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Lunch in a UFO

Posted in Food, other sides to this life, Poldark, tagged Dôme de Montmiral, Tarn restaurant, Valerie and Raymond Moncan, vegan restaurant on March 8, 2011| 3 Comments »

Lunch in a UFO today.

It’s sitting in a French field, looking spectacularly out of place–as any self-respecting UFO would.

The owner tells us it’s coming up to two years now since they landed.

He built it himself, from packs–“like Ikea!” he says. Packs or no packs, it’s a piece of work and it revolves 360 degrees–as any self-respecting UFO would.

It’s beautiful inside with many features that are familiar to us: a high-tech kitchen, a dining area and toilets.

It has living quarters too and there are children’s toys lying around. This is obviously both a home and a work place.

The owners call it Dôme de Montmiral.

It is a couple of miles from the Castelnau of that name, though there’s about a thousand years of history separating them. We ask if there were any problems getting permission to build it there–sorry, to land it? “No, everyone was for it–but we had to go to the highest level.” Well, you would for a UFO…..

Enough of that!

The Dôme is an unusual restaurant, set in the middle of beautiful countryside in the north Tarn, here in southwestern France. Its shape resembles a flying saucer and it serves vegetarian food. A bioclimatic house, made from wood–it is self-sufficient in many ways.

This is the fantastic project of Valérie and Raymond Moncan. She is the cook and she’s passionate about it; quite a change, as she used to be a professor of Latin and Greek!

She serves a fixed menu–though you can have input when booking and she is sensitive to special needs.

I notice the shelves are full of cookbooks which I can’t resist investigating. The first one I pull out is titled: “Mal de Sucre” [the evil/curse of sugar]. I feel I’m in good hands!

Today we’re having lunch with Donald Douglas –aka “Captain McNeil”–my old enemy in Poldark.

Old rivals call it a day!

It’s his birthday and we are celebrating with his partner and other friends.

There are three courses for 25 euros with wine on top.

The food is different–more delicate than the usual restaurant vegetarian. In fact it is vegan–no dairy products. It’s tasty and lightly-spiced and perhaps a little other worldly…?

Shredded patés of beetroot, apple and mushroom with seasonings

Kitcheri of basmati rice & red lentils with vegetables

The sort of fare one might imagine being served in a UFO….!

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of cabbages and cats

Posted in other sides to this life on March 5, 2011| 1 Comment »

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Ismail Merchant’s Chicken breasts sautéed with cinnamon, onions, and parsley

Posted in Diabetes, Food, other sides to this life, Recipes, tagged chicken and cinnamon, chicken breasts, Ismail Merchant, Merchant-Ivory on February 26, 2011| 1 Comment »

I bought a couple of chicken breasts for lunch in Castres market this morning.

The recipe below is adapted from the late Ismail Merchant’s excellent book, Indian Cuisine.

Ismail Merchant

Ismail, who died too soon six years ago aged 68, was the producer half of the enormously successful film production team Merchant Ivory. I filmed The Europeans with them in New England in the autumn of 1978, with lovely Lee Remick.

Food played an important part in the ebullient Ismail’s modus operandi.

In earlier days he would do the rounds of the established film companies looking for backing, with a homemade apple pie in his bag. Slices would be produced in exchange for the use of the telephone!

Money was never NOT a problem for them in those days and it was clear, deep into the filming in New Hampshire, that things were tight. Anxious creditors hovered and it was uncertain whether we’d be able to complete the filming.

About five o’clock one Saturday afternoon, I spotted Ismail coming in from the car park laden down with several grocery bags. “What’s up, Ismail?”

“Curry for dinner–everyone’s invited!”

He disappeared into the hotel’s kitchen which he had commandeered for the night.

At eight that evening, the whole company (at least 80 people) plus a few unfamiliar faces entered the dining room where a wonderful Indian feast was laid out–a fantastic sight!

We finished the film on time, with no further rumours of money worries.

His simple recipe makes the rather bland chicken breasts more interesting with chili and cinnamon.

Chicken breasts sautéed with cinnamon, onions, and parsley

for 4

4 boned chicken breasts (without the skin)– sliced in half, lengthwise

4 tblsps olive oil

1 cinnamon stick– broken up

1 largish onion– chopped

2 to 3 small red chillies

juice of two lemons

Cook the onions gently in the oil with the cinnamon until soft.

Add the chicken breasts with the lemon juice.

Season with salt and pepper.

Turn them over after three minutes and cook for a further three minutes; then add the parsley and chillies.

Turn the breasts in the sauce and continue cooking for a further 5 minutes–the exact cooking time depends on the thickness of the chicken breasts.

In the pan...

(I just cooked two today.)

Cut into the thickest part of one to check. If it is still very pink, continue to cook another couple of minutes.

I served it with a salad of raw fennel, radish, avocado and rocket dressed with 3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, a tablespoon of freshly-squeezed lemon juice, half a teaspoon of Dijon mustard, salt and pepper, whisked together.

On the plate....

A healthy & delicious dish for diabetics–and everyone else….

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Extractor fan woes….

Posted in Food, other sides to this life, tagged extractor fan on February 25, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Ever since the new kitchen hob and the extractor fan went in over two years ago the fan hasn’t worked.

So grilling and frying on top of the stove has been a smelly business, to be avoided if we’re eating in the kitchen.

I only discovered it wasn’t working when a friend informed me. I just thought it wasn’t very efficient.

Gilbert Caminade, our carpenter, said he’d had one fitted that worked too well; it threatened to suck up everything in his new kitchen and the adjacent living room as well! I didn’t have that problem.

I put up with it–as one does–for far too long, until this morning, when Jean Louis, the electrician, arrived to fix a few things and to investigate why the wretched fan was en panne (broken down).

He turned it on, scratched his head and went outside to check the outlet. I left him to it. A little while later he came back into the kitchen with a rolled up piece of plastic in his right hand. “Ca marche maintenant?” I asked. (Does it work?)

“Ooh–c’était une grande panne!” he replied, with a broad smile, implying it had been a difficult job and held up the piece of plastic.

The person fitting the fan on Christmas Eve two years ago, in his hurry to get the job done for us, had left a wad of plastic wrapping wedged in the outlet, which had blocked the extraction of air ever since.

I put my hand under the fan and nothing seemed different– “Ooh ça marche” said Jean-Louis reassuringly, “mais pas assez d’enlever une perruque!” (Not enough to lift a wig!)

The offending wad!

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The Cornish Pasty–on the map!

Posted in Food, other sides to this life, Poldark, tagged Cornish pasty, Cornwall, miners on February 23, 2011| 13 Comments »

This cherished treasure of the far west of England has achieved special status.

The European commission ruled yesterday that the Cornish Pasty has won Protected Geographical Status or PGS; in other words, it’s officially Pretty Good Stuff!

The EU ruling states that a genuine Cornish pasty has to have a distinctive “D” shape, and be crimped on one side, not on the top.

“The texture of the filling is chunky, made up of uncooked minced or roughly cut chunks of beef (not less than 12.5%), swede, potato, and onion with a light seasoning.” Not good for type two-ers!

I know something about this great local delicacy. I spent an entire morning’s filming inside the coach that completed Ross Poldark’s return from the American War, the first scene of the series, having the intricacies of pasty making explained to me, between takes, by a delightful lady extra called Elizabeth Coad.

I also learned from a former miner the reason these beauties have an indented ridge over the top. Apparently during a day’s work at the tin or copper face, often two to three thousand feet below the surface, a miner’s fingers would become impregnated with poison from the metal and the ridge of pastry was what he held the pasty by, to be discarded afterwards. The pasties often contained a two course meal–the meat and potato in one half and apple in the other! Miners used to leave a small portion of their pasties down the mine after their shift for the ghosts of old miners, the Knockers they called them.