La Bouffe!

(tucker!)

* Zucchini, leek and sweetcorn tart

* hand-made short pastry

* fried lardons as garnish (for the non-veggos)

Credit: Taste.com.au: Zucchini & Onion Flan

with liberties taken

Obviously, food is important in any culture. But these guys (the French, as a whole, and my host family no exception) take it to an extra level. 

Every meal - every meal, breakfast included - is served with full placemat, napkin, everything. It's a sit-down-with-the-family occasion. It takes at minimum an hour (maybe breakfast not quite an hour, but nearly). 

The last couple of days are the first time since I arrived, where not every single meal has been taken out on the terrasse. It rained a couple of days ago, for the first (and only) time. Now that the canicule (heatwave) has broken, the last two mornings have been quite fresh, and breakfast was taken inside. Lunch and dinner are still possible outdoors. And why wouldn't you? - I mean, LOOK at that view. 

We discovered a pantry moth situation, so on Tuesday we cleared out the entire kitchen cupboards and sprayed them down with vinegar, and while everything was out, I took inventory, amalgamated multiple opened things, tossed a few things, and now I have an exact understanding of what we have in store. 

Also, the (happily extensive 😛) spice rack is now alphabetised. By French names. 

* * *

I don't have many photos to show you, but on Sunday they held a Portes Ouvertes (Open Doors) day here, to launch their Global Explorers programme. A bunch of interested families rocked up to the manor. There was a kids' workshop in the morning, where the parents also could participate. We broke for lunch - people had been invited to bring a picnic; we don't yet have all the required certification for us (me) to be providing food for people. People were scattered casually all around the place, mingling, chatting, kids playing on the climbing equipment, chasing the chickens (kids, don't chase the chickens, they don't like it), chasing the rabbits (ditto). 

Most of the people were Anglophones - the programme is designed to be English immersion. There are also a lot of ex-pats in this area, so it's helpful for them.

I made some new friends! - two ladies, both of whom are interested in crafts. I showed my knitting projects to one lady, and my drop spindles. She is very excited to possibly learn spinning! - she asked for, and received, a very large quantity of raw fleece as a present, which she currently has nooooo idea how to process, or what to do with it 😄  I am her new best friend.  As I brought equipment for spinning but somehow neglected to bring any fibre to spin, she's my new best friend too!  She lives about an hour and a half from here, on some mountain, completely away from everyone else, off-grid, so crunchy. I think it's amazing. I must find a time to go out there and see her. 

One of the chickens fell in love with her!

After the lunch break, we split out into a group for kids and a group for adults. Caroline did a workshop for the adults, while I went with Alex to assist him as he delivered a talk on bees! He's absolutely amazing. He talked to them for an hour and a half and did not lose the interest of any of them.  He knows exactly how to talk to everyone right at their level. There was quite a lot of clowning. Meantime, I chimed in now and then with 'fun facts' which he really appreciated, as I was speaking more to the adults than the kids, thereby keeping their interest. 

He and I had discussed bee-keeping earlier in the week, and we both agreed that trying to light the smoker is really hard and we are both rubbish at it. He took me to his bee supplies guy, and we had a chat about the smoker, and the guy gave us some great tips on how to get the smoker to successfully light.  In the workshop, he pulled me into this section, and we did in fact manage to make smoke! My bee-keeping friends in Sydney would be so proud of me! 

I made the Mushroom Ragu from RecipeTin Eats, with Spaghettini, the other night. None of the kids are particularly wild about mushrooms, but I had bought 1.5kg of them, so we finally got through them all, with this dish finishing them off. In addition to champignons de Paris, which I was delighted to discover is the name here for what we call just plain "button mushrooms", it also has porcini mushrooms in it, which you soak in a cup or so of red wine to reconstitute, before straining (keep the liquid), chopping and sautéing. Add the chopped button mushrooms, cook them off, add a bunch of other things, add the liquid back in, etc etc. I found dried thyme and wow, did it lift this meal!  I'm promising to leave mushrooms out of meals for a while! 

Credit: Jb's Mushroom Ragu Pasta

The haricots verts were fresh-picked from our veggie gardens! It isn't canon with this dish, but they needed to be used. 

* * * 

Alex and I drove a couple of towns over to Mazères-Lezons. On the way we saw this tractor, lugging massive barrels filled with grapes! It's harvest season for the vineyards. There is an ENORMOUS "cave" - I think it's a co-op, where all the farmers bring their grape pickings and they are all made into the local wine. 

The primary goal of our trip was to go to this store, which is absolutely massive. It is kind of like the biggest Woolies you've ever been to, with a Big W bolted on.
Oh, and also, you can rent cars there! 

And indeed, I did rent a car! For suuuuuuper cheap. Like, €7 per day. 

Well, okay. If you want the damage waiver, that's another €10. 

Plus, then they charge you per km driven, at €0.30/km. So don't go driving to Nantes or anything. But for trotting around this immediate area, it's going to be fantastic! 

It's a very nice car. A late-model Peugeot 2008. 

I sent this photo home, and Ferdi wrote back and said 'a manual Peugeot', and my Siri has taken to reading me my incoming messages, and he pronounced it 'Manuel Poo-got'. So that's my car's name now! 

Everyone, meet Manuel!

He's more or less the same size as my car, maybe a bit bigger (I'm still getting used to it) - but a lot less daunting than the gigantic (to me) VW 9-seater which is Alex & Caroline's vehicle! I was really not looking forward to have to drive that! So this is a wonderful solution.

Driving a manual car on the wrong side of the road, it's a bit exciting! I get in and turn it on and start chanting 'to the right, to the right' 😝

* * *

The day after I got the car, they sent me off to do the market on my own!
How exciting. 

Here's a lovely place in the little village of Gan. The wing on the left has been beautifully renovated, all the windows are new etc. The middle and right wings are definitely a work in progress. 

Look at these beauties. The placard in the next picture is affixed to the left-hand side of the left building. 

This looks really intriguing, and when I am not on a mission to buy goat cheese and fresh baguettes, I'm going to check it out in more detail! Watch this space. 

At the market, my curiosity was piqued by this placard - I mean, can you get non-vegetarian chillies? 😶

We met this guy last week, and Caroline asked him about the possibility of lessons for Leah. He's been up to the house a couple of times. Everyone, meet Ludovig! He writes and sings his own songs. 

I basically fell out of bed, sculled one cup of tea, and beetled straight out the door to the market. So I may or may not have shouted myself a pain au chocolat for my belated breakfast. 

It doesn't matter how fantastic your time in France is, nothing beats your first
pain au chocolat of the trip. 

On Wednesdays the children don't have school, so it's a family lunch all together. There was spaghetti with mushroom ragu left over, so we heated that back up. I made a salad with the new produce from the market, and also shown are the week's new cheeses (chèvre, Comte and Brebis) and fresssssssh breads. 

The first session of Global Explorers went very well! 

It does make it quite tight, when that finishes at 5pm and then to get out to Wednesday night church, we have to leave by 7pm (and please remember the whole meals-take-an-hour window!)  

So I planned something that would be quick-ish. I had a quinoa-lentil mixture that had been leftover and frozen from a few meals ago. Defrosted that, zhoozhed it out with sautéed onions, zucchini and sweet corn, added some Mexi spices, halved and stuffed some red capsicums, made a gratin from breadcrumbs and grated cheese, and baked them.  Pretty good! And we got out the door on time! 

Credit: Taste.com.au: Quinoa Stuffed Capsicums

with liberties taken

I had planned to go out for the day on Thursday, but due to a couple of things, that didn't happen - so I spent a happy day playing Alchimie in the kitchen. 

Alex is finding that just bread isn't cutting it for him for breakfast. 

So I made a batch of granola.

Credit: RecipeTin Eats: Granola

Someone posted a reel on Facebook for making Fig Leaf Syrup - so of course I *had* to try that with the leaves from our enormous tree! It's ... interesting. 

For Thursday lunch, we (just the adults) had the remaining stuffed capsicums. 

The cheese and the bread don't come out for dinner! 

After lunch, I made these fabulous little beauties:

To make a typically French biscuit, in France, from a recipe written by a Frenchman who just happens to live in Sydney , is a bit like taking coals to Newcastle

(or, as I've discovered, here you say "porter l'eau à la rivière")

Credit: RecipeTin Eats: Galettes de Breton

Asian food products are pretty thin on the ground here. The supermarket doesn't even have tofu!!! So I made a batch, out of red lentils. 

Credit: ItDoesntTasteLikeChicken: Easy Lentil Tofu

And finished up the day's effort with Firecracker Beef for dinner! - with the Tofu dusted in cornflour and curry powder, and shallow-fried until crispy, for the vegetarians.
This is the only way I enjoy tofu at all. Gotta say, the lentil tofu is much more flavoursome than regular tofu! And it's fast to make!

This meal was the most well-received by the kids of anything I have cooked since I got here. The pickiest child ate everything, didn't have to be badgered, seemed to really like the spicy sauce (although I had been assured that nobody can tolerate heat), and was cheerful throughout the meal (also a first 😜). This may well have had something to do with me showing them all the just-made biscuits and saying they could only have one for dessert IF they ate all their dinner with NO delaying and importantly NO whining. The message was taken well to heart, and we all had a very pleasant meal. 

Credit: RecipeTin Eats: Firecracker Beef

I would like you to check this out. This is this week's menu for lunch at the school. Every French child gets a full cooked three-course meal, every day. 

The Pryenées-Atlantiques and I bid you Bonne Nuit! 

 Clos de Gaye

Clos de Gaye (pronounced Clo de Guy) literally translates to "enclosure of joy" or perhaps "place of happiness", and it's the name chosen by my host family for their beautiful property. Today I'm going to take you on a bit of a tour!

You drive through these gates and there's the house in front of you. 

The house was built before Australia was colonised. It has enormous wooden rafters. The floor boards are a foot wide. It has a freaking tower!!!! On the ground floor of the tower is a toilet room, the upper level is bisected into a semi-circular shower stall for the master bedroom, and a semi-circular toilet for the upstairs bedrooms. You can see to the right in that photo, that's barn. The smaller out-building behind the pool (omg there's a pool!- a cheap and cheerful dismantlable pool! it's been so hot here, the pool is a godsend) is split into two rooms, one being utilised for the childrens' workshops they put on, and the other as storage for the bee-keeping equipment. 

Facing the house (out of shot, to the right in the previous photo) is what they optimistically call the Rose Garden (it's a work in progress)

... with an epic childrens' climbing frame
And a couple of hammocks under one of the many enormous shade trees

... where the kids read, and sing, and play. 

The barn itself is also divided into storage, a loft which they also use a space for their workshops, and to the left in this photo, the white door leads into what is known as a "gîte", for which there isn't an exact English equivalent word but loosely speaking is like a guest house or holiday rental. It's got a single bedroom upstairs, a living room and kitchenette downstairs (and possibly also a bathroom but I can't recall where, this was the whirlwind tour on my first day). It is available to rent out for e.g. artists' retreats.

The stonework is just stunning. 

Behind the barn live the chickens and the rabbits. 

There are four of each. The chickens get put away each night. The rabbits don't co-operate at all, they got let out once and refused ever to go back in when asked, and are mostly wild now. I think they have made a warren under the barn so they're pretty safe from predators. They all have outrageous names.

Beyond the screen of trees behind the animal coops, the property opens out to THIS:

Zoom in on that pic and waaaaaaay up the back there (follow that mowed path) are Alex's bees. He had three hives, currently only one is active, and they are being plundered on a daily basis by hornets. 

We have had some very interesting discussions on bee-keeping. Ideally, he would like me to keep an eye on the bees when he is away from home.

There's also the fruit tree orchard. 

Alex has a whole assortment of interesting fruit trees - none of which are old enough to fruit yet, give them time.

The figs are fruiting, however! There are five trees on the property, including this absolute beast: 

You can see that it's fallen over at some point, but instead of dying, it's re-sprouting all the way along the trunk. It's absolutely LOADED with fruit.

Shame I don't particularly like figs 😜

I'm going to have to work out some way to preserve them for the family. 

Up from the barn, and left of the orchard, are the "potagers" (veggie gardens). 

There's a lovely neighbour who has taken it upon herself to manage them for the family. She had been away for a couple of weeks and when I got here they were completely overgrown with all the summer heat: 

All four of them looked more or less like this! I mean, fantastic bounty, but a muddle.

Within a day of Marcelle coming home, I went up to them and found that order had been beautifully restored in at least one of them: 

... and now, things are visible which before were invisible! - beans, eggplants, capsicums, all previously hidden by (I think it was) a rampant courgette (zucchini) plant. 

The others are following suit, as Marcelle finds time. 

There are lovely flowers growing in amongst the produce - which attracts the bees, which gets your plants pollinated! 

Most of those flowers are edible. I'm totally putting them in our dinners!

Ça, ç'est un potimarron (which I'm thinking has to be a bastardisation of the words "petit marron") - bascially a pumpkin. We ate half of one of these last night, they are sweet as anything, wonderful when roasted. 

And this is a species of butternut, if I remember correctly it might be called here un courge de Naples (Napoli zucchini).  Apparently it doesn't change colour from green, but is edible at this point! Let's find out! Fun times ahead. 

Here's what the house looks like from the back:

My bedroom is the upstairs, far right, with the shutters not completely opened - from which, this is the sort of horrific sight to which I am subjected every single day now: 

Other scenes from my bedroom include this one, the other morning: 

Cleopatra had elected to not come inside overnight, and was yelling under my window early the next day, clearly having regretted her life-choices!

We eat breakfast, lunch and dinner out on the terrasse, while the weather is like this. It has a motorised shadecloth, very necessary! - this is the south side of the house and you know that the sun is in the south for the Northern Hemisphere! It gets really hot. 

You can also see in this particular picture that all the shutters and windows are closed against the heat. France had its fourth "canicule" (heatwave) this summer, over this past week - it's bee up to about 34C most days. The walls of the house are stone and THICK. Close the shutters and everything is many, many degrees cooler inside. It's kinda weird sitting in the semi-dark or with lamps on, in the middle of the day, but hey, do what works! 

Two of the five of them are vegetarians, and I'm ambi, so I'm making a LOT of vegetarian meals, with possibly a meat on the side instead of the main event. 

* Cauliflower, sweet potato and chickpeas, roasted in tagine spices

* Couscous pilaf 

* steamed green beans

The children are served a portion of everything that is on offer on the table (obviously not the meat things for the veggos), and are absolutely required to eat everything on their plates, before getting second servings of anything. 

So far I haven't managed to nail a meal where EVERYone loves EVERYthing. But the parents are very appreciative and loudly and repeatedly complimentary, which is most gratifying.  

The market had beets. I love beets, any way they come! Brought them home and trawled the internet looking for something fun to do. 

* Roasted beets and carrots

* steamed green beans (worked out very quickly that steamed green anything is a massive hit)

*Quinoa and lentils (which apparently is more nutritious together than either of those things eaten on its own = good for vegetarians)

* dressing of tahini, lemon and honey (recipe called for maple, we didn't have maple, but heck yeah we have honey!) 

Credit for this recipe: Roasted Beet Macro Bowl

Friday night is traditionally Pizza, Icecream and Movie Night around here. The kids watch barely ANY television and have no screens whatsoever. Consequently they are some of the most inventive, creative children I've met. On the weekends they get TV time but it's movies not TV. On the weekend I walked past, to find them voluntarily watching a DVD of a ballet production of Alice In Wonderland. Voluntarily!!!! 

At some point I'm going to make pizza dough from scratch for them, but last week there wasn't time in the day, so I bought ready-made pizza dough (which was pretty average, not gonna lie, but bad pizza is still pretty good, right?) 

*ham & pineapple

*mushroom

*quattro formaggi

* margarita 

* Sil's One - Lish's and my perennial favourite, from a now-defunct pizza place in Sydney, comprising sweet corn, capiscum, mushrooms, avocado and herbs. 

The margarita and the Sil's were the outright winners, might make double quantities of those next time. 

And yes, I'm in my bathing suit 😜 Did I mention it's been HOT here? 

The movie Alex picked was very very left-field - a French slapstick from 1965 😝, about a naive guy who gets picked by a bunch of smugglers to drive a Cadillac from Naples to Bordeaux. Unbeknownst to him, the car is loaded with cocaine (hidden in the rear quarter panels), gold (the entire front and rear bumpers are made out of gold and then sprayed to look like steel) and jewels (diamonds and rubies in the battery). There's also the 'biggest diamond in the world' hidden somewhere that is not specified until the very end of the movie (but I guessed it).  Shenanigans occur at all stages of the trip. The car gets banged up. He takes it to a carrossiere (Italian for panel-beater, I learned that word on my first trip to Italy!) who, when he takes a blow-torch to the bumper bar (meanwhile me, a panel-beater's wife, sitting there yelling THAT'S NOT HOW YOU REPAIR A CAR!!!) makes the gold melt, discovers that the whole bumper is made of gold, and promptly swaps out the entire bumper for a normal one and pockets the gold :) Similar things happen to the other contraband - gunshot from two competing groups of baddies cause all the cocaine to blow out of the quarter panels; something dreadful happens to the battery and it is swapped out and he throws the dead one into the ocean, not realising that it had stuff in it. 

You get the picture. 

Slapstick is my least favourite form of comedy, regardless of language. However I will say that the photography was fantastic, and one scene where the baddie is actually repairing the car himself, is done as a complete dance, to a well-known piece of music. It was gold! 

I'll leave you with a picture of what I currently refer to as "My Office".

Ghastly, isn't it. 

À très bientôt!

 Arrivée Sur Place! 

Date: 01 septembre, 2026

Arrivée at what is to be my home for the next 4 months!

The family is adorable. The kids are some of the biggest extroverts I have met in my also-extroverted life. We are going to get along just fine!

This was about ten minutes after I met them :)

Ah, the French.
My train was delayed (actually a bunch of trains were delayed). There were lots of people milling around the station. Not anywhere near enough places to sit. This madame made herself comfy in the photo booth!

I can't stop taking photos of the view!

Everyone, say Hi to Cleopatra! She's also a massive extrovert - very pleased to meet me, and the acquaintance continues to develop.

Various photos taken from my room

It's soooooooooo quiet at night, my ears buzz.

That pointy mountain in centre-frame is the Pic du Midi d'Ossau. Its shape is used on all the designs for this area's signage.

The 'back yard'

On Wednesday mornings there is a market in the Place de la Mairie. This is where the family does the bulk of their fresh food shopping. I was introduced at all the stalls that they like to frequent, and then instructed to 'go buy stuff'. The idea is that you buy what's in season, then you bring it home and work out what to make with it! I like to call it 'Masterchef Ingredient Challenge' and it is one of my favourite ways to cook.  After the market, and after the planning, a secondary shopping list is made, where we buy the items from the supermarket that we will need to implement the menu. 

The little town of Gan (pronounced gon), centre-ville.

Moroccan (?) bags and baskets at the market

Artist at the market

Our bread guy

The confit de canard lady

One of their favourite cheese ladies (there are two. There's a third cheese stall as well!)

The organic veggies guy. This family is very big on organic produce wherever possible.

Organic soaps!

One of the reasons that I am here, is to support Caroline in her work, when Alex is away from home working. The family took a stall in the market, to promote their "Portes Ouvertes" day on Sunday 6 sept, where Caroline was launching her "Global Explorers" programme (more on that later). To drum up interest, Alex put on a puppet show to attract children to come and participate in the programme. 

And then it was time for me to start earning my keep! :) With the bounty from my shopping spree, I was asked to throw together a lunch.

On Wednesdays, French children don't go to school. Their school days are 8.30-4.30 on the other four days. So it was a nice family lunch out on the verandah.
On offer:
* garden salad, lemon vinaigrette dressing (hand-made, of course!)
* jambon with fresh melon, hard-boiled eggs from our chickens.
* two beautiful breads from the bread guy.
* A Brebis (sheep-milk cheese) and a chèvre (goat cheese), OMG the chèvre, I can't stop. 
They have a proper sit-down lunch every day. So civilised!!! 

Dinner was pan-fried eggplant steaks, with crumbled goat cheese and honey drizzle (the honey from our hives), with a spiced rice pilaf. Rave reviews