Synchronized Cooking- the new Olympic sport?
truffled homemade pasta coming up!
I imagine fireflies pulsing in rhythm in a tree in some remote forest.
Then a school of little silver fish darting left in unison, then blinking silver right.
A flock of seabirds part the clouds in graceful aerial hijinks.
Although I ranted about the predictable trending trend a couple of weeks ago, I must give homage to the way we pulsing cooking blogging folks group up together and light the barren forest with our synchronous cooking and curing. After all, wasn’t that what Mrs. WheelBarrow and the Yummy Mummy did during Charcutepalooza?
While I was having a close encounter of the Truffle kind thanks to the Agen market, I turned to a family habit of pasta making as sweet Parisian Mouse David Lebovitz dished up some good home made pasta tips here. Then…back at the Gascon Ranch…
Inspired Cooking- a January lunch menu
Pre-1970
Cooking.
Cooking in France.
Cooking in Gascony, France.
What inspires you to cook? A recipe? A photograph in a cookbook? A blog post?
Here at Camont, I look around my Gascon world for the everyday inspiration that has fueled generations of good Gascon cooks. This month’s inspiration? Muddy farmyards clucking with fat hens and fatter ducks, fields of growing wheat shoots just 6 inches high, plum orchards in bloom anticipation, and all the good folks that grow the food and sell it.
Yesterday with Matt from SAF’s Butchery program and Hilary on our 6-week Butchery & Charcuterie study, we did a bit of reconnaissance along Agen’s high street- le Boulevard de la Republic. From the Marché Couvert to the Quincaillerie Fabre we sourced some good local products and some good tools to play in Camont’s old Kitchen. This is what we bought:
MAGYC Pies at Camont
a MAGYC PIE...
There are pies and there are PIES.
There is magic and there is MAGYC.
And yes, this is a bonafide, real, authentic MAGYC PIE.
Over the years, I have dabbled in savoury pies as the visual and gustatory homage to Monsieur Monet’s painted pies here, here and here, of course!
But this week as Fran and Ian from Melbourne, and Hilary from Sonoma, and Matt from Welbeck descend on the Chapolard home for lunch, we’ll be bringing this fat MAGYC PIE with us. MAGYC stands for Mastering the Art of Gascon Cooking (with a nod to Julie Child’s masterful book). What’s in this golden-crusted succulent pie? Read on…
here chick, chick, chick… they’ve flown the coop!
The mother hen in me is clucking around the Internet, pecking over at Twitter, and flying over the Wire as my SAF chicklets leave their nest for the first time to work in real life farms and butcher shops across the UK and here in France. Here in France over at the Chapolard farm, Matt joins newly arrived AB&C student Hilary for an early 6 am call to start work butchering the newly arrived pig carcasses. Today they’ll be making saucisson, saucisse seche, chorizo, pate de tete, noix de jambon, coppa and saucisse de toulouse. Welcome to our meaty worlds!
In the UK, Sally and Mat will be tweeting from Forest Pig in the Wyre forest; Struan with Ruth and James at Trealy Farm; Nick is with Northfield Farm; Jane in Norfolk Diet Country with Blakeney Deli, De-lish and Brays Cottage Pork Pies.
How will we stay in touch? By Twitter, of course-t he official meaty communication darling of the whole darn Charcutepalooza Charcuterie world! For a list of the SAF meaty tweeters see my new list at @KatedeCamont/saf-uk.
What goes around comes around, again and again… New trends for 2012
It's just bacon.
A couple of years ago someone, some too-clever-for-their-own-good someone, declared bacon was out… and that in the coming year pork belly was in. That set me off. It’s been cupcakes in and in and in and then- pies at last. In.
Pickling came in and smoking went out. Butchery, charcuterie, and brewing are in, in, in.
Potlucks, Pop-ups & Popsicles… all get their share of spin IN.
Every January there is media glut of what was trendy then and what’s trendy now. This minute. In now; Out so ten minutes ago!
How do you ever keep up? And why?
I shook my head as I walk the weekly markets of Rural France. What’s ‘in’ now in Agen, Southwest France?
