Another weekend trip to France

Last weekend was a long holiday weekend in Ireland and I flew to France to meet Corinne. I did this reluctantly because I was going to miss my annual pilgrimage to the the Pumpkin Festival in Virginia, County Cavan. With tears still in my eyes, I gathered the courage and resolve to ascend the stairs and boarded the plane exposing my eyes to the acidic yellow and blue interior.

Landing somewhere in the north of France, I quickly made my way to Paris on that dark wet morning. The city was robed in a chic damp and misty fog (not to be associated with the drenching a Celtic mist might provide). Once I got my bearings, I made my way to Rue deTermes and the Marche du Termes, awaiting the surprise of what seasonal offerings would be available for purchase in that market. Autumn was in full flight at the market, and my first sight of things to come as I turned the corner were bunches of deep red, and almost black skinned, muscat grapes side by side with their pale opalescent cousins the chasselas.

A selection of meaty ceps

The true motif of October in Europe is the cep mushroom. Plastic imitations sit in most windows from department stores to hairdressers and chemists. The muscular cep mushrooms (boletus edulis) were displayed at a number of stalls. Many of their deep earthy brown caps still had leaves and twigs attached from the forest floor where they were plucked. A number of them were sliced revealing their perfect white flesh and soft golden tubular gills. There were not many for sale and only a few stalls had a scattering of them. The unseasonal warm and dry weather may not have played its part and with frosts not too distant, the season may be a short one.

A table of vibrant girolles

Perfect cauliflowers from Marche de Termes

Morelles and Ceps

The experience was not over and the symphony had only just begun; the mushroom feast continued and a table at the top of the street had a large spread of bright yellow girolles. Small piles of fresh morelles were gathered together in an ostentatious display of luxurious seasonal wealth. On other stalls the hardy and tasty greens and seasonal vegtables were offered for sale.

Sensational scallops

The fish sellers' stalls were equally exuberant with large platters of shelled scallops neatly displayed with their crescents of orange coral adding a vibrant colourful life to the sight. Troughs, basins and indeed baths containing arrangments of large majestic ochre orange and white ridged scallop shells. Great piles of crevettes grises, langoustines of every possible size and sea urchins dominated the displays but what really caught my eye were the very large and very fresh turbot and bass.

Maison Pou

Time was not on my side, and I quickly made my way to Maison Pou to gaze in the windows at what was on offer. The prepared meals always look wonderful and this day featured cailles en jellee (quails in jelly), and poulet en gellee (oddly enough chicken in jelly), artichauts norvegen (Norwegian artichokes), Bavarois de Homard and Saumon farcie among other delightful delicacies.

Detail of a decorated cake for Maison Pou

Meanwhile in the middle of Conor's great escape, Corinne was texting the times of the trains to Besancon. The information soon changed character informing me that tickets for trains were being sold out quite quickly as it was a holiday weekend in France. I made my way to Gare de Lyon with the intention of purchasing a ticket and joining the rush for the East. Having successfully achieved this task, and equally happy that I was not going to walk to Franche Comte, I set out to treat myself to lunch. I had three and half hours to fill so I decided to go across town to the 14th arrondissement to Le Zeyer. I had missed lunch everyday the preceding week and was desperate to redress the balance looking forward to a few hours of dismantling crabs, other crustaceans and a selection of the best oysters France had to offer.

It was two years since I had visited Le Zeyer, and it was all that I remembered it to be. The lush warm decadent art deco interior echoed the weath and style of another era; surfaces veneered with burr walnut, lines of red velvet coated pews topped with polished gleaming brass rails, together with bright lanterns and an abstract art deco leaded glass ceiling contributed to a unique experience of colour and texture. I was always assured the shellfish at Le Zeyer was of a really high standard; I was not disappointed. Three hours was my target to complete the sizeable task of getting to grips with the choix de l'ecaille (or sea food mountain) which I had ordered. As I remained undecided over my choise of wine, I cast my eye about the menu and thoughts wandered to a group of special friends when I spotted a rose wine from Ramatuelle on the south coast of France. For a number of years we had raced a yacht at Les Voiles de St. Tropez together. When the racing was cancelled or postponed due to a warning of a mistral hurtling through the Gulf du Lyons, we would venture out of St Tropez or Grimaud and go to the hilltop village of Ramatuelle in order to pay homage to a great producer of rose wine and typically some fine stuffed ravioli and deep fried courgette flowers.

My three hours passed very quickly dissecting and dismantling the crustaceans, shaking a variety of oysters and other shellfish from their shells, and before long I was on the 15 58 TGV from Gare de Lyon to Besancon. I found Franche Comte as ever singular and different, separate and distinct is nearly every way. From the rich delicate flavours of the mont d'or and comte cheese to the strongly flavoured saucise de morteau, jambon fumee and the chardonnay and savagnin wines of the region. Burgundy which is separated from the Jura and Franche Comte region by the Soane in many places is almost an opposite and very French. My time here was short and I savoured every minute but it was not long before we had to return to Dublin. Incidentally, before I left I managed to see a basket of pumpkins and gourds the like of which I probably would not have seen in Virginia, County Cavan.

A basket of mutant deformed gourds and pumpkins from the market in Beasnacon

A weekend trip to France

Figs and Mirabelles

The last post was complicated by issues with my Irish fraudband but thankfully I have been upgraded to intermittent poor service and can now type and save without too much difficulty. Last weekend I went to France to be with Corrine to help her out. Having arrived in Paris, I had a few hours to occupy before catching the TGV to Frasne not far from the Swiss border. I normally try to visit a small street market called the Marche de Ternes situated close to the Rue de Ternes and Porte Maillot. A good breeze coming up the Seine meant that the temperature would never be too stifling and I could walk around in comfort. The market is quite compact and occupies a portion of two small streets that radiate from a "v" shaped intersection. Street traders operate from stalls in front of an array of specialist shops and stores selling an assortment of produce including fish, meat, cheese, green grocers and fruit merchants.

Girolles

Turning the corner and arriving at the market with damp cobbles under foot I was confronted with a scene of busy preparation as the last additions were being placed on elegantly prepared displays of seasonal shellfish and fruit. Large tables of cool yellow girolles required little immediately caught my eye before it quickly travelled to the vast quantities of diminutive blushing golden mirabelles, adjacent to plums and gages and ripe figs. Bunches of opalescent pale chasselas grapes signalled the early season harvesting of grapes. In Dublin we are still picking artichokes and I thought the European crops had come ot an end by the early summer but I spotted an enormous variety of artichokes with large fleshy leaves dwarfing bunches of suedes and cauliflowers.

Artichokes and suedes

August is also one of the best months of the year for shellfish and despite the annual evacuation of the Parisians at this time of year to the South of France and Guadeloupe a great variety of shellfish was set out in well crafted icy displays grouping together vast mounds of langoustines, amandes and cooked shore crab.

Quite close by is one of my favourite places in Paris; Maison Pou on Rue du Ternes is not Fauchon, and never will be, but it essentially does the same thing cooking and preparing classic meals, dishes, meats and pates causing the havoc with the decision making skills of the hungry Parisian. The shop's style shirks the modernity and the crisp neat shapes and abstract forms that one might expect from Fauchon. The cooking and presentation of the food is easily recognisable as what I would consider to be classically French.

Delicacies of Maison Fou

I purchased my tickets in Gare de Lyon and wandered about for a while trying to find somewhere to eat. Eventually, I happened upn a neighbourhood restaurant of Reu Didertot and was put through my paces with the chef's foie gras to start, Lapin au moutard for main course and mirabelle clafoutis to finish. By this time the warmth of the sunshine needed to be suppressed and I allowed myself a refreshing glass or two of rose from the Pays du Gard.

I awoke the next morning in the small village of Couvieres. With warm sunlight flooding in through an open window that also allowed a comforting breeze circulate the room I breakfasted on coffee, toast with a reine claude plum jam and peaches fresh from the tree. Courvieres is immediately surrounded by pastures where the Monbelliard cattle graze and horses roam. The pastures are bounded all around by vast forests of tall straight powerful pine trees.

Horses near Couvieres

On Sunday morning we went for a short walk in the forests to hunt down a few mushrooms. There had not been much rainfall in the past few weeks in Courvieres, and we did not expect to find much. However, through one stretch of forest we doscovered a proliferation of Phallus Hadrian or stinkhorns; some spent and fallen down on the ground from where they literally hatched, others still proudly standing to attention freshly emerged from their embryonic sack with pitted and ribbed caps at the tip. If and when the rains arrive there may by a mycological explosion but it will not last long because the frosts will begin to become quite severe at 850 meters above sea level by the middle of September.

Phallus Hadriani emergging from the forest floor

Reading the newspapers it is difficult to escape the difference in the news reporting; the Irish media dwells upon one crisis followed by another where we have apparently been the author of our own misfortune (in reality a series of disasters created by a select few). In contrast the L'Est Republican carried a front page story on the announcements of various wine producers that they were in the last throws of preparing for the start of the vendage, or the picking of the grapes for their annual wine production. Elsewhere in the paper, my eye was caught by this full page add heralding the arrival of the Mont D'Or cheese. This cheese available during the Autumn and Winter months is one of my personal highlights of the year and launches me into new world of goumandises and a few weekends of gluttony.

The arrival of the iconicly seasonal Mont D'Or cheese

Sailing to Byzantium - 2

A print screen from a computer generated chart for use in our Spanish exit strategy

Our works are now complete however we are now held up once again. This time there is a local administrative issue to be dealt with and we are required to wait until Tuesday before we can depart. Planning a passage such as this has been less than predictable. This latest postponement however means we can start the passage with a full complement of crew when we leave Palma da Mallorca. Depending on a number of factors, weather included, we may still stop in Cagliari before continuing on our journey across the north coast of Sicily and passing through the straits of Messina.

A grib file weather chart for midday Tuesday 22nd April

The current grib file available for Tuesday suggests the winds will be favourable and freshening as the passage progresses. On current information we can expect a north-westerly airflow of up to 30 knots, which should make the 300 nautical mile passage to Cagliari a short but exciting one as we chase the sardine and mackerel filled seas going east.

The basket makers shop in Palma

After a long day yesterday, we treated ourselves to a break from the preparations and took some time off to wander around the back streets of Palma, where a whole host of specialist shops can be found including basket weavers, dressmakers, upholsters and woodworkers. A few days ago, I caught sight of a crusty old basket weavers shop, and we decided to go back and find it. Inside every available bit of space including the ceilings and floors of two small rooms was crammed full of and stacked with straw baskets, bags, boxes and lampshades.

There was little evidence of the digital age, apart from a token casio calculator possibly purchased in the early 1980s. The gentleman behind the well worn counter offered advice to a number of customers on topics ranging from baskets woven on mainland Spain to the specifics of weaving a chair seat from straw. The time passed with ease as we browsed around the shop and eventually a few items were selected and brought to the counter, where the gentleman carefully removed his handwritten price tags and added the amounts up on his impressive beige and brown desktop casio calculator.

It was still quite early and our next stop brought us to the San Oliver fish market. Many of the boats in the fishing fleet had returned to their dock, passing us as they went just before sunset. They quickly manoeuvred their vessels, eager to land their catch as quickly as possible on the dock. Saturday morning in the fish market is always a spectacular of how fresh fish can be; mackerel, sardines, anchovies, monkfish, hake and john dory never fail to impress bright and gleaming on many stalls. We sampled a plate of fried calamar and pulpo al fiera [boiled octopus with paprika and olive oil] at bar del peix before moving on.

A pair of john dory at the San Oliver fish market, Palma

We decided to head west and explore the west of the island at St Elm, a beautifully situated small bay which opens out onto the island of Dragonara. Unfortunately, what was once a nice small village has been somewhat spoiled by over development with the result that the little bay is dominated by holiday and tourist oriented buildings. You can only hope that the clear waters of the bay and the narrow channel between St Elm and Dragonara will not be tainted.

From St Elm we pressed on northwards in the direction of Estellencs and Valldemossa winding our way up into the mountain roads which gave great views over the sea and and rocky coves below. Five years ago I visited a small fishing village on the north coast called Port d'es Canonge and I was keen to reacquaint myself with this out of the way place. Desperate for lunch accompanied by some refreshing rose wine we eventually came upon the turn off for the village and began the dangerous descent to get there. I cannot stress enough the level of care required to make your way down along this narrow road, which in many places there is barely enough room for a bicycle to overtake a donkey and it would certainly be inadvisable to do so in some stretches.

The small cove at Port d'es Canonge

This small village is easily passed unnoticed by many and is unknown to most. It was practically unchanged in the five years since I had been there and the same slipways ran to the shore from ramshackle boathouses, which were intended to shelter the fishermen's boats from the northerly wind and swells. Lunch was had in restaurant C'an Toni Moreno and it was excellent fare. We tucked into a hearty bowl of sobrasada and sepias [cuttlefish], before enjoying a wonderfully rich arroz negro; this is essentially a paella stained with black squid ink cooked with squid and small clams. Desert was a light and creamy crema catalana with its crispy caramelised top. The wine was of course a rose; a lightly sparkling and coloured wine called Cresta Rosa from Girona.

The sweltering temperatures of the April afternoon had given birth to a cool sea breeze which came and went throughout the meal, but gradually the clouds ballooned over the mountain which was directly above the small village port. By the time we made our way up onto the main road there was a light covering of hail and snow melting away as we made our way back to Palma passing through the pleasant and pretty town of Valldemossa.

One of the many painted terracotta plaques on the walls of houses in Valldemossa

White Asparagus

This time last year I was amazed by the white asparagus crop in the Pays de L'Aude. The weather was very warm for April and the river was alive with the waters from the freshly melted snow in the Pyrenees. Crops were being harvested from patches of rich soil close to the river bank. These were not large fields but manageble small plots often on a shallow bend of the river. The asparagus itself comes in many shapes and sizes but this region prides itself on the tall and thick spears which are primarily sold by the producers on roadside stalls or make their way into the local village markets.

White asparagus is quite particular and subtle in flavour and is probably best garnished and presented with softened melting butterwith a little salt and freshly ground pepper, or a mild white wine vinegar based dressing. Nothing should complicate or distract you from this experience. A rose wine, from the not too distant Etang des Colombes, Corbieres washed the lot down.