I’m writing this in my usual spot on the sofa, enjoying the glorious warmth given off by our newly-installed wood-burning stove. It’s been colder the past few days and we had a bit of frost on Monday morning so I’ve felt justified in having a fire. It was a great visit with Will’s folks and we appreciate them coming out for a “working holiday”.
Friday was a free day for Will and the folks and they mostly chilled out around here. Andrew built us a wood bench for sawing logs and he and Anne finished stacking all the remaining wood. The main event was the evening when Bryan and Carol came around for aperitifs and ended up staying until 1am! As Will figured, his parents really hit if off with our lovely neighbours so the conversation flowed for many hours.
The meal was a very near repeat of the previous Fridays: fig tart, courgette gratin and sauteed wild mushrooms. I’m happy to say it’s our last fig recipe of the year since they are all but finished now. The mushrooms from the previous Friday are called coulemelles and there is an abundance of them in the horse-pasture across from the house. Mauricette stopped by early that day with a basket full of them and informed me that we had them growing and that I should pick and cook them. Thankfully, they are large and easy to identify so I wasn’t nervous about poisoning the guests. Unsurprisingly, the preparation involved sauteing them in garlic, butter and parsley and they turned out alright.
It is definitely mushroom season around here: you see people all over tromping through the woods with baskets; we have a number of different varieties, all inedible, growing around the house; Lucien shows up with armloads of cepes. He did last Friday although we ended up giving that batch to Rigit. I did, however, use the ones he gave us on Thursday for last Friday’s dinner – the only difference between that meal and the previous Friday’s. Anyway, I prepared the cepes the same way as the coulemelles and I have to say I prefer the former to the latter. The benefit to the coulemelles is that they are in abundance just over the road so much easy to come by.
After the meal that night, Will and I stayed up and had a final “cleanser” or two so didn’t make it to bed until 3am so we were a bit tired the next day. We had croissants one last time Saturday morning and then Will took his folks to the airport in the late morning. He also had some work to do that afternoon but I’ll let him elaborate in his next entry. I stayed home and chillaxed for the remainder of the day and we both had an early night. The next day was slightly more productive, mostly on the cooking front. Our special crop had been drying in the loft for the past 2 weeks and we deemed it dry enough to cut up for use. We sampled some and are most pleased with the result which is good since we ended up with a healthy amount.
I took the leaf and stems and used them to make butter. Today I made a batch of pecan squares using the butter so I should know in the next 30 minutes whether or not my efforts were worth it. After the butter, I turned my attention to finding a recipe in which wild mushrooms featured. I decided on a lasagne featuring sausage and dried cepes in a tomato and red pepper sauce. I only had coulemelles from over the road and I sauteed those first. I also roasted the red peppers so the prep itself took nearly two hours. Then you make two sauces, the tomato and pepper and also a bechamel with the wild mushrooms. It also calls for both mozzarella and parmesan cheese in copious amounts. Will and I sampled the finished product Sunday evening and I can’t say it was worth the effort but he disagreed.
Yesterday was my birthday. I decided it was better to have today at home to recover so went into the office yesterday. I was pleased to find my boss wasn’t there, a rare event and nice surprise. I had a swim at lunch so was feeling virtuous when the evening rolled around. Lee and Richard came over for dinner – the second year that we’ve celebrated my birthday together. Bryan and Carol also called by for an aperitif but were careful to eat beforehand so there would be no chance of a surprise dinner invitation.
The boys are both well although a bit tired since they are entertaining Lee’s 80+ year old grandparents for two weeks. They still managed to stay here until nearly 11pm and in addition to the lasagne, we had a cheese course followed by patisserie from our local. We probably won’t see them for a few weeks now and it was nice to see them both at the same time for once.
There’s not much else to report. Work is fine, if slightly dull for me. Will has just finished with a site and is wrapping up some other work so he’ll be looking around for more soon. It was curry night on Friday but since we were making dinner, we just ordered four meals to put away for later. Not having it for dinner that night makes it much easier to forget and that we did. We tried to get ahold of them all weekend and finally got an email from them to say we could come and collect. Will did that this morning so we’re about to dine on that.
I think my butter is having the intended effect so I’d better stop here.