Lola 'Two Blogs' Vardigans?

Well, this is a turn up for the books! Not satisfied with just one blog, 'Blog at Bardies', I've now decided in a mad moment of excess, to do a John Prescott. Sorry for the pretension [or possibly vanity?] and general greed, but my darling husband's comment about my last 'Blog at Bardies' posting was, "Yes, Darling. Very good. If someone wants to read about hot cross buns and chocolate cake!" It was a blog about Easter chez nous after all, and 'Paques' is about food, is it not? I have to confess to being a little taken aback but it got me thinking about creating a separate blog just about food. The upside of living part of the year in a remote part of the French countryside is that there is not much else to do, before a long, lazy swim and a glass of chilled Tariquet, but search out local produce and fill one's time and one's kitchen with the joys of one's culinary efforts.

Over the fifteen years that we have now been in the Ariege, ten of them at our beloved Chateau de Bardies, I have cooked thousands of meals, from casual garden lunches under our two enormous lime trees, to grand 'Nouvelle Annee' dinners with our inherited family crested china dinner service and silver ware. The house is often full to bursting, with upwards of twenty souls in situ and, when we run our bi-annual blues, festival heaving at every seam. We love to have campers in the field, especially youngsters who bring a new lease of life to this creaky old edifice [the house, not me!]. Without fail, they all have voracious appetites after a day or two in our Pyrenean air. Being at five hundred meters above sea level, and in the foothills of such majestic mountains, we are spoilt with grass reared cattle, sheep and goats and heavenly local cheeses, charcuterie, conserves and croustardes [our local pastry topped savoury and sweet 'pies'].

We are a working farm so the needs of nature dominate. I love the changes of the seasons although it has to be said that really, we have only two. The long, hard winters have evolved a cuisine of hearty, warming fare to lift even the darkest of days. In total contrast, the heat and brilliance of late spring and summer, when often the snow on the mountain tops remains to remind us of what we have left behind well into early summer, awakens the tastebuds to the endless possibilities for abundant fresh produce, fish from the local rivers and the fruits of field and forest. This is foraging country and there is nothing in this world more enjoyable than making a delicious lunch from a basketful of hand collected finds. Only in France will a pharmacist help you to sort through your wild mushrooms!

We already have a cookbook of tried and tested recipes at Bardies, a very basic tome at present consisting of my typed up scribbles of personally adapted recipes from long forgotten cookery writers. I am quite proud of it despite its lack of photographs. This is partly due to always forgetting to bring my camera, even if I could work out how to upload. It is also because my great photographer friend, Mark Bottomley, and I really need to eat and photograph our way through a mountain of food and I am currently desperately trying to shed, not gain, pounds. There is no short cut, I'm afraid. You have to cook it to photograph it!

Sooooooooo, I have now decided to cook and photograph as I go. I've managed all by myself to get the blog up, so now all I need to do is to badger darling daughter, or son, or 'hubbie', to show me how to upload photos from my trusty little Lumix. Sorry, Mark, in the meantime. We will await your fabulous professional input, which will undoudtedly transform my humble offerings into the culinary equivalent of Annie Liebovitz. It is to be an ongoing blog where I hope to talk about Ariege food sources, local market producers, wine growers, recipes and my infant 'potager'. The plan is to put up recipes on an ongoing basis, starting the week after next. I am sorry to be a bit late for my hot cross bun recipe [cribbed from master Bath baker, Richard Bertinet], our family celebration chocolate almond torte recipe [made 'toute seule' by my daughter under my supervision] and my asparagus risotto [made for Easter Monday with the new season's asparagus].

As asparagus will be with us for a good while yet, I think we shall start with that. Somehow, the arrival of the new asparagus really heralds the arrival of the new season for me. We gorge ourselves on it until there is not a spear to be found anywhere [except those tasteless, imported varieties which should be desisted at all costs!] and then, sated, we move on to indulge in the other great luxuries of summer. I greatly look forward to sharing my humble offerings with anyone at all who is interested in 'Food at Bardies'. It will be a great adventure and who knows where it will take us? On y va!