Pizza Night!

Something we've missed very much over the last few years is having a pizza oven. Spike installed one in the garden of our first house in France and we often used it for the cooking holidays we used to run there.

In our last house we always planned to get one but never got around to it but once you have cooked and tasted a home-made pizza from a wood fired oven you'll come to realise that a pizza cooked in a standard kitchen oven is really not the same. 

One of the wonderful things about having a wood fired oven is that the pizzas cook in a matter of just a few minutes and then you can put in a casserole/tajine/curry and let it slow cook overnight or if you wan't a desert you could go for one of my favourites 'pain perdu'.  

We were chatting over dinner the other night trying to think of all the different things we could cook in one from baked apples to chestnuts, fish en papillote, baked potatoes and ooh yes pommes boulangère, roasts and of course... how could I forget... bread! 

Spike particularly enjoyed having an outside oven (as you can clearly see from this old photo) although he could be lethal with that big paddle (he's the same with anything long like copper pipes or ladders and it would pay for anyone in the vicinity to watch out lest they fall fowl of a rather painful, albeit amusing for anyone else watching, Laurel and Hardy moment).

Anyway, the point of this rather long story is that we have found a replacement for our trusty pizza oven in the form of this big old Portuguese oven found on, you may have already guessed, Le Bon Coin.

I was looking for a traditional oven when I came across this monster.  I thought for a town house courtyard it would look better than the normal rustic type and it comes on a stand with wheels so it is easy to move around.  

Like a normal pizza oven it has a terracotta interior which is ideal.  The only problem we had is that it was so heavy we could only slowly inch the thing out the back of our van onto some palettes so we are waiting for an army of men to help us lift it up onto the stand at some point.  It could do with a bit of a facelift but that's nothing a tin of black heat resistant paint can't fix. 

It's lucky that we save all kinds of silly things because Spike found a thermometer that came off our old boiler and retro fitted it onto the door.  It works a treat and looks really cool (or maybe that should be hot!??!?)

Once off the van we really couldn't wait so I knocked up some pizza dough (I had already made the sauce a couple of days before when we knew we were going to pick it up) and we were in business.  I have included the recipes that I used below in case you want to give it a go.

MARINARA SAUCE

  

200ml of olive oil

3 large onions (roughly chopped)

3 large garlic cloves (minced)

3kg of tomatoes ( 4 large tins sieved)

1 tablespoon of sugar

2 tablespoons of dried oregano

Salt and ground black pepper

Fry-off the onions until softened and add the garlic and fry for a further two minutes.  Add the tomatoes, sugar and oregano and cook for approximately 1 hour.

Place the mixture into a blender and blitz until smooth.  Season with salt and pepper to taste and allow the sauce to cool before using.  If storing the sauce for later use, place into sterilised jars when hot and once opened store in the refrigerator (or freeze).

PIZZA DOUGH

2 teaspoons of dried yeast

½ a teaspoon of sugar

150ml of warm water

350g of plain flour

4 tablespoons of olive oil

1 teaspoon of salt

Place the yeast and sugar into the warm water, stir until dissolved and leave until frothy.

Sieve the flour and add the yeast solution, olive oil and salt.  Work the dough with your fingers and then knead on a floured board until the dough becomes smooth and elastic (about 10 minutes).  If the dough is too wet add some flour or if too dry add a little more water.

Roll the mixture into a ball, dust with flour, and leave in a covered bowl in a warm place away from draughts until it has doubled in volume (about 1½ hours).  Knead for a further minute then roll out into a circle and raise the edge with the thumbs to form a rim.  The pizza is ready for filling and baking in a hot oven (approx. 220°C).

Our long awaited home-made pizzas ready to be cooked (oh bum... we should have done garlic bread!)

  

Number 12 took no time at all to heat (we have named it that for obvious reasons and have speculated that the previous owner - also from Portugal - may have liberated it from a campsite or somewhere similar or perhaps everyone in Portugal has one and they put their house numbers on them like we do with dustbins!)  

Our yummy pizzas cooking away (accompanied by some sweetcorn... but tragically no garlic bread... boo hoo!)

We are so happy with Number 12 and can't recommend highly enough getting an outside wood oven, of any variety, for your garden.  So if you have a little corner to spare it's well worth installing one (I'll be off now... very very hungry!) 

All Work and No Play Makes Nina a Dull Girl!

We've been a bit bogged down with the renovation of our house lately and our sense of humour appeared to have gone AWOL so it was lucky that our home town of Cognac held a couple of well timed events over the weekend to get us out of the house and remind us why we moved in the first place.

The first event was a nocturnal market situated beside the Port of Cognac on the River Charente. We live about a five minute walk from the port so there was no excuse at the end of a busy day not to tidy ourselves up and wander over for a look.

At about 8pm we took a stroll along the river to the port and spotted nine little ducklings out without their mother and enjoying an evening snack.  It was a lovely evening but not very nocturnal because being a couple of days before the longest day of the year it did't get dark until much much later. 

The nocturnal market is held every year to promote local produce and crafts but we dashed past all these lovely stalls initially because the aroma of various stands offering different food was our primary concern.

Having deliberated for some time we decided on Moroccan cuisine and tucked into some yummy couscous at the end of a long table by the port and admired the boats.

Fortified by our meal we then wandered around the rest of the market and had a free look around the Musée des Arts du Cognac which I'm ashamed to say we hadn't visited before.  The museum was very informative about the history of the town and we really enjoyed the experience.  

We didn't actually buy anything (apart from the couscous of course) mainly because we are more into vintage items than hand crafted ones but the atmosphere was lovely and we meandered home feeling like the strains of the renovation had lifted for a while.

The following evening the town was holding the Fête de la Musique (an event I missed last year and was keen to go to).   This kind of music festival is held all over France and it is an opportunity to hear musicians play in the streets and in venues in the centre of town.

The first little band we came across were in the covered market and we enjoyed a couple of songs before deciding to move on to see what else was happening.

As we walked along the pedestrianised streets towards the centre of town we heard the introduction to the Pink Floyd song 'Money' starting up so being fans of their music we rushed along to enjoy the entertainment.  The band and young lead singer was great and we stayed there until the end of their set.

Having wandered off for a while to see what else was going on by the time we got back to the main stage in Place François 1er another band was preparing to start so we decided to buy a drink at one of the cafés which would have been great had Spike not been miffed at having to pay over 13€ for the privilege. 

We then spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to eke out our drinks and make the price of a comfortable seat at a table worthwhile before finding another band down a side street on the way home.  

En route we struggled to push through a large crowd that had congregated in the old town around a latin band and a group of annoyingly energetic people salsa dancing.

And feeling tired and slightly disappointed at our lack of staying power we left the excitement behind just as night was falling keen to get home to the doggies and a nice cup of tea (I know it's pathetic isn't it?)

I have tickets to see Lenny Kravitz with my friend Sally at the upcoming Cognac Blues Passion festival (July) which I'm really looking forward to so a siesta that day might be a good idea!

The Trials of Le Chineur

Well it's that time of year when every weekend there are so many brocante markets to choose from that it can be a bit hit and miss but even so we do somehow usually manage to find a few eclectic trucs to stock my Etsy shop.

A lovely set of vintage French fairytale books took my eye recently

The brocantes are often mixed with vide greniers (a kind of car boot sale) which tend to have fairly modern bits that local people want to get rid of.  It is rare to find a treasure amongst these things but when you do they are invariably cheap.  

I paid more than I wanted to for this gorgeous enamel jug but it looks
great in my bedroom and it was an excuse to buy some pretty flowers 

Having spent a couple of years getting up at the crack of dawn to set up a brocante stall myself I can understand that the professional dealers are there to make a profit but unfortunately this often leaves too small a margin for me.  

This tactile copper ladle was a happy find from a private seller

To get around the flea markets without wasting too much time Spike and myself use the code "P.O.P." when we want to tell each other that there is nothing worth looking at on a particular stall. These initials represent the phrase 'pile of poop' which could potentially offend English speaking dealers so it's best to be cautious and to remember to always use the code.

A dealer sold this wine funnel/strainer to me with a couple of
other bits - all I need now is the vintage wine to go with it!

It may sound crazy but sometimes I feel quite low after a couple of hours or looking at other people's junk.  The amount of broken bits of plastic tat that we find piled up on an ever increasing amount of the stalls is enough to make you want to weep and shout up to the sky "WHYYYYYYYYY!" (if you must do this don't forget to flail your arms about for dramatic effect).

An English lady was packing up and moving to Spain so I picked up this
cute little Limoges coffee set just when I was about to give up and go home

It's when we have had a run of bad shopping expeditions (can you tell we've had a few lately?) that it's important to remember to treat these excursions as a pleasant trip out and to get over ourselves.

There is so much to enjoy at these flea markets aside from the buying not least the banter with the stall holders, the pretty country car trips to engaging destinations and the fact that we regularly bump into friends.

Only a couple of weeks back we enjoyed a chat with this charming old man who was sharpening knives on his fascinating vintage contraption.

To borrow a well worn phrase (or a rough estimation of it) - I must try to remember that it's not the destination that's important but the journey (but I won't lie it's always better if you can pick up a few interesting trucs on the way!)

La Mer

Yesterday was Spikey's birthday and it seemed that in honour of this special day summer had at last decided to arrive.  With this in mind we took a well earned day off from renovating the house and headed for the coast to one of our favourite seaside destinations, Royan, which is about a 45 minute drive from us in Cognac.

When we arrived the temperature was already soaring at an alarming rate but being a bit early for lunch we thought we would kill some time by going for a wander on the beach.  We flung off our shoes with wild abandon in eagerness to feel the glorious sand between our toes but it wasn't long before we were running for the sanctuary of some trees when the soles of our feet started to burn.

Royan is for the most part a post war town architecturally having been the subject of bombings raids during the Second World War by the British and Americans which horrifically included one of the earliest uses of Napalm.  Thought to be the result of a terrible breakdown in communication around 2,700 civilian lives were lost during the campaign of April 1945 and 10,000 residents injured.  

With such a tragic past it's no surprise that Royan's architecture is sometimes considered to be very stark and grey.  The famous Church of Notre Dame was completed in 1958 and illustrates a town looking firmly into the future.

With all this being said the Royan of today has developed into a holiday destination oozing with 50's Hollywood glamour and on a sunny day is a stunning place to visit.  

Having cooled off a bit in the shade we decided to have lunch on the terrace of Le Régent Café situated just across the road from the beach. We had an enjoyable meal of moules marinières (for Spike) and fish en papillote (for me) and although the café is known for it's speciality ice creams we couldn't resist the îles flottantes for dessert.

The postcard below was printed on the back of the menu and showed what the café and surrounding buildings looked like before the war.

After lunch we decided to brave the beach again (keeping our shoes firmly on until we reached the wet sand). We were expecting to have a little paddle before heading off home but the sea was much much warmer than we had anticipated so we enjoyed half an hour of swimming and jumping over some quite scary waves followed by an hour or so drying off in the sun of the almost deserted beach.

Whilst slowly turning pink I passed the time by trying to decide which of the villas that I could see from my blissful horizontal position I would choose if I won Friday's Euromillions.  

Here are some more examples of the remaining Belle Epoque villas in Royan that sit happily (and sometimes not so happily) beside newer builds.   

I couldn't make up my mind... which one would you choose?