Last night, our old friends, Paul and Valérie came round for dinner. They arrived early and left late (which is always a good sign!) and they insisted on taking away with them the recipes for our starter and dessert.
We kicked off with a starter that our neighbours, Julie and Terry, on the Isle of Man had made for us just before we came back to France… Julie’s Salmon and Prawn with Lime. This simply is one of the tastiest starters I’ve ever had the pleasure of eating. We “smoked” the salmon ourselves which not only tastes better but also allows you to slice it thicker than normal. The dollop of cream and horseradish with the fish has a lovely fresh taste but the real delight is the salad dressing which includes limes, honey and fresh ginger and comes as a mouth-watering surprise when you put a forkful of salad leaves in your mouth.
Naturally we helped this down with a little drop of France’s finest… a Duc de Morny, Picpoul de Pinet 2012. It’s a crisp white from the Languedoc coast but, even though it was a young wine, it won the Médaille d’Or at the renowned Agricultural Show in Paris, so it wasn’t a bad drop at all !
Our main course was Daube Provençale (one of our regular favourites) which consists of large chunks of slow-cooked beef with lots of tasty secrets like orange flavours and fresh olives in the gravy. This always works well because it really does taste of France and it can be prepared well in advance. Also, we serve it simply with potatoes (which we crush into the gravy with our forks – bad children!) so there’s not a lot of work preparing the vegetables.
Paul brought an excellent bottle of something deep and rich and red from Bordeaux but I’m darned if I can remember the name of it and the bottle is now being recyled somewhere in deepest, darkest France! Whatever it was, it worked extremely well with the Daube.
After the cheese, we finished off with M-D’s famous Citrus Parfait which we totally demolished since everybody went for a second helping! We helped it down with a glass or two of Edelzwicker from Alsace in North-East France though I confess, it didn’t need too much help!
Valérie and Paul were impressed enough to insist that we give them the recipes for the starter, the “self-smoked” salmon and the dessert (they already had the recipe for the Daube). And the real beauty was that – as so often with a good meal – almost everything had been prepared in advance, which allowed “cheffy” to sit with everybody else and enjoy the conversation.
The salmon had been “smoked” two days earlier, the salad dressing for the starter had been made during the afternoon and put in the fridge, the Daube was made the day before and just allowed to slowly reheat, and the Citrus Parfait was from a supply that we keep in the freezer all the time because we know that this dessert is a winner, so it’s always available. In fact, the only thing I had to do was boil a few potatoes – now how hard is that?
I know I’ve said it before (and I’ll probably say it again), but the secret of French cooking is simplicity. While the French are very good at combining various flavours, unless you eat in one of the really top restaurants, you are likely to be served something that is uncomplicated but truly tasty.
I suspect we might be serving these same starters and desserts again at some point in the near future!
Before leaving the island, Terry and Julie invited us to theirs for a splendid roast dinner. Never has so much good grub been served to so few without collapsing the table! It was delicious and, for me, brought back great memories of pork crackling and roast spuds and parsnips and oh so much more. I suspect we also did some considerable damage to Terry’s stock of wine. There seemed to be a lot of empty bottles rattling round at the end! (Reminder to myself: I need to get Julie’s recipe for the starter… a lovely little salad with a vinaigrette that was as light as fairy wings and as tasty as … well, anything you can possibly imagine!)
Also, before leaving the island, Bruno and Jill invited us to theirs for a dinner. Bruno had prepared a great tajine for us. A tagine is a dish from North Africa that is named after the special earthenware pot in which it is cooked. The traditional pot is formed entirely of a heavy clay and consists of two parts: a base unit that is flat and circular with low sides and a large cone-shaped cover that sits on the base during cooking. The cover is designed to return all condensation to the bottom. With the cover removed, the base can be taken to the table for serving.
Also before leaving, we had a pleasant evening with my brother Steve and my sister-in-law, Jeanette. They’re great at keeping an eye on the house while we are away, not to mention forwarding the mail, looking after my car and much more. For some reason, however, the whole summer had passed by without the four of us having a quiet evening together. So, since Steve and Jeanette had been to Scotland earlier in the year and had brought us back a haggis, I decided to do my famous 
Since being back, we have, of course, been to our “local” – 
First of all, the name Cavellec is typically Breton (from Brittany on France’s Atlantic coast). Secondly, Bruno was a really approachable guy with an easy-going manner and a contageous smile. Third, being French, he and Marie-Danielle could stop talking English for a few minutes and relax into their own language. And fourth, I fell in love with (and bought a copy of) his giclée print “
And, if it’s worth doing, it’s worth overdoing, so we carried on with the duck theme and served 
The Isle of Man is only about 36 miles x 12 miles at its longest and widest points. Today, about 85,000 of us perch on this rock in the middle of the Irish Sea, and every summer we are subjected to hundreds of motorbikes racing through the streets of our towns and villages and around the island on the 37.7-mile Snaefell Mountain Course. Their average speed is over 130 mph and in places they exceed 200mph!
Never mind the visitors, the TT races themselves are extremely dangerous (over 250 rider deaths to date on this circuit). Imagine riding at over 200 mph on tiny, narrow, twisting streets, roads and lanes flanked by stone walls and buildings, dodging manhole covers and stray dogs! Some, including a few former competitors, have called for the race to be banned, but for the most part the riders love the TT. They know it’s dangerous, but they also know it’s the absolute pinnacle of motorcycle racing. It’s the ultimate, and if you’re good enough – and you’re brave enough – then you go for it, regardless of the risks. Personal responsibility and the love of speed triumph the desire for safety here.
Oh yeah – I almost forgot about “Mad Sunday.” One day every year at the TT, they open up the 37 mile course to the public. That means anyone on a motor bike can try his or her luck trying to match the professionals for speed (and insanity!). Imagine, if you can, a Formula 1 or NASCAR event where they let 50,000+ fans onto the track, charging around in whatever vehicle they came in. In recent years, to try and reduce the carnage (and maybe also to give the visitors even more thrills!) the roads have been made one-way for about 8 miles over the mountain section of the course. Big, powerful road bikes hitting their top speeds of 170mph-180mph is not unusual on this section.
Last Saturday evening, we invited our neighbours, Terry and Julie plus Dominic and Kate from over the road for a meal. We decided to mix the best of the Isle of Man with the best of France (as you do!) so (after polishing off a couple of bottles of Champagne with the aperitif) we started the meal with one of our favourites – beautiful fresh Manx scallops, and prepared the excellent 
As we always do, we served the meal French style (dessert last) and I dug around in M-D’s wine cooler and came up with a really nice bottle of 2008 Côtes de Bergerac. The Côtes de Bergerac is a deeply smooth sweet white wine that complimented our