Initial idea from the architect

The architect came round today with his initial 'sketch' of the plan for the house.

I will write more as we have thought about it in more detail.

The main difference to what we had been thinking about, is putting the stairs along one end, we had been thinking near to where they are now but more compact. This has the advantage of giving us a single open plan room down stairs with one side of it being kitchen/diner and the other the living room. We think we pro this idea (pending further thought) as we like the current setup where someone in the living room can chat with the person in the kitchen. Upstairs this layout has made it easier to fit two spare bedrooms of a similar size in rather than a huge one and a smaller one. The ensuite in the master bedroom is in a different place and a window has been extended which we also like the idea of. The main entrance is through a new side door which is also an interesting idea and would improve flow between our outdoors shaded kitchen and the real kitchen, this idea needs some tweaking though to give a place to hang coats and shoes that is within the heated area rather than outside in the outdoor kitchen. Shoes would be a tad chilly in winter...

He has done a guestimate of the price of the work which is interesting and has for example ruled out underfloor heating!

It has given us a lot to think about, in terms of the layout and what we feel we can do ourselves, plus what we need to scale back to keep the whole thing affordable (ish)

Chicken picture and writers block

I have felt a bit demoralised and unable to start writing blog entries. I know lots of people (or at least several) other than Lorna read the blog, but I often felt I was writing it for her so she could see what I was up to and help her not miss me too much.
However I have managed a number of entries and hopefully it will be easier now.
I had a few things from the uk sent over including a painting of a cockeral by her cousin Penny which looks lovely on our wall.

It fits in well with some other pictures that Doug has just hung which we had in Chamonix. Although we will hopefully be starting work on the house soonish, we decided that on the wall was the safest place for them.

Chickens and sheep

Quick update on the chickens and sheep as you have not heard about them for a while.

The chickens seem to be passing some kind of egg laying baton around as there never seems to be more than one laying at a time. We don't think it is always the same one though. All except big chicken (who is still recovering from her moult) have red crests and look like they should be laying, but the cold or dark must be putting them off. Big chickens comb is starting to grow again so maybe she will start laying again soon.

The sheep have been moved a few times on to new patches of grass but the grass doesn't grow much at this time of year so they eat through it very quickly. On top of that, there has been snow on the ground quite a bit, so we have been feeding them hay every day for a few weeks. A few of the male ones are headed for the freezer, so we want to get them nicely fattened up and have been feeding them maize in addition to the hay. As far as we can tell they are not yet as fat as they should be so it would be a waste to slaughter them now. We are keen to get it done quite soon as we want to make their fleece in to sheepskin rugs and apparently if you leave it too late in they start growing their summer coat through the winter one and the wool will fall off your rug.
To find out how fat your sheep are there is a method called 'condition scoring' it sounds quite simple in this explanation, but it is quite tricky to first catch the sheep, then persuade it to stay still as you poke it about and on top of that the fleece is pretty chunky and hard to feel much through. Our sheep we generally think are about 2.5 which is thinner than they want to be for slaughter or for having lambs - which hopefully they will in a couple of months. So all the sheep are on an intensive fattening diet for one reason or another.

Poppy the chicken killer

She may look all sweet and innocent...

But in fact she is a wannabe chicken killer.
We went round to some friends and left Poppy to run around outside while we went in to enjoy a cup of tea and a chat. The tea was just ready and we were about to sit down to with some cake when she was spotted pinning a dead looking chicken to the ground and pulling out mouthfuls of feathers. The poor chicken's owner rushed outside with Doug. Poppy was pulled off the chicken which turned out to still be alive. The last time we saw it, it was sitting in a box looking not quite dead and covered in iodine to help deal with its cuts and bruises. We are waiting for an update as to whether it pulled through of not. We will never be invited back - which is a shame as the cake (which we eventually did manage to have) was very tasty!!

Improving the driveway

Our drive is a bit of a mess. It has various structural issues that I will go in to later when we look at them more closely, but at the moment the thing that is bothering us most is the mud. It has been raining LOADS recently and the mud makes it hard for us and others to get up the drive as well as creating a giant swamp at the top where we park the car which means everything gets covered in mud.

It is much worse when it is wet

We are currently in a short interlude between rainy spells so we thought we had better try to do something about it. We started with the very top section as that is a very short steep bit coming in to the turning circle/parking area at the top and is the most difficult bit to get up as well. It is also where the mud bothers us most where we get out of the car.
It seems there must have been a better surface some time ago which has filled in with mud, we guess from rotting leaves as well as what washes down the hill. The surface underneath means the water takes longer to drain out of the mud compounding the problem.
We decided to scrap the earth off back to the harder surface underneath and then top up with gravel.

Area with the mud scraped off

Gravel added

The earth we removed

 The two strips you see above yielded something like 6 wheelbarrows full of earth so it is going to be quite a big job to do the whole muddy patch here as well as others similar at the corner and bottom of the drive. Something to look forward to!

This wouldn't happen in London!

Iain is visiting us for a bit of skiing.
We set of this morning nice and early to take advantage of the fresh snow that fell overnight.
But we came upon a minor hitch going down the drive.

It rained a lot overnight and I guess it was windy too.
Luckly, although it had landed on the phone line and knocked it down, it had not snapped it. Phew the internet was safe!
We went back to the house and changed out of ski gear in to tree removing gear, and collected the chainsaw, log turner and a chain before returning to contemplate the matter.

 Doug cut as much as possible off

with some help from Iain

then I pulled the remains out of the ground to make cutting it easier. It was the first time we used the low range 4 wheel drive on the car which was exciting (although perhaps not strickly necessary). It was also the first time we used the tow bar. Exciting!

Once it was on the ground it was easier to chop up smaller.
Finally we dragged the remaining stump, that we couldn't really cut up (mud is bad for the chainsaw and it was a bit big for the chainsaw anyway), down the drive and disposed of it in to the woods beside the road.
By now we had missed the first lift (!) so we retired to have lunch before actually managing to go skiing.

We still need to do something about getting the internet (aka the phone line) reattached to it's pole, we are not quite sure who to call about this. We should also consider cutting down some other trees on the drive before they go the same way.

Back in France

I am back in France now. You can read on Lorna's blog about the funeral etc. Of course it was a very emotional time, perhaps made a little easier by being expected, but not much. I still feel kind of disconnected and weird, and frequently a bit tearful, but I plan on continuing to ramble here about our exploits here  in France.

I spent a fee days in London staying with my bro before coming back home. I went to the Tate Modern, the Royal Academy and the British Museum as well as to a number of shops including Fortnum and Masons and Liberties. I just wandered around a bit in Covent Garden, Regents Street and Oxford Street. I met friends, ate and drank in a number of pubs and had a nice snowy walkon Hampstead Heath.

I lived in London for over 20 years, but for some reason lots of places remind me of my parents. They both visited frequently. I suppose my mind is on them a lot at the moment, although even when I lived in London for example the British Museum always reminded me of them both despite us visiting often without them.

It was snowing when I left London and it was snowing here when I arrived here! At least here is is useful and we hope to get skiing soon. I was very glad my flight wasn't one of the cancelled ones, it was a little delayed, but nothing much.

I am writing this on an iPad and haven't worked out how to add photos yet.

Sad news

Sadly my mum died yesterday. She was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2009 and long outlived the doctors expectations. She kept active up to very near the end as you can see here.
http://sealorna.blogspot.co.uk/
I am in the UK at the moment and will be here a little while as we arrange the funeral and other things.
Thanks everyone for the supportive, texts, emails and blog comments. She was a very special woman!

Sold Chamonix Flat (probably)

We have accepted an offer on the flat in Chamonix and the buyer has signed the 'Compromis de Vente'. This means they have 2 weeks to change their mind and then they are commited (subject to some searches and proof it is really ours to sell etc - but no mortgage). It will be longer than that until the sale is finalised while all the searches etc are done. Usually around 3 months.
Sad to see it go, but we need the money to pay for this place, and we don't have any reason to keep a place there.
It is hard to believe now, that at one time a cream sofa was not a totally impractical idea!

The Architect

We have somewhat come to expect that when people say they will come in January they really mean February or perhaps March so we were suprised when the architect (who said he would come in January) phoned and said he was coming on the 3rd of January!
He has already talked with us about our thoughts and ideas, so he came round to do detailed measurements and take photos so he can put together a number of 'sketches' for us. We have an appointment at the end of January to review these with him.
There was a bit of a technical hitch when he dropped his camera on the floor and it stopped working. He finished the job with ours and I transfered the pictures on to his memory card. Phew.

Wax on, wax off

Doug has been banging on for literally years about how much he wants to be able to wax our skis (ok that is poetic licence, I take it back, he never bangs on about anything). I have been waiting and waiting for my perfect lovely wax to happen, but it has never has... until now... To be fair we have never had space to do it before, as the flat in Chamonix was tiny and didn't have anywhere it was ok to cover in wax. The equipment required isn't complex, you just need an iron (ideally a specialist one with rounded edges, but apparently a normal one will do too - if you don't mind it being ruined)

The result was brilliant! I am not just saying that so he will do it again. The wax we got with the iron is quite expensive, so we are hoping that the cheaper wax we have ordered will come out as well.

Pasta Gorgonzola Recipe

I find that in restaurants we go to often I tend to order the same thing pretty much every time. It is very difficult, sometimes I feel I should venture to have something new, but what if it is not as good and you have wasted an opportunity to have one of your favourite dishes? Hm hm what then? In Chamonix there were a few places we went back to many times and always had the same thing. One is Pasta Gorgonzola at Le Caveau (the review on the link doesn't do the place credit but they don't seem to have a website - not that they seem to need one as they are plenty busy without).
What I have come up with may not be exactly the same, but it is pretty yummy anyway - and it has to be eaten with chili oil. If you don't have any then make some - I know it sounds a bit much, all that pasta, cheese, cream and then oil on top, but the idea is you do something active (eg skiing) first and it is really tasty!

Ingredients (for 2 people)
100g Gorgonzola cheese
1 cup single cream
200-250g penne pasta
300g steak (one biggish steak. I use faux fillet - not sure what that is in English maybe sirloin but doesn't seem so expensive - anyway needs to be nice and tender fried)
Parmesan for on top

Method
Put the pasta on to boil
Put the cream in a pan and bring to the boil
Chop up the gorgonzola
Cut the steak in to small bite sized pieces and sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste.
About 5 mins before the pasta is ready add the gorgonzola to the cream and heat slowly until is just comes to the boil. Let it simmer slowly until the pasta is done.
Around the same time add the steak pieces to a hottish frying pan. You are aiming to just cook the steak through so it is still tender and juicy and maybe a bit bloody if you like it like that.
When the pasta is cooked drain it and add the steak and cheese sauce. Stir well.

Serve with parmesan and chili oil to top.

Quick Chili Oil

We are planning on making some 'slow' chili oil next year with chilis you grow. You can't generally get spicy chilis here as the French seem not to like them.

It is a bit difficult to have a precise recipe for this as chilis vary in strength. I like the oil to be pretty hot and have some bite so you don't need to add too much.

Ingredients
2 table spoons flaked chilis (or chop up your own dried chilis)
150ml oil (olive, peanut, walnut whatever you fancy)
1 clove garlic cut in to 4 pieces
Sprig of thyme

Method
Put the chili and thyme in to the oil and heat gently until the oil is just starting to bubble. Heat it like this for a few minutes. Don't get it hot enough to smoke or burn the chili, it should sizzle a little but not a lot.
Turn the heat off and and the garlic and swirl around for a while.
Leave to cool.
You can use as soon as it is not dangerously hot or put in a jar/bottle for later use. I remove the garlic and thyme when I bottle it and some of the chili. It will continue getting hotter slowly.

Goes well on pizza.

Cheesy update

The first cheddar has been maturing for a few weeks now. It has gone pretty mouldy on the outside, but I have read not to worry about this. Although the first one isn't ready to taste yet, I have made a second one in the hope that it is ok and we will want more. I decided to 'wax' this one. Actually it isn't actually wax but some easier to apply stuff that you paint on with a brush and leave to dry, no need to mess around melting it like wax.
We plan on starting another one soon.

First cheddar maturing

Magic cheese coating stuff

Second cheese (with organised label)

I have made several more batches of coulommier as it is quick and easy and very tasty. It seems that if you use raw milk it is better if it is very fresh, I made one batch with raw milk that was a couple of days old and it was still nice but had a more sour flavour. The cheese is better if aged in the fridge for 2 or 3 days as it dries out a little more and has a less sharp flavour.

I have made more ricotta with the whey from the various cheeses and it is in the freezer mixed with spinash waiting to be made in to raviolli. We have a LOT of whey and so have been feeding it to the cats, dog and chickens. The dog and chickens seem quite keen on it, but strangely the cats are not sure. It is a shame we don't have pigs at the moment to feed it to, that would be a good traditional thing to do with it. We have also used it making bread and pizza dough. It is quite nice but slightly bland to drink, I have found some cocktail recipes that use it, but I am not convinced that is a good idea (typically they are a take on whiskey sours with whey instead of egg).

I started a parmesan and plan on getting more of them going soon too. This one is a bit covered in dog hairs as they were on the cheese cloth (I did not notice) when it came out of the washing machine. I did boil it before using it so hopefully it will be ok.

I have got the culture for making a brie/calembert type cheese. Basically it will be the same recipe as the coulommier with an additional mold culture added to give the rind and soften the inside. 

Saucisson Sec

We froze several batches of meat and fat weighed out to be the correct mixture for saucisson sec (or salami or whatever you want to call it). We got round to processing the first of these.
I have two books with salami recipes in (Hugh's River Cottage Cookbook and a new book I got for Christmas called Forgotten Skills of Cooking) both of which are quite simple recipes that don't worry too much about whether the 'right' mold grows on the outside or with the complexities of what goes on inside the drying meat. However reading about it on the internet it seems rather like cheese and beer in that you can make a very simple version or you can get in to the science of what is happening and control more about it.

We have started off with a simple version which is pretty much what is suggested in the 2 books I have. However we have made two changes, the first is to make half the batch with yoghurt to see if it comes out any different (the theory is that this causes fermentation inside the sausage as it dries making for a better flavour and more efficient cure). The second is to spray the new made saucisson with water in which the skin of a saucisson we bought has been soaked to try to encourage the right mold to grow quickly which improves the cure by slowing the speed at which the saucisson dries and stops other less good moulds growing.

General rules of the recipe
Approx 70% lean meat and 30% back fat by weight
2.2-2.5% of the meat + fat of salt (by weight)
Some seasoning and flavourings (pepper, mace, mushrooms, cheese etc)
100ml liquid per 1kg meat + fat
Something to stuff them in - traditionally beef bungs (ie cow intestine). The thickness of the skin will affect how the sausage comes out as it affects the drying process and what goes on inside while the outside dries.

Our ingredients
1450g lean meat
380g back fat
45g salt (2.5% weight of meat)
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1 garlic clove crushed
I made two mixtures using half the meat mixture in each, one with a teapoonful of yoghurt and a teaspoonful of sugar (made up to 50ml with water) and one with red wine (50ml).
About 150cm beef bungs

Try to keep everything as cold as you can throughout. Obviously keeping everything clean and sterilising as much stuff as you can is important too as the meat is not going to be cooked. I put all the utensils through the dishwasher on a hot wash and wore an overall to try to keep dog hairs out (they get EVERYWHERE)

If you are using beef bungs they will come in salt, so you need to put them in to rinse before you start. Put them over the end of the tap and run water through them, then leave in a bowl of water to soak the salt out. They don't smell too nice but apparently that is normal. It took several hand washes and a shower (or what passes for a shower here) to get the smell off my hands and I am not quite sure it is gone even now...

• Cut the meat up in to chunks and then mince with a coarse plate. I used 8mm on a manual mincer.
• Put in the fridge while you cut the back fat in to 'pea sized' chunks
• Mix the meat, fat and other ingredients together in a bowl and stir thoroughly with your (very clean) hands
• Tie off one end of the sausage skin with butchers string. There is a special knot you should apparently use otherwise the knot can slip and the contents slop out. To do this you tie a single knot around the skin, fold the skin over and tie another knot to hold it in place and then tie one more round the folded over end. It is pretty tricky to do as the skins are very slippery and hard to hold on to.
• Stuff the mixture for one saucisson in to the sausage skin, we made 6 but you could make bigger or smaller. Use sausage stuffer or funnel - bit tricky either way - and squeeze it down to the end where the knot is (this is where the sausage stuffer is a bit easier than the funnel as it inserts right to the end).
• Squeeze the meat mixture around until it is evenly distributed and fairly tightly packed but not overly straining the skin. Tie another piece of string to make the other end of the saucisson the same as you did the first one. Leave long ends on the string to hang by.
• Cut the skin to seperate the saucisson
• Tie another knot in the end of the skin and stuff the mixture for the next saucisson in and tie it off and remove it in the same way as the first.
• Continue stuffing like this until all the mixture is gone.
• Hang the saucisson somewhere coolish (10-12°C) and draughty until they are firm when you squeeze them. Probably a couple of months. You can go on drying until they are rock hard or eat them at this point.
• Apparently all kinds of mold will appear but you shouldn't worry about them and only be put off if the final product smells rotten.

Soaking salt off the beef bungs (skins)

Finished product with the stuffer

Hanging up to dry

Useful book stand (christmas present)

All siz hanging to dry with the hams

They won't be ready for a couple of months. I will update you then on how they turn out. 

Making Parmesan Cheese

We haven't tasted the cheddar yet as it needs 4 weeks minimum to mature. But I am pushing on and making parmesan anyway as that takes much longer to mature and if we don't get it on it will never be ready.

4 liters semi skimmed milk
1/3 tsp  rennet
Thermophilic starter according to instructions on the packet (I bought mine here and used half a packet and kept the other half in the freezer for later)

Heat the milk to 33°C
Add the starter and stir thoroughly.
Maintain the temperature for 30 mins to let it ripen
Add the rennet and stir again
Leave for a further 30 mins
Cut the curd with a knife and then break down the pieces further by gently dragging a balloon whisk through the curds. Continue to do this for 10 mins
Increase the temperature of the curds to 43°C over 10 mins (stirring occasionally)
Increase the temperature of the curds to 55°C over a further 10 mins (stirring occasionally)
Strain the curds out using a sieve (keep the whey to feed to the dog/cat/pig/chickens/compost/etc)
Transfer the curds to the mold lined with a cheesecloth
Fold the cheesecloth over the top of the curds, add the follower and put in the press
Press until the whey runs (5kg on my press = approx 1psi))
After an hour take the cheese out of the press, unwrap it, turn it over and rewrap it
Return to the press with double the weight (10kg for me) and leave for 24 hours
Remove again and unwrap and return to the press for a further hour up the other way to smooth the cheese
Put in a covered container somewhere coolish (warmer than fridge) for 2 days

After the 2 days (you might want to make the brine the day before to let it cool)
Put 1 liter of water in a pan with 250g of preserving salt and bring to the boil
Cool to 10-12°C and pour over the cheese in a container just slightly bigger than the cheese
Leave for 24 hours turning the cheese over occasionally to get both sides salted
Remove from the salt and leave to age, after 2 weeks oil it or wax it and let it continue to age for something like 9 months - should improve with age.

The cut curds in the whey before heating

After heating (curds are hiding at the bottom)

Curds strained out from the whey

It is 2013!

We had a nice quiet evening in at our own fireside. We did have a bit too much whisky and fizzy wine (and roast pork with perfect potatoes done in duck fat) so didn't leap up to greet the first day of 2013 with the enthusiasm we could otherwise have. We managed to get it together to go skiing by lunch time though. We had a good ski as it was snowing at the resort (raining at the house) and that kept it quite quiet.

I am having some problems writing this post because Lorna (my mum) is not doing very well , so 2013 is not off to a great start and chirpy messages about having a great year don't seem to fit. I don't write much about it on the blog because that is not what it is about, but it is obviously a big thing in my life at the moment and being so far away is very difficult. I am heading back to the UK at the end of the week to spend some time with her.

However despite this sadness we have mad plans, hopes and dreams for this year which you can continue to follow on the blog. I wish everyone luck with their plans and dreams, and hope that you all have as good friends and family as me to help you enjoy the good times and get through the bad.

Cheers!