Gascon Alarm clocks- 'coin, coin'

A series of taps on the steel side of this old boat. The morning alarm clock on the Julia Hoyt floats by in the guise of a flotilla of ducks cleaning the moss off of the hull. September waits for no lazy bones and there is much to do here at Camont in Southwest France: mushrooms to gather, grapes to harvest and the last and sweetest tomatoes to gather in from the potager. All of Gascony buzzes around me, a hive of harvest activity this month in my Long Village.

I walk Dupont along the driveway wide road that leads to Camont and hail my neighbor working in his potager.
‘Bon Jour! Vous avez encore des haricots verts?’
‘Beh, oui et plus!’

My fast walk turns into a weight lifting session as I struggle home under a fruit box full of a lettuce, two giant beets, three eggplants, a red pepper and hand handful of fennel flower full of the fragrant Pollen that la Diva in Tuscany calls Magic. Oh… and a couple kilos of haricots verts.
It is easy to cook here in Gascony. Easy to celebrate our ‘daily bread’ and inspire a new generation to cook, really cook with what's at hand. Good food in the French kitchen.