten by cats, while I have a huge and gorgeous cooker that can't be used and I try to produce Christmas dinner in no space at all on the old cooker.  As I generally do goose with 7 vegetables as the main event, life starts to get difficult.  Like I say, the bathroom could become the dining room.

The lovely lady from Gaz de France did try the line of there are little old ladies without any heating out there who are a priority over me, and I respect her for it (although I suspect those little old ladies have other sources of heat - no French peasant does cold).  But not enough not to be a bit insistent on having my meter next week.  Of course it could all go horribly wrong and I could be begging not to have the meter put in until the 30th, but I hope not.

Imagine below in British Racing Green - you can see why it is urgent!

Making the most of fruit

It is undeniable that Autumn is now with us in the Northern Hemisphere, and it is a race against time to gather in as much of the fruit, vegetables and nuts as we can before the first frosts damage them.  I will add the proud photo of the four best pumpkins lined up in the sun to ripen once it is off the camera, as it is hugely satisfying.  Last year's feral pumpkin was late and never ripened properly so didn't reach the rich and satisfying red colour that we have this year.

The chestnuts are starting to fall and we have had our first outdoor fire with chestnuts roasting, and lovely they are too.  We must also go scrumping and collecting our own so that we have enough for savoury crumbles, chocolate cake and soups.

The walnuts are also starting to fall - it looks like it will be a mixed year this year.  Some trees are loaded, others have virtually nothing.  However the key thing is to get them gathered over the next couple of weeks and then let them dry slowly in nets in the garage, so they can be enjoyed over the coming months.

Grapes are ripening - they have taken advantage of the very sunny September here to add sugars and develop a sweet flavour.  We have picked a good 40 kilos and using the potato masher and a flat bottomed bowl, plus a large piece of kitchen muslin, we have managed to crush them and make a very palatable grape juice - strong, smooth and rich.  It lasts up to about 10 days in the fridge, although by the end it is starting to feel a bit sparkly on the tongue, showing that the first fermentation process has started.  Others are better at making wine than us.

Finally, we were introduced today to the joys of getting your fruit crushed and juiced.  Lydie and Dominique Edin at Clefs have a huge fruit press, pasteurising system and bottling kit.  You can take along 100 kilos of fruit (ideally apples) or more and they will run it through their press, pasteurise it (unless you want to keep some unpasteurised for cider making) and bottle it for you for a very reasonable price per produced litre of juice.  We went along with friends who were old hands at the pressing game, and had ordered a slot on the press, and came home with 50 litres of bottled juice, still hot from the pasteurising process.  The juice keeps for up to 2 years, but if it is as good as it looks, I doubt it will last much beyond May!!

As I eyed up the juice, jams, pumpkins, chutneys and nets, I felt that we might be nearly ready for winter.  If only we could just get the fire wood issue sorted out...