The first soiree held was three years ago and was an introduction to all the varied cultures.

The drinks and meal were all Dutch based.

Last year was the turn of the Mexicans.  There was a slide show highlighting the  country,  culture and  famous sights.  Margaritas,  Mezcal and a traditional Mexican honey based drink – Xtabentún – were served as pre drinks.  The meal consisted of Quesadillas,  Tortillas, Mole, Frijoles and other spicy delicacies.  All enjoyed to the sounds of Samba and a little bossanova !  After the meal some individuals gave a little turn by singing a song or doing a little dance.  At this point we left but were later informed the evening didn’t really finish until 0430!

Now to 2012 – the turn of the English !

Adrian volunteered to do a presentation on the history of British beer, brewing, pubs and he made a selection of traditional beers for sampling.

The car was loaded up with beer, a projection screen, laptops, various malts, hops and various other beery paraphernalia.

We had a selection of malts on hand for the show’n'tell.

An old gentleman came up and after asking a few questions about the different malts, he recounted his story of wartime occupied France when there was no coffee available – he told us how they used to roast malted barley at home to make a powder to make a coffee substitute.

He had slightly moist eyes at the end of the tale – quite lovely.

Adrian brought hops from New Zealand, Slovenia and… Blighty!

All quite different and one of them was outrageously skunky.

On the small screens we had a little running gallery of beer related pictures.

Ancient pubs, drayhorses, beer engines for hand pulled pints. It was suprisingly popular.

A little selection of brewing and beer history books and an introduction to the best drinking vessel in the world. A 568ml dimpled pot! Enough to make a grown man cry.

All the tasters laid out.  In this shot… from the back… our Timothy Taylor clone, an ancient 1750′s London porter, 1840′s IPA and a contemporary recreation of an oatmeal stout clone from Samuel Smiths in Tadcaster.

The  Oatmeal stout … a big surprise for everyone that tasted it.  Adrian had also germinated some barley to show where the sugars originated from and where his photo publishing debut was inspired from !

Adrian’s IPA.  There were a few ‘WOW’s and a few people who have no doubt never had anything that bitter in their mouths before!

Crowds take their places for supper.  Starter – Mulligatawny soup.  Main – Hot pot, potatoes and carrots with swede.  Desert – Trifle, Victoria Sponge Cake or Banoffee Pie.  Cheese – Jacobs Crackers with  4 different cheeses including Cheddar and Wensleydale. Tea or Coffee.

A lot of elderly people in the village turned out. They didn’t stay for the singing and the dancing.  We left around 0130 as the night was winding down.

Other presentations were of the Royal Family past and present with wedding memorabilia from the  most recent royal wedding. A bowler and top hat adorned one table and I had created a slide show of all things British projected onto the screen throughout the evening.  From red telephone boxes to cornish pasties, The Angel of the North to full english breakfasts, Wimbledon to Churchill and many many more.

All in all a very enjoyable evening and hopefully a little eye opener for our French friends and hosts.

Next year – the nationality will be  …. French – not sure what to expect !!

Ready for action :-

Chocolate

Butter

Moulds

Elephant sedation device !

You need ALL the pots.  Lots of washing up for your Valentine.

Oh the romance !

First step :-

Molten white chocolate randomly dobbed into the mould.

While the white chocolate is in the fridge setting I made a ganache for the filling.

Molten chocolate, tablespoon of cream, knob of butter and the booze of your choice.

Here I went with home made creme de cassis.  Blackcurrant.

Next up.  Melt the dark chocolate.

Steady does it.  If you over melt it, it will go grainy.  This is bad but it can be re-tempered by “setting” with cooler fresh chocolate  to reseed the finer crystals in it.

The art of the chocolatiere is not to balls it up in the first place!

Line the mould with the molten chocolate – just enough to form a shell.  Then, tap gently to release any air bubbles and then back in the fridge to set.

Next, inject the creamy/boozy/fruity ganache into the shells.  Back into the fridge to set for an hour and then …

smear a sealing coat of chocolate on the bottom to “close” the chocolate and encase the ganache.

Turn ‘em out!

We’re not done yet …

We need a frou-frou matching purpley lady box!

Job done !

I never get tired of receiving a Valentines.

What else are you going to make when it is -5 at mid-day!

The recipe and method were borrowed from Mr Blumenthal.

1 litre of milk

180g of egg yolks

90g of cane sugar

4 vanilla pods

5 coffee beans

The secret ingredient …

Some actual snow !

Ice Ice-cream step one …

Whizz up the yolks and sugar to a fluffy thick airy egg syrup.

Ice Ice-cream step two …

Boil the milk, coffee beans, the stripped out seeds and husks of the vanilla pods and then cool in the snow to 60C.

If you have no snow, you can sit your pan in an ice bath.

Ice Ice-cream step three …

Mixed the cool (60C) infused milk with the whisked up eggs.  This will partly cook the egg and you will end up with a well set custard.

Heat to 70C for five minutes to pasturise the egg …

then rapidly chill again out in the snow and leave at fridge temperature for 24 hours to allow the flavours to develop.

Ice Ice-cream step four …

Put the mixture into an ice-cream maker for as long as it takes to churn it all down into fluffy light -5 pillowy, wallowing icecreamy deliciousness.

Then properly freeze at -18C for a while before tasting.

Ice Ice-cream step five …

The tasting.

It comes out of the freezer quite hard but after 5 minutes at room temperature it is quite malleable like plasticine.

It is not sticky sweet like many icecreams and is much lower in fat.  This is all about the texture and flavour.  It melts … just vanishes on the tongue … much like a sorbet but the texture is silky smooth.

As it warms in the mouth you get a huge vanilla hit and then the back flavour is all about the coffee.  I was stunned at how dominant that was, given that there was just a few beans in it.  Amazing.

I have never used this technique before and it is knockout.  Hats off to Heston … the world’s best chef and if you are half minded to buy an amazing cook book then “The Fat Duck Cook-Book” is highly recommended.

We have plenty of visitors booked for this year and I can see that I will be making lots of this.

I’ll start at the beginning. I’ve had an on-off relationship with making beer for years. Started my first batch as a kid using tins of malt extract as a syrup from Boots that made a vaguely beer flavoured drink. The quality of those kits and the resultant beer was never ever great but as the years have gone on I’ve progressed to making real beer.

Moving to France was the real catalyst. Where we lived in Cheshire my nearest pub had  great Samuel Smiths on draught for £1.19 a pint right up until we left. Beer, real beer, in France isn’t that easy to come across (that’s changing though) and whilst we do have access to lots of great Belgian beers there are a world of beers out there which are simply not available here in France. Only solution? Make your own.

Now, on a blog in early 2009 I set out to make beer using all local ingredients. Grains from an agricultural co-operative in Loudun, hops picked from the local river. I undertook an experiment to germinate the barley, dry and kiln it and produce a range of different roasts. It was great fun and an educational experience – I was only doing something which other people have done for thousands of years but home malting is a bit of an art. No reason for anyone to really do it with the wide availability of really good quality commercial malts but nevertheless – good to undertake the trial and learn some more about brewing.

I posted that blog, linked to it from a few brewing forums I hang out on.. had 500+ hits on it after publishing and then nothing. It all went quiet. Then, out of the blue… an approach from a commissioning editor at the Oxford University Press. He wanted to use one of my images from the blog in a forthcoming book! Delighted I said yes, some emails and contracts were exchanged and then… nothing.  Sit and wait. It took 15 months from the initial contact to me getting the book in my hands yesterday. So, first time for everything and I’m pleased to have a full page, full colour plate in the ‘Oxford Companion to Beer‘. It’s a weighty reference tome and a massive undertaking by the Editor in Chief. I’m thrilled to have been invited to contribute a tiny tiny little bit to the book.

Strange thing, I’ve shot literally tens of thousands of photos that have far more technical and artistic merit but to see just one image of mine on the printed page was quite something…

So, on my brewing goes and I’ve settled into a comfort zone where I can now make pretty much any style and to a consistently high quality… so much so that when I’m out in the UK and have a pint in a pub I often think… nah.. could do much  much better at home.

Still lots to learn though. There is an amazing revolution underway in the craft beer world and that explosive growth in the commercial world is underpinned by people with a passion for beer and a thirst for knowledge. It’s a very humbling thought to think I’ve been able to spread a little of the knowledge and have it in print for years to come.

Cheers!

Buy the book on Amazon.co.uk 

It is a chance to visit friends and family that have long gone, pay your respects and reflect on them and their lives. It is quite a catholic tradition and the little cemetery in our village was packed with people paying their respects, delivering flowers and saying a few quiet words.

The graves with a small photograph inserted into the stone are the most touching.  A flash of the person that was, so many stories they’ll never tell and a real human face on what is just a memory.

Another,  sepia shadow from the past, cracked and starting to crumble but just catching the glorious November blue sky.

Almost every grave at the village cemetery was festooned with pots of Chrysanthemums.  The shops all week have been brimming with these pots.

A total riot of colour in such a stark setting.

Whatever this memorial once was, it is now on the decline… an impermanence even in death. The body that was interred has long since dissolved, the ground giving way a little and the stone starting to tumble.

The sign at the foot of the memorial…

“Cette concession en etat d’abandon fait l’objet d’une procedure de reprise veuillez vous adresser a la mairie”

So, it’s known as an unloved, uncared-for grave and will be ceded back to the commune in time.

Breathtaking colours everywhere.

Another collapsed and vanishing plot.

The very fact that someone has pushed together the little fragments of the memorial is very touching.

Such a stark contrast between the stones and the sky.

The wonderful tones of this ironwork, slowly decaying like everything else.

Anything which has the slightest surface texture picks up lichen or moss.

Long shadows of winter.   The clouds casting a shadow in the sky, the stones casting long shadows across the ground.

This grave had the most stunning set of flowers on it.  A beautiful floral tribute of all fresh flowers. Never seen anything like it in my life.

Last year the dear Monsieur Robin was the outstanding winner with his 60kg whopper!

Do we stand any chance of winning this year with our 35kg beauties?

The gauntlet was thrown down again.  So we all trundled off to Mr Robin’s home for the great weigh in.

Chez Pope fell at the last hurdle when their prize pumpkin was decimated by a local herd of cattle who sneakily broke into their paddock and destroyed their crop.  It’s all looking good for Bellebouche …

What lies behind the barn door?

Unlike last year there is no sign of any pumpkins on Mr Robin’s potager – what – where are they?  We are told they were put in the barn to protect them from the frost.

Opening the barn door and we are met with a herd of pumpkins …

The competition !

Bugger!  The barn is full of 40kg+ monsters!

With slight trepidation we have the final weigh-in …

So the final Weight ...

Our largest pumpkin at Bellebouche came in at a (not to be sniffed at) 35kg – Mr Robin topped us with a 42kg fruit.  Close but no cigar!

Champagne corks were popped and the local chasse arrived to celebrate the victory.

The locals arrive.

Now, what to do with our fruit?  Well it is Halloween!

The Count

Mama Mia!

A bowl of choccies await the trick or treaters.  As we are so remote, these treats are really for us.  Happy Halloween!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

New bigger incubator this year with automatic humidity control.  Perfect for hatching goose eggs.

We  tried three goose eggs last year in our smaller incubator.  The eggs had to be turned manually every 6 hours.   One egg was not fertile and two birds died as they hatched.

They’d pipped and broken through  with their perfectly formed little beaks but then were both lost at the same time in their shells.  We were heartbroken.

New Incubator

HATCH

This year a new incubator, this incubator has a gentle rocking motion – you can see the eggs here at the most extreme angle of tilt.

Unfortunately, we had a little mishap during the incubation period.  The machine was accidentally unplugged for approximately 12 hours and the temperature had dropped to 18 degrees.  Once it was switched back on it was a case of fingers crossed and see what happens.

Out of 6 eggs, the two eggs which were in the middle, surrounded by the others, were the only two to hatch.

After the first signs of pipping and 34 hours work, the first gosling was almost out. His tiny little elbow looked to have done most of the work but he was flagging seriously.  So we broke a house-rule and helped him out.. couldn’t bear the notion of losing him to exhaustion when he was so close to hatching on his own.

The first gosling was tired, soggy and ok.  Number two was  going strong and the arrival of #1 sent the sibling into a frenzy,  chomping his way through his own shell.

Over the next weeks the two goslings grew from little balls of fluff to graceful birds.

10 weeks old

After 10 weeks there was a touch of grace and beauty in the geese .. but still some juvenile behaviour when prompted.  Despite their size they were still just babies, needing comforting by cuddling up to our feet and wary of strangers.

The garden was carpeted with the last of their baby-goose down.  They barely had any idea what their wings were for, all the length in the arm/wing bones had come on in the last few weeks and their experimental flapping always seemed to take them by surprise.

23 weeks old

We moved the geese off the paddock and into a shaded courtyard. They were spending their last few days finishing on corn, fruit windfalls and copious quantities of grapes from the garden.

We had hundreds of kilos of grapes at this time of year which the birds loved. Ripe, aromatic and filled with sugar they were piling on plenty of fat as a result.  Fat that will give us the worlds best roast spuds, rillets and lots of confit.

We decided that as soon as the night time temperatures dropped, the birds will start burning their fat and getting a whole new undercoat of downy feathers – both things that we have learned to avoid in goose rearing.

The day arrived. Day 163 as it happens… just 23 weeks old is no age for an animal, they were only just setting out on the road to adolescence.

DISPATCH

Goodbye Geese

Last weekend was 28 degrees and shorts and bikini weather. This weekend it was down to 12 overnight. This will signal to the birds that it’s time to fluff up for the winter so experience has taught us that it’s time to bump them off before they start to put effort into becoming super downy and burning up their own body fat.

The male (with some dark markings) had started to show some signs of thinking about being aggressive… so a sign that he was entering sexual maturity… another signal that it’s time to go.

So, down to the deed. They’re penned in to a small coral in our courtyard. No food overnight. We are deeply uncomfortable with the actual act and always take time to do it considerately and as swiftly as possible. A clean break of the neck immediately behind the head renders them insensible and then they’re bled out. It’s over very swiftly.

We can’t but help feel a huge wave of sadness though when they’re gone. Goodbyes are never easy.

Then some hard work begins… the plucking.

Almost bare !

We raise 50 birds a year for the table. Chickens and guinea fowl have been our stock in trade so far and we’re quite adept at the whole process. We can process four chickens from cluck to oven-ready in an hour. Not so with geese, they’re not only so much bigger but much harder to pluck.

We immerse them in a hot water bath at 64c for two minutes to loosen the feathers and ease plucking, but even this doesn’t always get everything out as easily as we’d like. It takes us two hours to do the two birds which have very few pin feathers and whilst downy not anywhere near as bad as the last birds we did.

Dressed out weight for each bird was 4.4Kg. Not bad when you consider that this is mostly *lawn* as an input to the equation. With added weeds, bugs, veg peelings, windfall fruit etc.

Very little wasted.

Heart goes to the cat!
Neck (and wings) into todays tom-yam thai soup.
The liver goes to paté.
The gesiers are confit’d
The body cavity fat is rendered down for the slow cooking of the confit and then preserved for the most savoury roast spuds ever.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The garden is a lot quieter now and it seems a little empty but we are happy in the knowledge that these birds had a good healthy life and were raised in wonderful surroundings.   We will enjoy our Christmas dinner knowing we did the best for them in both their life and death !

Slight travel hiccup saw me miss a flight from London so I had to hop on the Eurostar to Paris. A complete contrast to my last train outing which took me 9 hours in a queue at -3 degrees and then 5 hours to get to Paris.

Rocked up at St. Pancras at 14:40, was in France by 4pm and a bar in Montparnasse a little later.

An overnight stop in Tours after another TGV hop for a rendezvous with Joan. Next day and we reached Arras in good time to arrive at the campsite

Now, music. I’ve been to countless gigs in the UK over the years – have kind of fallen out of the habit since we’ve been in France. Professional opportunities in the UK give me an avenue to go to concerts there and I’ve rekindled my gig-habit a little over the last few years. Music festivals have always been something I’ve shied away from for many reasons but the lineup at the 2011 Main Square festival was simply astonishing. If we didn’t go to this one then we were never going to go to one ever – just getting a little too old for it I suspect.

We struck camp not long after the campsite opened – another first for us, camping. It was fun, the concerts we saw were almost all superb.

Full gallery and slideshow from the weekend is here

Once again (typical French advertising) I stumbled across this, almost too late.

The Festival is held over a weekend and unlike last year where it rained all weekend, this year it was scorchio – 35 degrees!

The theme for the sculptures was “Sculptures Over Water”.

Not so many artistes  alongside the river this year creating their works …  but still some impressive art being produced.

Many more painters than previous years, dotted all around the town painting their own views of life.

My favourite piece of all was a large wooden sculpture standing over a metre high.  I wanted to be naughty and touch it as it screamed to be handled and fondled.

The artist Jean Deletre always produces stunning works and one in particular caught my eye.  I was very tempted but with a price tag of 900 euros I thought I had better wait until the Euromillions ticket had been checked.

Oh well – there’s always next year !

Just picked our first crop off our early blueberry bush.  200g doesn’t sound a lot but I have been grazing on the bush every time I visit our potager and there are plenty of fruits left on, waiting for a little more sunshine!

A few years ago, I was given three blueberry bushes as a birthday gift off my parents – early, mid and late summer varieties.  We built 3 raised beds full of acidic soil  and planted the blueberries along with a goji  berry and lingonberry.  This year the blueberries are totally coming into their own.

Unfortunately the lingonberry didn’t survive – I think it was just too exposed for it and the goji berry is trying to take over the garden – it will need a major hacking back this autumn to contain it!

The mid and late summer blueberry bushes are heavy with unripe fruit, although a few of the berries on the mid variety are starting to change colour!

mmmm I see blueberry muffins and pancakes with blueberry sauce on the menu at Chez Bellebouche !