Last week Luc admitted to a hunter friend (who has eight obedient beagles) that we had ‘issues’ with our dogs. We hit a new low recently; we have to barricade the doors at night with chairs to send the message that we don’t provide a 24/7 service, and it’s NOT OK to wake us up at random just because you fancy a moonlit stroll in the garden. The friend wasn’t overly sympathetic and seemed to suggest that in our case, the ‘obedience ship’ had set sail long ago. He trains his dogs as puppies (like most sensible people), but I just can’t get my head around the idea of disciplining a puppy. Or any dog, if I’m being absolutely honest.

Léo and five friends celebrated the end of exams last week in true Bordeaux style with copious amounts of food, wine and noise (gatherings of up to six people are allowed in France). They were just tucking in to a second ‘dinner’ at three in the morning when the police knocked at the door. The noise was such that the gendarmes had called in reinforcements, and were accompanied by a heavily armed military squadron. They were rather taken aback when they realised that the impressive commotion was coming from just six boys, although the fact that several of them were Basque went some way to explaining things (Basque fiestas are notoriously loud). Realising there was no pressing need for mob control, they laid down their guns but, slightly bewildered, graciously refused the offer of sausages and chips. Way to avoid a hefty fine.

Fougasse is a flatbread that was traditionally baked in the ashes of the hearth. It is really a primitive form of pizza, without the tomatoes.

Recipe for rosemary and black olive fougasse

• 250g einkorn flour (normal flour is fine)
• Pinch of salt
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 teaspoon bread yeast, mixed in a little lukewarm water
• 8 black olives, chopped
• 1 shallot, chopped
• Fresh rosemary, removed from stem
• Water
• Sea salt to sprinkle on top

Place the flour in a bowl, add the salt, olive oil, yeast, chopped olives, shallot and rosemary. Add the water, little by little to form a smooth ball. Knead for a couple of minutes and then flatten to form an oval shape a couple of centimetres thick. Decorate with the sea salt.

Leave to rise in a 30°C oven for half an hour, then increase the oven temperature to 200°C and bake for 25 minutes.

I managed to live for over half a century without knowing how to cook an omelette properly. Or at least in a way that avoided husband and son sharing eye rolls and ostentatious dry heaves.
Speaking of exasperation, there are a few culinary fads that really boil my noodle: egg white omelettes (just eat the whole egg or go for the polystyrene option) and spiralised ‘spaghetti’ vegetables (eat spaghetti or eat vegetables, both if you really want to push the boat out, but don’t eat ‘pretend’ food unless you’re a toddler; exactly how idiotic do you think your taste buds are?)
Back to The Omelette. There used to be a restaurant, l’Hôtel de la Tête d’Or, on the Mont St Michel in Normandy, which was famous for its omelette. The owner of the hotel, Madame Poulard, attracted tourists from all over, and although there was much speculation about her secret recipe, she always stayed circumspect. I suspect that her secret had more to do with hardware and impeccable timing than the actual ingredients, although apparently we will never know. 
In any case, the simplest dishes are often the most delicious, but also the most difficult to get right. During my years of blissful ignorance, I used to beat the eggs a bit, add a touch of seasoning and then fry until most of the runniness was gone. They used to taste OK, although they sometimes looked as if I’d finished them off in the tumble dryer.
In my naivety I didn’t realise that in fact you have to go all sado-masochistic on the poor eggs, furiously beating and whipping them into complete submission.  You then have to pitch them, molecules awhirl, from across the room into a blazing furnace of a pan for mere seconds, until the outside is seared and the inside still runny. The experience is athletic, stressful, and affirmative.
As the saying goes, you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs, sweating profusely, hyperventilating, F-bombing anyone and anything in your way and setting off the smoke alarm…
Ingredients (serves 1)
knob of butter
2 fresh free-range eggs
Sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper
Melt the butter in a flat-bottomed frying pan over a high heat. Beat the seasoned eggs very fast until they become frothy. Throw the still-frothy mixture into the pan immediately and sear. Fold the omelette in half while the top is still runny. Serve! And breathe…
 

We’ve had issues with foxes lately. When I say ‘issues’, obviously I mean that the vicious, gluttonous bastards have been mistaking our hens for chicken McNuggets and snacking on them before breakfast. The hens used to sleep in the barn, which worked well because horses and hens are natural companions. Both being prey animals, I suppose they have a mutual understanding of what it is to be persecuted all day; I always imagined them spending their evenings having a good old moan about ill intentioned predators and the day’s run-ins and close shaves. Anyway, the remaining hens, understandably traumatised by Nuggetgate, have since been transferred to enclosed premises: The old bread oven. Frankly, if I were a hen, I’m not sure how comfortable I’d feel about drifting off next to the gaping metal mouth of a huge oven. Luckily though, they’re not the brightest and seem happy enough in their new home.

After a week or so of ‘training’ which involved haphazardly running around the fields at dusk with spades and horsewhips (us), the hens now understand that they should put themselves to bed in their new quarters and no longer in the horses’ barn. All of them, that is, except one. At bedtime she comes to sit resolutely on the boot room table squawking VERY loudly until Luc succumbs and carries her to bed. Just leave it to us to either acquire or create a noisily needy, attention-seeking, high maintenance hen…

How worried should I be about Luc’s apparently blissful expression?

This hearty soup is a typical peasant dish from Southern Gascony. The vegetables used depend on the season, and in the old days the meat used would have depended on what was to hand. The most luxurious version is made with confit of duck, which is what I usually use, although you could too make it with chicken. I love the fact that there is a certain amount of fat in the soup, because it means that the nutrients from the vegetables are more readily absorbed.
There are many recipes for garbure, but I adapted this one from Jeanne Strang’s recipe in ‘Goose Fat and Garlic’.
Ingredients (serves 6)
2 small leeks
250g potatoes
125g celery
4 carrots
125g turnips
1 large onion
4 cloves of garlic
250g white haricot beans (previously soaked if using dried)
250g salt belly of pork
1.25 litres water
0.5 litre white wine
bouquet garni
Sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper
1 teaspoon piment d’Espelette (or paprika)
1 Savoy cabbage
6 pieces of confit de canard
Chop all of the vegetables except the cabbage and dice the pork. Place the chopped vegetables, beans and pork in a large pot or casserole dish, cover with the water and wine and bring to the boil, then skim and add the bouquet garni and seasoning. You will need to adjust the salt depending on what meats you are using. Simmer over a low heat for two hours, then shred the cabbage and add to the pot along with the confit de canard. Cook for a further 30 minutes and serve with French bread. Bon appétit!

Most dogs have beds; Hugo has a throne. He recently spent considerable time and energy trying to relay to us the fact that it’s wholly inappropriate for a dog of his stature to sleep on the floor. He dug his paws in and refused to sleep on his bed, creating temporary accommodation in other places such as the shower, sofas and on piles of dirty laundry. I could tell that he was getting increasingly irate with us for not understanding his problem and poor Java was very confused by the whole affair. And then I had an epiphany: Hugo doesn’t see himself as a common or garden ‘floor’ animal and thinks his bed should be raised accordingly. To him it is incomprehensible that he should sleep at the same level as Java. Complicated measures were taken (the facial expressions when I explained that my dog needed a bed at least 50cm from the ground were a sight to behold), and he now deigns to sleep in his bed again. I’m hoping that his delusions of grandeur aren’t going to be incremental or he’ll soon need a stepladder and the thought of explaining that to the man in the pet shop brings me out in a cold sweat.

Beef Bourguignon is an iconic French dish. Ideally it should be made with Charolais beef and Burgundy wine, although I make it using Bordeaux as that is local to us. It’s best made a day or two before you’re going to eat it to tenderise the meat and bring out the flavours more fully.

Ingredients (serves 4)

800g beef brisket, cut into large cubes

1 litre of full-bodied red wine

2 sprigs thyme

2 bay leaves

4 garlic cloves, crushed

4 tablespoons olive oil

2 red onions, peeled and sliced
4 shallots, peeled and sliced
100g mushrooms, peeled and sliced
100g pancetta, diced

2 tablespoons flour (I used chickpea flour but plain will do)

500ml chicken or vegetable stock

4 carrots, peeled and cut into chunks

Salt and freshly-ground black pepper

Mix the beef, wine, thyme, bay leaves and garlic in a deep dish and leave to marinate in the fridge overnight. Preheat the oven to 150°C, scoop out the meat and set the marinade aside. Heat the olive oil in a large casserole dish and add the onions, shallots, mushrooms and pancetta. Toss the meat in the flour and add to the dish, gently browning. Add the stock and red wine marinade and bring to the boil. Add the carrots and seasoning and cook for about two hours. Delicious served with creamy mashed potatoes.

Never judge a book by its cover, or a mechanic by his trade. My husband’s beloved tractor broke down this weekend, which is always something of an emotional upheaval. When we first moved here and people came to visit for the first time, he would always show them his shiny red tractor before the house or grounds, which he seemed to consider to be of secondary importance.

Upon his much-anticipated arrival, Repairman and Husband started talking in earnest, and I scathingly thought to myself that this was a conversation I would rather gnaw my own arm off than listen to. How wrong was I? It was actually a conversation that taught me an awful lot – and not about tractor entrails either – about the trials and tribulations of puff pastry! Thinking about it, I suppose the two are not that dissimilar; they both involve oil, sweat, swearing and tears and even then, with so many uncontrolled parameters involved, the results are decidedly unpredictable.
Mayonnaise, like puff pastry and tractors, is also temperamental. If the bowl is too cold, the air too hot or your mood too irascible, you WILL screw it up. Earlier in the year, I made a wonderful batch to go with a seafood platter, only for it to end up splattered over the floor, interspersed with broken glass. I tried again to no avail – my cool, calm, collected demeanour had deserted me and we had to eat seafood sans mayonnaise.
Ingredients (roughly 12 servings)
2 egg yolks
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
150ml olive oil
2 garlic cloves, crushed
Squeeze of lemon juice
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
½ teaspoon paprika
Beat the egg yolks and mustard together. Add the olive oil, little by little all the time whisking well in order to obtain the right consistency. Ad the garlic, lemon and seasoning, whisking continuously. The result should be glossy and luscious. Be careful to refrigerate before dropping on the floor! Must be kept in the fridge and served cold.

It’s that time of year again: The time of year when, in this area of France at least, the countryside becomes speckled with well-stuffed apple turnovers. Upon closer inspection (admittedly not always advisable), the apple turnovers morph into ladies of a certain age, neatly folded in two tending to their vegetable patches. Whenever I see them, I have an overwhelming urge to pick them up by the waist and set them down in our vegetable garden. Perhaps they wouldn’t even notice, and if they did, surely the change of scene would be welcome, although I imagine one patch of weeds looks much like another. In the meantime, my husband serves as our apple turnover, although he’s not nearly as generously-stuffed as some…

Ingredients (serves 4)
8 chicken thighs (you can use a mixture of breast and thigh if you prefer)
1 tablespoon flour
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil
20g butter
2 red onions, peeled and chopped
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
30g pancetta
5 mushrooms, sliced
2 large carrots, peeled and sliced
Sprig of rosemary
350ml dry white wine
500ml chicken or vegetable stock
200g fresh garden peas
Preheat the oven to 150°C. Place the chicken in a bowl, coat with the flour and seasoning and set aside. Heat the oil and butter in a medium-sized casserole dish, add the onions, garlic, pancetta and mushrooms and cook until softened. Set aside and place the chicken in the casserole dish and cook for just over five minutes, turning to brown evenly. Add the carrots, rosemary and wine and continue to cook until reduced by about half. Add the stock and the set aside onion/pancetta and bring to a boil. Cook in the preheated oven for about an hour, adding the peas (and more stock if necessary) 20 minutes before the end of cooking. Delicious served with minted, mashed, potatoes.