Dinner with Jacques

Gilka has asked me to cook dinner on the boat for my father-in-law, Jacques. 

She is going to Scotland for a holiday. I think with one of her lovers.

Jacques loves food and is a true French gourmand. 

I am feeling very nervous.

This is what I prepared for our 'dinner a deux':

Une salade verte

Mushroom and Tomato Quiche

Prepare pastry with 1 cup plain flour, 1 teaspoon sugar, 100gm butter, 2 teaspoons milk, 1 egg yolk. Rub butter into flour and sugar mixture. Add milk and egg yolk. Knead and rest. Roll out and line a 10" quiche tin. Line pastry with baking paper and a handful of dried beans. Prick base and bake 190 degrees, 15-20 minutes. Cook a further 5 minutes with baking paper and beans removed.

Filling: Heat two tablespoons olive oil. Saute 250gm diced mushrooms, add 2 sliced shallots, 2 cloves crushed garlic and 500gm peeled, seeded and chopped tomatoes. Cook until liquid has evaporated and tomatoes are soft.

Remove from heat. Add 45 gm chopped anchovy fillets, 1 teaspoon fresh thyme, pinch of nutmeg and a good grind of pepper. Cool. Beat 3 large eggs with 3/4 cup cream and add to cooled mushroom mixture. Pour into cooked pastry shell and bake until barely set in the centre, about 25 minutes.

Assiette de fromages

Peaches in Citrus Syrup

Place 1/2 cup water and 1/3 cup castor sugar in saucepan. Add finely grated peel from one lemon and one orange. Cook gently for 10 minutes. Strain liquid and add juice of one orange and one lemon. Pour over 500gm of peeled and sliced peaches. Leave to cool. Refrigerate several hours. Before serving add a spoonful of cointreau or brandy.

Jacques and I sat at the tiny dining room table eating this delicious meal with slow enjoyment.

 Always a quiet man, he answered my questions about his life during the German occupation of Paris with reflective seriousness. 

'I remember being sent to stay with my aunt, Tantine, who worked for the police department, in a small village in the Loire Valley. My parents felt that it was safer for me to be there rather than stay in Paris. I remember one day hearing a lot of noise in the street below. I ran to the window and looking down saw a regiment of German soldiers, with tanks and jeeps driving through the narrow streets.'

I asked Jacques about his father, Pierre's, activities in the French resistance during the war. He said that his father would never talk about it.

A Farmhouse in Soucieu-en-Jarrest

Not long after moving from Australia to Paris we went to stay for a few days with Joel's grandmother, Mido, in her 200 year old farmhouse which was in a small village outside Lyon called Soucieu-en-Jarrest. 

Mido prepared for us a traditional Lyonnaise dish: 

Saucisson Chaud Lyonnais, hot Lyonnais pork sausage served with plain boiled potatoes, a generous dollop of mustard and a green salad. 

This was followed by a cheese plate: camembert, brie, tomme de savoie, bleu bresse and a bowl of downy golden orange peaches from Monsieur Rampon, a neighbouring farmer.

Mido had ordered the sausage from the local charcutier in the village as a very special treat for us. There she was in the tiny kitchen, 93 years old, peeling potatoes and pricking the sausage, then placing both ingredients in a large pot to gently simmer on top of the stove for 25 minutes.

 Unfortunately, grateful as I was, the smell of this cooking sausage was making me feel extremely nauseous. Never being one for fatty meats, all I seemed to be able to smell was very fatty pork. I wondered if I would be able to take a mouthful as we sat down for lunch with a red-faced, triumphant Mido, taking the sausage and potatoes out of the pan and placing them on a serving dish in front of us. 

Fortunately Mido could not understand one word of English, so after raising a spoonful of pork and potatoes to my mouth and feeling a strong urge to run from the room I said to Joel, 'I can't eat this. Just the smell is making me feel sick. What do I do?'

 He answered 'Just smile and say that it looks delicious and you really appreciate the time and trouble that Mido has gone to but you really aren't used to this kind of sausage and feel that it could be a bit strong for you.'

At this stage I was not able to speak more than the basics of the French language, so I asked Joel to say that for me. 

Which he did.

He then proceeded to eat most of the sausage and potatoes much to his grandmother's delight. 

What she must have thought of his fussy Australian wife I never did find out.