Bordeaux is also one of those names in the world of wine that has become synonymous with a number of things: red wine, excellence, scarcity… and inflated prices. It’s a byword for quality wine, but it’s also a word that encourages annoyingly wine-snobby comments like “oh, yes I can pick up the hint of mint and a flutter of cassis on the nose, it must be from the left bank”.
Click here for a full portionSaturday Snapshots #215
All by myself: the last of the Gascony sunflowers – September 2012
Click here for a full portionChanterelle quiche with a wholewheat & thyme crust
Dealing with travel bookings would have been so much easier if I were a mushroom. You see, if Mr Chantrelle booked a plane ticket and turned up with a passport saying “Monsieur Girolle”, check-in staff would not bat an eyelid. Or if “Herr Pfifferling” turned up for the flight instead, they would welcome him with open arms – not only because he’s a fun guy (!) but because despite their different names, these three mushrooms are in fact one and the same delicious thing.
Click here for a full portionVisiting the Vaucluse: Edouard Loubet @ Bastide de Capelongue
In the late afternoom, pretty exhausted by our exploits, we headed for the village of Bonnieux. Our destination for the night was the Bastide de Capelongue, a Relais & Chateaux luxury hotel owned and run by 2 Michelin-star chef Edouard Loubet. I knew I was going to love Bastide de Capelongue, situated in a restored provencal stone farm house, as soom as we drove through the gate and saw the mass of lavender and the secluded courtyard complete with tinkly fountain.
Click here for a full portionSaturday Snapshots #214
Rose window in the Eglise St Pierre, Auvillar, France – September 2012
Click here for a full portionQuick pork chops with a tomato, chorizo & olive relish
There are some food-related questions that are always really easy to answer – things like “wine or beer?” (wine); “plain or salted?” (salted); with or “without whipped cream?” (with!); or “chocolate or vanilla?” (chocolate, always chocolate!). But then there are a couple of foodie questions that I am regularly asked that make my throat close up and my palms become sweaty. Questions for which people somehow expect me to have a ready, rehearsed answer. Questions that make everyone in the room turn to me expectantly, awaiting an answer upon which I suspect my credibility as a food blogger depends.
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