Summer Fun at Camp France

The Fairy Godmother in me rises to the challenge as my Catalan Adventure with my filleule Clotilde-Julia morphed into Camp Camont when we returned to the French Kitchen with 12-year-old Adele and 16-year-old Emily. Eating becomes a game like everything else they do; English lessons, swimming, watering the potager…

We talk about what to prepare for dinner (these too hot summer days beg off cooking) so the fifi’s and I go out to the garden to pick tomatoes, courgettes and aubergines for a feta cheese and olive Greek salad, Italian panzanella, a vegetable stir fry, an eggplant curry, a soirée Mexicaine with fresh salsa and guacamole. In the playful mood of Camp France, Adele announces, “Look, we can travel the world at the table!”

As we move the sprinkler around the potager, in swimsuit gardening clothes, Emily says, “Wow, Ka-ate, we should call you Harry Potager. Everything grows here!” The magic garden has lost it’s neat tic-tac-toe springtime design and is overrun with a wild exuberance that mixes red onions with watermelons, black eye peas (the bean not the group), artichokes, pumpkins, tomatoes, peppers, calendula flowers and a few self seeded tomatillos from two years ago! The delicious chaos is its own inspiration to be more playful in the summer kitchen. For the dessert main course, we decide to make JohnnyDeppDeliciousChocolateBrownies after an afternoon matinee with Charlie at the chocolate factory and an evening video of Chocolate. I love these three ‘tween French girl-stagiaires-- a welcome change from the usual too serious foodies that haunt the halles and white-tiled kitchens of three-starred restaurants looking for perfection. Food is Fun-- enjoy!