Category Archives: Salads

Cheese, Chicken, Desserts, Salads, Salmon

Christmas 2018

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Florence, Damien, Marie-Danielle and GrahamWe spent an informal Christmas Day this year in the company of two good friends, Florence and her son, Damien. We also decided to keep it simple, so we kicked off with smoked wild salmon from Olsen Bornholm, a specialist smoke house and curers, just a mile from where we live. But we dressed it up a bit and turned it into Julie’s Salmon and Prawn with Lime. This is such an easy recipe and it’s been a huge success every time we’ve done it. Damien was more impressed with Marie-Danielle’s hat. And a mighty fine hat it was too!Florence, Damien, Marie-Danielle and Graham

For the main course, we cooked Chicken in a Salt Crust (or Poulet a l’ail en Croute de Sel if you want me to be pedantic). It’s a simple, straightforward recipe and I know from experience that the salt crust takes a bit of breaking. In fact, I often employ the help of a hammer. So it was a racing certainty that Damien would find this amusing. Nothing like getting someone involved in the kitchen at an early age – even if it is only with a hammer!

Happy 2019 from Marie-Danielle and GrahamFlorence lives in the heart of Paris and she had brought with her some truly wonderful cheeses that we took our time over. She also brought the deserts – delicious hand-made cakes from one of the best patisseries in the capital. We would have been happy if she had just brought herself and Damien, but the cheese and desserts were an added bonus.

Incidentally, I used Florence (with her permission) as a model for one of the characters in my book Web of Tangled Blood. It’s the story of a couple struggling to understand their past as they search for their long lost son.

So, finally, I hope you’ve enjoyed following this blog. I leave you at the end of 2018 with all my best wishes for the year ahead. May you enjoy health and happiness. Everything else will follow from there.

Beef, Desserts, Lamb, Salads, Shellfish, Slow Cooking

Top Five Recipes for 2017

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This post actually isn’t going to be the top five things I’m grateful for. That would turn into a top 150 list and it would be annoyingly long. Instead, this post is the top five most viewed recipes on Need A Recipe in the last year!

Which, I guess, actually leads me to talk about something I’m thankful for. I’m really, really, thankful that you read this blog! Or even just scan through the pictures. Seriously, I wish I could serve you the recipe of your choice through the computer screen every time you visit the site and browse around.

Building the Need A Recipe list of good things to eat, and blogging like this is fun because of the interactions that I get with other people, and those other people are you! Thanks for keeping it fun for me and helping Need A Recipe grow in leaps and bounds in this last year.

Now, let’s eat! The Top Five Need A Recipe recipes for this year are:

Julie’s Salmon & Prawn with Lime is dedicated to Terry and Julie, our neighbours on The Isle of Man, who served us the most stunning starter in the field of human culinary endeavours! I promise you – you eat this and no starter will ever seem the same again. M-D and I were transported to a place that few ever get to see… the pinnacle of goodness and taste and salivating cherubs floating on clouds of… er, yeah, okay, I got a bit carried away there. But so will you when you try Julie’s Salmon & Prawn with Lime Julie's Salmon & Prawn with Lime

 

A Trio of Scallops is a simple and very effective starter course or, as you will see when you follow the recipe below, you can extend the choice to make it a “quad” of scallops. This lovely dish is perfect for serving when entertaining since it can mostly be prepared beforehand and then will take only four or five minutes to finish and serve.

The most effective way to serve a Trio of Scallops is in long individual dishes that are separated into three sections. If you cannot find these, you can use Chinese soup spoons (the ones that have a flat bottom so stand up on their own) with one scallop per spoon. And failing that, just use scallop shells (one scallop per shell). The finished scallops should be placed in the correct order on the plate and eaten from left to right. No – this is not food snobbery, it’s simply that the taste begins gently and builds to a crescendo.

Trio of Scallops

 

Beef Wellington – oh beloved food for an evening with friends (or your partner’s boss who you are supposed to impress!). Just occasionally, I get an inkling to make Beef Wellington – the tenderest of Angus beef smeared in mustard or horseradish, smothered with mushroom duxelles, wrapped in Parma ham and put to bed in a cover of golden puff pastry. Traditionally, Beef Wellington was coddled in a layer of pâté, but I prefer the mushrooms and Parma ham version. It’s actually a lot easier to make than it looks, and the result is fantastic. A great idea for all beef-lovers (and partner’s bosses who need to be impressed!).

Some people use thin pancakes to wrap around their beef. The idea is to stop the pastry getting wet. However, I’ve always found that overlapping prosciutto works just as well, and tastes 100 times better. Beef Wellington

 

Lamb Shanks in Deep Rich Gravy gained an easy fourth place. It’s a magical recipe, especially if you want to have your guests guessing at the secret ingedients. Even though the recipe uses anchovies (a very salty fish) you can’t taste it in the finished dish but it totally transforms the meat and gravy, bringing out the delicious flavours.

Incidentally, 3lb (1½kg) of shanks is usually about 2 or even 3 shanks. If your butcher offers you one large one, reject it – at that size, it’s probably old mutton! If you have any problems, simply use a leg of lamb instead. I often do that. Lamb Shanks in Deep Rich Gravy

 

Double-Take Apple Flan is so called because there are two ‘stages’ to the cooking and also because it tastes so good, there’s no way you won’t go back for another helping. “Double-Take” Apple Flan is a winner, no matter what the occasion, and the extra little trouble in preparation and cooking is well, well worth the effort. Your guests will love you for it. Double-Take Apple Fla

Chicken, Personal Stuff, Salads

Welcome to the cousins!

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Monday saw us having lunch with M-D’s cousin, Jean-Louis and his partner, France, who live on the east of Paris. Also, M-D’s sister, Christine, came down from Lille in northern France. We had planned eating at about 1 o’clock, but circumstances worked against all of us!

First of all, the chicken that we had planned cooking in its salt crust was decidedly “off”. Though it was a farm-bred, corn-fed beasty that was well in date, there was something going on inside it that shouldn’t have been, and it became very obvious when we removed the packaging! So I dumped it straight in the garbage and drove to the store to get a replacement.

As I was gone, Christine rang from her car. She was stuck in a jam just outside Lille due to an accident. Then we had a call from Jean-Louis… they had been advised of a parcel delivery that still hadn’t arrived, so he was having to wait before they could leave the house.

tomato and mozzarella saladTo cut a long story short, we had a long “apperitif” with Jean-Louis and France while we waited for Christine, and then sat down to eat just before 3pm! Fortunately, the Chicken in Salt Crust is a very tolerant recipe that can stand a lot of messing round. We had started it late, so it sat happily in its little salt ‘oven’ while we enjoyed a Tomato and Mozzarella Salad starter (except that I used Feta, for a change!). This is a great starter because it’s fresh, tasty, easy to make and (apart from adding the vinaigrette dressing) can be prepared in advance and kept in the fridge. Be sure to serve some nice fresh chunky bread with it to mop up the dressing… it’s far too good to waste.

Chicken in a Salt CrustSo, at about 3pm, the “bomb” that held the chicken was presented to the table. Of course, it takes a degree in mechanical engineering to open it, so it doesn’t get undressed at the table – it goes back to the kitchen to be exposed and dissected! As it happened, France had never seen one before, so she joined me in the kitchen and attacked the crust with a large, dangerous-looking carving knife.

Chicken in a Salt CrustAfter a few minutes of cursing and hacking, she succeeded in exposing “the beast” and then left me to carve and present it to the other diners! The joy of this dish is that the chicken is “loaded” with Boursin cheese between skin and flesh and this melts to create a really succulent chicken with rich flavours. It might seem like a waste of coarse sea salt, but I can assure you that the end result is well worth it.

With the chicken, we served a Ratatouille and, for fun, some “curly potatoes”! M-D discovered a little gadget that drills the inside from vegetables, leaving a core like a spiral of vegetable. So I par-boiled the spirals and then sautéed them. Visually they looked great, and they tasted good too! There was very little left of either the chicken or the vegetables when we had all finished.

Since Jean-Louis and France don’t drink alcohol, there were just three of us sharing the excellent bottle of Pinot Noir that hit the spot nicely for all the courses. After the cheeses, we served Gâteau Creusois and a Carpaccio d’Oranges à la Cannelle (Orange slices with cinnamon) – something we’ve done a couple of times recently (we must stop being lazy and falling back on all the simple recipes!), However, it’s a nice simple, refreshing and tasty way to finish a meal – which just left me loading the dishwasher while the others had coffee and chocolates! – Hmmm – and they say a woman’s work is never done!!

Lovely way to spend a Monday amonst friends!

Beef, Charcuterie, Cheese, Mushrooms, Raclette, Salads

Melted cheese followed by a left-over lunch

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Last night we enjoyed the company of our neighbours, Julie and Terry, with their children Esme and Merlin (12 and 7 respectively). Whenever younger people are involved, it’s always best to find something simple that will capture their imaginations, so we decided to do a Raclette, which is a dish created in Switzerland where, originally, cheese was heated in front of a fire then the melted cheese was scraped from the unmelted part of the cheese onto the diners’ plates (the term raclette derives from the French verb racler, meaning “to scrape”). The cheese is accompanied by small firm potatoes, gherkins, pickled onions, and dried meat, such as raw smoked hams and viande des Grisons (beef).

Raclette with all the trimmingsObviously, we didn’t buy a 50kg block of cheese, light a fire and start scraping it – we used a more modern way of serving raclette that involves an electric table-top grill with small pans, known as coupelles, in which to melt slices of cheese. When we do this, we bring the cheese to the table already cut and sliced, along with a plate of charcuterie like Grisons (which is what we used last night) or pastrami or salami or cooked ham (or whatever floats your boat) accompanied by a big dish of boiled or steamed potatoes and a bowl of cornichons (small gherkins).

Diners place a slice of cheese in their coupelle, slide it under the grill to melt and, meanwhile, help themselves to potatoes, meat and cornichons. As soon as the cheese is melted it is simply “poured” over the food on your plate (with a bit of help from small wooden spatulas if necessary). Then you load your coupelle with cheese again and pop it under the grill to melt while you are eating what’s on your plate. It’s like a mini production line, the emphasis being on relaxed and sociable eating and drinking.

And, just for fun, we had brought some purple Vitelotte Potatoes back from France with us, which we mixed with normal white potatoes to create a splash of colour. We had also brought back with us some packs of ready-cut cheese that are specifically intended for raclettes. However, you can use almost any firm cheese (particularly Port Salut – a semi-soft pasteurised cow’s milk cheese from Pays de la Loire, France, with a distinctive orange crust and a mild flavour). As a guide, there were 4 adults and two youngsters last night and we ate 750g (just under 1¾lb) of cheese.

French and other European supermarkets generally stock both the grill apparatus and ready-sliced cheese and charcuterie selections. However, elsewhere in the world you can buy the grills online at places like Amazon (just search under raclette). The other fun aspect of modern raclette grills is that they incorporate a hot stone, so you can have a “cook your own meat” evening too (which we often do). If you buy your cheese as a block, you need to cut and slice it to create pieces roughly 5cm x 7cm x 6mm (2″ x 2¾” x ¼”)

Last night, just for fun, we also put a few uncooked quail’s eggs on the table and some of us played making “omelette on cheese” just for the hell of it (told you it was all about relaxed and sociable eating!). Thought it’s not essential, we also provided little side salads of baby leaves, raw mushrooms, clementines and a vinagrette that used tomato ketchup! We served a Pinot Noir from Alsace that is light enough to complement the somewhat heavy cheese. Afterwards, we indulged in Bruno’s Double Take Apple Flan, which is light and delicious! (Hazard warning!!! Don’t serve ice cream after a raclette; it will solidify the cheese in your stomach and you’ll feel like you’ve eaten a barrow load of lead!)

So we arrived at lunch time today wondering what to eat and decided on a “left-overs” salad of Grisons (left-over), potatoes (left-over), mushrooms (left-over), quail’s eggs (left-over) and spring onions. M-D had her potatoes as a Warm Potato Salad while I just had mine sliced and cold. And we both added a little Thousand Island Dressing to the raw mushrooms… delicious! Tonight will be just soup, I suspect – I rather overdid the cheese last night!

Beef, Christmas, Lamb, Mushrooms, Salads

Another Christmas gone… can’t wait for the next.

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Well, you know what it’s like… you plan for it, you shop for it, you tear your hair out for it and, at the end of the day, you find it’s December 27th and once again, Christmas is just a memory. But as long as it’s a good memory, who’s worried!

In France the “big dinner” is the evening of December 24th and M-D and I had planned a quiet dinner together since we were heading down to Orleans the following day to have a ‘second Christmas’ with M-D’s daughter and grandaughters. However, the best laid plans etc…. and a few days before, we discovered that a friend would be on his own for Christmas so we invited him over for Christmas Eve dinner with us.

Rich Gravy LambIt had to be simple and straightforward, so we opted for foie gras as a starter, Rich Gravy Lamb as the main course, cheese and salad and then we finished on M-D’s (in)famous Citrus Parfait which we always have ready in the freezer.

The Rich Gravy Lamb is an absolute stunner because it is stupidly simple to prepare – lamb (leg or shank), a couple of onions, a bit of stock and red wine, a few simple herbs and a fillet or two of anchovies (yep, you read that right … anchovies. Though you can’t taste them in the finished dish, they totally transform the meat and gravy, bringing out all the delicious flavours). The joy of it is that you shove it in a slow oven and leave it alone until you’re ready to eat it. It also washes down quite well with a 1986 Roc du Breuil, Cotes de Bourg!

The following day, we drove down to Orleans (it’s about 100 miles) and met up with Muriel and the girls (Clélence and Eléonore). They had spent Christmas with Muriel’s half-sister over on the Atlantic coast so they had driven for about 3-4 hours to get home. Nonetheless, along with Muriel’s Grandmother, Rolande (96 going on 25), we made up a happy gang of six.

We started with Julie’s Salmon & Prawn with Lime which has, in just the few months since our neighbour in Peel introduced us to it, become one of our firm favourites. We already had them drooling and we hadn’t even arrived at the pièce de résistance…
Beef WellingtonThe day before, I had prepared a Beef Wellington to the stage that the fillet of beef was wrapped in its coat of mushroom duxelles and Parma ham. So all I had to do at Muriel’s was to add it’s pastry overcoat (two packets of ready-rolled puff pastry), coat with egg yolk, and pop in the oven for about 40 minutes (it was a 2¾lb – 1.25kg fillet). It came out perfectly cooked to suit us all. The ends were medium-well, the centre was rare and in between a beautiful medium rare, so everybody got what they wanted. (In fact we all got we wanted two days later, too …. left-overs. Cold. With Salad. And a few miniature tomatoes. Bliss!). Helped down with a rather splendid 1986 Chateau Moulin a Vent, Lalande de Pomerol, I can highly recommend Beef Wellington, hot or cold!!

And now we’re back home in Acheres planning the next onslaught!!! Today is Friday (for about another hour) and tomorrow we dive to the shops and get what we need for the next few days because M-D’s sister, Christine, is arriving for a week or so. On Sunday we are having a “late Christmas” dinner with Christine and “Tatty Suzanne” (Christine and M-D’s aunt who lives a few miles away on the outskirts of Versailles.). The plan is for Monk Fish in Orange which is a bit of a mixture of two other recipes but, if it works, should be pretty damn good!

I’ll let you know (or not!)

Beef, Desserts, Fish, Salads, Salmon, Seafood, Shellfish, Wine

Glorious evening of simple, tasty food.

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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.

Julie's Salmon & Prawn with LimeWe 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 !

Daube ProvençaleOur 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.

Citrus ParfaitAfter 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!

Duck, Personal Stuff, Salads, Wine

Losing weight!

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I’m supposed to be losing weight! I’ve been trying to do so for close on one year! So here we are, just a few hours away from moving the clocks back and getting an extra hour in bed (hooray!) and my weight hasn’t changed significantly for the last 6 months. It’s dreadful how time just stips by without us noticing. However, we have been gastronomically busy, so we’ve enjoyed the passing of the days.

salade gourmandeLast Saturday evening, we had a dinner for six of us. In addition to M-D and myself, there was Loius and Monique who live close by and keep an eye on the apartment here while we are on The Isle of Man, Jean-Luc who was a neighbour until recently, and is now living in Brittany and Pascale, a new neighbour who bought his apartment from him. We decided to keep it simple so I produced that gastronomic delight, Salade des Gourmets as a starter (which always goes down well, no matter what). It looks complicated, but it’s not, and was well appreciated by our guests. The use of a vinagrette made of raspberries and the fact that the scallops and prawns are served warm makes it a unique eating experience.

confit de canard duckWe followed up with a traditional French dish, Confit de Canard with Cepes and Sautée Potatoes. Of course, we’re lucky here because we can get very good quality Confit out of a tin, so no sweating over a hot stove for hours of preparation!

Of course, having a good wine to help everything down (is that a technical term??) does no harm either and we had taken a couple of bottles (well, three actually!) of Chateau Berliquet 2002 – a St Emilion – out of the cellar. Added to the two bottles of Vranken Special Brut Champagne as a little apperitif before the meal, we were all quite mellow by the time it came to serving cheese and then M-D’s famous “Orange and Lime Parfait” for a dessert. I keep trying to persuade her to put the recipe on the site, but so far I’ve not succeeded!

Tonight will be different! M-D’s daughter, Muriel, (who cooks all my favourite stuff) is bringing our grandchildren up from Orleans to stay for a few days. Muriel is stopping overnight with us, so it’s going to be a “Happy Sushi” night (little Japanese resaurant over the road). The last time we were at Muriel’s (just a couple of weeks ago) she prepared a “duck cottage pie” (that’s the nearest I can explain it!). It was the famous Confit de Canard, shredded at the bottom of a large dish and topped with mashed potato that had been cooked in their skins and then peeled. There were eight of us at the table and it disappeared in minutes! Allowing for some delightful apperitifs, a starter of foie gras, the cheeses (one of which smelt like old socks and tasted like heaven!) and Clémence’s chocolate Brownie (not to mention some excellent wines), I went home weighing about 10 pounds heavier!

Losing weight in France is, I have decided, impossible!

Duck, Salads

Confit for all

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I just finished posting Confit de Canard (Duck Confit) to the site and it reminds me how lucky we are to spend six months of the year in France. You see, we can get tins of confit from the local shops without having to go through the arduous process of making it. In fact, it’s so common that you can get it in most restaurants without paying the earth. Mind you, the prices can vary quite a lot because there’s quite a difference between the mass-produced commercial production and the more intimate ‘artisan’ producers. For that reason, we buy ours by mail order from Godard in Gourdon in the south-west of the country… and it is quite delicious.

Whenever we travel back to the Isle of Man by car (usually once a year) we always take back a supply of stuff (like confit) that we can’t get in Britain. We also have a habit of weighing the car down with wine, since it is so much cheaper (and better selection) in France. We will be going to the local wine fayre in a couple of weeks. That’s always good fun… it’s an evening of tasting of up to about 100 different wines, and the sellers are all determined that you should taste their wine, so there’s no ducking out after 10 or so! Must remember to book the taxi!

And talking of wine, M-D and I were just deciding what to pull out of the cellar for her daughter’s 40th birthday (coming soon). I noticed we had several bottles of Cote de Beaune Villages 1971, Chateau La Fleur 1975, and an absolutely stunning deep red wine called Chateau de Cayrou (1989 and 1990).

Maybe it’s time to pull out the Cote de Beaune Villages 1971 … same year as my daughter-in-law! It should be ready for drinking any time soon!

Anyway, it’s La Petite Rôtisserie tomorrow night. Let’s see if I can resist the temptation to take Salade Gourmet as a starter. There are so many good things on the menu, it seems a shame not to work my way through the whole list!

Chicken, Salads, Salmon, Vegetables

The End of Summer

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While the UK (and the poor old Isle of Man) is suffering from 80mph (130kph) winds and floods, here in France, the weather is a very pleasant 27C with just a gentle cooling breeze to take the edge off the heat. But even so, I sense that the summer is coming to an end. The birds are circling and the fields are being harvested (us country folk know about things like that!)

Caesar SaladMeanwhile we’re making the best of what good weather we still have. We’re eating salads like Caesar Salad or Salade Niçoise at lunch time and simple fayre in the evenings like Chicken and Ham Soup or Leek and Smoked Salmon Rolls

Often the simplest of meals are the most satisfying. M-D and I have just had a salad that was nothing more than a cooked chicken breast and Marinated Carrot Salad.Simple, yet tasty and filling (and very few of those nasty calories!). I just finished adding a recipe to the site for Roast Belly Pork Dinner. Now that’s serious comfort food! But maybe I can wait till those dark winter evenings!

M-D is busy planning for our return to the Isle of Man in about 3 weeks. She’s digging out all sorts of stuff that we have duplicated here in France (like a wok, for example) and creating a “heap” for us to take with us. We’ll be going by car this time, so we can carry lots of stuff (including the obligatory cases of wine!).

Until August we lived in a small apartment when we were on the Isle of Man. However, we decided that we needed somewhere bigger since our families are always made welcome. Within six weeks we had found the right house, bought it, moved in and rented out the apartment! But it took a bit of a toll on us physically and mentally so we came back to France for a rest.

Now it’s time to go back and sort out everything we didn’t manage to get done before – like a couple of extensions to the phone line and a desk each and…. a wok, it seems!

Salads, Seafood, Soup

Salad Days

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I got thinking about seafood today. That’s my problem … I see food and I eat it! And I reminded myself of an outstanding starter I did a while back. You can read all about it at Prawn Perfection. The problem is that I wanted to do it for my brother and my sister-in-law when we go back to the Isle of Man (they’re great at looking after the house for us, and a meal together to say ‘thank you’ is the least we can do).

Salade GourmandeSadly, I remembered that Jeanette is allergic to prawns (last time she ate them, apparently she glowed like a traffic light for days after) so I have to come up with something a bit different. And then I remembered Salade des Gourmets which is seriously one of the best starters of all time. In fact, we’re going to our favourite restaurant tomorrow evening (La Petite Rôtisserie – 65, chemin de Halage, 95610 Eragny, France) and without doubt I’ll be tempted…

Life in France ticks along as usual. It’s no more exotic than anywhere else, but I do confess to enjoying the food culture. Mind you, it doesn’t always work that way. Last weekend, M-D and I went into Paris to meet up with a couple of her cousins and their partners. We arranged to meet at a restaurant called “Le Dalou” in Place de la Nation and have lunch there. This turned out to be less than average. Those of us who had steaks found them overcooked (not normally a fault in France) and my French Onion Soup was luke warm and tasteless. Probably we could have lived with that if the bill hadn’t arrived totalling 350 euros – that’s 50 euros each ($70 or £45). We left declaring “never again” for that particular establishment.

Hopefully tomorrow night will be different. I’ll keep you informed!