A Kitchen Garden in ....

The kitchen garden in France has been left to more or less look after itself for a few weeks whilst I visit friends and family in the UK.

Recent events made it necessary for me to to visit a property I own in the UK and I decided to turn the trip into a longer vacation and visit both family and friends, at the same time.   I shall be here until into the new year when I shall return to the garden in France and try to make a more concerted effort to write on here again.

I arrived in the UK recently and was greeted by some pretty awful weather.   Those that follow the UK news will have heard of the devastating floods that came to Cumbria during November and my thoughts are with all the displaced people that live in that region.  My own family hail from a neighbouring county and I have an uncle who currently lives in Cumbria and has been affected by the flooding, although not to the terrible extent that so many people have suffered.   Apart from the obvious suffering of people losing their possessions during the floods, my heart also goes out to them as they lose a much less newsworthy but equally important thing....their gardens, many of which will have been under several feet of water for many days.

The property in France is some two and a half hours drive from the coast and one of the joys of being here is the ability to walk down to the beach on a regular basis.  During some of the recent storms, when winds in excess of 100mph (160kph) lashed the coast in this part of England , I was truly impressed by the raw energy of the waves crashing along the coastal defences and throwing spray high, high into the air.  One day I walked to the cliff, intent to take a path down it to the foreshore but the winds were so strong I was unable to stand as I neared the edge of the cliff and decided that I would be more than foolish to attempt the path in such conditions.

During this sudden, unplanned, vacation, my own garden is being looked after by a good friend who is also keeping me abreast of developments by email.

Whilst I'm in the UK, I'm trying to find time to help out in the gardens of my family and perhaps even some of my friends will be brave enough to let me loose!!!!!!

I know it's a bit early, but my access to the Internet is quite limited whilst I'm here, so I'm going to take this opportunity to wish you all a very happy Christmas, great New Year celebrations and a wonderful 2010.  Many thanks for reading this blog during 2009 and I am looking forward to seeing you and hearing your comments during 2010

KG Day Cocktail, 2008

 

Several people have asked me for the recipe for the Crystal Blue Cocktail, I served at Kitchen Garden Day, 2008 and I'm pleased to pass it on...

The recipe is given by volume so use any measuring cup to produce the amount you think you will drink!!!!  There are a total of 14 units of measure in the recipe....

2 Tequila 2 White Rum 1 Blue Curacao 1 Cane Sugar Syrup 8 Schweppes Tonic

Be careful though. The drink is very pleasant but all that Schweppes can give you a false sense of security.... I hope you enjoy it....

There are a lot more photos from the KG Day 2008 event in our web album.  Just follow the photos link in the sidebar.

Kitchen Garden Day 2008 France

About 30 people turned up here on Sunday to celebrate Kitchen Garden day with me.

Kitchen Garden Day is a celebration of local food instigated by Kitchen Gardeners International. It takes place on the fourh Sunday in August and is celebrated all around the world.  I know that year it was celebrated in the USA, Pakistan, UK, Norway, and two states in Australia as well as here in France.

For our celebration, we organised a meal at lunchtime which was held in the garden.   Everyone who came brought some food to share, made either from produce from their garden or from something farmed locally.

On arrival, guests were served with a special KG Day cocktail which had been dreamed up by Michael, the photographer and myself.  I was looking for some connection with the earth and eventually came up with this crystal blue cocktail, which was deliciously lovely!!! but which also represented what our oceans would look like if they and the atmosphere were less polluted.  Continuing with the sea theme. we served aperitifs with farmed smoked salmon.

Here in France people tend to organise their food into distinct course and I have started to think that way myself... So although I broke the dishes down into courses, really it was just a superb buffet.  There was so much good food it's impossible to list it all and I may well have forgotten something.. but it was all very tasty and very beautifully presented.

 

 

One of the things that the Perigord region is famous for is duck.  So for our local starter we had a duck liver mousse served with some homemade multigrain and muesli bread....

Guests arrived from all directions and even the gardener turned up.

The meal continued with barbecued pork for the omnivores amongst us and a delicious mushroom  and aubergine quiche.  The quiche was made by one of our guests and the pork was reared, slaughtered and cured right here in our little community.

I was surprised at the range of ages of people attending with the seniors in their 80's happily joining in the fun with some of those a fraction of their age.  The youngest person in attendance was minus 3 months but seemed to be enjoying the food pretty well!!!!

The meal finished off about 6pm after everyone had eaten some of the delicious range of desserts, brownies, chocolate chip cookies, rhubarb crumble, fruit tart, rhum baba, cherries in juice and of course, all home made....

Thanks to Roger Doiron of Kitchen Gardeners International setting aside this day to give people all round the world the chance to celebrate together and get just a little bit closer to the planet we live on... and to think, I almost forgot my friend Bernard, who provided the wine, Bergerac AOC Rouge 2007 from his vineyard less than ten miles down the road

 

Kitchen Garden Day 2008

	Sunday is Kitchen Garden Day... and here we are expecting about 20 people to celebrate it with us. As this is France we thought we would celebrate in the traditional way so we are having a meal.    Our meal will be in the garden at midday on Sunday and everybody who is
coming is either bringing something made with produce from their own garden or something farmed locally.  A neighbour has provided some wine made from his own grapes and "My Friend Bernard" is also providing some wine. I had my first full day in the garden today for several weeks...  and realised what a mess it had  become....I wonder how much tidying up I can get done by Sunday......

Who'd be a tomato?

I can tell spring has arrived! My workshop, normally the bastion of wood and metal bashing operations has suddenly taken on a fine green shimmer as boxes of seedlings sit in the window gaining the sunlight but avoiding the late frosts that still catch me out every year. This year, tomatoes and some geraniums fell victim to a late unexpected and unannounced frost. My normally reliable weather forecast showed an overnight temperature of 4C(about 40F) but in the morning the thermometer showed -2C (28F)!

The thin spindly stalks with two tiny leaves on top waving so precariously in the breeze cannot possibly be enough to carry all the information the plant will need to know that it's supposed to be cabbage, or Brussels sprouts, or tomatoes, or even a Broom bush
Now that the seeds are through my only responsibility seems to be to ensure that they have enough water to drink. The workshop provides shelter from the excesses of the climate and the south facing window they sit in provides ample daylight.

But just simply watering is problems enough. - Too much water and everything becomes waterlogged and rots away. A situation I have endured already this year. But there again, too little water and the little seedlings shrivel and wilt. So I plod on, trying to create the experience which will guide me in future years.

Soon now, those seedlings will be big enough to brave the big wide world outside the confines of my workshop and will get to sit in a place of honour in one of the beds of my "Potager". Here, life will really get exciting for them. For the first time they will be blown in the wind, feel the wonderful sensation of fresh rain dropping on their leaves and enjoy basking in the Mediterranean sun. A privilege which many Europeans and those from further afield pay to enjoy!

But here, also in the big wide world, are the threats to survival. Heavy rainfall beating the poor defenceless seedling into the ground, predators, who see such delightful tiny plants as a very welcome addition to their next meal and don't seem to realise that those tiny little plants are only there so that they can become my next meal!

But most will survive. A few will be lost along the way. Others, where the seeds have been sown directly into the ground, will be torn away from the very land that gave them life before they have a chance to become the mature adult they all hope for, by the worst of all the predators - me! I shall arbitrarily decide on life or death for those tiny seedlings based on what? - for sure health will have something to do with it, but most likely it will be the proximity of their neighbours that decides which plants get to live and which to die a premature death.. Imagine, if a world authority could apply the same rules to us humans. "OK. We know we put you in here but now we have decided that there are simply too many people for this patch of land so we are going to thin you all out!"

But the majority will survive all this and will start to climb up and grow. Now that same predator, who only weeks ago was making arbitrary decisions about life and death, suddenly becomes the kind friend and appears everyday with helping hands. "Would you like a little drink?" "Let me tie that loose limb up for you." And then with a perverse twist and a glint,in his eye, the same helpful friend tears another limb from the body saying "Oh you didn't want to start a little spur there!"

By now, that tiny spindly stalk has turned into a vine several feet tall bearing beautiful flowers. The plant knows what it is doing. The survival of the species depends on this plant producing enough fruit to regenerate itself next year. For now, the beautiful flowers are designed to attract a little help from some friends. If they can just attract a bee to transfer the pollen - ahhhh - that's better.

The flower petals fall away and the tiny fruits start to flourish, growing daily.
The tiny spindly seedling has done well It has grown and produced enough fruit to ensure not only the survival of the species but it's prolific expansion. It's had a bit of help along the way and it's survived some overwhelming odds as well. But it has survived and maybe it deserves a pat on the back.

But even now, that biggest of all predators has one final, cruel twist up his sleeve. He carefully pulls and twists the seed bearing fruits from the plant . The helping hand is no longer a friend. He is not pulling the fruit to ensure a good healthy start for the next generation of little plants. No he is going to eat the beautiful, succulent fruit while extolling it's virtues to anyone who will listen!

Who'd be a tomato hey?

Dangerous thing when you start thinking

I have been quite ill over the past couple of weeks suffering from Vertigo. I don’t know what caused it although it now appears that it may have been a simple ear infection and more importantly I didn’t realise what it was.

Many of my friends across the Internet have sympathised with me and my various ailments as I tried to pin down exactly what the problem was. I knew I was being sick, constantly and I knew I was getting dizzy, sometimes falling over as a result and I made all sorts of perfectly valid deductions which led me inexorably up the wrong path.

I was simply very tired. I had a touch of food poisoning. I had become allergic to one of the many prescribed drugs I need to take. But at no point did I think – oh – dizziness, being sick - that’ll be vertigo.

The situation deteriorated over a period of time until eventually I agreed that a doctor be called. Now I live in France but English is my first language so there were some words I needed to look up in the dictionary to find the equivalent French word in preparation for this rare treat, a visit by the doctor.

And there it was - the French word for dizziness – Vertige - means vertigo - and suddenly everything fell into place. The doctor arrived and I told him I thought I had vertigo. He then checked me out pretty thoroughly before looking fairly serious and saying – I think you’ve got vertigo! He prescribed a remedy that I am taking and which, after 3 or 4 days, seems to be working well.

All this gave me some time to think. Lying in bed feeling awful is a good time for sorting out your brain. So, I thought, I planned, I considered, and when I could, I came back to my trusty laptop and connected with the world outside.

I thought a lot about communications and the fact that I could struggle to my laptop, without the energy to even dress and send off a message which would be received as if I was in the best of health.

I thought a lot about the possibilities of faceless communication, which the internet now provided.

I thought a lot about Internet blogs and groups and forums.

And I thought a lot about how easy it was to be misled by the very medium that was supposed to be opening up communications.

And then I got to thinking about my own posts on various forums, discussion threads and blogs.
About how often I have realised that what I have said has been completely misinterpreted by the reader - sometimes because I have expressed my self badly, and sometimes because the reader and I simply speak a different version of English.

Then I got to thinking about gardening for food and I thought about some of the mantra’s now being pushed out in front of us and how they too were being slightly misunderstood – either by the reader or often by the speaker.

I thought about globalisation and globalisation of the food chain which is almost universally abhorred.

I thought about my own attempts to eat locally, grow my own food, buy from farmers at our wonderful markets, go to the farm and collect food or wine.

But then I remembered a report someone had made me aware of which said that the carbon footprint of a leg of New Zealand lamb being eaten in the US was LOWER than that of a leg of lamb raised and eaten in the US. And while thinking of that I thought of the tea I drink, of the coffee I drink.

Yes, a lot of what I consume is grown locally but some is not and cannot be.

Do I want to give up drinking tea and coffee – a simple solution. I should encourage all my European and American friends to give up drinking tea and coffee immediately. But what happens to the people who grow that tea and coffee, who rely on me drinking it to feed their families?

We have a very involved and complex society and far too many people are trying to give us one size fits all solutions. I think I just want to say:

It’s not that simple.

Markets, Markets, Markets,

France is famous for it's markets and the Perigord region is no exception. Today, as on every Saturday morning, I visited a little village market in a town about 15kms (10 miles) away. It is the preferred market of both my wife and I. It's a beautiful market and is in the village where we moved temporarily when we first came to live in France, so brings back fond memories and friends.

When I say small, I guess there were about a hundred stalls in total. A huge array of food, both fresh and preserved, of seafood, fish, meat, cheese, dairy and fresh sparkling vegetables from not very far away. People selling fresh bread and cakes, hot crepes and waffles, croissants, pain au raisin, pain au chocolat and brioche to die for. There was the old lady, standing in the rain, with her two baskets of leeks. She sells leeks every week at 1 euro a kilo - about $1.50 for over 2 lbs - right through the year. She never misses and never sells out yet always leaves with one basket empty and the other with one or two bunches of leaks ready in case someone stops her on her way home! The apple orchards were there selling about a dozen varieties of locally grown apples and of course dried plums, prunes, being sold on every corner.

Then there were the traders selling the household stuff, cleaners, cloths, pots and pans. Some wonderful hand woven wicker baskets, a silversmith venturing out to sell his winter produce of bracelets and rings, and the local Immobilier, trying to spot anyone not local and tempt them with a very nice property at less than a million euro. I counted about 5 vinyards represented, all selling wine by the bottle or by the bag (box?) and even one selling "en vrac" - basically loose. i.e you take your own container and they fill it with red, rose or white - AOC of course, not vin de table!!!

Of course the half a dozen cafes where normally you see people spilling off the sidewalk into the market were earily still today, as the heavy rain had driven all but the most hardy - or maybe foolhardy - inside to sheltered accomodation. I bought my fruit and my vegetables for the coming week then sheltered from the rain under one of the arches surrounding the market place and had coffee whilst my wife ran off and bought a birthday present for a niece. Over coffee / after coffee we chatted to several people, the weather halting just long enough to hold a conversation with a local pepiniére(nurseryman) about an almond tree growing on plum stock - no, apparently there isn't a problem with cross fertilisation from my other plum trees

And then we walked back to the car, via the little, narrow, back lanes, behind the 12th century houses, and looked at all the "potagers"(kitchen gardens) being prepared for the spring plantings. I marvelled at how many had already planted lettuce, onion, cabbage and other, not so easily identified, green things and wondered if I would get my tiny little plot planted in time to reap the harvest.

We drove home having done our shopping, relaxed with friends and generally had a pleasant morning despite the weather. Ah, France, c'est la vie n'est pas!