Let’s start with plant life.

Part of our experimentation relates to the climate in the Greater Daglan Area, and how it affects certain plants. Initially, we had great success with lavender planted on each side of the front steps. But after a few years, the plants simply became too big and too woody, so we yanked them out.

Another time I had the clever idea of planting maple trees on either side of the steps, as a bit of a nod to our roots in Canada. Knowing that “normal” maples would be far too big, I bought two lovely, delicate Japanese maples.

This came at a time when we were vacationing here twice a year, instead of living in Daglan full-time. So, without constant care, the Japanese maples dried out and died. (We still have Les Érables, or The Maples, on our mail box, so I’m sure that some Daglanais think that Maple is our family name.)

The latest experiment seems to be going quite a bit better — it’s a set of wisteria (glycines, in French), one on each side of the steps. I first wrote about them in my posting of May 30, 2011, called “The magic plant.”

Here’s how the front of our house looked a bit more than a year ago, as the wisteria started to climb up the wires I’d installed:

New wisteria, and very old steps.

Before I continue with a photo that I took today, to show how the wisteria are progressing, here are a few other things we’ve done in the past year to improve the front of the house:

• We’ve had the tired, pitted, patched-concrete steps re-faced with limestone, to match the construction of the house itself.

• We’ve had a new, full-height front door installed, complete with a window that swings open towards the inside of the house and includes a mosquito screen.

• We’ve had the wooden gate varnished, and the battered blue-painted shutters sanded down and then refinished with a special paint that looks like wood.

And here’s how things are looking as of this morning, on Father’s Day Sunday of 2012:

The steps are new, the wisteria plants have grown a bit, and the wood is finished nicely.

A lot nicer, don’t you think?

That’s not all, of course. We also have an orange tree (yes! an orange tree) growing in a large pot at the top of the stairs. Soon, I plan to show you our crop of oranges. But not just yet.

So today’s post is meant simply to brighten things up this Sunday.

It’s a picture taken a few days ago by one of Radio Free Daglan’s top staff photographers, my wife Jan, who had been out for a bike ride one morning. She had headed out on the bicycle path that runs from Daglan all the way north to Castelnaud, but then she exited the path at Pont de Cause and got on the roads.

She first stopped and chatted with friends Caitlin and Albert, who run the lovely bed-and-breakfast called La Tour de Cause, not far from Castelnaud. Jan then set out on the D50, which runs up a long hill and eventually reaches Berbiguières (how’s that for a great name?). Somewhere near the top of the hill, she saw a young foal at a farm, and couldn’t resist taking a picture.

There’s no story with this — we don’t even know if the large horse is the foal’s mother, although we suppose so — but both of us like the photo for capturing some lovely creatures on a sunny summer day. Here it is:

For the horse lovers among you.

As I finish writing this, the sun has just broken through the clouds a bit. There — it worked!

Father’s Day comes once a year

But when it comes early, via Fauchon of Paris,

It brings especially huge amounts of cheer!

And now I can reveal how meaningful that poem really is. Yesterday (Friday) just after noon, my wife and I had plunked ourselves down to a delicious lunch of Provençal-style shrimp on steamed rice, when there was a knock on our front door. It was a young delivery man, holding a distinctive black-and-white package, addressed to me. Ah — Fauchon of Paris!

It could only mean that I was getting a Father’s Day present a week or so early.

Right from the start, my wife Jan knew what the package must contain, because of its unusual  shape: macarons. Naturally, she wondered if we should open it immediately. I preferred to concentrate first on lunch, and so I put the package out of my mind and up on the kitchen counter — temporarily. But the minute lunch was over, we opened the black-and-white cardboard outer package. To reveal this:

The Styrofoam container keeps the contents cool.

Yes, a torpedo-shaped Styrofoam container! And within that container was a box containing the macarons, just as Jan suspected, as well as a plastic tube containing a pink gel to keep the cookies cool. (I know it’s a lot of packaging, but the cargo is pretty precious.) Here is the pink Fauchon box, plus the tube of gel:

Pretty in pink: The Fauchon box, and tube of gel.

Now before I show off the cookies themselves, I’m going to make a couple of points.

First, you should already know how great Fauchon chocolate candies are, because I raved about them on February 25 in my post “Food fit for a birthday;” daughter Anne and son Mike had arranged for the candies to be delivered for my birthday this year.

Second, just to be clear, these macarons are not the coconut-laden commercially-made macaroons that North Americans know. These are delicate sandwich-style cookies made of ground almonds and egg whites, slightly crispy on the outside and a bit chewy inside, surrounding a delicious filling.

In this case, my Father’s Day gift was a selection called Les Crémeux: three pralines, three coffees, two caramels, and two chocolates. Like Fauchon chocolates, the macarons are perfect — and intensely flavoured. Here they are:

An array of 10 macarons — Les Crémeux

Along with the cookies was a card from daughter Anne (on behalf of her brother Mike as well, of course). And from Fauchon itself, these words: Nous vous souhaitons une excellente dégustation de ces produits choisis spécialement pour vous. (We wish you an excellent tasting of these products, chosen especially for you!) A notice said that the package had been shipped from Fauchon in Paris on Thursday the 7th, just the day before.

Now they are in our refrigerator — well, the ones that remain. I’m not so sure that there will be any left by the time la fête des pères rolls around, on Sunday, June 17.

Years ago, when son Mike and daughter Anne were little, we owned a dog that Anne cleverly named Chip. He was a good-looking English Springer Spaniel, which (by the way) I consider to be the perfect size for a dog — not too big, not too little. And now, as it happens, Anne has a Springer Spaniel of her own, which she has cleverly named Arlo. I thought you might like to meet him, before I go on with my tale of a new dog in Daglan. So here’s Arlo!

Arlo as a puppy, looking as cute as can be.

But as regular RFD readers know, my wife Jan and I don’t own a dog, having chosen instead to fly our two trouble-free cats to Daglan from Toronto. (Trouble-free? Cue laugh track.) I think it’s fair to say that my absolute favorite breed of dog would be the OPD — that is, Other People’s Dogs.

And now we have the enjoyment of a new OPD right here in Daglan, courtesy of Yves, a native son of France who spent many years in Toronto in the restaurant business before moving back to France. Yves has bought a large old house in the village, and is energetically renovating it — a huge job. That means he doesn’t have all the time he would like to spend with Bella, his Border Collie. Now meet Bella:

Here she is, just ready for some attention.

Having a dog available for recreation seemed perfect for my wife Jan, who likes taking long walks through the hills and valleys of the Greater Daglan Area. Bella could be a good companion for Jan, and in turn would get the exercise she needs. Their relationship started off fine, with some nice, long walks. Jan even bought a nice plastic bowl to carry in her backpack, so she could pour a drink of water for Bella from time to time. Here’s Bella, trotting along beside Jan:

Bella walks along the path, keeping Jan company.

Bella seems to be a very friendly and obedient dog. Whenever I’ve driven over to chat with Yves, Bella comes running out to greet me, anxious to be petted. And out on the roads and trails, she typically would obey Jan’s commands immediately. (Yes, the commands are in French.) For safety, Jan would keep Bella on a leash if they had to walk along a road, but she could let Bella go leash-free once they were on a trail with no traffic.

Sometimes, Bella would pull ahead, like this:

Heading out in front of Jan.

But then our weather began to warm up, and Bella’s get-up-and-go got up and went. After only a kilometre or so of walking, she would simply sit down and refuse to go any farther, no matter how much Jan tried to encourage her with “Allez!” Eventually Jan had to concede defeat, and turn back for home. Here’s Bella in sit-down-strike mode:

Waiting patiently for the call to return home.

Still, Jan likes the idea of giving Bella a workout. Her latest thought was to take Bella into a field and play “fetch” with her, throwing a tennis ball to the dog. So that’s what she did yesterday afternoon, without a huge amount of success. Bella fetched the tennis ball three times, and then decided that she’d had enough exercise for one day.

Jan told me later that because they weren’t too far from Yves’s house, Bella might have been able to hear Yves talking with the fellow who was installing his satellite dish antenna. So maybe Bella just wanted to get home and see her master, since she clearly loves being around Yves. Or maybe she’s just not used to long walks in the summer’s heat.

There was another twist in the story as of this morning. Jan was out for a long walk alone, and bumped into a friend who had been walking her own dog for more than an hour.

When Jan related her problems with getting Bella to move, the friend offered another solution. She said that because she is so busy with work as well as her young children, she sometimes lacks the time to walk their dog very much, especially on Fridays. So she suggested that Jan could walk her dog at least once a week. We’ll see how this turns out.

After all, it’s a real treasure of the Périgord Noir, and one of the most beautiful villages in France. It’s located on a hill just above the neighbouring village of Cénac, which we visit several times a week. Domme was founded in 1281, and it retains much of its medieval beauty. It offers a number of restaurants, cafés and shops, and has stunning views over the Dordogne River Valley. And in fact, Daglan is officially a part of the Canton of Domme. So, why not more coverage in Radio Free Daglan?

The simple reason is that we haven’t visited the village very often — simply because of Domme’s geography. I’m uncomfortable (to put it mildly) if I have to drive up a road that winds around a hill, with a steep drop-off on one side. And that describes the direct road into Domme from Cénac.

Now, however, we have a solution. It started last fall, when good friends Kevin and Shirley from Toronto were visiting us. I suggested that we could visit Domme if Kevin would do the driving, and he quickly agreed. While we were up in the village, we bumped into friends from Daglan, who told us of a different road into and out of Domme — a road that travelled along some gentle ridges and eventually made its way down from the heights. So that’s the route we took home, although with Kevin still at the wheel of my car.

Then, this past Saturday, we had just finished doing some shopping in Cénac when my wife Jan suggested that we try “the back road” into Domme, to see if I was comfortable driving it myself. So we did, and I was.

And here’s the pay-off: We each enjoyed a refreshing Campari and Perrier on the terrace of a café, while looking out over the Dordogne Valley. (Side note: The phrase Campari et soda doesn’t seem to be understood in France, because soda doesn’t convey the idea of club soda or sparkling water; our server asked us if we meant that we wanted a Coke with our Campari! So we’re learning to ask simply for a Campari et Perrier.) First, a view of our table:

Our table is complete with two glasses of Campari and Perrier.

And here’s a photo that Jan took, showing a few tourists on the promenade above the river. The bridge you can see in the distance crosses the Dordogne; that’s the road we usually take to Sarlat. In the distance at the far right of the photo, you can see cliffs dropping down towards the river, which is where the charming village of La Roque-Gageac is located. (It’s another must for visitors to the GDA.)

In the distance is the bridge crossing the Dordogne near Cénac.

Finally, here’s a photograph I took, using flowers in the foreground to frame an already beautiful view:

Summery flowers in the foreground; the river below.

When we left, it turned out there was some sort of carnival taking place in the main square, and several streets were blocked off. Because Domme is full of narrow, one-way streets, I had a bit of momentary panic as I worried whether we could return to the village gate where we had entered, the gate that leads to the kinder, gentler road home.

But sure enough, there it was — the Porte des Tours, or Gate of Towers. I later learned that the towers (on either side of the gate) had been converted into prisons in 1307. That’s yet another tourist attraction that we’ll have to visit one day, now that I’ve found a comfortable way to drive into Domme.

As an example, I offer this real winner: It’s an egg dish that I enjoyed yesterday as the entrée for our Sunday lunch at Daglan’s Le Petit Paris. It was one of the items on the l’idée du moment (current ideas) section of the menu, meaning that Chef Guilbot changes the dishes depending on the availability of produce and on his own inspiration.

To set it up for you, before you dive into the photograph, the dish consisted of two eggs that had been baked in a porcelain dish, but kept fairly soft and runny. They were served with a mousse made of chicken livers, and accompanied by a grilled stick of olive bread that was topped with little curls of foie gras cooked mi-cuit, so that they remained soft. Here’s the dish, in all its rich and creamy glory:

Admittedly, not the lightest way to begin a meal.

The rest of the meal was delicious, as always. My wife Jan and I each had the roast skate (the fish, not the wheeled thingies you put on your feet), which was served on a bed of white asparagus spears and a rich sauce. With that, we had a nice bottle of Chablis.

For dessert, Jan had a bowl of strawberries covered in a sweet white sauce that been placed under a broiler to develop a nice brown crust, with the delicious taste of roasted marshmallows. (She let me have a spoonful.) As for me, I had a few slices of Cantal entre-deux cheese from the Auvergne, served with some grilled bread and a small green salad dotted with hazelnuts. Oh yes, and a glass of port.

All in all, it was a terrific meal. And not surprisingly, neither of us felt like having much for dinner that night.

The recipe is from one of our trusty favourites, The Gourmet Cookbook, edited by Ruth Reichel and containing more than 1,000 recipes. On page 83, the recipe is called Cold Tomato and Sour Cream Soup, although Jan substituted crème fraîche for the sour cream.

Making it is simple. Start by quartering a kilo and a half (a bit more than three pounds) of fresh tomatoes. Then simply process them into a purée, in batches, using the steel blade of your food processor. The only hard part follows: Using a wooden spoon, you have to push the purée through a mesh sieve to eliminate the seeds and any tough bits. Finally, stir in two teaspoons of finely grated lemon zest; a dash of fresh lemon juice (to taste); a teaspoon each of sugar and salt; a pinch each of dried thyme and dried marjoram; and some freshly ground pepper.

Cover and refrigerate the soup for at least an hour, to chill it and also let the flavours mingle. You can add finely-chopped scallion greens if you wish (we didn’t). Before serving, taste a spoonful or two and adjust the seasonings if you’d like.

The recipe calls for adding a dollop of sour cream to each serving bowl. As I’ve mentioned, Jan used crème fraîche and added a sprig of fresh basil from the plant we have growing outside our front door. And here’s the finished soup, ready for sipping:

The colours of the Italian flag are well represented, don’t you think?

Since I’m sure you’re right in fresh tomato season, or at least getting close, this is a soup you should try. Because we eat very light at night, the soup is all we had for dinner. But I think it would be a nice way to introduce a meal of hamburgers done on the grill, with fresh corn on the cob.

Why am I suddenly hungry?

Tanning alert. The sunshine is now steady enough, and I am on my bike often enough, that I now remember to take off my wristwatch and fasten it to the bike’s handlebars when I’m going for a ride. That way, I won’t end up with a light stripe around my otherwise tanned forearm. (Because of biking gloves, pale hands are another matter.)

Apéritif alert. My business mentor, the late Tommy Jones of Dryden, Ontario, used to tell me that only the finest people drink Campari. Since by then I had developed a taste for the bitter Italian drink, I found it easy to believe him. However, I tend to think of Campari as a summer drink — so when my wife Jan suggested that we have a Campari and Perrier as an apéritif today, instead of a kir or an Aperol Spritz, I was only too happy to comply. She likes hers without ice; my drink requires lots of ice. Both of us require a slice of lime (citron vert). Delicious and refreshing; more tart than an Aperol Spritz.

Strawberry alert. We began the early-strawberry season this year with Gariguettes, which are delicious, and have munched our way through several other varieties, including Charlottes. But today at the weekly Cénac market, Jan bought the first available container of Mara des Bois. They are yet another sign that summer is well and truly here, and for the record, here they are:

Just sitting around, waiting for the whipped cream.

She didn’t stop there, by the way. Jan also bought a few kilos of fresh tomatoes, and has already puréed and strained and spiced a bunch of them, to make cold tomato soup. It’s for tonight, with crème fraïche. Excellent fare on a hot summer’s evening; even better with homemade parmesan crisps.

That’s mountain biking or cross-country biking to you and me, since vélo is French for bicycle and the rest could be translated as “all kinds of terrain, or surfaces.” Lately, we’ve been seeing a lot of it in the Greater Daglan Area (GDA).

The reason is that over the weekend, the GDA played host to the Coupe de France VTT 2012, with races taking place on a series of hills south of Daglan and just outside St. Pompon. For months, the French championship has been advertised in huge letters on a hill a few kilometres south of us. Here’s the hill and the sign on Friday, as riders from all over France were getting organized:

Up on the hill, a sign announces the event.

Since my wife Jan and I don’t know much about mountain biking, and definitely wouldn’t know any of the riders, we weren’t keen to visit the races themselves. But on Friday, we did drive over to the main site to have a look. Here’s the outside of the building where registration was taking place:

On the way into the registration office.

And here’s a peek inside the building, as riders line up to register for the events:

Lining up to register for the various events.

Outside, in a series of parking areas, cars, vans and campers were pulling into place and unloading the bikes they were carrying. Here’s one such area, with bike riders checking out their bicycles and getting ready to give them a test run:

A parking area where riders are getting organized.

The activities were all centred around a major campground, which provided the main building, some facilities for drinks and snacks, and lots of places for the campers and caravans to stay. There were also several areas for exhibits (by bike manufacturers and so on) and for sales booths. Here’s one that was offering a wide range of products for the riders:

Want a horn? A bell? Some new tires? Let’s make a deal!

Among the goodies on sale were purple tee-shirts promoting the event, selling for 10 euros:

For a measly 10 euros, this could be yours!

Now of course, you’re wondering about the actual events. As it turned out, there were quite a few cross-country events and short-track races (which I assume were like BMX races). Here’s an overall map printed on an aerial photo of the area; it shows a number of the courses,with the toughest sections marked in white at the top of the photo.

The toughest parts are high up on the hills above the campground.

And here’s how one of the hill sections looked on Friday, as racers tried out their bikes — and their legs. If you look closely, you can see a bike or two high up on top of the hill, and headed down the steep track:

Bikes heading down a limestone hill.

This downhill track is part of what the bikers like to call zones techniques — that is, technical areas. (I have always been amused by the term “technical” in mountain biking, since my own phrase would be more like “terrifying” or “difficult beyond comprehension.”) Just imagine if you were in the place of this young rider as he bounces down the solid-rock path:

He’s made it almost to the bottom, with no visible scrapes or cuts.

Or check out this rider, who’s made it down the hill, only to race along a flat bit of ground — and then dropping over a small cliff:

Another rider finishes up the “technical” section, before dropping from view.

Finally, a few random observations:

• This seems to be (as you might imagine) very much a young person’s sport. We did see a few riders who appeared to be in their 40s, but the vast majority looked to be in their teens or 20s.

• There was a much higher proportion of young women participating than we had expected. Nice!

• Based on our strolls through the registration areas, where several riders were grouped together, I’d say that a more diligent use of anti-perspirants would have been in order.

• Finally, I’m not sure that the whole event did an awful lot for the GDA in economic terms. Our sense is that all the campers were quite happy to stay in one spot, with the parents drinking beer or wine, the young riders gulping soft drinks, and all of them happily eating sandwiches they brought from home — rather than visiting any of our area’s cafés and restaurants. On Saturday night, for example, Le Petit Paris in Daglan had not one single diner. Not one.

To understand how much things have changed around here, consider the following two before-and-after photos. The first shows a small cascade or waterfall on the Céou, between the hamlet of Bouzic and our village; it was taken a couple of years ago, and is one of my personal favourites:

What a nice little waterfall should look like.

Then came several weeks of rainy weather in April and May, reaching its peak a couple of days ago. And here’s what the same stretch of river looked like on Tuesday at about noon:

Waterfall? What waterfall?

Beyond Daglan, heading up towards St. Cybranet and Castelnaud (where the Céou joins the Dordogne River), things get a bit worse. Whole fields are flooded, like this area beyond the turn-off to Le Peyruzel:

Fields and fields are flooded by the overflow from the Céou.

Closer to home, here’s a small area in the village where kids can play on the swings and other equipment and families can enjoy a picnic:

The kids had better wear rubber boots if they want to play here.

The good news is that we’re getting a break. Today is sunny and bright — and fingers are crossed that this weather hangs around for a while.

As a public service, this brief post will provide some guidance on doing the old switcheroo — using substitute ingredients, with no harm done. (My last post that dealt with the old switcheroo technique, on May 18,  explained why it is far better to replace plants and flowers that are not behaving properly.)

One ingredient for the Aperol Spritz is a must: the Aperol itself, which is made in Italy. As I’ve explained, don’t expect to find it in any supermarket in the Greater Daglan Area. We order ours at the Julien de Savignac wine shop in Sarlat, where the shopkeeper has at least heard of it and has managed to find a supplier.

The next key ingredient is the Italian sparkling wine, Prosecco. Well, once again, you can pretty much forget about buying that around here, but there are some excellent substitutes. We have used Champagne, although I admit it’s a pricey choice. A good dry sparkling wine would be fine, and this is the one we prefer:

Look for the word “Brut” on the label, meaning that it’s a dry wine.

To make your Spritz, you pour three parts of the sparkling wine and one part Aperol into a nice glass with several ice cubes. If you’re traditional, add some Perrier or equivalent sparkling water; personally, we avoid watering down the drink. Then you garnish your drink with a slice of orange.

Recently, however, we were making the drinks when I realized that we had used up our last orange, and our nearby convenience store was closed for lunch. Gasp!

But then I did the old switcheroo, and wound up with this:

Yes, I’ve used a whole strawberry instead of an orange slice!

The strawberry worked just fine, floating nicely in the drink. And that, naturally, got me thinking about other substitute garnishes.

Here’s my favourite so far: A long, thin wedge of very crisp dill pickle in a Bloody Caesar. (Here, I should explain to non-Canadian readers that a Caesar is a Bloody Mary for grown-ups, in that it uses Clamato — tomato juice with the addition of clam juice — instead of tomato juice.) However, my clever idea involving the dill-pickle wedge may have to wait for our next trip to North America. Our chances of locating Clamato juice in the GDA are pretty close to zero.

With that brief intro, here’s today’s marvellous meal, created by a smart and talented chef, at a restaurant run smartly by his classy and talented wife.

We began our celebration with a coupe de Champagne. It went down so well that we had another glass of Champagne as we studied the menu and munched on the little treats set down for us — a spoonful of lobster mousse, a nem (small fried spring roll) filled with nicely spiced roast goose meat, and a small shot glass holding tiny asparagus pieces topped with asparagus foam.

Our choice for lunch was the Menu Dégustation, or Tasting Menu; it’s 80 euros for a mise en bouche (appetizer), plus three main dishes and a dessert.

To begin, we each had a bowl of beet soup, topped with parsley foam and served with a scoop of goat cheese and basil ice cream. Delicious to eat, and to look at:

Deep red beet soup beneath a layer of foam.

Then came the first of our three main dishes. This one is a little difficult to explain, but I’ll try. First, the chef took the meat of barely cooked langoustines (crayfish), and placed a generous  piece of seared foie gras on top, and then wrapped it all in a very thin slice of raw beef (carpaccio de boeuf), and served this in a bowl with umami-flavoured broth. (Time out: Umami is now considered one of the five basic tastes, and has been described as “brothy” or “meaty” or “savoury,” although there is no simple translation.) Here it is:

An incredibly savoury dish that’s hard to describe.

We then moved to the fish course. For this, the chef had seared pieces of turbot to perfection, and served the fish with a leek mousse plus a few stalks of green asparagus and a bundle of deeply browned potato matchsticks, served with a rich truffle foam. Here it is:

Perfectly cooked turbot with a light mousse of leeks.

And if all that taste weren’t enough, we then were presented with the real highlight of the meal — beautiful chunks of fresh lobster, served with a lobster-and-smoked-eggplant-caviar risotto. Here is the divine dish in all its glory (and I apologize in advance for not having the latest version of the Taste-o-Vision Blog):

It’s amazing what a chef can do with some lobster these days.

By this point in the meal, we were no longer peckish, but we were pretty sure we could handle dessert. (Cleverly, our server asked if we would like another coupe de Champagne with our dessert, and cleverly, we agreed.) Here it is — a perfectly cooked, hot Grand Marnier soufflé, served with fresh orange segments (on which our server trickled some more Grand Marnier), plus a delicious house-made vanilla ice cream:

A trio of sweet treats, balanced by the zing of Champagne.

And there you have it: a pretty perfect meal. While it’s true that the arrival of the bill isn’t the happiest part of eating in a restaurant, the attractive little boxes that Le Grand Bleu uses to present l’addition help to soften the blow. Here’s our little box:

The box that carries l‘addition, or the bill, to your table.

Wine note: Aside from the Champagne at the start and end of our lunch, we had a bottle of Chablis, which has a bit of a story. When our hostess Céline came to take our orders, I asked for a bottle of Chablis Premier Cru from the Montée de Tonnerre area of the Chablis region, produced by Domaine Servin. (I later learned that the Servin family first started making Chablis in  1654, and by now they seem to have figured it out pretty well.) As I made my request, Céline broke out laughing — and said that she had ordered that particular Chablis and included it in the restaurant’s wine list specifically for me, knowing from previous visits that I often choose a good Chablis. What made her laugh was that on our last visit, in April, I had ignored the Chablis wines completely and ordered something quite different. So she was glad to see that I’d reverted to form.

Tasting note: Some reviews have called the wine “firm and focused,” and I would just add “yummy too.”

Safety note: Fear not. We took a taxi home to Daglan, and will drive back tomorrow morning in my wife’s car to pick up my VW.

Auto note: Our taxi from Sarlat was a new, black Citroën C-5, with a series of automated sun roofs and beautiful leather-covered seats. And based on the ride home, I believe our driver may have been a fighter pilot in an earlier career.

The most obvious example may be found in foundation plantings –  the flowers, shrubs and trees that people plant close to their homes. In Toronto, where we used to live, I would venture that between one-third and one-half of homes in the older neighbourhoods had wildly inappropriate plantings around them. Trees were placed in front of windows, had grown much too big, and were completely blocking views. Shrubs were growing madly in front of windows, across walkways to the house, or against other shrubs.

Here in the Greater Daglan Area, we take a different approach. If a plant is doing poorly, it is probably because it is ill-suited to the climate or the location. If a plant has been seriously damaged by frost, it should be replaced. (I refer you to “Operation: Oleander Watch, the last chapter,” posted on April 9 — in which my prize oleander is pulled from the earth and destroyed, because the cold weather in February effectively killed it.)

Which brings us to pansies. In Canada, we planted pansies as early as we could in the spring — if not in March, then certainly in April. But here, pansies are a fall or winter plant, as they can typically grow through our relatively mild winter. Like all pansies, however, they eventually get sparse and somewhat “leggy,” with long stalks that bend over. In Toronto, pansies were pretty much useless by the time the hot weather of July or August arrived; here, the problem comes much sooner. Like this:

A pot of leggy pansies, going to pot.

This called for the old switcheroo. So a few days ago, we pulled out all the purple pansies from the pots on our front steps, and bought replacements. This was pretty easy, because there is a large flowers-and-shrubs stall in the weekly Daglan market on Sundays, just a few steps from our house. And here’s the new collection of dark purple petunias:

A pretty potpourri of pots of purple petunias.

And now, since you’ve put up with my rant so far, I offer the following photo as a sort of visual bonus. It’s a picture taken by my wife Jan, of some red poppies growing in a field near our village:

Red poppies on a hillside near Daglan.

They’re everywhere now, and they really brighten up the (incredibly green) countryside.

For example, my wife and I have taken to buying most of our wine online, because we get a better selection; within a couple of days, the van with the wine arrives. (Needless to say, the driver comes often enough that he never gets lost or needs directions, and he and I always shake hands when he shows up.)

Given the number of senior citizens in the village, there is a fair amount of daily traffic involving door-to-door delivery of food (in effect, Meals on Wheels) and medical care (nurses, doctors).

One of my personal favourites, however, is the weekly arrival of the fish truck. Of course we can buy fresh seafood of all varieties in the various weekly markets around the GDA, and in the large supermarkets. But there is something special about the personal visit to Daglan.

Each Wednesday, at about 12:30 p.m., we can hear the piercing whistle on the fishmonger’s truck that announces his arrival in the square (Place de la Liberté) just up our little street. More recently, he has started coming down our street and stopping just a few metres away from our front door. I believe this is because an elderly couple lives a few doors away from us, and his stop at their front door makes it easy for them to shop.

In any case, today was a fish-truck day, and here he is. I’ve taken this photo from our front stairs, and on the right side of his truck you can see the door starting to swing up, to expose his counter of fish and other seafood on their beds of ice:

The weekly visit of the fish truck to our quartier.

In case you can’t read the writing on the back of his truck, his poissonnerie (fish shop, or fishmonger’s shop) is called La Marée, or The Tide. Jean Philippe, the fishmonger himself, is a jolly and helpful guy from Sarlat, who may not always have everything we want (he seems to run out of fresh shrimp a lot) but who sells only high-quality seafood. He’s a good guy to know, and a welcome visitor each week.

But now there’s no way of missing the fact — here in the GDA (Greater Daglan Area), we’ve moved solidly into spring and the days are definitely longer.

To give you an idea of what it looks like here as night falls, I took this photo last night (Saturday, May 12) of the bell tower on the nearby church, as seen from the front steps of our house:

The bell tower near our home, seen from our front steps.

The time? Just past 9:30 p.m. And as you can see, the sky is still nice and bright. It’s a lovely time of year — and now we can see more of it, longer.

I should explain why it’s taken us so long to buy a barbecue in France in the first place (since we’ve had our house in Daglan since 2004, originally as a holiday home). The answer lies in the price of barbecues here.

Many things in France strike us as inexpensive or at least reasonable (food, wine), while other items seem relatively costly (tools, many cosmetic items). But for some reason, barbecues are at the stupidly-high end of the costly range. The larger gas-fired barbecue units (like the ones we had in Toronto for the past several years) seem to cost about twice the price that we’d pay in Canada.

Eventually we gave in, and bought a small charcoal-burning unit, made by Weber, for just under 100 euros. Here it is:

Our little charcoal-burning beauty.

Now, what to cook? Yesterday I ended my post with this: “I am thinking of some nice fat hamburgers cooked over charcoal; my wife Jan is thinking of grilling some sardines. We shall see.” As it turned out, we wound up grilling hamburgers, but not because I won the toss of a coin. I would have gladly gone along with Jan’s grilled-fish plan, but the fish market this morning didn’t have any of the cleaned large sardines that we wanted.

For the meat itself, we bought fresh ground beef, already shaped into patties by the supermarket butchers, but with no additives. I just added salt and pepper and olive oil (so they wouldn’t stick), and they were ready to go:

Salted, peppered and ready for some grill action.

Of course it’s important to have vegetables as part of your meals, so Jan decided to cut a couple of potatoes into matchsticks. Then she would fry them in duck fat until they were just cooked, drain them, and then give them a final browning in the duck fat. Here they are, halfway through the process:

Just emerging from the hot duck fat.

Once the charcoal was hot, I cooked the hamburgers while Jan finished the fries, and we were all set to plate. I admit that we went a little crazy with extra vegetables (in addition to the potatoes), as we had also sliced up a tomato. In addition, I used (tomato-based) ketchup on my burgers and Jan sautéed some large mushrooms to have with her burgers.  Are we vegetable-savvy, or what? Here was my plate, ready for the table:

A plate of grilled (and fried) goodness.

But to stay healthy, you need more than just a few servings of vegetables each day. Fruit is important too.

That’s why I chose to end my lunch with a slice of (leftover) apricot, pear and custard tart. We had been out to a friend’s house for dinner on Friday night, and one of the other guests brought the tart for dessert. Since we couldn’t eat it all, I was given this slice to take home:

A whopping serving of fruit just has to be healthful, right?

Ever mindful of calories (and also because we had recently run out of whipping cream), I put a bit of crème fraîche on top. Dairy products are important too.

Here’s a brief refresher on our seasonal drink, plus a couple of other weather-related tidbits.

The impact of heat. The hot, sunny weather means that an Aperol Spritz is now perfectly suited as an apéritif before meals, replacing the vaunted kir. Aperol is made in Italy by the same company that makes Campari, and it’s a similar drink, although less bitter. So an Aperol cocktail is wonderfully refreshing.

Now you probably won’t find the drink available in any restaurant here in French Wine Country, where the idea of stocking a drink made in Italy would be just too bizarre. We order ours specially from the Julien de Savignac wine shop in Sarlat, and eventually a bottle or two shows up.

I wrote about Aperol in my posting “The place for Italian food — in Prague,” on May 11, 2011. To refresh your memory, you make an Aperol Spritz by placing a few ice cubes in a glass; adding a slice of orange; and then pouring in one part of Aperol and three parts of sparkling wine like Prosecco. The original recipe says you should add some club soda, but — hello? Extra water?

In any case, here’s what the bottle looks like if you’d like to track it down in a store near you:

What a bottle of Aperol looks like, when at rest.

The impact of cold. You may remember that this past February was incredibly cold here, by Greater Daglan Area standards, and it looks like this had quite an impact on the plants and trees here. Here we are in May, and many of the trees that were pruned back hard in the fall are only now starting to show leaves. As an example, here’s the large plane tree in front of Le Petit Paris:

Grow, baby, grow!

The impact of rain. Following the very cold winter, we had a very rainy spring. The water was much needed, because the landscape had become very parched, and the vegetation had died back more than we’ve ever seen it. But all the rain has brought back the flowers, grass and weeds with a vengeance.

Back in October 2010, I wrote a posting called “Shave and a fauchage, two bits,” in which I pointed out that one of our countryside’s “striking characteristics” is “how neat and tidy it is.” In case you’ve forgotten, fauchage simply means using huge mowing machines to trim the roadsides.

Now, with all our recent rain, the plants along the road are getting just a touch out of control. Here’s how one of the roads leading out of Daglan looked this afternoon:

Can we please get a bit of fauchage going around here?

I have no doubt that some fauchage action is just around the corner. Meanwhile, our thoughts are turning to our brand new barbecue, which has been sitting in the garage waiting for the weather to warm up. I am thinking of some nice fat hamburgers cooked over charcoal; my wife Jan is thinking of grilling some sardines. We shall see.

Part of the problem of the low attendance may have been the weather. As I’ve mentioned  several times in Radio Free Daglan, we’ve been having a fairly bad spell — completely unlike the spring of 2011. We’ve gone from a very cold winter (especially in February) to a spring that’s marked by days upon days of grey skies and lots of rain.

Within the past week, we’ve had some thunderstorms, and even hail. They weren’t large enough to do any damage, but hail is still fairly rare in the Greater Daglan Area. Those little crystal balls you see in the photo below are some hailstones that landed on one of our stone window sills:

No, they’re not mothballs. They’re hailstones!

In any case, weather may have played a part in today’s poor showing. It wasn’t raining at 11:30, when the ceremony began, but the skies were certainly grey. Here’s how the event began, with our Mayor, some officials, and a few residents walking from the Mairie (the Mayor’s office) to the war memorial that stands in front of Le Petit Paris:

A small parade, complete with CD player for the national anthem.

Once the officials were in place, and a few of us residents were standing under a tree watching them, the ceremony began.  It started with the raising of the flag:

Raising the French flag to begin the ceremony.

With the flag raised on its pole, the Mayor and another woman placed a bouquet of flowers at the foot of the war memorial:

A bouquet is placed carefully at the war memorial.

Next came the speeches. First, one of Daglan’s war veterans read a speech made by General de Gaulle at the end of the war:

The French flag is well represented around the memorial.

Then it was the Mayor’s turn, reading a lengthy speech that described the war and the eventual victory (although, once again, the roles played by the Americans, British, Canadians, Australians and others were conspicuous by their absence). Here is Madame Le Maire:

The Mayor reads her speech to a rapt — but small — audience.

The last steps included observing a minute of silence and then playing the national anthem on a CD player; that didn’t go all that smoothly, since no one seemed to know exactly how it worked. But eventually the song was played, and in less than 15 minutes the ceremony was over.

Then our Mayor invited us to join her for a complimentary apéritif at Le Bistroquet, the bar at the south end of Daglan. She concluded by thanking us for attending — and also made a rather cutting reference to the village councillors who had not bothered to show up.

As always, my wife and I were glad we went. Chatting with one of our neighbours at Le Bistroquet later, we both got the “thumbs up” sign when we could identify various départements by the numbers on the licence plates of passing cars. Local knowledge can be hard to develop, but it’s appreciated.

But as I cycled along, I most enjoyed gazing  at the hills and fields with their infinite shades of green — from British Racing Green (dark, rich, and still my idea of the perfect colour for a sports car) to bright, light green to yellowish green. Beautiful.

For all that, it seems that the colour experts here in the Greater Daglan Area have pretty much decreed yellow to be this spring’s highlight colour. It’s everywhere, including our own flowerbeds. So for today’s posting, here is a visual tour:

At the Mairie. These bright yellow pansies are in a planter just outside our Mayor’s office:

Proud to be decorating the Mairie.

In the countryside. Driving home this morning, after our aquagym session, we came across this field of canola (also called colza in France), brilliant in the late-morning sunshine. The field is actually in the Lot, a department that adjoins the Dordogne, and is just off the road between Salviac and Gourdon, near the turn-off for Dégagnac:

A field of yellow canola amidst the green.

Here’s another, closer look at the same field of yellow flowers:

A closer look at the field of bright yellow canola flowers.

By the roadside. All along the roads in the GDA, you’ll find a variety of wild flowers. These were by the side of the road just outside Daglan, on the way to St. Cybranet:

To me, these looked like buttercups — or a close relative.

And here is another cluster, growing by the side of the road at the entrance to the stade (proud home of the Daglan Rugby Club):

An explosion of yellow blooms.

On the hillsides. A light carpet of yellow blooms lies on this hill, above the village of St. Pompon:

Green grass with touches of yellow flowers.

In a neighbour’s garden. In the garden of one of our neighbours, there’s this lovely yellow tulip, still managing to hold on to its petals:

In a neighbour’s garden.

Chez nous. Here at our place, we have been doing our bit for the colour yellow. For instance, one of the perennials beside our house is this variegated euonymus (a Yellow ‘N’ Gold, I believe) that includes some nice yellow highlights:

Hints of yellow among the euonymus leaves.

For the flower beds this year, we chose bright yellow marigolds, simply because they looked so cheerful, to replace the geraniums that had died off. Here are some of the marigolds, which I planted in a small corner at the front of our house, growing along with one of our young wisteria vines:

Growing under the leaves of a wisteria vine.

And here’s another look at some marigolds in the front of the house:

A row of marigolds in the afternoon sunshine.

For a double whammy of yellow, here’s a smaller variegated euonymus that I recently planted (hoping to cover up the cables that lead from our satellite TV dishes into the house), with a marigold plant in front of it:

Marigold flowers in the foreground, euonymus at the rear.

Finally, here’s a young forsythia that I bought earlier this year and planted while it was still covered in yellow blooms:

This young forsythia is growing well.

As you can see, the forsythia blooms are long gone. The good news is that the plant is growing vigorously, so by next February or March, it should be putting on a pretty good show of early-spring sunshine: mellow yellow. Stay tuned.

Why? Because we were celebrating “the ride into Paris” — watching the final day of the Tour de France, when all the riders head into the French capital and conclude the Tour with a wild race. And because of the six-hour time difference, the afternoon in Paris was breakfast time in Toronto.

Typically, we arranged the breakfast as something of a potluck meal, and our contribution was Baked Eggs and Mushrooms in Ham Crisps, a dish that I learned from my copy of The Gourmet Cookbook, More than 1,000 Recipes, Over 60 years in the Making (highly recommended, by the way).

The dish included thin slices of ham, pushed down into the cups of a muffin tin; into each cup was spooned a mixture of sliced mushrooms and shallots that had been cooked down and mixed with crême fraîche and fresh tarragon leaves; and into each cup was placed a raw egg. The tin was then baked in a hot oven (200 Celsius, 400 Fahrenheit) for 15 minutes to set the eggs and make the ham slices crispy.

To serve, you simply loosen around the edges, and then carefully lift out the ham “cup” with its baked-egg centre. Delicious!

Recently, I was reflecting on the status of some nice smoked salmon in our refrigerator (status: not yet eaten). That’s when I thought about using the smoked fish instead of ham slices to make the egg cups. So this morning I tried the experiment, and I think it turned out rather well. Here’s how I made this new breakfast treat:

First I buttered the insides of two small ramekins, and tucked thin slices of good smoked salmon down into them. Then I stirred some dried dill (fresh dill wasn’t available) into a small amount of crême fraîche, and placed a spoonful or two into each ramekin. I topped each of those with a raw egg, sprinkled on some salt and pepper, and added a few thin slivers of salmon that were left over from carving up the main slices of fish.

Then it went off into the hot oven (200 C, 400 F) for the full 15 minutes. When the eggs were set, I ran a knife around the edge of each ramekin, and gently lifted out the salmon-and-egg morsels with two tablespoons. Topped with a fresh sprig of thyme (which we grow in a pot on the front steps), breakfast looked like this:

Eggs baked in smoked salmon "cups."

Verdict No. 1: Delicious, although just a touch salty. Next time I won’t use any extra salt, because the smoked salmon is salty enough.

Verdict No. 2: Sorry that I didn’t have a fresh brioche or croissant available, to deal with the runny yolk. Oh well — to make up for that, my wife Jan and I later went over to Daglan’s tea room, which opened for the season this very morning. I had a nice Earl Grey  tea and a couple of small croissants. Yummy.

Final note: Oh yes, and it’s a beautiful day. No rain, for a change. Beautiful blue sky with puffy clouds. Yay!

In our département, the Dordogne, the program is known as Dépistage du cancer colorectal en Dordogne. (Dépistage is French for “screening,” and the rest is self-explanatory.)

Not long after I received my carte Vitale (the health insurance card I described in yesterday’s posting), I received a personal letter, as well as an educational brochure, from the group in charge of the screening program. It advised that after the age of 50, people should be screened regularly for the presence of blood in their bowels, because that can indicate the presence of bowel cancer (also known as colorectal cancer).

But the letter went beyond information alone. At the bottom of the letter were a number of adhesive labels, printed with my name, my department’s number (Dordogne is No. 24), my birth date — and a bar code to identify me precisely. Here’s how the program works:

1. See the doctor. A few days after receiving the letter, I took it to my doctor, who immediately gave me a kit that’s used for self-testing (in the privacy of your bathroom), to determine if blood is present in the large intestine.

2. Administer the test. Actually doing the self-testing isn’t the most pleasant task, but it’s pretty easy. It involves putting a very small smear from a stool sample onto a piece of cardboard that can be sealed, and doing this once per day for three days.

3. Mail it back. Once the three days are past, you just seal up the testing kit, and identify it with the bar code that was sent with the original letter. Then you mail it to the lab that does the work. All of this is free.

4. The results. Eventually I’ll receive a letter with the results. If all is well, nothing more needs to be done until it’s time for the next screening. If some blood is present, the recommended next procedure would be a coloscopie (colonoscopy).

When I lived in Toronto, my doctor was quite proactive about this kind of testing, so it could be argued that a national program isn’t really needed. But I suspect that many harried doctors (or their reluctant patients) would ignore this kind of screening  and focus on more urgent examinations or treatments.

So, on balance, I’m happy that the French health system has invested in a program to catch problems before they get much, much worse.

But I think it would be worthwhile to share some observations of  the French health system since we moved to Daglan. Today’s subject: computerized health records, and electronic sharing of information.

For sake of comparison, consider Ontario, home province of the major Canadian city of Toronto. Newspapers there used up a lot of ink in recording the considerable upset in recent years over Ontario’s feeble attempts to computerize health records. High-priced consultants were hired, people got fired, observers and opposition politicians were shocked and appalled, and not much (it seemed) was really accomplished.

To bring this down to earth, consider a typical visit to my doctor in Toronto. My doctor was always busy, but he was still pretty cheerful, and happy to spend a few minutes talking with me. But in his front office, the two young women who ran the place seemed on the verge of nervous breakdowns, with barely a spare moment to nod at you as you entered, much less say hello. They were juggling thick files, making photocopies, faxing information, receiving information by fax, answering the phone, and generally looking frantic.

Now let’s compare that scene with a visit to my doctor in the neighbouring village of Cénac, 10 kilometres from Daglan. Her secretary or assistant is tucked into a small office, and always seems calm; if I’m making an appointment, I chat with the assistant for a minute or two and walk away with an appointment for the next day or so. When I have an appointment,  the doctor pops into the waiting room and beckons me into her office, where I take a seat.

I give her my health insurance card — my carte Vitale — which contains a computer chip. She inserts the card into a card reader on her desk, pulls up my information, and reviews it. Then we discuss whatever I need (for instance, renewing a prescription); she examines me,  if that’s required; and then she returns to the computer on her desk, where she enters the new information, such as the prescription she is writing. I pay her for the visit, she returns my health insurance card, we shake hands, and I’m off. Calmly, she proceeds to the next patient.

Behind the scenes, a lot is going on — quietly. Central records are updated. Reimbursements are initiated. (While I pay directly for my office visit, either in cash or by cheque, I am reimbursed for a good chunk of the cost. This payment is made directly into our French bank account, with no further action needed by anyone.)

And if I’m picking up a prescription at the pharmacy, pretty much the same thing goes on. I provide my carte Vitale, and the computer tells the pharmacy how much to charge me for the prescription and how much will be reimbursed by the system. (I pay the difference in cash, or with my bank card.)

The verdict? Spending the time and money to computerize a health system properly seems to pay off in the end. At least that’s how it looks to me.

Tomorrow’s posting — a French initiative that’s aimed at detecting problems before they get too serious.

Today let’s see how all our efforts added up. We’re going to the plate!

We’ll start at the beginning, with the entrée, which was pan-fried pieces of monkfish with a truffle and beurre blanc sauce, served on celeriac purée with a “sail” of crispy black ham from the Périgord. In yesterday’s posting, we saw the monkfish being de-boned and trimmed, and the ham slices  being cut and then baked. Meanwhile, our chef had cooked cubes of celeriac in salted water, drained and puréed them, and then shaped the purée into quenelles — oval-shaped morsels of smooth and creamy vegetables. Here is Chef Lemonnier placing the pieces of fish gently on the celeriac quenelles:

The chef places monkfish on the celeriac purée.

Next, Chef Lemonnier drizzles some of the beurre blanc sauce (dotted with small pieces of black truffle) over the fish and the celeriac quenelles:

Chef Lemonnier sauces each plate of monkfish and purée.

And here is a look at the final dish, with the decorative ham slice in place, ready to begin our lunch:

A final version of our monkfish entrée, ready for the table.

For our main course, or plat principal, we were making tournedos of veal with seared foie gras on top, served with potatoes and green asparagus. Here is the chef, placing the seared foie pieces on the plates:

The seared foie gras goes on top of the veal.

As a final touch, Chef Lemonnier spoons some sauce over each main course. At the start of the morning, he had started to reduce a full bottle of red wine to create a simple sauce, but didn’t like its taste. So he switched gears quickly, and sautéed trimmings from the veal roast to create the base for a rich, dark sauce. Here it goes, over the meat:

Drizzling each serving of veal and foie with sauce.

Now let’s have a look at the salad, made with thinly sliced chicory (Belgian endive), fresh walnuts and leek sprouts, and served with Roquefort cheese:

A large bowl of salad, before serving on to individual plates.

We’re nearing the end. Now it’s time for final assembly of the desserts — the panna cotta we had made earlier in the morning, allowed to set in small glass bowls on top of strawberry purée; an accompaniment of fresh strawberries; and a decorative topping of chocolate:

Decorative swirls of chocolate are placed on each dessert.

With coffee, we had mendiants au chocolat — chocolate candies known as “beggars,” that we had made by melting chocolate, spooning it onto a tray in small circles, and sprinkling nuts and raisins on top. Here, our chef is carefully lifting the candies off the tray:

Chef Lemonnier lifts the candies off the tray where they've been hardening.

So there you have it. The morning we spent in cooking class evolved into a delicious lunch, accompanied by Chablis for the entrée and several bottles of Sancerre rouge to enjoy with the veal. And the conversation around the table, with Chef Fabrice and his wife Samantha, was every bit as enjoyable as the conversation at our first cooking class, last fall.

Who knew that education could be so much fun?

Or maybe you’d simply like a professional chef to create a customized meal for you, your family, and friends, either for the sheer fun of it or for a special occasion like an anniversary or birthday or family reunion. If so, I’ve got the guy for you.

We do have some experience with this sort of thing in France. Last year, when my wife Jan and I stayed with Canadian friends at a villa in Villefranche-sur-Mer, next door to Nice on the French Riviera, I tracked down a professional chef and arranged for him to arrive at our villa on our last night and make dinner for 14 of us. It was a relaxed evening, with enjoyable food and wine.

Then last fall, when daughter Anne, son Mike and his partner Vanessa visited us in Daglan, we arranged for Chef Fabrice Lemonnier to give us a cooking class in his home. We all had a terrific time, learned a lot, and had some great food. All of this was captured on Radio Free Daglan in a two-parter called “Cooking with Chef Fabrice,” posted on September 25 and 26, 2011.

Since then, Chef Fabrice has formalized his business as “Your Own French Chef,” and he creates meals for groups large and small, and offers cooking classes as well.  His wife Samantha is an expert hostess and special events coordinator, and assists him as needed. You can learn more at http://www.fabricelechef.fr

So when my sister Karen and her husband Mark stayed with us earlier this month, a cooking class with “Your Own French Chef” was right on the list of other must-do activities — like visiting the Sarlat market, lunching at Le Grand Bleu in Sarlat and Le Petit Paris in Daglan, and touring Lascaux II (the caves famous for their prehistoric paintings) near Montignac.

Today and tomorrow I’ll take you inside our cooking class to give you some idea of what we learned, and the fun we had doing it. Then you’ll know better if a class is right for you, and what you might get out of it.

The starting point is organization. Chef Fabrice had prepared a menu in advance and discussed it with Jan and me. But beyond that obvious starting point, he also prepared a highly detailed schedule for the morning, and checked it regularly to ensure that nothing was overlooked. Here’s our menu for lunch:

Today's menu is already on the chalk board.

While many home cooks think that the most important part is following a recipe, professional chefs first learn techniques — how to butcher meat, how to trim vegetables, how to pour sauces, and so on. To teach us a variety of techniques, Chef Fabrice typically shows us how something should be done, and then guides one or more of us in following him.

One of the first things we prepared was the dessert, to give it time to set properly. This was a vanilla panna cotta that was to be served on a pool of strawberry purée and accompanied by a strawberry salad. (Panna cotta is a mixture of cream, milk and sugar, set with gelatin.) For this dish, Chef Fabrice showed us how to hold an inverted tablespoon up against the inside of the individual glass bowls, and pour the panna cotta onto the spoon. This way, the stream of panna cotta wouldn’t disturb the strawberry purée in the bottom of the bowls. Here’s the chef, showing how it’s done:

Here's how to pour a liquid gently into a small bowl.

To prepare the pieces of monkfish that would form part of our entrée, the chef first showed us how to trim off skin from the monkfish tail, clean up the flesh, and then slice the flesh away from the central bone. Here goes:

Chef Fabrice shows us to pare the flesh from the backbone.

And then Jan took over, and finished the fish by trimming the flesh away from the other side of the central bone:

Jan takes off the flesh from the other side of the fish.

Much more elaborate was the process we learned for preparing the veal. As our main course, we were to have tournedos of veal. But to teach us how to prepare meat properly, Chef Fabrice had selected a complete veal roast, so that we could learn how to trim it. Normally, what I would have done is use a long knife to cut away the tenderloin from the bones. Instead, our chef showed us that we should carefully pare away the membrane around each bone and then remove the rib bones one by one, in order to lose as little meat as possible. Here he is at work:

Chef Fabrice starts trimming the bones of the roast.

Then my brother-in-law Mark took over, and frankly did a great job of neatly removing all the bones, trimming off the unwanted fat, and generally creating a tidy package. Here is Mark, concentrating on his task:

Carefully trimming away the rib bones, losing as little meat as possible.

And now we have a nicely trimmed tenderloin of veal:

The veal has been trimmed, and is ready to be rolled up.

At this stage, Chef Fabrice wrapped the veal in cling film (North American: Saran Wrap), and rolled it up tight::

The veal is rolled and then wrapped in cling film to shape it.

Next, Chef Fabrice cut the veal into the tournedos, ready for cooking. Note that he kept the plastic wrap on the meat while cutting it, to help it keep its shape:

The veal is all ready to be sautéed.

To top the veal, we would be searing slices of foie gras. This is something I do at home fairly often (we do live in duck country, after all), but we learned a new technique from Chef Fabrice — cutting the lobe of foie on the bias, to make each slice larger. Here’s my sister Karen slicing her way through the foie:

Slicing up a lobe of foie gras, to top the veal.

As our cheese course, Chef Fabrice had planned a chicory salad to be served with Roquefort cheese and local walnuts. Here he is finely slicing the chicory (which I would call Belgian endive):

Finely slicing the chicory, or endive.

Another step in the process was to create crispy wafers of ham to garnish the monkfish entrée. Chef Fabrice used the delicious black ham of the Périgord, showing us how to trim it into little sail-shaped pieces, and then sandwiching it between layers of aluminum foil. He then weighted the foil down on a baking sheet, and baked it in a hot oven for a few minutes. Here he is, laying out the pieces of ham:

Laying out the pieces of ham on foil, ready for baking.

And here’s how the pieces of ham looked, after emerging from the oven:

Crispy triangles of ham.

Another technique we learned was “turning” vegetables with a paring knife, to create neat-looking potatoes in the shape of small footballs. Once Chef Fabrice showed us how to do this properly, I took over and finished the job. Here are my creations, going into the pan to be browned:

Nicely turned potatoes are placed gently in a hot sauce pan.

By this point in the late morning, most of our dishes were coming together. To complete the entrée, Chef Fabrice had to finish a celeriac purée, make a beurre blanc sauce, and pan-fry the pieces of monkfish. Here’s the monkfish, going into the fry pan:

Small morsels of monkfish are placed gently in a pan.

The preparation stage was just about done; and then it was time to assemble all the dishes and then enjoy lunch. Somewhere along the way, we decided it was time to open the first bottle of Chablis and enjoy a glass of wine.

Tomorrow I’ll show the final results of our efforts.

To begin, let’s have a look at a plate of gluten-free pasta, on which a simple tomato sauce has been spooned. In the sauce there are some large shrimp and a portion of white fish that was baked in the sauce. Decorating the top are a few leaves of flat-leaf parsley. Here we go:

What could be simpler? Pasta, tomato sauce, seafood.

The next dish is a just a bit harder to explain. It also involves a white fish, but one which has been poached in a mint-flavoured milk, and then served on a Granny Smith apple salad that was dressed with lime and mint oil, along with some small peas and other decorative items. (I believe that you might be more familiar with it as Barbue pochée dans un lait à la menthe, salade de pomme grany au citron vert et huile de menthe, petits pois à l’huile de vanille, tatsoi aux algues chinoise, sauce douce au poivron rouge.) This was not a plat principal, by the way, but an entrée. And here it is:

A nicely decorated plate of fish.

Your choices. Now comes the challenge — it’s up to you to decide which dish was served for lunch one weekday chez nous (at our house in Daglan), and which was served on a recent Saturday at the Michelin-starred restaurant Le Grand Bleu in Sarlat, where we had a wonderful lunch with my sister Karen and her husband Mark.

The answers. Tough, wasn’t it? But you probably guessed that the pasta dish was something we made for ourselves; the poached fish entrée was created by Chef Maxime LeBrun at Le Grand Bleu. Congratulations!

Your prize. Sadly, the Radio Free Daglan budget for great prizes — like a single-lens-reflex digital camera, or a high-quality gas barbecue — has been used up. But I’ll assume that you answered the challenge correctly, and reward you with advance knowledge of a coming feature: “Inside a cooking class with Your Own French Chef.”