Uzes.

Lok how beautiful it is here in Uzes:

We arrived on Saturday having caught the train from Paris. There were a few nervous moments in Lyon when we and all of our children and all of our luggage had fifteen minutes to change trains. The last bag was unceremoniously shoved aboard seconds before the doors closed. Phew. Disaster averted.....until we got to Nimes and discovered the car hire depot was closed. We made the final stage of our journey.....in two taxis. 

We had friends for lunch on Sunday and in the manic whip around the shops that we managed to find early that same morning we were able to serve a veritable feast:

Asperges blanches avec sauce  hollandaise. I steamed the asparagus while my husband utilised his party trick of whipping up hollandaise with absolutely no fuss. A couple of years ago, we had a family holiday on a P&O cruise ship. While that is a story for another day.....the only redeemable feature of the  entire ten, long and punishing days aboard was the Luke Mangan restaurant 'Salt'. You had to pre book and they charged a supplement (everything else was all inclusive all you could eat) which meant that it was virtually empty yet it was an enclave of delicious food and respite, an escape from the madness and confronting horror that was the rest of the ship. We ate there most nights, working our way through truffled and hollandaised everything (don't worry, they also had a gym). I came home determined to cook hollandaise....yet no matter how hard I tried, it never worked and I was time and time again, reduced to tears. Now hollandaise sauce is relegated to the domain of my husband's cooking oeuvre, it resides there along with his signature dish of Lemon Delicious Pudding......which is virtually all that he ever makes.

Anyway, next we had foie gras with fig confit and toasted brioche followed by roasted chicken (roasted by the traiteur, thank you very much) and potato gratin made by me. The gratin is so simple to make, all you need is at least an hour in the oven to cook it. Thinly slice peeled, waxy potatoes, grate in some cheese...in Hobart I use parmesan yet on Sunday I used tomme....add some fried bacon, cover with a mixture of creme fraiche and milk to just cover, season and bake at 180 degrees for as long as it takes. Mistakenly, we also served a green salad which our French friends refused to eat on the same plate as the hot food....they ate it with the next course, which it goes without saying was.....cheese. With gateaux brought as a gift, it was a spectacular lunch with minimal effort.

Our new house...and I use the term loosely, as it is supposedly built on Roman foundations.....is just behind the Ducal Palace. This is the Ducal Palace:

The house with the grey shutters is our domain:

On the hour, there is a confusing cacophony of bells which signal the time and rattle the windows in our home. One bell tower starts chiming just before the hour, while the second repeats the call about two minutes later. You can imagine what a noise this makes at midday....mercifully, at night they stop at 10pm and start again at 7am in the morning.

Bon week-end.

Rx