Raising Chickens & the age old conundrum of how to use a dozen eggs: Omelette Catalane
When I bought my first chickens at the Agen Market 18 months ago, it was an experiment in reclaiming the rural roots of Camont, a historic 18th-century Gascon farmhouse on two-and-a-half acres of fertile Garonne River Valley land. I have called Camont home base for over 20 years. I’d come and go as the work and pleasure ed me, sometimes floating away on the big Barge for chartering for months then returning again for months of summer landlocked... Read More
A Sweet Omelet as light as a golden cloud for you!
SPRING My Gascon neighbors call Spring- le saison d’amour the season of love. This morning, this too cold February morning and Valentine’s Day, I found my sweetheart present on the ground outside the chicken coop. Not one, but TWO fat white translucent-shelled duck eggs and the Spring promise of Easter ducklings and next Fall’s Duckfest here at Camont. When I was a girl, my mother had a funny way of nagging us to clean our rooms.... Read More
Pain d’Epices- a honey sweet spice cake
Nothing like a little frost on a Sunday morning to bring out the baker in us all. So when Julia Leach, the Kitchen-at-Camont’s fall intern, fell under the Pain d’Epices spell, we turned on the oven and began a day learning about dough, pastry and good smells. Here in Gascony, Pain d’Épice or Spice Bread is thought of as a foreign treat- from the north, another region, a taste of winter. Usually, I buy thick slices of honeyed... Read More
Piggy Newtons part 2- the larder cookie
How a cook’s mind works. Not recipe development, but a ramble through past experience as it teaches the present. That perfect dark gooey figgy filling has been resting a couple days and I have some time between classes and visitors. I am going to figure out how to make those ‘piggy rolls’ that Miles offered me the other day. I’ve had all sorts of ideas on how to make them from baking them like brownies- fig bars, to making... Read More
