Return to Eden?

Firstly I must apologise for having been absent for so long - explanations to follow!

Over the summer season my girlfriends on the market deserted for sunnier and more profitable French costal towns, where they both have family homes, so things seemed pretty subdued without them while we all waited for the famous 'season' to start, and waited..... and waited..... and waited.....!

Our little spa town doesn't have much to offer if you don't need the water treatment in the summer, and so I decided to desert the market too for a spell in sunny London. No baking, no hauling giant parasols about and above all long lie-ins in the mornings!

My return to France was a sudden immersion into the chaos of the fruit & veg season in our little (by French standards) garden. Plums literally dripping from our trees, courgettes appearing from nowhere overnight, succulent but marrow sized, and lots and lots of tomatoes in various forms and sizes.

The first steps into the garden were traumatic as a month with no other care than the kind hosepipe work of our neighbours had of course led to a veritable jungle of weeds, but that first taste of a sweet cherry tomato, warmed by the sun and oozing juice gave us the incentive to tackle the growth and discover what goodies were hidden beneath!

Since that moment it has been non-stop; re-starting the cake stall being almost an afterthought as we tackled the making of every imaginable permutation of plum recipe we could find!

Once I had become an expert in plum jam, plum tart, plum cake, plum bread and above all a fantastic plum and ginger chutney, I was ready once again to take time for communication with the non-plum world! Then over the space of 48 hours flat, all the peaches decided to fall off our tree at once!!! Off we went again, trawling the internet for recipes, but resorting to time worn favorites including peaches preserved in brandy which will surely warm us up in the cold winter months ahead here!

The really nasty bit about peaches is the fact that they need to be skinned before cooking. My first year of peach cooking was marred by hours trying to peel the skins off with a sharp knife, until a kindly neighbour put her head round the door and told me the trick : cover the fruit in boiling water for a few minutes and then the skins literally slip off with a gentle caress of the peach. (quite a sensual thing when put like that isn't it?) The only drawback being brown stained fingernails for days afterwards from the juice, but hey, it's still better than the sharp knife approach!

So now back to the real world, the market stall and with the next post some long awaited gossip I hope.

Rainy days

Well the rain arrived here in our corner of France and this week has been a wash-out on the market! My early morning coffee and croissant with the girls stretched a little further into the morning as we looked out on the dismal weather and wondered if it was really worth going out there at all!

Still stuffed up with the cold I caught last week, I barely managed to make myself understood to the natives; the words 'meringue' and 'gateaux' don't come out too well with an English accent and congested sinuses!

Despite the rain, summer is well on it's way here, the air is warm, the green shoots are coming up in the garden and romance and procreation seem to be in the air. One of my colleagues who sells giftware on the market announced to me earlier this year that her partner had decided that they should try for a baby, she was over the moon, he seemed to think it would happen 'just like that', and the pair of them embarked in typical French hypochondriac fashion, on a series of medical appointments and check-ups. Both having been given the 'all clear', the project has been under way for a few months, with no results. This week my friend took me to one side after a strained phone call from her partner, in which I understood that something precious had been broken, but not knowing what. It turned out that she had that morning decided to do a home pregnancy test before leaving for work, only being a couple of days past her usual monthly cycle, I wondered if she wasn't a bit over keen, but she said that the test was negative, and not wanting to leave her sleeping partner in ignorance, she left the test on the kitchen table for him to see when he awoke. The resulting phone call was from a distraught boyfriend who was still in ignorance having woken up to find that their newly adopted dog had chewed the test up, and he couldn't read it!

On the subject of 'sap rising' I should tell you that my friendly veg man was back on the market today, of course no-one mentioned his disappearance of last week, but he was clean shaven and on top selling form today again! I bought some of his freshly picked red onions. I have previously used them caremelised in breadsticks, but this evening made a caremelised red onion and goat's cheese tart, which was really succulent and colourful with fresh thyme, salad and radishes from our garden.

My best selling cake this week was the invention of my little boy who requested a chocolate cake with mint for his birthday, he has a wonderful habit of 'grazing' on my mint bush when he passes, and I find it difficult to discourage such a healthy habit - so much better than sweets!

In fact my chocolate sponges were such a success that I had none left to photograph for you, but suffice it to say, that layers of chocolate sponge, peppermint cream icing and chocolate ganache went down a treat in today's miserable weather! I'll do them again and show you!

Things are hotting up!

It seems that at last summer is on it's way back to France. I caught my first 'coup de soleil' (sunburn) today whilst sitting next to the fountain by my market stall gossiping with the girls on a slow early morning start. It sounds idyllic I know, and it would be if France wasn't in the middle of the Euro crisis, but at the moment hands are staying resolutely in pockets and there isn't much cash to be seen on the market. Lucky for me that the French have a sweet tooth and food is always considered a priority purchase, especially when it is pretty and sweet.

The sun shone and my mini Victoria sandwiches were in serious danger of toppling over with their butter icing oozing out in the warmth. This did nothing to put off my die-hard local cake fans who are loyally coming back week after week to bravely try each new invention I put before them. The local French inhabitants fall into two camps regarding English cuisine. Firstly the 'Don't touch it if it's not French - it might kill you' crowd and then the Anglophiles who have either visited England , have family living there or simply wish they could visit, so my cakes fulfill a little English fantasy at the same time as tasting good! If the good weather continues I will try adding iced green tea to my range as there is nothing like it with a slice of Lemon and a fairy cake to replenish the energy levels!

With the spring sunshine romance is sure to follow, and so my girlfriends on the market have decided to cash in by starting a speed dating business. This is nothing new on the rest of the planet but here it's a really big deal! Rural France isn't the ideal place to find a partner at the best of times so the girls set up a session in the local town for 40-55 year olds which was a roaring success. The next session was for a younger age group and I did try to persuade my amorous fishmonger to sign up but no luck in getting rid of him that way! (see previous post)

When the girls put flyers out around town, one found it's way to the local newspaper and hey presto! they had a call from the journalist asking for an interview and giving them loads of free publicity! Initially he wasn't sure if they had targeted his car because he was a journalist or because they guessed he was single, either of which could be a good enough reason, but either way, as the girls said afterwards, the quality of participants was so much better for the second session, they almost wanted to join in themselves , (which might not be a bad idea for one of them, who is already in a pretty turbulent 'menage a trois' style romance) and now they are waiting for wedding invites and the opportunity to buy new dresses for the parties they will be invited to!

The spirit of enterprise is alive and kicking here in the sticks, despite the infamous French red tape, and all power to those who are getting off their backsides to optimise their assets!