Posted by: Le Couvent, Roujan in Vines, Friends, Chateaumalaudos on
Monday 21 January, 2008
It wasn't as warm today but we pruned hundreds of vines, and now I can barely type, so painful are my hands.
Ali woman-handled the bush-whacker. Here's the proof.
Patricia, our sweet cleaner, came today. She dusted the vintage wine bottles. Now they look new.
Our lovely friend Thierry, who helped us no end when we first moved to Roujan, is currently flying to odd parts of the world in a tiny plane which he lives in when he's not sleeping in a tent.
Here he is landing on a traffic island in Sweden and spending the night of a storm there. It's worth looking at the video. It's in French - he explains that he had to do an emergency landing and sit the storm out. A family of fisherman gave him some fish and a biker stopped to see if he needed help.
Thierry dropped in to Le Couvent just before Christmas. He asked if I'd like to go up in his plane. I declined. Him: "Why not?' Me: "I'm scared of falling out of the sky" Him: "But there's a parachute" Me: "I've never used one" Him: "It's not for you, it's for the plane. I had it fitted as an extra"
Now, isn't that a great idea?
Well, that might be stretching it a bit, but today was truly glorious. After a couple of hours bushwhacking in the vines at Chateau Mal Au Dos we went off to Grau d'Agde for lunch.
Short sleeves and ice-creams were de rigueur.
This dog was having the best time ever..
...as were these riders.
Posted by: LizzieBG in Roujan on
Tuesday 15 January, 2008
M. Lafitte arrived this morning with a thousand litres of oil for the central heating. Every time he comes he whinges about the Banksia rose scraping the top of his lorry. He is clearly very stressed by having to negotiate his truck up our steep and narrow drive and takes it out on the rose. This outburst usually lasts until I've written the cheque at which point he becomes positively chirpy. I've become fond of him.
Posted by: LizzieBG in Wine, Roujan on
Tuesday 15 January, 2008
When we first arrived here some five years ago the wine made at the cave co-operative in Roujan turned your tongue blue after the first glass. Things have improved enormously and the wines are becoming drinkable. The labelling is still awful, sporting the Roujan hedgehog - a design so particular that it has to have been created by someone closely related to the maire.
I found this bottle on e-bay. The whole label is a pastiche - it's brilliant. Maybe they'd sell more if they used this design.
Posted by: LizzieBG in Le Couvent rooms, Hens on
Monday 14 January, 2008
Today it's very chilly. We have an appointment with the accountant this afternoon, so we've abandoned the vines for a day. It's cold and we have to pay our taxes so it seems the perfect excuse to reward ourselves with a holiday. I've just booked us into a lovely riad in Marrakesh for a week in April - a recommendation from some great guests who stayed here this summer.
We'll squeeze it in before our first guests of the season arrive at the beginning of May. Oooh, what a treat.
For those of you who've stayed at Le Couvent, you'll know that Ali and I have a separate apartment and that we shut the main part of the house for the winter. Today, however, our lovely cleaner Patricia is hoovering away upstairs, so I've lit the big fire in the kitchen. The air outside is full of woodsmoke and the hens are burbling away by the kitchen door. It makes a change to be here at the big table.
Ali is beside me framing lots of original old photos we bought from the archive of the now defunct San Francisco Examiner. They really are extraordinary testaments of their time and you'll see them on the staircase walls when you next come to stay.
Posted by: LizzieBG in Vines, Happiness, Friends on
Sunday 13 January, 2008
Adopt twelve vines for a year in a romantic French vineyard and watch your grapes grow and ripen into twelve bottles of wine labelled with your sweetheart's name.
Posted by: LizzieBG in Vines, Happiness, Chateaumalaudos on
Saturday 12 January, 2008
All through the summer, when our B&B is full of lovely guests, one question pops up all the time - 'What do you do in the winter?'
With bright blue skies most of the time, much of it is spent outdoors. Until recently that meant the gardens here at Le Couvent. However, with the acquisition of the new vineyards Ali and I are more than fully occupied with bringing our neglected vines back to full bloom. We have until the end of February to prune as many of these unruly beauties as we think we can keep.
They are in a shocking state having been untended for three years. Ali's keeping a diary of our derring-do with heavy machinery and sharp implements on our other website Chateau Mal Au Dos.
The rest of the time we see the friends we neglect during the summer, catch up on house repairs, visit places guests tell us about, lug logs upstairs to our apartment, write and re-write websites and market Le Couvent B&B, oh - and sleep. Well, I would if the cat, Gouttiere, didn't think 6am was a good time to scrape the bedroom door. Anyone want a fat, cantankerous, wilful and greedy cat? She came with Le Couvent when we bought the house and never left. She treats us with utter malevolence most of the time.
Actually, the winters here are fantastic. For the most part the sun shines, and when it doesn't I'm grateful if it means we can fill the pool next summer, and the skies are glisteningly clear. We can see for miles and it rarely gets bone-chilling. What else could one want?
Posted by: LizzieBG in Entertaining, Cooking on
Saturday 12 January, 2008
After talking about the English Class in a previous blog, several people asked for the luscious cake recipe - so here it is.
Ingredients
For the cheesecake
butter, for greasing
1 large ready-made sponge flan case
3 tbsp orange liqueur
200g/7oz caster sugar
2 oranges, zest of both and juice of 1 orange
4 tbsp cornflour
850g/1½lb full-fat soft cream cheese
3 medium free-range eggs
1 vanilla pod, seeds scraped out
375ml/13fl oz double cream, plus extra to serve
345g/12oz dark chocolate pieces
For the marbled chocolate
150g/5oz white chocolate
150g/5oz dark chocolate
Method
1. For the cheesecake, preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4. Grease a 23cm/9in springform cake tin.
2. Cut a circle from the sponge flan case to fit the base of the tin, then cut this circle in half across the middle to make two thin discs. Use one of these to line the cake tin - the other disc can be used in another dish. Drizzle the sponge with one tablespoon of the orange liqueur.
3. Mix together the sugar, orange zest and juice and cornflour in a bowl using a wooden spoon, then use an electric hand mixer to beat in the cream cheese. Crack in the eggs one by one, beating constantly until all the eggs are well incorporated.
4. Add the vanilla seeds and the remaining two tablespoons of orange liqueur to the mixture and mix well. Add the cream and beat well until the mixture is smooth.
5. Pour a third of the mixture over the sponge base in the cake tin. Sprinkle over a third of the chocolate pieces and smooth over with a palette knife. Repeat twice more with the remaining cheesecake mixture and chocolate pieces.
6. Place the tin into a baking tray filled with 2-3mm of warm water - this helps to create steam during cooking. Transfer to the oven and bake for 50 minutes, or until the top is lightly golden. Remove from the oven and leave to cool and set completely before removing from the tin.
7. Meanwhile, for the marbled chocolate, place the white chocolate and dark chocolate into separate heatproof bowls set over pans of gently simmering water. Heat, stirring occasionally, until melted and smooth.
8. Cover a baking tray tightly in cling film. Pour ladlefuls of the dark and white chocolate onto the tray. Allow to cool slightly, then use your finger to swirl the two chocolates together to create a marble effect. Place into the fridge to chill and set completely. When set, break into pieces.
9. To serve, cut the cheesecake into wedges and place onto serving plates with a piece of the marbled chocolate and a drizzle of cream.
With thanks to James Martin, from whom all this is nicked.
Posted by: LizzieBG in Roujan, Hens, Gardening on
Tuesday 08 January, 2008
The municipal gardeners of Roujan know how to prune trees - even if it does look a bit viscious during the winter. I'll take another photo during June - they'll either be dead or blooming.
Our chickens, on the other hand, look in the peak of health. It's probably having a break from laying that's re-vitalising them.
Posted by: LizzieBG in Roujan, Friends on
Sunday 06 January, 2008
For the past five years Ali and I have been part of a group of Roujanaises who meet to help local French, Swiss and Dutch women speak a bit more English. It is always huge fun.
Each time we meet in a different house - there're around a dozen of us. Today, after having spent an achy afternoon pruning vines, we met at lovely Sally & Paul's house. Sal was the headteacher in a primary school. As a result she always plans loads of fun things to do. Tonight was no exception. We spent an hour listening to, then watching a TV chef prepare a luscious-sounding orange and chocolate cheesecake.
A long list of new words and much concentration later, the group had the hang of the recipe and method. Just as we thought the lesson was over Sally, with a flourish, whipped out 'one she'd prepared earlier'.
And truly delicious it was. Now why wasn't school like that?
Posted by: LizzieBG in Computers on
Saturday 05 January, 2008
Ali & I have spent the last four days working on this website, and the sister site, Chateau Mal au Dos . We've tested it on Safari, Camino, Firefox and Internet Explorer, although not extensively. If you come across anything that doesn't work, or seems illogical we'd be very grateful if you could let us know.
Meanwhile, here's Ali looking boggy-eyed in her office while we're discussing the new site.
