shrimping

We set off for a walk on an October weekend, welly-footed, nets and buckets in hand. Our destination was a series of rock pools near La Turballe. Hidden in the beneath the glittering water amongst the sand and seaweed was a treasure trove of periwinkles, oysters, mussels and shrimps.

foreshore

 
There were mussels and oysters, waiting to be gathered in the sandy foreshore. We walked to the edge of the sandbar and watched the oystercatchers, dunlins and herring gulls fishing in the shallows. Overhead, flocks of migrating Canada geese flew across the wide arc of the sky. 

We splashed in the eddies, sometimes our wellies wading just that little bit too far. We gathered shells, skimmed stones and filled our lungs with as much fresh air as we could manage.

tarte aux pommes

A bowl of apples from our secret orchard were turned into a delicious (gluten and dairy free) tarte aux pommes in the hands of my chéri. Just the thing to raise the spirits on a particularly poorly day at the end of last week. 

(Needles to say, it was so delicious, there wasn't time to photograph it before *abracadabra* it had been magicked away...)  

bittersweet

Ripe sloe berries out in the hedgerows then in our foraging basket are a sure sign that summer's coming to an end...but that sloe gin (or patxaran) for Christmas is in sight. 

nougèr (spun)

After spinning and plying, I dyed the finished yarn using a natural plant dye prepared from the late summer leaves of the walnut tree, “nougèr” in the local dialect.

※※※

"nougèr"

Ingredients: 32g of washed and carded wool. The fibre used was white Berrichon du Cher, from Gèdre.

Spinning: Two singles spun from rolags in the Z direction, using a semi-worsted technique. 

Plying: two singles plied in the S direction until balanced. 

Finishing: Wound off into a skein, washed and dried weighted to set the ply. Naturally dyed with foraged walnut leaves.

Quantity: 30g giving 32m of finished yarn

WPI: 9

Yarn Weight: DK

bilberries

The hillsides are still full of myrtilles sauvages, wild bilberries. Knowing that this glut isn't going to last, we could have picked bucketfulls of these gorgeous little fruits to turn into jams or tartes in the kitchen back at home. But we preferred to follow the lead from the flocks of sheep: sit down and gorge ourselves on the hillside, straight from the bush. 

elergy for a walnut tree

Old friend now there is no one alive
who remembers when you were young
it was high summer when I first saw you
in the blaze of day most of my life ago
with the dry grass whispering in your shade
and already you had lived through wars
and echoes of wars around your silence
through days of parting and seasons of absence
with the house emptying as the years went their way
until it was home to bats and swallows
and still when spring climbed toward summer
you opened once more the curled sleeping fingers
of newborn leaves as though nothing had happened
you and the seasons spoke the same language
and all these years I have looked through your limbs
to the river below and the roofs and the night
and you were the way I saw the world

WS Merwin
From The Moon Before Morning 

in the orchard

There's something wonderfully therapeutic about picking fruit. Even on an especially slow day, when I'm not up to much more than sitting in the long grass and gently knitting a few rows whilst my love does all the hard work. 

 (I've finally succumbed...Melody's enthusiasm for Fairisle is contagious...)

chestnut husks (natural dyed)

In the kitchen, the scent of freshly brewed coffee hung in the air. On the hob, the chestnuts are simmering happily. We rest our tired legs under the table and from the window we can see the billowing clouds hanging low in the valley.

The timer buzzes and drags me from my revery. The chestnuts are done, my coffee cup is empty. It's time to dye some yarn...

I prepare the dye bath as I would if I were to use walnut shells. I boil the shells for about an hour to obtain the dye bath, removing the husks and adding a good dose of white vinegar once the concoction had cooled a little. Then I plunge a skein of damp yarn into the saucepan.

After bringing it once more to the boil, I gently simmer the bath for over an hour. Once the water has sufficiently cooled, I rinse the skein in luke warm water (to avoid felting!) until the water runs clear. 

I'm left with a fabulously smelling skein of yarn in a warm brown tone. I'm rather pleased by the results of my first attempt at natural dyeing...and can't wait to get something onto the needles!  

that old chestnut

After many days of sunshine, we wake to a rather overcast Sunday. The chill in the air is accompanied by gentle rain showers. We pull on a jumper and decide to go with it, pretending it is Autumn rather than early Summer. 

We remember a kilo of foraged chestnuts, lying dormant in the freezer since late autumn. We turn on the radio, take out our pen knives and set to work, side by side.

 

No matter what method you use, preparing foraged chestnuts is always a labour of love. We tend to chill (or freeze) them first for at least an hour before starting. Using a strong, sharp knife, we cut them in half from top to bottom. Then we plunge them into boiling water for about ten minutes before draining and removing the nuts with a paring knife. It helps to keep the nuts warm as we work, as this helps the skins to come off. Once all the nuts are skinned, they then go back into a saucepan covered with water to simmer for about half an hour until tender. 

As we tend to eat mainly vegetarian (and at the moment without both gluten and dairy products too!) chestnuts are one of our favourite wild ingredients. Unlike other nuts, they are lower in oil and protein but higher in starch, which makes them a useful addition to cakes and savoury loaves, including our favourite wild chestnut and mushroom loaf from our French Vegetarian cookery bible: Ma cuisine végétarienne pour tous les jours by Garance Leureux (Editions La Plage). 

500g of wild chestnuts in their skins will yield about 350g once prepared. And what to do with all those left over husks...?

busy hands

We're now back in our valley home, after a few weeks away. Lately, fatigue has been becoming more and more a heavy weight around my neck. Not the everyday tiredness that comes from leading a hectic life. Nor the Sunday morning sluggishness and lethargy be-known to students brought on by one too many sugary cups of coffee, frequent late nights or not enough fresh vegetables. Rather an exhaustion that greets you when you wake in the morning, that a good night sleep won't lift. A tiredness so consuming it seeps into your bones, that could drain away all happiness if you let it do so.

Just a few short months ago, I was a teacher and translator. Working for myself from home. Weaving together words and untangling muddled syntax. It feels like another life ago. I've been off work since March, too ill to work. And as this current rough seems to be showing no sign of abating, looks like I'll be taking the rest of the summer off too.

As we try to navigate our way back to that path of wellness, my days have been stripped back to the essential. Eating wholesome food. Fresh air. Long sleeps. Deep breaths.

Foraging in the woods helps. Picnics in the sunshine helps. Spending time with friends helps. And above all, keeping my hands busy helps.

wild larder

  1) Nettles. 2) Lungwort. 3) Cowslips. 4) Navelwort.  

We haven't had a veggie garden since last spring, when a terrible flood washed it down to the sea. But Mother Nature has been kind to us so far this year, ensuring our larder stays stocked full of fresh greens and vitamins, providing you know where to look  of course.

Nettle soup and pesto. Watercress and navelwort salad. Wild garlic tarte. Beside the river, the green shooting things keep on sprouting. In the kitchen, the possibilities are endless. 

wild garlic

 
We noticed it at the start of April. Whilst walking beside the river, it was as if someone had taken a green pencil crayon and scribbled furiously amongst the trees.

One minute it was brown and dull, winter's leftover. The next it was verdant and bright. Spring is slowly creeping in.

Nothing else seemed to have changed. The hills are still muddy brown. The sky continues to yo-yo between blue and shades of grey. But the green, a sea of wild garlic [ail des ours] has been stealthily creeping in for weeks, sometimes beneath snow, to suddenly reveal itself.

We're still waiting for the nettles. But down by the river, there is wild garlic in abundance.  

For my birthday, after the cake, we made a salad from navelwort and chives and a wild-garlic quiche from plants we had gathered in the woods down by the river the day before.

le soleil des herbes

La Carline appartient à la famille des artichauts.  "Cardouille" et "cardon" sont les autres noms désignant la fleur de cette plante sauvage. Les paysans la cueillaient pour son cœur comestible et se servaient des feuilles épineuses pour démêler ou carder la laine de leurs troupeaux.

Cette plante a la particularité de capter la lumière solaire en s'ouvrant en son centre. Mais celui-ci se referme lorsque tombe l'humidité et qu'arrive la pluie. La cardabelle une fois séchée est, dit-on, un porte bonheur que l'on accroche volontiers à la porte de sa demeure.

mushrooming, Mont Agut

 Walking down from the summit of the Mont Agut, we come across some immense, globular mushrooms, nestled in the dry grass. 

Nico's eyes light up with pleasure. "Oh excellent," he exclaims with joy before kneeling down for a closer look. "Des coulemelles! C'est trop bon ça!". 

And thus, in a field high above Betpouey, armed with a pocket knife and a paper bag begins another of my initiations into French life: location, identification, retrieval and later dégustation of wild mushrooms. 

However, once off the mountain and back down in the village, my initial joy of foraging in the wild gives way to a few nerves. What if we have just gathered, at best some hallucionogenic specimens, and at worse, some toxic and potentially lethal fungi? 

I trust Nico,  but just to be on the safe side, we consult both field guide and the Internet. Nothing to worry about. The specimens waiting patiently on the worktop are indeed edible. I am delighted to find however that this variety of wild mushroom, like many others for that matter, is endowed with a number of pleasingly evocative vernacular names:

- chevalier bagué (a "ringed-knight")

- nez-de-chat ("cat's nose")

- parasol ("sunshade")

In Limousin and the north of the Périgord, they are known as filleul ('god son or daughter'). And in Poitou-Charente, they call immature coulemelles 'bonhomme', a word often used by children for "man"), when the hat is still unopened. Nico assures me that this is when the mushrooms are the most flavoursome.

Fresh, the mushrooms have a wonderfully earthy smell. Cooked in the oven with copious amounts of olive oil and fresh parsley, they have a nutty flavour and a meaty texture just like aubergines. 

I never expected cat's noses to be quite so delicious...

picnic in the woods

Tuesday 11.30am.

I've been translating since seven o'clock and my late morning French class has just been cancelled at the last minute.

The sun is shining and I've had enough of lighting policies for one day.

There is only one thing for it. We grab the picnic basket, fill it with good things (organic spelt loaf and tomatoes, goats cheese, ripe peaches, olives and a thermos of chai tea) and head up for a dejeuner sur l'herbe in the fields above St Sauveur.

We spread picnic blanket and map of the valley out on the grass. Perched on a patch of grass on an otherwise wooded hillside, we have a sublime view up towards Barèges, across to Chèze and up to the pic du Bergons. We eat slowly in the midday sun, spreading copious amounts of bûche de chevre onto thick slices of the slightly nutty spelt loaf. Only one thing missing: on a oublié le vin. 

I drink in the view, watching the clouds gather and disperse on the Soum de Moustayou peak which towers above our place. Nico plays the favourite game of map maniacs, 'Spot the Peak'. In the long grass around us, bumblebees lazily gather pollen, ants occasionally nibble my bare feet and scent of heather and wild mountain thyme wafts through the air.

...After a couple of hours we feel a little more energetic and go on a foraging mission, rooting out wild herbs (thyme and chives) and mushrooms. We gather a modest basketful but are somewhat disappointed that the mushrooms are so thin on the ground today. Then we cross an old, beret-clad chap rooting around in the long grass and realise that, when in competition with un ancien, we are lucky to have found anything at all.

All too soon it is time to head back down to the village. There is just one more foraging spot that we have to stop by on the way, a little café by Napoléon bridge, where we find some delicious ice-creams waiting for us by the roadside...