RAINING SIDEWAYS

Un Jardin de Simples

Dear Sally,

It is a long time since I wrote you my last letter. But I have to say the winter and the spring had been so dull, cold and without any interest this year, I hibernated a little bit like all the plants in my garden!

But life is starting again and I have now a lot of work to do in the garden. This year is special because as the work in front of the house are at last finished I can design the front garden as it will stay, I hope, for a long time.

We decided, at the front of the house, to stone the all yard with old flat stones we had left from the building. I planted a lot of wonderful climbing rose trees but only old English roses! They are so beautiful on that old granite wall and they really love it! At the front it is very hot so I decided to plant what we call in France “un jardin de simples”.
 

                      

The simples are the plants used in medicine and cooking. I have now 4 different kinds of mint, one of them very interesting because you plant it between the stones, it is spreading everywhere with a very strong smell and you can walk on it! It is called “Menthe Corse”.

I planted an Angelica and I hope it is going to like the place; it is so beautiful with its big blue flowers and so good to preserve the stalk for desert and puddings. I found to some funny sages like the “giant sage” and the “ananas sage” which you can use in cooking. And indeed a lot of different lavenders; I am starting to use it more and more in cooking and it is very good. I will speak about it later in my letter. I planted to, indeed, the essentials: different sorts of thym, chives, taragon, origan etc... I love to have just to open the door when I am cooking and to cook with the plants which inspire me when I looked at them!

There are a lot of others but I have to go slowly to understand after a summer and a winter if they like to be where they are or not.

The yard is full of wonderful butterflies gathering nectar from one flower to another and we are seeing some species we had never seen before!

In my vegetable garden the only special thing I am trying is melon! I have to cross my fingers with the weather but it seems we are going to have a very hot summer. Otherwise I planted ordinary summer vegetables. I am, this year concentrating all my energy for the front.

At the moment it is the full season to harvest thym, lavender and sage flowers. If you want to keep a strong perfume to the culinary herbs like thym, rosemary, sage, taragon etc. You have to cut the flowers when they appear. I started to freeze them and use them salad and different dishes with fish and meet. To freeze them you need not to dry them, the perfume is stronger if they are not and what a joy to be able to serve fresh flowers in the middle of the winter.

I have done too a lot of mint, sage and lavender sauce. It is very easy to do and keep very well for month. Pick up the leaves, put them in a granite pestle with some grains of natural coarse sea salt and pound them when you have something looking like a purée put it in little jars and cover it with a good olive oil from Firenze. 

Keep them in a shadow place but not in the fridge. Do not add any vinegar it is keeping the genuine perfume. You can mix different kinds of the same species for instance 2 or 3 different mint. Use this sauce either like accompanying for meat or fish or in cooked dishes.

I give you some recipes I have done with my herbs.

Salad of the season

Porc in sage sauce

Lavender cream

Letter From Brittany, February 2005

Dear Sally,

That is a long time I did not come back to you but I have been computer less for a long time!

The weather had been terrible in Brittany since before Christmas. Huge storms and now snow and blizzard and each time we have a storm we have power cuts and the computer hate it! You see I think, sometime, that is foolish to try to mix the old world and the modernity and at the moment "Les Eglantines" and the computer are fighting each other very hard!

Christmas and New Year over here were very quiet. This year the family was not with us and we had a nice time between us two and our loved house. Our menu had been an elegant one with candles, big fire in our 3 metres high fireplace. I tell you what it is and I will give you the receipts at the end of my letter.

We started with a fresh foi gras, then steamed scallops on seaweed as a second course, sweetbreads in white truffle sauce as a third course and pomelos pudding for the desert. It was delicious and much easier to make for two than for ten!

I found a new way to make the fresh foie gras, I steamed it. It is a less aggressive way to cook it and you cannot miss it.

For Christmas it is the full season for scallops. In France we have a season for scallops, the fishermen are allowed to catch them between October and April except in January for a matter of prices on the market, if I understood what they explain to me, it is to avoid the fall of the market price?

Michael discovered the sweetbreads. In France it is one of the most expensive dishes and very delicate to cook and he loved it!

On the second of January we have a Catholic custom for the arrival of "Les rois mages". Les Rois Mages are three kings coming from Orient who followed a star to Bethlehem, were Jesus was born, to adore him and give their presents. Their names are Melchior, Gaspard and Balthazar. For that occasion all over France people are buying a "Galette des Rois" which is puff pastry stuff with almond past and inside is hidden a small figure in china called a "féve". We are inviting or the family or friend to share it and with the galette are two paper crowns, the one who find the féve is the king and has to choose his queen. It is funny, some are swallowing the féve because they are shy and they do not want to choose a queen or a king, some others are choosing the piece where they think the féve is but every body enjoy it anyway. That day is called Epiphany. We had a party that day with Michael, myself and two old ladies of our neighbourhood, indeed Michael ended as the king! It was joyful and full of laugh.

On the Saturday following the first of the year, traditionally the Maire of the village invite all his citizen for an aperitif at the town hall and wish them a happy new year it is a very important event in the village, everybody is coming and for one hour or two it is, speeches, drinks and kisses to everybody for the wishes! From the children to the oldest everybody is sharing the joy to be together. We went there as usual and met a lot of English, retiring in the village.

My garden at the moment is sleeping, between the snow and the cold nothing is happening.

I am going, now the house and surroundings are finished, to organise my vegetable garden for the spring.

I bought a quince tree because now I have grand children I want to make for them quince past for the 4 o’clock tea.

I have too, a big plan for this year. I am going to buy hives, we have so many flowers and wild plants over here and the honey is one of the specialities of our region. I met in the village a man who had a big knowledge of plants and he is collecting butterflies. That man is fantastic he planted in his garden a lot of different varieties of plants, which are, attracted species of butterflies we were not seeing anymore in our area since a very long time! I am going to see him in March when I will do my flower and vegetable garden and I will give you more details then.

But it is smelling spring, Achile, the cat is mewing to the moon every nights since some times!!!!!!!!!

Letter from Brittany. October 2004

My Dear Sally,

What a dull summer we have had in Brittany! Nature was in a very bad mood this year and very cross with human beings ! All the vegetables in the garden were rotten before being ripe - the fruits had no taste. I have made a lot of jam, but this year will not be a good vintage! We had a lot of big storms coming from the sea, but our lovely old house resisted with bravoure the attempts of the gods! "La Fée Margot", the wicked Fairy Margot, living very close in the Croquelien woods, thought, I think : "that house is 600 hundred years old, it is a young girl and it can have some more fun!!!"

Achile the cat is sleeping in front of the fireplace dreaming about all the mice he caught in the house and is trying to find a plan to capture Valentine. I have to tell you about Valentine. Valentine is one of the several inhabitants of the old walls of "Les Eglantines", our house. She is a lovely little souris bat, who, for several months, has been flying every evening across our bedroom when we go to bed! Some nights ago she got caught in the curtain of our baldaquin bed! She is very friendly and we are a little bit sad because the builders are going to put new joints in the walls and we do not know what is going to happen to her!

hydrangeas

Life in the village is very quiet at the moment, everybody is a little bit lost, the jobs which have to be done normally at this time of year are standing in the air because of the weather. Marcel is rushing around like a lion in a cage! He does not know what to do. I am waiting for better days to go on with my garden. The only things I have done since the harvest of the vegetables and wild red fruits, it is to cut the hydrangeas and dry them to make winter bouquets and decoration for the Christmas table.

Last month we killed Marcel’s lambs. We did it over a week-end. We phoned the butcher to come on Friday, around 8 o’clock, to kill them. They cannot be killed earlier in the day because the weather at that period of the year is very often stormy and the meat could go off very quickly. Marcel brought them back to his field with his hilarious little blue van, which is a half of an old Renault 4L. Nearly all the village was in Marcel’s barn with the children waiting with excitement. That day we killed 4 of them, 2 for me and the other 2 for people in the village.

la voiture de Marcel

The first thing to do, which is fun for us but not for them (they can feel what is going to happen), is to catch them in the field. Everybody participates: children, women, elders etc., rushing around the field, shouting, laughing and having fun. When at last we stuck them in a corner, Marcel, the butcher Stephan, and Michael jumped on the first one, Marcel and Michael sat on it whilst Stephan the butcher killed it with a knife! The first one was relatively easy but for the second one the real fun started! The beast was a strong and fierce animal. Marcel tried to catch two legs and Michael two others, but the beast started to kick out all over the place with our two friends hanging on! The three of them rolled about for a while and eventually Stephan had it. After all that, as it is the tradition before finishing the job, we drank a bottle of fresh "Rosé" with cheers to the lambs.

Then we hung them in the barn, covered them with a cloth and left them over the night. The meat needs a night to distress and become tender again. The next day Michael carried the two lambs into our laundry and Stephan came to us to cut them in pieces. I love that way of cutting lamb meat because I can tell exactly what I want, what I need for my cooking. Stephan and myself we can share our knowledge, cutting the meet and using it.

A friend of mind gave me a gourd and I made a very good starter with it - the recipe is at the end of my letter.

Next week we are going with the all the village for a big mushroom hunt. I will write to you about it in my next letter. Do you have any in Devon?

I am waiting for your news.

Evelyne

Letter from Brittany. August 2004

Dear Sally,

I left you without news for a long time! Sorry, we have been very busy with the house, but now we are in and I have more time to think about what I am going to cook from the garden.

Following your article on the fish market, I wanted to give you some of our ways to cook the fishes in Brittany. Unfortunately we have had such a bad weather till these last days over here that there were nearly no fishes on the market.! And it is impossible to go to the sea at low tide to catch some shellfishes!

In the garden the tempests have just been a disaster, the hollyhocks are all down, the trees are broken, half of the apples fall of the trees, the vegetables are rotting. I am just seeing some courgettes coming out and some very timid green haricots, but you see nature is like that. I hope the second part of the summer will be better fruitful!

Coulmelles

On another hand, after two days of downpour and the sun, suddenly, with nearly two month early, mushrooms appeared. In a field next to the house, I found some very good ones. It is the “Coulmelle” or “Lepiota” in Latin, it is not very often that we find so many of them. I cooked them with a rabbit from Marcel prepared with cumin and balsamic vinegar. I will give you the recipe at the end of my letter. Michael said he jump the all night in the bed and thinks they are hallucinogenic, I did not feel anything but he ate so many of them………….

I have a wonderful story to tell you about two superb pigeons who finished on our plates.

pigeons flambes aux raisins

Marcel has some wild pigeons coming back to their pigeonholes regularly. The other day I asked them if I could have two, he said “no problems, you will have them for tomorrow, I have to catch them.” The day after I saw Marcel arriving with the pigeons, he was exhausted; I asked him if he had a problem? He said no, but it is the last time I chase them like that, next time I will tie them with a rope and kill them when you will ask! I was a little bit surprised and asked for more details. All the family, including the grand children run after them for hours, at the end they caught two but one he wanted was impossible to catch. It is a white one he knows very well and weird thing happened, the morning after the hunt he was in the kitchen watching “Le tour de France” and suddenly the white pigeon arrive and took a rest on his shoulder! Isn’t a beautiful tale!

But in the meantime I cooked them with grapes and “Flambé au cognac” delicious, the contrast between the wild fowl and the grapes.

wild strawberries

Last time I went to Switzerland to see my son Marc, I brought back some wild strawberries from the alpine forest and put them in the garden. They love Brittany and are like weeds climbing in the old walls of the house and going everywhere, I put them in red wine it is delicious.

Next month I will write you only after the 25 of August because we are going to have for the first time a big event, we are killing and butchering Marcels’ lambs in our house. It is a ceremony, the butcher kills them and hangs them for the night in our barn and the day after he is coming to cut them in pieces exactly as I want them. You see the European rules are still very far from us!!!!!!!!!

Hope to have news from you and Devon very soon.

Evelyne

nasturtium

Evelyne!

The Pigeon Flambes sounds delicious but I cannot help thinking the little white bird was rather foolish to return to Marcel’s shoulder after such a chase. I’m also amazed he can run so fast, Marcel I mean! But please don’t tell him I said so! We were so pleased to receive your pictures of the house and to hear you have finally moved in. You must both be glowing with a fantastic sense of achievement. It won’t be long before we cross the channel again!

We’re having the wildest weather here too. At the beginning of the month when all the family came to stay the sun blazed down on us. Noriko now thinks English summers are always like that, just as hot as Tokyo! Children played on the beach, crabbed on the jetty and went boating on the river. Not a cloud dusted the sky. The day they left the rain started. Apparently it is the wettest August since records began. Floods have torn apart the little fishing village of Boscastle in north Cornwall. Water raged through the village hurling the cars into the sea. They demolished all in their path driven on by the ferocious wind. Houses collapsed, people were rescued from rooftops and trees. Amazingly no one lost their life. The pictures reminded me of the terrible floods here on Christmas Eve several years ago when a flash flood roared through this valley in the middle of the night taking all before it. It took two hours to rescue my old parents from their cottage in our garden, and months and months to restore our farmyard and their ruined home. Is this the reality of global warming, I wonder?

making slivovic

The garden has that end of summer windswept look about it. But it’s heaving with produce. My deep freeze is filling up fast. Despite the Draconian pruning of the plumb trees last year, in an effort to get rid of the dreaded “silver leaf“, we had a wonderful crop. I’ve put some straight into the deep freeze for winter pies and crumbles. Others I’ve placed in a giant jar with sugar syrup and vodka! Some have been pureed into a thick, rich sauce and poured into jam jars. Then of course I spoke to my dear Czech friend up the valley and made a sort of slivovic to share at Christmas! We even had John Burton Race here, of “French Leave” fame, picking plumbs and collecting eggs for his great new restaurant. I look forward to tasting his plum ice cream.

seven varieties!

The tomatoes are the very best I have ever grown! I have seven varieties this year. They look so pretty on a dish and all have a distinctly different flavour and use. Sun Gold is the star, a tiny orangy cherry tom, so sweet the children ate them like sweets when they were here! Sun Bell, a little yellow bell shape, is very sweet too. Tigerella is a real good “doer” but also nice looking with its green stripes. Big orange Auriga is better cooked, as is the funny pointed Red Pear and the oblong Costaluta Fiorentino. San Marzano is a good old beef variety. All are quite delicious in their own way. I’ve put bags and bags in the freezer, made tomato sauce and cooked some with French and Runner beans, also in abundance, adding much shallot, garlic and herbs, So good!

a surprise crop

Potatoes are ready now too. I dug a whole bucket of little Pink Fir Apples the other day then found a wonderful surprise crop of, I’m not sure what, under the dead pea plants. I love it when I find a sudden hidden cornucopia! The nasturtiums have run amok and much to every ones’ relief I have almost managed to declare them a weed at last. But they are so pretty………..

waiting for tea

Donkeys are back in their winter routine now, coming into their stables as the light fades. Much as they relish the freedom of high summer in the field at night, as soon as the evenings begin to draw in, they’re waiting at the gate, jostling each other and demanding tea! Autumn seems to have come early this year.

Letter from Brittany. June 2004

Dear Sally,

I do not know where to start! You are right, that funny weather makes Dame Nature upside down! Or is it the old time coming back? A lot of cold and snow last winter, and a real wonderful spring going on…The garden in La Ville Doualan is equally wonderful.

My little cherry tree, it is only one year old, is full of cherries! It is an old English cherry - they are so good for clafoutis and in cognac. I will have to put a net over it very quickly if I do not want to have them stolen by the multitude of different little birds living in our garden!

The medlar tree is showing his happiness too. It is full of those lovely and delicate white flowers. My two old apple trees are, as they have done every year for fifty or sixty years, full of smelling blossom. We will have many fruits in autumn for the cider and the jelly.

Flowers are everywhere at the moment, thyme, sage, rosemary, rhododendrons etc. The hollyhocks and the wild foxgloves (called in Brittany Nunu) are everywhere and are starting to show their flowers.

The rose trees are out and a great joy for us was when we discovered at the front of the house a little one we did not plant and who has started to climb happily on the façade! I love the story of it. That little rose tree is very old and stayed buried for twenty years under the stones of the fallen front wall of the house, and now we are here and we rebuilt that wall he decided it was his territory and he settled again vigorously! It is a dark pink and beautiful old rose.

I agree with you about the stinging nettles and I have to say I had to exterminate a lot of them in order to leave the other plants room to breathe, but that is life! I learn something very interesting about weeds. I have in the garden some wild blackberry brambles, which are delicious; I made last year wonderful jam with them and so I froze a lot and made for Christmas a wonderful summer pudding by mixing them with elders fruits. The problem is to collect them without being badly scratched! However, you can espalier them in spring when they start to go out like the other “petits fruits” raspberries, red currant etc.

As I told you in my last letter the snails are now ready to be cooked. I found some, but I need a good thunderstorm to find more! It is so dry at the moment but they are there in the holes of old dry stones wall and they will not escape my merciless hunt as soon as some rain appears! I give you recipes at the end of my letter. A good tip if you want to eat them nearly immediately after fetching them instead of the two or three weeks fast, if you give them some uncooked spaghetti you can eat them after three days, they are clean.

wild fennel

The news from the sea is very few at the moment. We are now in the months without an “R” in them which means it is not really a good period for the oysters which have a lot of white stuff in them, the mussels are meagre. The collection of scallops is not allowed after the first of May in order to leave them time to breed and we will have to wait till September to eat all of them again. But in the cliffs I find interesting things, the Criste Marine are still there, the wild fennel (dill) is starting to come out and it is full of wild chives and wild leaks.

I give you the menu I conceived with all the things I found this month:

Oysters soup
Terrine de courgettes
Ragoût d’escargots
Clafoutis de rhubarbe

I am now going to traipse round with my little basket in the country and I hope I will find interesting things to tell you next month.

Evelyne

SALLY'S REPLY

the little ragged rambler

Dear Evelyne,

So nice to hear from Britanny again! Summer has arrived this side of the channel too. The roses are beginning to flower. I also have a survivor that lay buried beneath a huge laurel hedge for many many years! I recently planted some new varieties so am watching with excitement to see the first flowers. The little ragged rambler whose name I don’t know is already making a huge pink canopy over the pergola and Kiftsgate and Seagull are poised to burst into masses of tiny cream and white flowers that will reflect in the pond. Both are thugs but I love them!

I’ve counted seven different geraniums varieties in flower in the garden so far this year, so I suppose I have to say they are one of my favourites! Tall pink Foxgloves cover the banks growing wild everywhere. I have given up struggling with the magnificent whites and apricots; they simply revert to their pink origins the next year. Goose grass or cleavers and sweet woodruff are everywhere. The former clings to everything, the latter stealthily weaves it‘s way upwards decked in sweet smelling tiny flowers. Both have a wealth of medicinal uses, goose grass, as its’ name indicates, is apparently loved by geese although I must say mine ignored it totally when I gave them some recently! The seeds are an old coffee substitute. Apparently Sweet Woodruff is soaked in white wine in Alsace and made into a tonic called Maitrank?

The first Dahlias, planted as cutting flowers for the house, are opening in the vegetable garden. This year I started the tubers in pots in the polytunnel and planted out big bushy plants once the frosts had ended. They surround the Sweet peas which are starting to flower too. I picked the very first broad beans yesterday and dug the early potatoes. Such a treat! The herbs are in flower here too, drifts of purple chive flowers and blue sage smell delicious in the sun. Shallots are swelling and the new Globe artichokes gathering strength. They always seem to take so long to get going here. I’m not sure why. The cardoon on the other hand is already a handsome six feet tall. Last year it overdid itself and fell over, so very soon I must remember to stake it!

My new asparagus bed is sporting little ferns. I resisted the temptation to pick the first year spears and hope I will be rewarded next year! I’ve covered the strawberries which did not get to the new fruit cage this year. I’m hoping to beat the blackbird to the fruit for once! The pigeons were thrilled with my handsome little Cavolo Negro plants and stripped most of them to tiny stalks almost as soon as I planted them out. I’ve covered the remains with fleece and am hoping they’ll recover.

The little glass house in the garden, only remaining evidence of all the tumbledown ones here when we arrived over twenty years ago, is at last restored. Now that it is glazed and paved the old grape vine is flourishing. My little olive tree is covered in flowers. And the Oleanders are threatening to flower too. Two Plumbagos are growing fast. The one kidnapped in a crispy state from a friends window sill and put at once in intensive care, is in bud. And a sweet scented, tender white passion flower I thought I had lost last winter is shooting all over the place..

The tomatoes are going a pace now in the polytunnel and I’m having a job keeping up with the side shoots. The Yard Long Beans are planted out too and soon they will be joined by the Tomatillos. The seeds were a gift from a friend and it took me a long time to realise I had Phsylis peruviana. Well I think I have. I’m still not sure if they will turn out to be Cape Gooseberries!

The Quince and the Medlar are covered in blossom. Over the years I’ve made loads of rich, ruby red Medlar jelly but the quinces have been very sparse. This year though there is plenty of flower so I hope that will promise a good crop of beautiful golden fruit.

So that is how things are getting on down in my Devon valley. I have always imagined that you have a milder climate in Brittany so it will be interesting to see how our gardens progress through the summer and what vanishes in the winter.

Maybe we can talk about fish next time. I was recently lucky enough to be given an opportunity to visit our local Fish Quay in Brixham.

Oh, and what a delicious June menu from Brittany!!

Sally

Letter from Brittany, May 2004

Dear Sally,

Here, in La Ville Doualan, spring is just starting to point out his nose. I found a lot of traces of snails but the rim of the shells are still soft which means it is the period of reproduction and we have to wait one good month before eating them! I will give you the recipe next month.

The verges are blue and yellow with violets and dandelions. I tried to make jelly with them which is funny and a very original present to do for your friends.

The fields are full of stinging nettles. We are eating them in soup and as vegetables etc. but did you know it was of great use for the garden too? It is a wonderful natural fertilizer for the garden as they are very full of nitrogen! Cut 1 kg of stinging nettles for 10 litres of water, put it together in a bucket and seal it. Leave it for 3 weeks. Then take the juice and use it as a fertilizer for all your plants or spray it over the plants to kill insects. Just one thing, it has a terrible smell, do that at the back of your garden!!!!!!

I put all over the garden some cups of milk to attract and try to keep in the area some hedgehogs. They are very good for the vegetable garden because they eat slugs, bad worms etc. but with our new little cat Achilles it is very difficult because he drinks the milk!

Last week I went to the sea and caught some scallops, it is not often you find some by yourself on the beach! Normally they are all fished by the net of the fishermen but when there are some high tides, like in April, some of them forget to go back to the sea and you can find them in the sand. I have to say it is not very often! And you have to be lucky, but it is the best you can eat.

As I was there, I decided to do my shopping from nature for the supper. There is in the rocks of the cliffs a plant called “La Criste Marine” in French, “Crithmum maritimum” in Latin. You eat only the leaves which taste a little bit like carrots, the less they are prepared the better they are. You eat them cooked or uncooked as salad. We find them the all year long and it is very delicious with fish, white meat etc.

I decided to make a “carpacio” with the scallops as a starter, and after that, a “cassolette of scallops” with Criste Marine and stinging nettles as vegetables. As a desert, we had a custard cream with elder sauce, all that done with Marcel’s eggs, the milk from the farm next door and elder’s fruits from the garden which I froze last autumn. It is such a joy to be able to cook and to eat only wild products. The wine for a meal with fish or shell fish could be a dry white wine or a “vin de Loire” red, serve chilled and fresh.

As yours, Marcel’s sheep had new babies and one of them will finish in my deep freeze very soon!

My son Marc offered to me a superb and very useful cooking book on salted or sweet clafoutis. “Les clafoutis de Christophe” it is in French but not very difficult to read. The recipes are simple, delicious and very surprising. Try it and tell me what you think.

Hope to have a lot of fresh news from the garden for you next month

Evelyne

Scallops, Criste Marine and Nettles

Carpacio of scallops
Carve the scallops (the white and the pink) in very thin slices with a good carving knife. Lay the slices on a flat dish. Cover them with a little olive oil, salt, a mix of green and pink peppercorns and a lot of coriander leaves cut in small pieces.
Prepare the carpacio 2 hours before the meal.

Cassolette of scallops
Clean your scallops, keep only the white bit and the yellow.
In a pan melt some butter add some sea salt and ground black pepper, when the butter is still white but starts to become bubbly put the scallops and leave them 2 minutes on each side.

Serve with the Criste Marine and stinging nettles.

Criste Marine and stinging nettles
You must cook these separately. Boil some water with sea salt in two pans. When the water is boiling, plunge the vegetables in the water. Leave them 3 minutes. Strain them. Add some butter to the Criste Marine and serve. Cut the stinging nettles in peaces, add a spoon of cream and some black pepper, serve.

Dessert
Cream Custard made with 1 litre of sugared milk and eight yolks. Serve it with elder berries cooked in sugar.