Think pink- R is for Rosé

It comes in a bottle, it comes in a box
From Barbie pink to cherry pop.
Drink it dry, drink it cold
Rosie wine makes summers bold!


I’m sure if I need to give blood for a transfusion this week the startled staff at la Clinique St. Hilaire would decant several liters of crystal pink summer wine. It’s been hot in Southwest france this June. As work progresses on the Julia Hoyt ‘Summer of Love’ 20th anniversary facelift party, the crew and I are fortified by long lunches and chilled bottles. After nearly 304,200 square inches of painted surface (two coats please) I have grown to appreciate the fortifying qualities of cracklin’ rosie.

Cracklin rosie get on board… This store bought woman can’t keep up with the demand so we shifted from bottle to box; the little 3-liter box from the Buzet wine coop down the road has a photo of a pink-filled wine glass on it for those who can’t take the time to read the label. I’m sure Gertrude Stein was misquoted—a rosé is rosé is a glass of rosé is a pitcher of rosé …

This rosé by any other name is summer wine. Even the national wine chain store in Agen carries 22 different rosés in stock. Every small winery from here to Bordeaux (about a thousand of them!) lets their grapes from young vines stew just one night then drains the skins and pips from the juice to create a clear pink easy to drink table wine. I like to think of this as red wine in training; we get the fruit, the alcohol lift, the chill with none of the serious tannins, oak and pretension. That can wait for a winter night in front of the cheminée.

Back to the bleu bateaux and it’s serious lunch time break. When M-France and Sarah stopped by for a few pruneaux and some foie gras on a whirlwind photographic tour of France we celebrated their arrival with our usual family lunch. Yannick is covered with metal fillings from the grinder, Babeth’s nails are varnished the same English red that she is painting the hand rails, Emile and Clotilde are painting the bottom of the rowboat in preparation for it’s summer launch party. Vétou has stopped her impromptu upholstering in the wheelhouse to help me get lunch on the table for the hungry crew.

M-France, too long gone from the rigors of the French table, asks, “You don’t eat like this every day?” I pour her a little Vin de Noix that I had made from green walnuts, eau de vie and rosé wine. “Not really, we usually cook something more substantial but I didn’t go shopping.” Vetou passes the bowl of lentils and platter of sausages, a found salad of tomatoes, cucumbers and red peppers; the pink bottles are frosty straight from the half-pint sized refrigerator. Yes, we eat like this everyday especially when working hard keeping this hundred year old bleu bateaux in good nick and when long lost friends arrive from the far away life.

Q is for qualite'

french beef

from my neighbor's blonde's of aquitaine

*****
photo: timclinch

Bonjour! from the Bleu Bateau Café

Cooking in the French countryside is easy! A loaf of bread, a bottle of vin ordinaire and a friend to share it on the deck of the Julia Hoyt. Now add a round of creamy goat’s cheese, a slice of ham and a handful of fresh herbs. Eh Voila! The perfect French pique-nique—afloat!

Not all French food is complicated. Here in the sweet countryside of Southwest France, I have found the little tricks and secrets that make cooking like a French grandmother easy--a busy French grandmere! The best and freshest produce jumps into my market basket every Saturday as DuPont and I jump into the 2CV (that little cartoon French car!) and head to Nerac along the Baise River. An impromptu menu begins with radishes with their greens for a simple peppery soup, a bundle of fresh garlic to rub over grilled country bread, a duck breast to grill, slice thinly, and drizzle with a red wine sauce made with a glass of wine, a shallot and some honey to sweeten the end. I drown a box of ruby strawberries with a vanilla pod in a bowl of wine and some sugar cubes and serve it in glasses for dessert. Simple, easy and so French!

Shopping in the small villages that line my canal, a Long Village of good food and wine, is a fat lesson in French cooking. The baker, butcher and wine maker will tell me how to prepare their favorite dishes; my neighborhood is like a living cookbook. Afterwards, sitting in the village café with a petit blanc (a little white wine) or a mure-rouge (blackberry and red wine) with DuPont at my feet, I write the little stories that my market friends have told me. My French neighbors love good food and they are proud to share their specialties in tips and tastes. Curious about what and how I cook, Xavier asks me if I know how to stuff a quail with grapes and cook it over a bed of vine clippings. Dominique tells me to place a bay leaf between each slice of the pork roast he is cutting for me, wrap it in bacon and roast it for 20 minutes a kilo- no more! Francoise slices pain d’epice, like gingerbread, and serves it with a dab of duck rillettes, it becomes a new favorite. Jean-Francoise, the self-crowned King of Ducks, hands me a slice of salt-and-pepper-cured magret or duck ham wrapped around a nugget of raw foie gras. Take that you supermarket wimps!

At the end of the umbrella-ed allée is a small stand of organic treasures- fresh garlic, sweet beets, tender courgettes and the first real cherry-like tomatoes. Now I have dessert! By the time I load the trunk of the raspberry red convertible I have enough recipes for a chapter in a new book- ‘Eating the Long Village!’ ; by the time I return to my Van Gogh blue barge, tonight’s dinner has solidified into a gentle and easy meal to cook for friends. Don’t forget- "Cook fast, drink light, have fun! "

Menu

Aperos sucre-salé
Duck rillettes served on gingerbread toast

Soupe aux fanes de radis
Radish leaf soup

Roti de porc en robe de ventrêche et laurier
Bay-scented Pork roast wrapped in bacon

Dessert en douce!
Savory dessert- sweet cherry tomatoes
served with real crème fraiche and sprinkled with olive salt from Majorca.
A creamy rich fresh tasting savory surprise to finish the meal with a sweet wine!