10 March 2018

THE COMFORT OF THE FAMILIAR AND A NEW CHEESE.

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Time to look back at the photos again and the joy of the familiar suddenly made me smile.  Events that come round every year and that we never get fed up with.  One of them is the annual garden event at Château de la Bourdaisiere near Montlouis. 

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It’s a lovely day out at a time of year when you really need to see that kind of thing, beautiful flowers and plants full of colour and promise of the good weather that will inevitably arrive.  Not to mention the food producers, craft stalls and the fluffy chicken exhibition.

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We don’t necessarily go to it every year, but we never tire of it.  The château and grounds are beautiful and in fact it is now a hotel.  The garden event is huge and we usually buy something.  Last time it was a gorgeous dark purple lily, this time one of the cute bird baths.

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And of course we enjoyed a delicious cake and coffee in the tearoom. 

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Another event we went to last April was the open day, “portes ouvertes”, of the local potter in the village.  She lives just outside Le Grand Pressigny and produces beautiful decorative and useful pottery in a studio at her home.

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We have bought quite a few pieces over the years, either for ourselves or as presents.  She now has a shop in the village where you can buy her pottery and her partner’s gorgeous leather work.

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Her old bread oven had been lit and used that morning.  There was still plenty of bread for sale when we turned up after lunch so we treated ourselves to a loaf.  Very good it was too.

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There was something immensely charming and fascinating about seeing the old oven in use.  So many people would have relied on the regular production of bread in that very oven, food to keep them alive probably, and very hard work it would have been to produce it.  What a joy it was to see (and eat) real, rather misshapen and very rustic loaves, so different from the stuff on the supermarket shelves and even the local bakery, where it’s all so uniformly shaped.

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Speaking of regular events, I suppose you would count a birthday as one of those.  For a friend’s 70th birthday and a surprise party I was asked to make a novelty cake in the shape of his favourite English food – fish and chips.  It was a bit of a challenge but I managed it, including sugar salt, apple juice vinegar and green marzipan peas!

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Along with the comfort of the familiar comes the joy of a new discovery.  For us anyway.  In a shop in Descartes we discovered a cheese we had never seen before, made just up the road from us in Neuilly-le-Brignon.  It’s called Bourdel and is not cheap but utterly delicious with an interesting rind, strong flavour and a firm texture.  Since we bought our first one last spring it has made a regular appearance at our cheese course.  You can read all about it here.

11 comments:

  1. That cheese sounds intriguing. I've been told about that dairy farm at Neuilly, but never sampled any of their products.

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    1. Susan, the dairy is on the D53 between Neuilly and Abilly. Terre y Fruits in Descartes sell some of their products and we have also bought them in one of the Descartes supermarkets, I forget which!

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  2. Love your blogs , glad your back ! The bread oven, is it in le grand pressigny up the hill ? Ceri

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    1. Ceri, you're thinking of the public oven, the four banal, in Rue du Four Banal, but no, it wasn't there. That one was never lit while we lived there and I'm not sure that it still works. This one was at the potter's home.
      Bread ovens in the area are sometimes lit and used when there is a brocante or other village event. Two that spring to mind are at Cussay in August and Chambon which is in May I think.

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    2. Thanks for the info. Also the information about the cheese will definitely look into that.

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  3. Glad to see you're back. I really enjoy reading your blog. How is Daisy?

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    1. PJ, Daisy is wonderful, enjoyed the snow and is now on a mission to catch one of the frogs that keep popping up in what is left of our pond.

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  4. I am crackers for cheese, and I am always keen on hearing about new and exciting ones - well, new to me.

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    1. "Crackers for cheese"......très drôle!

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  5. Lovely photos as usual, especially impressed with the cake, bread and cheese ... making me hungry and it’s nowhere near time for lunch!

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  6. What great pictures, this is the good life.

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