Le Couvent Diary

 

 

We're in our fourth day of having our wonderful volunteers here. An unbelievable amount of work has been done and the vineyard looks an absolute picture. Twelve people working together can get a spectacular amount done. I'll leave our guests bloggers to write about that here .

Not only do they work in the vineyards clearing land and creating new areas, steps and pathways, they also prepare breakfast and dinner each day. The couple preparing dinner for the evening have the recipe and ingredients all ready for them, but for some cooking for up to 16 is a challenge. It's always the timing which is difficult when you're cooking in large quantities. That many spuds and onions take an age to peel, and more stuff in the oven takes longer to cook. But they're coping brilliantly with the stress and we've eaten like kings and queens. This evening we have lovely Andrew & Sarah (pictured above) preparing Boeuf Bourguinon. The recipe is available here .

 

Our Christmas ham looks and tastes so delicious I thought I'd share my recipe. It's an amalgamation of many other recipes, so I take no credit for it.

 

 

Ingredients
1 x 4.2kg smoked gammon on the bone (ours was from Sainsbury's in Brighton, via the cross-channel ferry and a long drive)
1 large carrot, peeled
1 leek, trimmed
2 sticks celery, cut into four
1 cinnamon stick
1 tsp peppercorns
1 tsp coriander seeds
2 bay leaves
1 litre dry cider

about 40 whole cloves for studding

for the glaze
3 tbsp honey
3 tbsp mustard
100ml dry cider

1. Soak the gammon overnight in cold water and ditch the water the next morning. This gets rid of the excess salt.

2. Place the gammon in a large pan and cover with the all the ingredients in the first list and top up with water. Cover with a lid and simmer for 2 ½ hours, until the meat is tender.

3. Remove from the liquid and leave it to cool a bit. Carefully cut the skin off the ham, making sure to leave the fat on. Criss-cross the fat with a sharp knife and put a clove in each square. Preheat the oven to 220C/gas 7.

4. For the glaze, warm the honey, mustard and cider in a pan and boil the mixture carefully until it thickens to a treacle-like consistency. If it isn't thick enough to glaze it will all run off into the bottom of the pan and turn to tar so black you'll never get it off. Place the ham in a roasting tin and spoon the glaze over the ham fat. Bake for 20 minutes. Don't be tempted to bake it any longer or the ham will become dry.

Tip: If the pan is difficult to clean afterwards, put an inch or so of water in it and put it on the cooker. Keep a gentle heat and stir - all the sticky bits will melt off leaving the pan clean.

This ham is so delicious it's worth doing it for a special lunch any time of the year.

Happy Christmas to you and all the ones you love.

Lizzie & Ali xx

 

 

Our lovely friends Chris & Sue sent us this photo taken from their house in Brighton. Meanwhile, we have kind Frances & Alistair bringing our Christmas ham and crackers from Brighton in a van driving through snow-covered France. I do hope everyone's safe.

Meanwhile, 'though we have no snow, it is absolutely freezing here. The godawful Godin woodburner in our apartment has fallen to bits so we've moved downstairs into the main house (and away from the sickenly addictive English TV we had installed recently - phew). We are now revelling in underfloor central heating and no lugging half-metre logs upstairs. The only drawback is that we're heating all the house for just three of us, so we're going through oil by the tanker load. The dogs are comatose in the unaccustomed heat and we're wondering if a t-shirt is too many layers. It's really not very green, and as much as I reduce the temperature, the boiler (french, obviously) takes no notice and wallops out the heat anyway.  Without the TV we're back to books, iTunes and Scrabble. All very gentle.

 

 

Ali picked up a beautiful Christmas tree yesterday so we had a jolly evening tossing up between tasteful or plastered. We went the tasteful route, so the tree is decked out in silver and navy. My mum, who's staying with us for December, says she still has decorations from 50 years ago. Thank God she didn't cram them in her suitcase along with her hair rollers.

She hasn't needed the rollers of course, because, bravely, she went to make an appointment for a shampoo and set at the Roujan hairdresser's. Dredging up french learnt 70 years ago she managed to negotiate an appointment for yesterday afternoon. On arriving home afterwards she looked somewhat shocked. She described the experience thus: "Despite the place being rather ramshackle it was the best shampoo I've ever had; the hairdresser massaged my head for ages which was lovely. Odd though, because she and her pal spent half the time outside smoking, then rushing in to say they'd seen five flakes of snow, and would I like to look." The hairdresser has no English, 'though she'd like to learn, so each time she picked up an item Mum had to tell her what it was in English. So all very jolly. And Mum says she'd like to go back before she flies home again. A success.

In the annual round of awards I'd like to offer one to the fantastic technicians at Santa Maria in St Thibery . They are gardening machinery suppliers and repairers. Three weeks ago I took our 14 year old Husqvarna tractor-mower in for repair. We'd driven it into numerous tree and vine stumps and the blade had sliced a hole in the metal protective skirt. We don't need to use it right now, but I reckoned they'd be overwhelmed with business in the Spring, so best to take it in. They rang to give an estimate of 400 euros to repair it. As the machines are 4000 euros new we bit the bullet. A week later they rang to say it was ready. I arrived with the trailer ready to pick it up. Not only had they done a complete service, replaced the blades, welded and redesigned the skirt so it can't happen again, they'd done it all for 300 euros. I love these clever french boys. They love showing off their artisanal skill and ingenuity. Thank you.

 

 

I bought this riveter the other day, drawn by the name. Do you think it precedes Nike's 'Just do it'?

 

 

By the way, if you're planning a trip here to Languedoc-land, do take a look at our new Bookshop . We've listed books, maps and walks you might find useful, and yes, we earn commission on anything you buy through our site. We're going to use the dosh to buy trees, so with a bit of luck it'll be like paper-recycling.

And finally, the weight loss thing is going well and I put it all down to the help and motivation I'm receiving from the DailyBurn website. They even have an app for the iPhone, and as an iPhone addict, it's a double incentive. Christmas is going to be a test though. We're going to be 14 for lunch and I'm cooking in the big kitchen downstairs. It should all be great fun and I just have to avoid the naughty foods. But isn't that all of it?…...

Ali and I send you and yours our very best wishes for a spectacularly happy Christmas and a healthy, happy 2010.

 

I sit here on another sunny morning that portends a perfect day for the guests who love to read and snooze by the pool. We've been full-on with guests, leaving no time for blogging, so I'm playing catch-up.

Our main news is that we've decided to move our wine-making mini-operation to Le Couvent, so we've been clearing out the cave and buying new tanks in preparation. It'll mean that we can keep a closer watch on our wines, and guests will be able to learn a bit about the process, and to taste the wine in all its stages.

Last year's wine is just about ready for bottling and we're hoping to get that completed in the next three weeks before this year's harvest. If you're coming to stay at Le Couvent towards the end of August, or the beginning of September, it's highly likely that you'll be able to witness the harvest and wine-making first-hand. Unless we have another hail storm, that is.

 

 

 

Meanwhile, guests continue to arrive from all of Europe, the Americas and Australia, except England. We have far fewer guests from England this year. We still have lots of Irish and Scottish. So what is it about the financial crisis that it appears to have affected Les Anglais more than anywhere else in the world? I don't suppose the media could have fuelled it at all - could they? Very bizarre. But for us it is all the more rewarding to have a house full of different nationalities. This morning we have Swiss, Irish, American, Scottish, Colombian - and English - around the breakfast table. It inspires wonderful conversation.

Having said that, the weather appears to have taken a turn for the worse in the UK if the flurry of late booking enquiries is anything to go by. And receiving an e-mail asking for four rooms for next week does sometimes drive me to mentally conjure a response slightly less polite than the reply that I actually send. Ho hum.

The weather's been hot and gorgeous, so the ice-cream machine's been put to good use. It's hard not to when the hens are producing such luscious eggs at the moment, thanks to leftover croissants, pains au chocolat and fruit.

This week saw the Roujan fete, with four nights of music, food, wine and dancing and a carnival procession through the streets of the village. I'll leave you with some photos of the jolly events of the day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This last photo's here because I love the small dog, eager for the chap in the yellow jacket to move so he can see the action. 

Despite the wild boar gouging big holes in our vineyard, we haven't killed them, so this recipe uses pork. It's going to sound like a lot of faffing about, but it really is worth it.

I used two rolled loins of pork for 11 people.  We only got through one at lunch, but that was because several of the guests were French (extras showed up). If we'd all been English we'd have scoffed the lot.

Ingredients - for about 8 people

2 kg pork loin, rolled and tied
1 bottle chunky Languedoc red wine (at least)
1 glass armagnac or cognac
1.5 cups olive oil
10 juniper berries
10 peppercorns
2  sprigs fresh thyme
5 cloves
1 bay leaf
4 good pinches salt
6 onions
2 shallots
Flour
Butter

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees.

Squeeze the pork into a non-metallic container small enough to get in your fridge. Pour over enough red wine and armagnac to cover the pork.  Add 1 cup of olive oil, juniper berries, cloves, bay leaf, thyme, peppercorns and salt. Turn the pork. Leave it in the fridge for three days, turning the pork two or three times a day.

At the end of three days it should look like one of these:

 

Take the pork out and dry it with some kitchen towel. Save the marinade. Put half a cup of olive oil and some butter in a roasting pan. Put the pan on the top of your cooker and sear the pork on all sides to seal the meat. Don't burn it.

Remove the pork, pour the fat only from the pan (leaving the bits). Put the onions and shallots in the bottom of the pan then replace the pork on top. Strain the marinade reserving the juice and ditching the rest. Pour a cup of the marinade over the pork and put it in the oven for about an hour and a half. Baste the pork every 30 minutes, using more of the reserved marinade if necessary so the pork is never dry.

Just before the pork is ready put the remaining marinade in a separate saucepan. Boil it until it has reduced by half. Take the pork and onions from the oven and put on a hot dish, covered, to rest while you make the sauce. To the roasting pan chuck in 50 grams-ish of butter and a soup spoon of flour. Mix it well while adding the reduced marinade. Scrape all the delicious bits off the bottom of the pan so they integrate with the sauce. Cook the sauce for about three minutes then strain it into a jug.

We served the pork with braised celery, roast potatoes and sweet potatoes, carrots and spinach. It was succulent, tender and delicious and worth a bit of forward-planning.

 

We're a bit behind with things. Not to be outdone by everyone else in the western world, Ali and I got the rotten colds the second Christmas was over. Dammit. This put paid to serious vine-pruning, gardening, sorting out general chaos - indeed anything that involved standing upright. But we're back, and on splendid form.

Today we have a heap of friends coming to lunch.  We'll be two Swiss, one Catalonian, two French, four English and Ali, who is Irish/Scottish/Malaysian. So, of course, we'll speak French - the first language of just two of us. I'm trying a recipe for sanglier, only I haven't got any wild boar, so I'm substituting pork. I'll let you know how it goes - and the recipe if it works. It uses heaps of red wine in honour of the five wine-makers who'll be eating with us. I'm daring to ask them to taste our new wine from last year's fated harvest. Yesterday our pal Rosemary George, Master of Wine and expert on Languedoc wine , tasted it and, very kindly, didn't choke. She was even rather kind and encouraging about it. Thank you

No doubt you'll have seen that France, like the UK, has been covered in a blanket of snow for days now. We, here in the south, have had more of a thin veil for just one day. The rest of the time it's just been absolutely freeeezing. Despite our colds, we've spent a fair amount of time chainsawing dead peach trees for firewood. When we bought our vineyard we inherited a once-upon-a-time orchard. After three years of complete abandonment many of the trees had withered and died. I've rescued quite a number, but those past it are now filling Le Couvent with the delicious scent of peach-wood.

Our recycling scheme is going well. As fast as new stuff appears on the website someone claims it. Recent good giveaways have a been a brand new skinny Mac keyboard, a swimming pool roller and cover, 22 bottles of white wine, a pair of designer shoes, two pairs of leather trousers, two sunbeds, champagne glasses and lots more. If you're reading this locally do take a look at C'est Gratuit . There are loads of things being given away - free - for nothing. At the moment there are some great Ikea wardrobes and an Ercol dining table up for grabs. Do take a look.

The new hens have settled in famously and are fast gaining on the big girls. Anyone who's been to Le Couvent will know that our hens are absolutely enormous, living on a summer diet of croissant, pain au chocolat, pain au raisin and anything else left from breakfast. This time of year sees bags of leftovers hanging on the gates of Le Couvent from our neighbours. From time to time their kindness is rewarded with some fresh, orange yolked eggs. The perfect exchange.

Whoops - I've kept you waiting. Sorry. Glad you're back though. So four days ago the Tour de France chose to gallop through Roujan again after a 50 year break. And what fun we had.

Two of our poor guests had to leave early on the day of the tour to avoid closed roads and traffic jams. This was particularly rotten luck since one of them had broken her foot whilst here and had the 24 hour journey back to Western Australia to do encased in plaster. Hope you got home safely John & Julia - sorry you missed Le Tour. Maybe the whole of Roujan should be protected thus:

The fun starts some two hours before the actual cyclists show up, when a cavalcade of advertising vehicles rattle past lobbing freebies at leaping spectators. Grown adults diving like Grobelaar to rob tiny children of the fourth peaked cap or a triangle of cheese. Some of the vehicles are spectacular, like this one on top of a car.

Some aren't quite what they claim to be - for instance - what's eco about driving the whole of France in a big square box on wheels?

 

This poor women spent her entire time trying to avoid being decapitated by overhanging trees.

Whilst this chap looked none too enamoured to be spending half of July sitting in a cup of coffee. A career in PR anyone?

Mme Mas came out onto her balcony to wave, sporting a very appropriate and fetching Nike cap.

 Ali made sure we got our own bit of marketing in.

Our lovely French neighbour brought us out a plate of delicious stuff to stave off hunger (we were none too successful at catching the cheese triangles).

 Nicola & Ali bought silly hats.

And eventually the cyclists came in a sweep and a whoosh. All very exciting. We shouted for them to thow us drugs, but they seemed to have kept them all for themselves. Hey ho, you can only ask.

  

 So we all had a silly, noisy, friendly and lovely time. Wish you'd been here.

 Thanks Tour de France - see you in 2058.

Wow, it's been a momentous week. My lovely brother Justin (known in the family as Freddie) had his 50th birthday.

His kind wife, Michelle, organised a secret party for 60-odd people (important hyphen). It was nearly a well-kept secret until Joel the local carpenter asked him what time it started just two days before the event.

I gave him one of those super-duper self-published books you can do so easily on a Mac & Ali gave him a day learning how to taste and blend wine. We all went off to Domaine Bourdic and had a fantastic time creating our own blend. By the end of the morning we all had blue tongues from tasting so much 'raw' wine.

But the real panic came during the afternoon when we had to blend, record quantities, taste, adjust, blend again and eventually come up with our very own assemblage which was bottled and given a label with our name on.

 

It was a truly fantastic and memorable day. Hans & Christa are gifted teachers and each one of us said we'd learnt more about wine in one day than could be imagined. We'll keep you posted about the next chance to do the same assemblage day.

Yesterday we had a real Jean de Florette kind of a morning. For some time we've been lugging 120 litres of water up to our vegetable garden in the vineyards as there's been no water there. But it all changed yesterday thanks to Ebay (where I found the perfect pump), Ib and Andreas. More about it on Ali's blog about our vineyard .

Meanwhile the guests have just been hanging about in hammocks.

 

The problem with writing a blog is that sometimes you don't have time to write it, then all the stuff that happens in between becomes so huge that you can't face the task of going back over it. So you don't write. Sorry about that, I'll make amends now.

Since I last wrote we've had wonderful Swedes, Americans, English, Scots, Dutch,  New Zealanders, Australians and many others staying. They arrive already knowing about our lives thanks to this diary and website. But we know nothing about them, so it's like sticking your hand into a lucky dip and finding a treat every time. Film-makers, glassy-winged sharp shooter expert, tennis coach, mountain-climber, charity bosses, ballet dancer, widget manufacturer, software architect, writer, lawyer, homeopath, urban regenerator, public relations experts, an honest estate agent, hoteliers, a cop, musicians, accountants, architects and artists have all turned up at Le Couvent in the last month. Can you imagine how interesting it is for us to learn of the wild, wonderful, awful and exhausting ways people find to make a living? We salute you all and hope you found a bit of peace and inspiration during your stay. Thanks for the stories!

As for us, we've been run off our feet with lovely guests and have had a great time in the process. The pool's stayed bright, clear and fresh thanks to slightly cooler than average weather at around 24 degrees-ish. Very comfortable and quite unlike the energy-sapping high 30's of the first year we were here six years ago.

The vegetable garden's groaning with salads threatening to run to seed so I'm doing my best to palm stuff off onto guests who decide to take a picnic to our vineyards.

 

 

And when they're not helping us use up salad we put them to work weeding the vines. This one's for you Sarah & Andrew.

 

 
While we're on the subject of the vines, this has been a worrying time weather-wise. The mix of warm temperatures and a bit of rain is not great for grapevines. They are prone to getting mildew and oidium, so we have to treat them. We have help in the rather delectable shape of Fred who sprays the vines for us each fortnight. We insist that he wears a mask but he's a bit reluctant to use it properly. God knows what his tan looks like after a day like this.  

 

This morning our friend the WelderBeast's been round to discuss the bridge. Many of you will know that we've wanted to construct a small bridge between the house and the garden, but we've never found a satisfactory solution to the problem. We'd like something functional and sculptural at the same time. WB is the first person to tell us it's completely possible. Watch this space.

This weekend we cooked for our lovely group from Landseer Productions (something we do very rarely) and they've asked for the recipes, so there will be a couple more in the book by the end of the week.

 

I've also made some peach ice-cream and sorbet from our own peaches. At Chateau Mal Au Dos there was an orchard of peaches and olives when we bought it. However many of the peach trees had died of neglect, except for about four. Incredibly one of them produced the smallest yet sweetest peach crop this year. I'm hoping that some TLC from us will produce even better result next year.

 

 

 

 

Fresh from Australia via Paris, new guests arrived yesterday.  They're on their honeymoon and over a glass or two of Le Couvent rosé they were telling us of their short but magical time in Paris. In particular they'd been impressed by the wonderful display of multi-coloured macaroons in Ladurée .

 

Yesterday morning, by absolute chance, I had skidded into one of the two Roujan baker's seconds before they closed and bought up the last of their special of the day. What was it? Yes, a pretty box full of colourful macaroons hand-made by the baker that morning. So, as I presented the plate to our guests I looked like the most accomplished magician ever to have lived.

What's stoolball? It's an old English game, the fore-runner of cricket, originally played by milkmaids. You probably haven't heard of it because it's only played in Kent, East Sussex and now, Roujan. If you'd like to know more about the game you can check it out here .

Last year Ali & I made some wickets, painted them jolly colours and hauled together a team of friends and family & called ourselves the Languedoc Crocks. We were mentioned on a website and as a result the lovely Clare, captain of Causeway Stoolball Club in Kent, got in touch with us. Despite the fact that our team had played just twice Causeway was insistent on coming to play against us. It was a howling success as witnessed here .

Within moments of going home they booked to come for a long weekend again this year. So we did it all again. We had supper at Le Couvent, we went to Pezenas market, we played on the cricket pitch at St Pons de Mauchiens.

 

We laughed, we lost, we were 31 for dinner at Les Goutailles , we played again. Ali & Nicola got silly.

 

We were 36 for dinner in the vines at Chateau Mal Au Dos and then they squeezed themselves and all their bags into two people carriers and grinned their way back home to Kent. All between Friday afternoon and Monday morning. And then Clare wrote to book for next year. Hooray! What can we conjure up as a surprise then I wonder?

Thanks to all our friends and family who worked their socks off cooking and lugging stuff and providing wine, not to mention actually playing. And thanks so much to all our friends from Causeway Stoolball Club. It was fantastic. And we're going to beat you next year. 

The weather's been disgusting today, dull, wet and dismal. Perfect for cooking up a storm or making a sorbet for supper tonight. This sorbet is soooooooo good I thought I'd share it. Don't be put off by the fact that it looks uncannily like school mashed potato, it really has an absolutely stunning flavour. Oh, and I've made twice as much in the photos as there'll be lots of us for supper.

You need: 150 ml water; 150 gms sugar; 6 limes zested; 1 glass of juice from the limes; 1 large bunch of basil

 

 

Method: In a saucepan chuck the water and sugar and bring it to the boil. Turn it down to a simmer and lob in the lime zest leaving it to simmer for about 5 minutes. Meanwhile pound the basil to a pulp.

 

 

Remove the water/sugar/lime mixture from the heat and let it cool a bit. Throw in the lime juice and basil puree, stir it and let it infuse for about ten minutes.

Sieve the mixture into a bowl and squeeze out the remnants. The remaining liquid will look like the stuff below. Don't be tempted to throw it away even though it looks so awful.

At this point you can put it into the freezer for about 3 hours, stirring it every 30 minutes, or if you're lucky like me and have a sorbetiere or ice-cream maker you can hand it all over to that. Mine takes about 50 minutes to be ready.

The finished product - not a great look, but a flavour you'll never forget. As they used to say at the Hungry Monk in Jevington - 'Serve with a smacking of lips'

P'raps we'll make some for weary travellers when they arrive at Le Couvent, Roujan - in our opinion the best bed and breakfast in the Languedoc! Biased? Us? Surely not.

This one's for the Landseer group who are coming to stay at Le Couvent, Roujan again in a couple of month's time. It's an annual reunion of chums who've previously worked together and they've asked for us to do supper for them one evening. They've requested 'the lovely courgette soup you gave us last time'. I'd completely forgotten, but have found the recipe. Good start. I'm hoping I can encourage the courgettes to get a move on. This is how they look today, with their pals the coriander plants.

 

 

Hey look at this. While we've spent the winter pretending to be vigneronnes, our good friends Hans & Christa at Domaine Bourdic have been preparing proper wine for the guests of Le Couvent, Roujan. Here's the new rosé looking gorgeous.

 

 

It's a much lighter colour than previous years, has the addition of Grenache and is just delectable. Perfect for a cool glass as you arrive at Le Couvent, Roujan. There'll be a bottle waiting for you in your room as a welcome from Ali & I. We hope you enjoy it.

If rosé is not quite to your taste we have a luscious 2004 Le Mori, also from Domaine Bourdic. Here it is with the rosé, looking smart in its black & white livery.

 

 

 

Ok, so we're not officially open until 1 May, but this exceptional week we have a group of Black & Asian writers staying, working on their films, stage plays, radio plays, TV dramas & books. They're all jolly well known, and they're just lovely and very interesting. We had supper together last night with the writers and our chums Nicola & Teddy who've arranged this particular jape. They do lunch & supper and we have everyone to breakfast. Lucky us eh?

 

 

I have a personal challenge to see how many different fruits I can serve at breakfast and the current record is 13. It's early in the year so I wasn't being too hopeful but I managed passion fruit, kiwi, physalis, melons, oranges, apples, strawberries, pineapples, star fruit & bananas this morning. That's 10. The record looks in danger this year now that we have Chateau Mal Au Dos where the fruit grows in abundance.