Festival de la Figue in Caromb - great Festival but no Figs

By now you probably know that we just love to go to all the local festivals. As long as they are culinary off we go and usually come home tired, stuffed and happy, laden with delicacies. So when Radio Bleu Vaucluse told me yesterday morning not to miss the Fig Festival in Caromb I thought yes! here we go again! I had even one more reason to go as I had just seen a sinfully rich but rather fabulous fig dessert being prepared on TV and the juicy black figs for which Caromb is famous were just what I needed to try and replicate it.

In Caromb everything was perfect:  happy crowds and blue skies

Provençal costumes

This lady sold raffle tickets and we won a bottle of Rosé!

 

Another Provençal beauty

  But where, where were the famous Caromb figs?

The only ones we saw were these ones at the cooking demonstration. I even went to ask at the Tourist Office and learned that because of the long and hard winter we had the harvest was very small this year and the figs they had for sale all went within the first hour of the festival. If they hadn't disappeared into the jam pots of the local ladies who presented their "confitures" to be voted on.  As far as I am concerned pot No 1 deserved to win, but I didn't wait for the voting results to come in. And I promise to share the sinful fig desert with you as soon as I can find some figs to prepare it with.

Mr. S diligently testing fig jams before voting

Tomatoes, Tomatoes and more Tomatoes

Aren't they beautiful? Last Tuesday's market in Vaison was like a horn of plenty full of tomatoes. Tomatoes in every shape and colour and beautifully named -  just have a look at the list above!

Colourful Cherry Tomatoes

 These are called Pineapple Tomatoes

Coeur de Boeuf or

"Heart of the Bull"

 

Roma

 And these are the ones in my Kitchen Garden

they still need a bit of sun...

... but see, we are getting there - this afternoon's harvest.

Tomato Salad anyone?

Anchoïade Provençale

Last weekend we were invited to our neighbor Germain's 80th birthday party.  Germain is a true Provençal. Born in the old part of Vaison (la vieille ville) he did his military service in Germany where he met his beloved Lise, his wife of now almost 60 years.

Germain and Lise

As a true Provençal Germain knows how to work and how to party. So we started the sumptous birthday feast with a very typical Provençal apéro: Chilled Rosé, fruit juices, Pastis and an anchoïade. This is a dip that is not for the faint hearted.  Typically served with lost of crunchy vegetable sticks it is one of these things - like oysters or cilantro - that you either love or hate. I do adore it but it is an aquired taste.

Anchoïade Provençale

So here comes the recipe for all you anchovy addicts out there (and especially for Tim who came to cook with me at Cuisine de Provence last week and when anchovies were asked for gracefully bowed to the wishes of the three ladies he cooked with, who were not too fond of those salty little devils):

Anchoïade Provençale

100 g of anchovy fillets

10 or so fresh basil leaves

4 cloves of garlic, peeled and minced

good olive oil

Put all ingredients except the olive oil into a mortar and pound into a thick paste. Slowly add olive oil until you have a sauce like consistency.

The Cooktionary

I admit: I am a cookbook junkie. This is the bookcase in my kitchen. And what you see is only half the truth, because this bookcase is very deep, it holds two rows of books, one behind the other. At last count there were more cookbooks than I care to admit, and that last count was quite a while ago. So go figure....

There is one book that I use more than any other, the one that I find the most useful book anybody has ever given me (it was a gift from my favorite guinea pig, my ever patient husband who is always the first who has to taste new recipes).

This is it:

The author Gee Greville moved from Hereford (UK) to Picardy in Northern France in 1993 and wrote this "French Dictionary for Cooks" and I am sure I am not the only one who is massively grateful to her. Or would you know what a "Puant de Lille" ( a stinky cheese from Lille), what "Diablotin" (thin rounds of toast with grated cheese, but also Christmas Crackers), a "Cajasse" (cold dessert of rum flavored batter with fruit, a speciality of the Périgord) or a "Vin de coucher" (newlyweds toast to their guests) are? I even finally learned the word for plonk - "Vinasse" - to be said with a dissmissive Gallic shrug of course. 

Fête des Voisins - Fête Gourmande

This year the "La Fête des Voisins" the traditional neighborhood party was celebrated in France on the 1st of June, but our neighborhood (thank you Claude and Chrystèle for always organizing this!) decided that this weekend suited us much better. And right we were - brillant sunshine and the bluest of all Provençal skies made for a record number of attendance.

Everyone is asked to bring a few bottles, a savory dish and a dessert plus picknick tables, chairs, parasols and after first having a little apéro everyone gives a helping hand to set up the tables, chairs and - most importantly the buffet. After all, we are in France and fêtes like these always turn into gourmet feasts. Here are the highlights of this year's buffet: 

Very Provençal: Ratatouille

Slow roasted Pork shoulder with Garlic Confit

Not to be missed: Multi colored Pasta Salad

A delicious homemade Terrine 

Neighbors bonding over Picknick al fresco

Sunhats were a real necessity 

Somehow I never got around to taking pictures of all the fun and games of that afternoon: we played Boule, got to visit our newest neighbor's house, emptied lots of bottles (yes, water too...) celebrated a birthday at midnight (by then we had relocated to a neighbor's house and the birthday girl got thrown into a pool) - in short - a great time was had by all!

Still having fun late at night

How to keep a Veggie happy

Les Petits Farcis are a typical Southern French summer dish - small vegetables such a peppers, zucchini, aubergines or onions stuffed with a meat farce (if in a hurry, even sausage meat will do) and then oven baked in a tomatoey sauce. I recently found a recipe giving a vegetarian twist to this summer staple and have finally found time to try it out. To sum it up: as far as my favorite guinea pig and I are concerned it is a keeper!
And since my brother last week called me to find him some vegetarian recipes to keep his significant other happy: Roland, here you go!

To feed 4 you need:
5 small red peppers and 4 small round zucchini
4 spring onions
3 cloves of garlic, crushed
400g fresh goat cheese
50 g freshly grated parmesan
olive oil
a generous bunch of flat leaf parsley, finely chopped
salt and freshly ground pepper

Wash and dry all vegetables then cut a little "hat" off each. Clean the peppers and, with a melon baller scoop out the flesh of the zucchini which you then chop to medium consistency. Finely dice one of the red peppers, chop the spring onions. Mix the chopped up zucchini flesh and the red pepper cubes with the crushed garlic cloves and the chopped up spring onions.
Bring a big pot of water to the boil and simmer the vegetable shells for 3 to 4 minutes. Take out with a slotted spoon and drain on a double layer of paper towels.
With a fork mix the chopped parsley into the fresh goat cheese.
Heat a tbsp of olive oil in a pan and gently fry the zucchini flesh, pepper, garlic and spring onion mix until all moisture has evaporated, taking care not to brown the mix. Season to taste with pepper and salt, then take off the heat and let the mixture cool down.
Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F
Mix the goat cheese into the vegetable farce then fill the vegetable shells. Evenly devide the parmesan on top of the filling veg, put the "hats" on and bake for 35 minutes. Bon apétit!

Rain, Rain and Rain but Sunshine on my Plate

It has been raining, raining and raining here in Provence. I really can't remember ever having had such a cold and wet May and I feel especially sorry for all our visitors to Provence who came here looking for sunshine and poppy fields and landed in a total washout. The weather forecast promises sunshine and rising temperatures for tomorrow but taking into account how often they get it wrong I thought I'd better get myself some sunshine on a plate. This "Tian de Légumes de Soleil" (Tian of sunkissed vegetables) is just that and a perfect aside to some BBQ'd lambchops.

The word Tian in this Provençal recipe refers to the round earthenware dish it is prepared in. You need 4 zucchini, 2 eggplants, 6 tomatoes, one sweet onion, 3 cloves garlic, herbes de Provence, salt and pepper, olive oil and 300g or 1 cup of thick tomatoe sauce (coulis de tomate).
First of all you take two of the prettiest zucchini and two or three of the firmest tomatoes and cut them in even rounds.  Set aside. Take all the rest of the veg and cut them into smallish cubes. Finely chop the garlic. Add some olive oil to a pan and gently fry all the vegetable cubes, then add the tomato coulis. Leave to gently braise for about 10 minutes, then pour this mixture into the tian. Season well and cover with the tomato and zucchini rounds. Scatter with some Herbes de Provence and sprinkle with some olive oil. Bake in a preheated oven (180°C/356°F)
Talking about Herbes de Provence: As long as you have some needles of fresh rosemary and a few sprigs of fresh thyme all you need to do is pick the little leaves off the thyme and chop them together with the rosemary needles into a very fine powder - the idea is to have the taste but not to bite on rosemary. These "Herbes de Provence" are much better than any of the dried stuff you can buy.
Gotta go now and put my Tian into the oven - and I really hope to remember to take a picture of the baked Tian this time round....

Et voilà - Tian fresh out of the oven