eG Foodblog - Dave Hatfield, La France Profonde

[FauxPas]

Aw, and I thought it was for making crepes...

I thought it might be for crepes, also!

Dave, do you pureé that cucumber/avocado soup?

Looking forward to reading more, and I love your kitchens!

[Dave Hatfield]

Went to the super Market this afternoon. I don't think that they are too happy with people taking pictures, but I did manage to get a few.

The first thing I always look for is the gas prices as they vary almost daily.

Not too bad by our standards, a bit down. If you do the conversion you'll be horrified.

Next after parking is getting a shopping cart. They have a clever system here.

All the carts lined up, but you have to insert a euro coin or a token to release one.

You get your coin/token back only when you bring the cart back to its parking area.

Yep, you can buy milk straight from this stand. Unpasteurized!

Here's the entry to the supermarket. AS you can see its a big one.

I managed to get some main departments, fish, charcuterie, cheese and spices. The rest of the departments are much as you would expect. Judging from our last visit to the states last year the quality of the fruits and vegetables seems much higher. Of course here they have to compete with the street markets.

All the supermarkets are having their wine 'fairs' as they do every October. I managed to grab a couple of pictures. A pretty impressive selection and almost all French. Its hard to buy 'foreign' wine here.

After unpacking at home I did take a few picture of the cheeses I bought.

.

You can see some of my favorites. What you may not have seen before is the 'Brique de Brebis' Obviously made from sheep's milk, but you can also buy it made from cow's or goat,s milk. Its semi-soft and very nice.

Thus the supermarket. I have to cook dinner now. (I might even have a glass of wine while I cook) If the weather's OK I'll go to Villefranche market on Thursday.

Have you got your dinner ingredients?

[rotuts]

Are these hyperharkets similar to the Mammouth markets I visited in FR in the '80s? I guess they have consolidated in many ways. thanks for trying with the pics!

[C. sapidus]

Somehow sausages taste better cooked outdoors. I think I would have stopped for a taste test, in the interest of science.

Appreciate the Rumpole reference

Thanks for the kitchen tour(s). Hard to beat Ikea for quality/price ratio, and our kitchen is holding up nicely

Are supermarkets common in your part of the world? Do you also have specialty grocers?

Looking forward to the rest of your week.

[rotuts]

unless Ive done the math wrong, youre getting your gasoline from California! I thought it was much more expensive in europe.

[KennethT]

Is gas that expensive in CA? Seems like the price is like $7.75 a gallon (using an exchange rate of 1.3 and a rough estimate of 4l per gallon.

[rotuts]

bad math, nothing new.

[Dave Hatfield]

Rotuis & Sapidus - The hyper Markets are common. Don't know about Mammouth as I wasn't paying attention in the 80's.

Just in Villefranche, a town of maybe 50,000, there are three big ones. That's in addition to at least three smaller discount type markets that I know of. They're very competitive with one another. One recently built a new store & both of the others quickly followed with major expansions. They all send out weekly flyer with their sale items & deals and they all have point based loyalty systems.

All in all they're pretty competitive, but they can't seem to beat the traditional outdoor markets for both price & quality.

[Dave Hatfield]

I forgot to explain the last photo in the Hyper Market post.

The Rentree is sort of 'back to school' equivalent here in France. All the stores make a big deal of it.

[rotuts]

How often do you have outdoor markets? is the food there 'local?'

[Dave Hatfield]

How often do you have outdoor markets? is the food there 'local?'

We could go to an outdoor market every day if we wanted to. Within a 30 minute drive that is.

Much of the vegetables & fruit is local, but, obviously, limited. Nobody grows oranges in our area for instance yet they are available at the outdoor markets.Much of the meat & fowl is local as is much of the charcuterie, but not all. Over time one learns to pick & choose for price/quality.

[Dave Hatfield]

I promised you a dinner dish so Ihope you've bought your chicken thighs, mushrooms, cream & tarragon.

Actually this dish arose because we feed our lovely standard Poodle, Rupert, on chicken thighs & dog biscuit. Linda was hungry one day after I'd roasted his chicken so stole a bit and pronounced it delicious. I guess it was the herbs I'd added. In any case I then developed it into a simple, but nice dinner dish.

Place your chicken thight into an oven proof container and liberally sprinkle the with: Salt, Pepper, Herbs de Province ans Garlic granules. Meanwhile cut up your mushrooms into slices.

Put this into a 200 degree C oven and bake for about 20 minutes.

Bring them out of the oven and turn them over.

Cook for another 10- 15 minutes until he skin is browned. Then remove from the oven & set the chicken thighs aside. Put the container over high heat on your stove top & add the sliced mushrooms. DO NOT POUR OFF ANY FAT. In fact you may need to add a bit of olive oil. Stir until the mushrooms just start to give off their juices.

Add some cream and tarrogon, stir and let reduce a bit.

Place 2 or 3 (depending upon how hungry you are) thighs on a place and spoon over some of the mushroom & their sauce. Enjoy!

We had ours with a baked potato and some broccoli. A nice, but simple main course.

Meanwhile because I'd done a second dish Rupert had chicken thighs ready for his dinner for the next couple of day. Spoiled mutt that he is.

[Anna N]

I promised you a dinner dish so Ihope you've bought your chicken thighs, mushrooms, cream & tarragon.

......

I am hungry just reading about this simple dinner. Right up my alley. Thank you for sharing. Am enjoying your blog.

[sigma]

Gosh, well done! My mystery object turned out to be not much of a mystery.

When can we expect you for dinner?

I'll have to think hard and see what else I can come up with.

Great! We are in between Sarlat and Perigueux. Just a short drive.

[Shelby]

Looks delicious! I definitely will be making this.

[David Ross]

I could easily be a hungry dog at your house.

[janeer]

Gosh, I can hardly keep up. The two kitchens: both lovely, but the rationale for two?

[Dave Hatfield]

Sigma - I'll send you a PM to start setting up the dinner or lunch. Not next week as I'm off for a golfing holiday.

Janeer- A few reasons for two kitchens. Space for storage, as you can see from the pictures the IKEA kitchen is fully loaded with stuff. In addition this gives us a self contained apartment on the ground floor which facilitates house swaps. A third reason is that we mainly use this kitchen during the hot summer months. The BBQ is just outside as is a nice shaded eating area with good views. Very pleasant place to have lunch or dinner.

David - Rupert like most dogs is never satisfied. He thinks he's hungry no matter what.

[Dave Hatfield]

.Its Tuesday morning and I thought that I'd share a morning routine with you. Lots of pictures, some are extra's to show you places of interest in our village.

As Rupert and I go to the garage to get the car its a bit foggy. But by the time we drive up the hill its pretty clear.

.

The places listed on the sign are farmhouses not hameaux. Since we're at the top we have a nice view of the valley below. Its foggy now, but that will soon burn off.

Rupert's anxious to get on with his walk, no time for my picture taking.

Although not very clear this picture shows our old village, Parisot, across the valley. If you know where to look one can actually see our old farmhouse.

We passed this nice stone wall and looked down at a little hameau.

We retraced our steps and headed down the hill for Verfeil.

As we entered the village we passed the sign for the 'new' farm shop.

Actually the official sign put up by the village is nicer.

We walked up to the village square as I wanted to take pictures for you.

Here you have the old market (halle), the restaurant, Le Seye et vous, (The old village dog likes to hang out here in hope of a handout) and the now famous farm shop.

So much for the scenic tour. There are a lot of interesting old houses & the church is nice as is the marie (town hall) and the Salle des Fetes. Now we're off to the shop.

As you can see this is a combination food shop, bakery and tabac. The tabac is a good source of revenue as is the bakery. Its also where all the notices for local events are posted. There's always a lot going on.

An array of their breads all freshly baked.

I'm refusing to be tempted by the croissants, pain au raisin or the pain au chocolate.

Hopefully you can just read the prices. Bread is sold by weight in France. Our favorite bread from this shop is their whole grain loaf, or as its called cereal.

The French are great newspaper and magazine readers. There's a magazine for every subject it seems; lots & lots devoted to cooking. Many are very good and I've learned to interpret most of them.

What would a French shop be without wine?

As we left the shop I took this picture of someone's letter box. Ingenious & effective.

As we left for home we passed the poubelles. The yellow tops are for paper & plastic, the grey tops for general household garbage. Not shown is the large bottle bank.

This is our road home.

The first thing when we got home was to feed Rupert. He likes his routine and didn't want to wait for his chicken and kibble.

Hope you've enjoyed this little tour. I'll post more later after I've decided what's for dinner today.

[Shelby]

It's so pretty there. I bet when the leaves begin changing it's stunning.

I laughed at the mailbox. I think if I did that here in Kansas that would be a federal crime.

[rotuts]

Paradise. fantastic cheese. fantastic bread. good wine. fine dog, and panoramic Dog Walks. all you need is a Cat to be best pals with the dog at home.

[Dave Hatfield]

OK, its dinner time. Since a couple of people sort of drooled over the Toulouse sausage in Monesties yesterday I decided to cook some at home today. Its the heart of a very simple supper for Linda & I.

First, however, our pre-dinner wine. with a few peanut to wash it down. .

A look at the view while I drank my wine. The second picture is of the church in Ginals across the valley.

Next I started the salad

The salad ingredients are: Mache & rocette, Tomatoes, onion & cucumber, Blue de Auvergne cheese and my special creamy vinaigrette. I'll mix everything later.

As you can see the sausage went onto our gas BBQ which I'd heated up to a high level.

As you can see even though the skin is cooked the middle isn't fully cooked. The next thing was to cut the sausage into bite sized chunks & crisp it up a bit.

The salad got mixed and the sausages put on the plates and we were off to eat our dinner while watching a BBC program called eggheads.

Not sure what I'll be doing tomorrow so I'll have to think about it. I may just try to pull out an old recipe. We'll see.

[rotuts]

What is that yellow topped 'puppy' with the dressing (sic) in it ?

Im dying here Id love dinner just like that !

wait: where was the cheese selection?

bummer. burnt sausage no cheese.

Edited October 9, 2012 by rotuts (log)

[Anna N]

.....

and my special creamy vinaigrette.

.....

And the recipe is? Please?

[Dave Hatfield]

The sausage wasn't burnt. We like the skin to be seared.

No cheese tonight as we had cheese for lunch. Cantal, Brique de Brebis and St Félicien with smoked garlic sausage.

The salad dressing which I make in my special dressing plastic 'decanter' is: (the decanter is just an ordinary container with a special top which seals closely and also has a flip up spout. Makes for great shaking up..)

3 parts olive oil

1 part white wine vinegar

A good dollup of Dijon mustard

salt to taste

Fresh ground pepper to taste

A good dose of herbs de province

a good dose of garlic granules.

Mix all of this well then add full cream until its amount equals that of the oil & vinegar.

Stir &/or shake vigorously until the ingredients fully mix.

This dressing will keep in the fridge for about a week if kept tightly sealed.

Edited October 9, 2012 by Dave Hatfield (log)