Dave Hatfield

More comments. We have yet to find a restaurant with innovative food. Our fault I'm sure. What we have found are restaurants with very good food, well cooked, presented & served. Last night we had dinner at Laurenton which is one of the older wine estates. It has glorious gardens & the winery is very interesting. We ate out under a covered patio. The menu was a veriety of salad or pasta starters, meat & fish mains & a small selection of desserts. The salads were both good & large. I had pasta with pesto which was excellent. Two of us had very nice filet mains, again both good & large. I had my favorite calamari which were perfectly cooked. With terrific bottle of "five Heirs" chardonnay the bill including a nice tip came to about $75 for the four of us. As you can see nothing unusual or really innovative, but amazing value for money. I'm going to be doing some wine tasting at home as with the advice of a very knowledgable wine merchant I've bought 4 different bottles of "pinotage" to try. We'll see how they stack up. If they're anywhere near as good as the whites we've had then we're in for a treat.

From our very limited esperience we agree with Madge. It seems safe enough. We're told that you do need to be careful and certainly the shanty towns look pretty dismal & somewhere one would not go. The crime rate is fairly high, but I think with reasonable precaution this area is as safe as most large cities. Somerset West where we're staying is proported to be very safe. Don't know for sure, but it certainly is a beautiful place.

We've been eating fresh passion fruit from the treee in the garden. Papya seems very common and there are quite a few different varieties of vegetables in the markets. There seem to be quite a few types of game although so far we've only had kundo in the form of biltoong. We're told that you can get antelope, springbok, wart hog and others. We're going to investigate.

Recipe from the past: Frozen, concentrated OJ Burbon cinnamon stick Some sugar Just enough water to cover. Ripe pears, peeled & cored Place everything in a deep pan & simmer until pears are soft. Remove pears & reduce the liquid Serve cold. Intense, but very, very good.

Those are my thoughts EXACTLY. I think I mentioned it earlier but if you haven't as of yet, you should give Shropshire Blue a try. It's a gorgeous orange colour and tastes like a sharp Stilton. ALmost like a Cheddar-Stilton hybrid. ← Agree with both of your choices. Since you like those you might want to try St. Augur which is a very nice French blue in the same slightly nutty flavour range. It should be gettable in the states I think. Also, go to the wikipedia write up on Shropshire Blue. It makes for fascinating reading.

Today we found a really nice restaurant. Only about 10 minutes from where we're staying; between Sumerset West & Stellenbosch. Its called " Auberge de Paysan"; French as the name suggests. You enter through a lovely garden into a nice reception and then into a classic dining room. Beautiful linens & glass. The menu is French with a twist. There were four of us & both ladies choose the daily special salad which was shrimp & mussels with piquant sauce & well dressed salad, our friend had a carpaccio of kudo which he thought was excellent & I had a crepe filled with shrimp with a lobster sauce. All nice starters well presented. For wine we had a chardonnay from Eikandal which had light oak & tasted very much like a chablis. Mains were a veal steak with brandy sauce for my friend, a boullibaise for one lady, an entracote for my wife and filet medallions with a pepper sauce & rosti for me. A nice selection of baby vegetables was served family style. Wine was a zifandel from Blaauwklippen. I ordered this as so far as I know South Africa is the only place other than California that its made. This one was typical, robust & fruity, but a bit lighter than the heavy Californians. No desserts even though the menu was good; just coffe & some very nice chocolate biscuits. All in all a very nice meal. Excellent service throughout. Not a WOW sort of place, but well above average. I'd go back. Both wines were outstanding. Total cost was about $35.00 per person including wine & tip. Very good value for money.

We're certainly going to try to find a good place for Cape Malay food. We've heard there are some pretty good places in Cape Town.

Don't know about full time living, bur we're going to have a serious look at spending three of the European winter months down here. I must be missing something on the cheeses. As a native Californian who has lived all over the states the only supermarkets I've ever found with a decent selection of cheeses has been Wholefoods & they seem to vary a lot from store to store.

Ok, here we are staying in the suberbs of Cape Town, South Africa for two weeks on a house swap. I noted before we left home in France trhat there didn't seem to be much in the forums abour food down here, yet I had fond memories of past visits. So.... Herewith, my sort of food diary. We're now into our 3rd day. What I've noted so far is that the cost of food is really low. The cost of wine is really low as well; probably about as low as in our part of France which says you get drinkable table wine for $3.00 a bottle & nice stuff for $5-10 a bottle. (Example - tonight we had a bottle of Pinotage, 2003. About $7.00. A really really nice wine, smooth, lots of nice flavours, great fruit. Just plain good.) So far we've had 3 meals in local restaurants; 2 fish & one lunch place. Both fish were Ok. These were chain sort of places so we didn't expect a lot. The 2ond was pretty good. I had some very nice calamari & Linda had a whole small fish (billed as Sole, but not what we would call Sole in Europe.) which was very nicely cooked & flavoursome. Both served with french fries & a nice little Greek type salad. This with a glass of wine each set us back about $13.00. The lunch was at a winery in a beautiful setting. L had chichen pie & I had a toastie & greek salad. this & three glasses of the white wine they make were just over $10. For cooking at home so far I've bought nice little lamb chops, large steaks, salad stuff & some predone nibbles all of good quality at silly prices. $3.50 for 7 nice little lamb chops? Life is good. The meat looks excellent, the produce & fruits are great & all the back up seems to be there. The only disappointment so far seems to be cheese. Blah! About as good as your average American supermarket; maybe. As we progress we're determined to seek out & find the areas best restaurants as well as the best sources for ingredients. Should be fun. I'll do my best to post at least something every day so long as there appears to be interest. Couldn't think of quite where in the forums to post this so chose here on the basis that blogs go here & a diary is sort of like a mini-blog. Hope that's OK.

Parboil for sure. In fact maybe twice depending upon how salty it is. Don't remove the skin, but after parboiling cut the skin in small bits (see recipe on my blog for a picture of this.) and boil again for maybe 15-20 minutes. This way the skin will totally melt into the cassoulete, but give the texture you want.

WOW!!! I'm salivating even though I just got through cooking myself. I think you're going to have one delicious cassoulete. I also think you could start a whole new trend of wonderful non- traditional cassoulete. Now - when its finished you flash freeze a nice portion, call FedEx for a super urgent delivery & dispatch it to rural France. Yummmy.

Hi Dave, Your cassoulete looks fantastic! I've published more than a half- dozen recipes for cassoulet/cassoulete, and you are right, sometimes I don't include tomatoes. The fava bean cassoulet doesn't include them, but it's a recipe that predates the appearance of the tomato in Europe. In the updated version of the Cooking of SWF, the Toulouse cassoulet does include one plump tomato. You can see an abridged version of that recipe here : http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/toulouse-style-cassoulet ← Paula Thanks for the kind words. It would be fun, but probably almost impossible to try & trace where tomatoes are or are not used in cassoulete on a geographic basis. Locally, just on the edge of the Rouergue, they don't seem to use them. As your Toulousien recipe shows they so use some tomato, but less than other places. In my experience the cassoulete down around Montpillier seems to be the most tomato rich. The above is, of course, very unscientific and only based upon my personal experiences. Got a lot of enjoyment out of gaining that experience though. jeniac42 - I agree with Chris. Sounds like a good plan to me. I'm looking forward to the results & the pics.

When I posted my cassoulete recipe with pictures earlier in this thread I never did show the finishing off process. To be honest I just got too busy to take pictures at the time. Recently, however, I made another cassoulete and did remember to take some pictures so here they are; here the cassoulete is cooked & ready for the crust to go on. First, however, I push the top down to submerge everything & make sure the juices come to the top. Now the crumbs go on. I use day old country style French bread from our local shop which I tear into chunks & whizz in the food processor. Spread the crumbs around fairly evenly & gently push down. The finished cassoulete ready to serve. For this dinner we served it with steamed broccoli and followed with a simple lettuce salad with fresh herbs and creamy vinaigrette, followed by a cheese plate and a light lemon brulee for desert. Note that I like to add tomato to my cassoulete. Many including Paula Wolfert don't. In my case I just add a few good dollops of tomato paste. I like the colour and the extra slight amount of sweetness the tomato adds. However, that's why cassoulete is so much fun - everyone has their own variation of it!

Ned Think you're right. crackling or cracklin. My lousy typing strikes again. Thanks to all for the advice. I'll try doing my crackling your ways.

I have a very large quantity for nice pork skin as a result of doing two whole pigs with a group of friends last weekend. We used quite a lot in various ways. (the whole episode will be the subject of a separate post as soon as I get time) I've got the best of the rest and want to make crackling. Unfortunately, in the past my results have been pretty spotty. Sometimes good, but often not. I'm looking for what people feel are the best techniques to make nice crispy cracking. I'll try anything within reason. All suggestions appreciated.

Works well for beans going into a cassoulet as well. I just boil them on the stove top for about 15 minutes. Then turn the heat off & let them sit. For the cassoulet I then throw in my garlic, tomato puree & mirapoix & let that all soak while I get my meats ready. Then everything gets layered in the cassole & away we go to the oven. PS: I also am very sceptical about the need to let a cassoulet rest overnight. I find it hard to taste the difference if I make one & do the first cooking in the morning, let it rest & then heat up & serve that evening versus making it one day & serving it the next. But.... that's another whole discussion.

One of the best and most simple ways to use your truffle would be to make a truffle omelette. This is a classic combination and sure to please. Truffle season in this part of France starts in October & lasts until March. We go to the Friday truffle market in Limogne as its a small one. There is only one wholesale buyer, he weighs all of the truffles on offer that day then sets a price which is dependent upon the total weight for sale that day. Normally, you can then buy directly from one of the sellers at the same price as offered by the wholesaler. Still very expensive, but much cheaper than buying at retail. Budget doesn't allow us to go very often. The bigger markets at Caussade & Labenque are fun to go to & watch, but its hard to buy as an individual there. The competition from the retailer & the restaurants is too much.

To coin an original phrase: "Life is too short to eat cheap cheese"

Duck fat is good for you. Everything in moderation, but duck is the preferred fat. Goose is just as good, but harder to get these days as the geese don't cooperate as well as ducks for larger scale farming. I live in the middle of duck/ goose fat country & can attest to the number of healthy octogenarians around here. For recipes just try parboiling potatoes, cutting the into nice chunks, coating them with duck fat & a bit of salt & pepper then roasting at 210 degrees until the outsides are crispy. For a book try "Goose Fat & Garlic" by Jeanne Strang. Amazon have it.

That's right; coordinates mean the address & phone number plus, usually, some directions. I have now tested my earlier suggestion about using the French yellow pages. Its a bit more complicated than I thought, but is easily doable. If you only want to find a particular restaurant for your own use its very easy. The complication comes when you would like to post the link onto the forum. Here's what to do: 1) Go to: pagesJaunes. I've linked you to the English version. 2) Type in Restaurant as the Business type; then type in the name of the restaurant, then the city. 3) Hit search and you should get the Yellow pages entry for your restaurant. 4) At the bottom of the entry is a link for Map. Click this & a local street map will come up. You can zoom in & out of this to help you find the exact location. 5) If you are doing this just for yourself that's it. If you want to post the map on e gullet you have to do the following: a) Right click on the map. b) click on send link c) an e-mail form will come up with the map address in the body (it will be really, really long, but don't worry. d) go to FILE - Select all. Then having selected all of the address go to FILE- COPY. e) You can now close the map & pages Jaunes, go to eGullet write your post and include the link to the map by pasting it into the http:// code button. As I said, a bit long winded, but not difficult. Here's an example: Tour d'Argent will take you to a street map with phone number and address for that restaurant. Note that you retain the address & phone number as well as links to an aerial view, A photograph and route planner. Happy dining!

John - I'm not a Paris expert as I don't live there, but my suggestion as to how to help everyone find restaurants would be to add a link to the Pages Jaunes entry for that restaurant when posting. Not too hard to do & the link would give address, phone number and access to a map. Worth a try, I think.

Here's the situation. We've been invited to dinner at the home some French friends. Thanks to this forum we won't relieve ourselves in their driveway, will kiss at least two times on the cheek (real cheek brushes, not air kisses or sloppy busses) leaning the appropriate direction to get started, will either keep smiling & quiet until our host/ hostess speaks then respond to them OR take heart in hand & say "bon appète" and we will not get up from the table no matter how bursting the bladder until at least the cheese course. So far so good. No faux pas we hope. Now here is my question. What is an appropriate small gift to bring? In the Uk or the states a bottle of wine is pretty standard. (even though I always ended up with a large collection of miscellaneous bottles I didn't quite know what to do with) Flowers are also a safe bet in those countries. ( Once in our early days in France my wife bought a big bunch of chrysanthemums to give to our hostess. Luckily she was English & gently pointed out the error so we we were not too embarrassed.) Chocolates? In this day & age of weight watching? What? I'm looking for suggestions that are both polite and not apt to cause embarrassment for either party.

Well I guess I better buy some new stuff....My original bottle of it may have been stale, cause it was very very bitter and strong...And if I still dont like it I can put it to good use as a wood finish.... Bud ← It should be quite delicate and lovely ← Once opened keep it in the fridge. It will last much longer that way. Actually, if you can find a cork that fits use that as a stopper. It will give a better seal than a regular lid.

You might find this recent thread interesting. here it is. The aillade is fantastic if you are a garlic lover. Best with magret, but also excellent with other strongly flavoured meats. Edit: PS for a full pictorial on the making of walnut oil go to my blog below.

No disrespect intended, but I do have a question about kissing in France. These occur whenever we're meeting friend for dinner and quite often when leaving after dinner.. I'm talking about the polite quick pecks on the cheek (or air kisses) exchanged when greeting friends. I'm well aware these are not exclusively French in fact they seem increasingly popular everywhere, however, there seems to be quite a lot of protocol about them here in France. MY questions: How many are correct? I'm confused, because... Anglo-Saxon types seem to go for two. Most of our 'locals' go for three. Some friends from Paris insist on four! Now, once having determined the correct number we come to my second question? Which side do you start with? I can just imagine two very enthusiastic greeters getting it wrong and ending up with broken noses. Please let's not get to serious or philosophical about this. BReeP edited to add food content.