I have not posted anything on this site for ages. I've become so very lazy (mostly because the bloody platform makes it so very cumbersome to upload photos so, if I can't be naffed uploading photos I don't get inspired to write on my blog!
We have been living in France properly for almost 2 years. It's been a bit of a journey. We were caught up with the cars coming over initially (sounds crazy but it took stupid time).
We have the Porsche, gave away my beautiful Passat in perfect condition with 35K on the dial. 😒😒
We are learning French. It's taking some time TBH. Fanny from down the road comes at least once a week and we do our study every morning and sometimes every afternoon. It's hard because we don't have the practice of language. We do need to just try more ourselves. I'm completely embarrassed about my lack of French so I tend not to try at all. My bad. Andy's more brave.
Our little cat is awesome. He's so healthy and lovely. We love the wee guy. We simply do. He sort of makes our life here complete. He makes it a home when we know nothing about anybody or anything (apart from our awesome neighbours). We have an automatic feeder and lots of water available (and kitty litter boxes) so we can go away for a week and the wee blight is OK. He's spoilt so he's better off here than in a cattery. He is scared shitless in a cattery.
This autumn we are cooking stuff very very simply. Spicy tandoori chicken cooked over veg in the oven/on the fire. Mexican spiced smoked chicken (cooked over veg in the oven/on the fire). Cauliflower cheese with veg !!!! Yum scrum. Topped with onion, 36 month aged comte and sage from the garden. (YUM). Even simple pasta (paccheri) stuffed with smoked chicken with all sorts of veg in a great heavy bottomed (expensive yes but I've had it for many many years, It's a life time item) pan so it caramilises but does not stick (not a non stick pan, so you get the full caramel flavour of the sauce).
We bought 1kg of chipotle chilli online because we love that smokey flavour with everything. It cost 36pounds but I couldn't source chipotle as cheap as this. (Oh and we went to The Hague, we found an INCREDIBLE asian supermarket and couldn't resist buying a 500gm bag of star anise for 9 euro).We adore star anise.
We travel within Europe BUT if there's a great spice supermarket we are in heaven. We've brought back all sort of things. Kaffir lime leaf (only recently have we done this as if they aren't fresh they don't travel easily. Fine frozen but keep them cold or very dry. If they start to sweat they taste off. Freeze them when you get home). Lemon grass in bundles. Our good friends Chryss and David brought us a bunch of lemon grass when they came to visit from Dubai. We had COMPLETELY ran out. OOPS! They gave us a huge bridge. The thing about lemon grass vs kaffir lime leaf is that lemon grass keeps rather well. Even if it's not as dry when you freeze it, it'll keep in the freezer. Kaffir like curry leaf needs a very dry product before freezing successfully.
I digress. I haven't taken to this blog for many many months. I get bored with photo uploads hence these are words only.
I'll try harder to take photos, wait for them to download etc....😠
However, for now I need to document our time here in France. We won't be here forever. But it's incredible and we will look back on this time as a sweet spot in our history.
We have been living in France properly for almost 2 years. It's been a bit of a journey. We were caught up with the cars coming over initially (sounds crazy but it took stupid time).
We have the Porsche, gave away my beautiful Passat in perfect condition with 35K on the dial. 😒😒
We are learning French. It's taking some time TBH. Fanny from down the road comes at least once a week and we do our study every morning and sometimes every afternoon. It's hard because we don't have the practice of language. We do need to just try more ourselves. I'm completely embarrassed about my lack of French so I tend not to try at all. My bad. Andy's more brave.
Our little cat is awesome. He's so healthy and lovely. We love the wee guy. We simply do. He sort of makes our life here complete. He makes it a home when we know nothing about anybody or anything (apart from our awesome neighbours). We have an automatic feeder and lots of water available (and kitty litter boxes) so we can go away for a week and the wee blight is OK. He's spoilt so he's better off here than in a cattery. He is scared shitless in a cattery.
This autumn we are cooking stuff very very simply. Spicy tandoori chicken cooked over veg in the oven/on the fire. Mexican spiced smoked chicken (cooked over veg in the oven/on the fire). Cauliflower cheese with veg !!!! Yum scrum. Topped with onion, 36 month aged comte and sage from the garden. (YUM). Even simple pasta (paccheri) stuffed with smoked chicken with all sorts of veg in a great heavy bottomed (expensive yes but I've had it for many many years, It's a life time item) pan so it caramilises but does not stick (not a non stick pan, so you get the full caramel flavour of the sauce).
We bought 1kg of chipotle chilli online because we love that smokey flavour with everything. It cost 36pounds but I couldn't source chipotle as cheap as this. (Oh and we went to The Hague, we found an INCREDIBLE asian supermarket and couldn't resist buying a 500gm bag of star anise for 9 euro).We adore star anise.
We travel within Europe BUT if there's a great spice supermarket we are in heaven. We've brought back all sort of things. Kaffir lime leaf (only recently have we done this as if they aren't fresh they don't travel easily. Fine frozen but keep them cold or very dry. If they start to sweat they taste off. Freeze them when you get home). Lemon grass in bundles. Our good friends Chryss and David brought us a bunch of lemon grass when they came to visit from Dubai. We had COMPLETELY ran out. OOPS! They gave us a huge bridge. The thing about lemon grass vs kaffir lime leaf is that lemon grass keeps rather well. Even if it's not as dry when you freeze it, it'll keep in the freezer. Kaffir like curry leaf needs a very dry product before freezing successfully.
I digress. I haven't taken to this blog for many many months. I get bored with photo uploads hence these are words only.
I'll try harder to take photos, wait for them to download etc....😠
However, for now I need to document our time here in France. We won't be here forever. But it's incredible and we will look back on this time as a sweet spot in our history.
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