My French Holiday Diary- Day 7

The butcher van has arrived! And farewell to an old friend, the hugging jumper.

Day 7- Friday 21^st September.

I’m excited that Amy and Roger are coming tomorrow. Last night I was feeling rough with the cold, so Roger rang me up for a minute. He broke the news to me that what we call his “hugging jumper” a soft, grey number that’s afforded great pleasure over the last few years, had to be thrown out after burning a hole through itself- following a fall onto a bare light fitting. With other people, this demise would sound far-fetched, a cover-up perhaps for leaving the jumper behind at the house of a sexy lady. But with Roger, I believe him. Only he could manage to destroy a jumper in this way. R.I.P hugging jumper.

This morning, again for God’s sake, I felt rough as hell. It didn’t stop me from tucking into bread and pâté, followed by a hot pain au chocolat picked up at the little shop round the corner though. As we were eating a horn sounded loudly in the square, announcing the arrival of the travelling butcher! Well, M. Montal turns up twice a week, which I think is just great because if you’re a little old lady (or me, come to think of it) who can’t drive, it’s perfect to think that every other day someone’s truck turns up in the village to make sure you don’t go hungry.

I threw some clothes on and Mum-y and I rolled over there, initially panicking because the sausages we’d banked on buying weren’t there. We skimmed over the confit de canard- a little too rich in this heat and ignored the little salads of tabbouleh and mixed vegetables. By the time the awful-accented Americans had been served, we decided on a couple of choux farcis (stuffed cabbage being an all-time favourite of mine), followed by a slice of duck terrine. Then we got carried away and ordered a kilo of blanquette de veau that looked too good to miss, then to my delight I spotted a big hunk of cured bacon –porc fumée- and we got a slice of that. Hello delicious veal and smoky bacon stew… With little carrots and onions and white wine and beaucoup des herbes…

After our little outing the parents zoomed off to Cabrerets again to try their little market; returning an hour or so later with a trio of hugely fat peaches that others were buying by the tray, some little carrots and onions to grace our stew and an odd little tower of cheese that resembled ricotta but tasted at first as sour as natural yoghurt, then creamy and curdy, before finally ending on a sweet note. Those crazy ewes. Mum-y piled a little chunk of the cheese on a plate and scoffed with with figs and our yellow crystallised honey. For lunch I ate the delicious stuffed cabbage before settling into an unsuccessful nap.

Later, as Mum-y and Dad-y were out on a walk I scudded downstairs and set about making my pumpkin tïan. I don’t really know the definition of a tian but I think it might be in the almonds, which I didn’t have, but Elizabeth David’s recipe in French Provincial Cooking for a pumpkin gratin set me on the right track; a mixture of eggs, cream and melted butter, combined together to make a kind of pumpkin soufflé. I added a good couple of handfuls of my grated gruyère and into the oven it went.

Christ, it was good. Nutty and aromatic, the pumpkin tasted better than any I’ve ever cooked at home. The soft burnt shallots added a dark caramelised tone to everything, complimented by the cream and the subtle gruyere, which came in most as the dish cooled. Mum-y and I looked at each other, pained by its deliciousness as we shovelled in mouthful after mouthful. While the parents had cold roast chicken bought in the butcher’s in Figeac, I snaffled off the last choux farcis. We all had a little broccoli and carrot soufflé, creamy and with a crunch on the top (also from the butcher), as well as the little potato dauphinois he’d made. A mixture of mash and chopped waxy potatoes, they were amazingly rich and garlicky. Sloo.

We sat, stuffed and sated, watching the shadow of the sun setting over the cliff behind the house. Having discerned that les parents couldn’t hear the cicadas I freaked out a little but Mum-y refused to be beaten and somehow managed to hear them in one ear. We lit a candle in a bottle and looked at it for a while, feeling conspiratorial. An early morning to pick up Amy and Roger. Ugh. But a bit of new, not ill blood will do us the power of good, I’m sure.