Thoughts of food & France

Yesterday’s dinner turned into a disaster. I don’t know how often I’ve made this pie, always with great success. We were both really looking forward to it. Instead of which, this time the pastry was black in parts & hard, the filling so dried out it was almost impossible to separate it from the pastry to eat it. Even the gravy was unable to penetrate to soften it. You needed a chisel or a drill to break into it. Our knives were certainly not up to the job! For a while I’ve been uncertain that the thermostat on the small top oven is working properly. This has increased the doubts.

I’m now hoping the more questionable dinner of today, venison medallions with beetroot, works out better. It certainly can’t get much worse.

Maybe I was just too tired. Certainly I have not been sleeping well (due to pain either in my knees or my breast or both). Last night I was in bed before ten & not up until 8.30am. I slept solidly most of that time. I feel much more myself so maybe, just maybe, dinner today won’t be a disaster.

Meanwhile I’m off to Brittany by novel. This one is “The Little Breton Bistro” by Nina George. I read her “The Little Paris Bookshop” a little while ago & enjoyed my float along the canals from Paris down to Provence. I’ve only just started but I’ve just got off the train from Paris to Auray.

 I’m reminded off my readings about Brittany before our first trip to France in the 1990s. I had anticipated spending part of our holiday in Brittany. Instead we got as far as Longué near the Loire between Angers & Saumur & there we stayed. We made friends with the owners where we stayed so never moved. Indeed the following year they invited us for a free holiday with them.

Since those days I’ve often thought we maybe should visit Brittany properly rather than just driving through on the way from St Malo to Longué or La Rochelle (where our French friends subsequently moved to). It seems to be an area with a very different, very distinct, character from the rest of France, a reflection how, for so long, it was a different kingdom with different rulers & traditions.