More from the Christmas & New Year update

Christmas continued when Jean-Luc our neighbour dropped in, to very kindly bring Fleur a present, around 12:00pm and so we broke out the Pineau, which set the tone for the day. I was Christmas day chef along with Franca, who made her infamous broccoli soup, which as usual went down a storm, followed by a little salmon amuse. The main course was venison steaks with a red wine and black berry sauce with roasted veggies and roast potatoes, which was well received and then it was British Christmas pudding with brandy butter and ice cream. A very nice Christmas dinner, I hope everyone enjoyed it as much as I did. There was of course copious amounts of bubbly wine, and a very nice bottle of red Margaux 2004. So that was Christmas day interspersed with playing a few games with Fleur, and loads of chatting of course, all in Dutch.

Boxing day, a normal working day in France, was Enrico’s turn to cook, so it was off to the supermarket for provisions and then off to Cognac for a walk around the old town and a visit to a few shops, followed by the inevitable visit to a bar for a drink, then back home again for Enrico to go into the kitchen. Enrico produced an amazing mushroom risotto, with left over roasted veggies which still tasted fine, the standard of cuisine was being set pretty high this Christmas.

The following day (27th Dec) was Roulliac market day and so despite the almost sub zero temperatures we headed off to the market for a tour round the clothing dominated market, which I find a slight disappointment as would like to see a lot more food stalls. Still Enrico had volunteered to cook again and stocked up with provisions from the fish stall and produced and Italien style ‘Fruit de Mere’ which again was fantastic. We retreated from the market after about an hour as it was really really cold. I needed to get back to chop wood, Enrico dived back into the kitchen to make his ‘Fruit de Mere’, whilst I set about chopping wood for the fire.

On Sunday the 28th we went to Au Fin Bois, a really nice local restaurant, for lunch giving everyone a rest from cooking. Since little Mauro was only two years old, he still punctuates his day with a sleep in the early afternoon, which was fine for us as it means everyone got a little rest, usually. It was a really great few days with Marlies, Mauro and Enrico. Sadly they had to go back home on the 29th as Enrico and Marlies had to return to work, as the saying goes better to quit while you are head and we had a great time and would certainly do it all again.