1001 ways with a home grown courgette

1001 ways with a home grown courgette

Fatly sliced, or in chunks, to be stewed or pan fried

With onions, garlic, tomatoes, herb bouquet all tied;

Or grated into spiced flour and dropped in hot oil

To emerge as that gourmet delight, zucchini fritti;

Or hand cut, lightly battered to make vegetable chips

Whose deep fried nature on children plays tricks

Or layered with potatoes, topped with strong cheese

Baked over lamb mince, moussaka will usually please;

Or if too big, stuffed with plain rice and poor meat,

An old English Fifties country house watery treat;

Or if very young, finely sliced, dressed oil, first pressee

Expected by the modern, advanced diner as salad entree.

The Great Green Marrow is Vegetable-in-Chief,

Bullies cooks all summer till winter breaks, oh blessed relief.

La Chaise's strangest pest?

 This is a slug - anyone can see that it is a slug.....but Stephanie knew its proper name - it is a 'Leopard Slug'  and she said it is cannibal - somewhere there is a picture of one slug eating another - but I think that is too horrible to publish

Pine trees - the new crop for savy landowners...

 When called to attend an Annual General Meeting most people, I suspect will think various thoughts - starting with 'Oh Gawd, no' then conscience kicking in and saying ' you really should attend..after all, who knows what stupidities might be decided/executed that affect you..??

My decision to attend the AGM of  the Syndicat des Proprietaires Forestiers Sylviculteurs de la Dordogne was rather more I dignified I like to think.  There is a new inhabitant at La Chaise, one who is beginning to be particularly interested in wood, woodlands and woodland management generally.  Martin had just recently cut down an oak much higher than the house because I wanted to decide where it should come to land rather than wait for a random wind to drop it just anywhere...

In order to encourage his interest I had entered him for a course run by the SPFS especially for young woodmen.  It pleased him and furthered his interest - he also met other youngsters looking for these skills. The Dordogne is one of the most densely forest covered of the French provinces, mostly oak and chestnut according to local information.

Also I have vague ideas about tidying some scrubby woodlands on the edges of my valley and replanting with oak and chestnut - and perhaps some other species - I was thinking of elms in particular. (As a Dutchwoman I feel somehow responsible for 'Dutch Elm Disease' but why, i do not know). There is a France wide national plan for re-wooding and some 800 hectares could possibly be involved in the Dordogne.  Doubtless there will be some form of financial aid.

In the very beginning of our ownership of La Chaise , well over 40 years ago, we cleared a scruffy valley and planted all pines - which particular type of pine I cannot remember, there are, after all, over 170 different types of pine.    These pines had to be kept standing for 30 years according to some agreement details of which I do not remember - but some costs were tax deductible. They were duly cut and sold to a wood mill to be turned into paper or slats for crates.

In the years we had to keep this pinery, it had to be kept clear of invader greenery especially whilst it was still short.  There are quite a few wild animals that like pines - rabbits will eat the new growth, deer will feast on the higher, tougher branches, wild boar will trample them and turn them into mush....This is where the local 'chasse' comes in and we make a bargain.   The chasseurs will keep the destructive wild animals and so keep the woodland clear and they will be allowed to keep the game.  I do occasionally get a sizeable joint of wild boar but it is not easy to cook - in fact is probably an acquired taste.

The meeting was quite well attended with quite a noticeable number of women - so I did not feel conspicuous.  There was the usual interchange of opinions - during which neither speaker listened to what the other had said - and the solitary voice of a 'chasseur' drew attention to their contribution to woodland management.

Somehow the general tone began to unsettle me, nobody said anything disagreable but the general attitude to tree planting seemed somehow wrong.    It was the discussion as to when best to cut down the pines and how to market them - I heard that the cut could be done as early as 14 years after plantation.....

Only last year we were obliged to cut down a centennial oak because of a malady that made it unstable and likely to fall - some of the smaller branches had already fallen.  I organised an evening farewell party for the tree to which our closest friends had been invited.   The following day the professionals would come - the elegantly named 'elageurs-grimpeurs'...who with terrifying skill took the tree down bit by bit as you can see below...

All right, I am being overly sentimental....I remember as a very young girl putting a long veil on my head and, leaning out of my bedroom window, giving an emotional speech to an enormous Lebanon Cedar, subject not remembered...but there was quite an audiance of red squirrels...

But I cannot get my head round the idea of getting trees to grow - then cutting them down before their maturity - to me they are not like vegetables, not maize or sweet corn - there is still a link to the gods of old.

The joys - and annoyances - of a Dordogne spring...

 Oh, joy!   It is well into Spring here in the Dordogne - in fact we have just left May but the wild orchids are still flourishing.    Or so I am told because I (poor me) suffer from 'hay fever' which should perhaps be more correctly described as 'pollen fever'.   Not only am I alergic to the grass pollen but also to that of the pines of which we have a great number....I had better stop here or I shall be accused of boasting...

Wild orchids seem to be great individualists...they come up where they like which is not necessarily the best place for people or other co-users of the property.   It complicates Stephanie's gardening life because she will not  mow in order to save the orchids but is very disapproving of uncontrolled grass.   We shall skip over the feelings of 'Kevin' who is supposed to take the hay off my fields but has been told to delay - like last year.   However, he should console himself with the possible fact that the grass might possibly be very nearly hay dry by the time he gets to cut it.

And here you have three of the best:   from the top..'orchis jaune', followed by 'orchis hybride = because combines two types of orchid, the insect and the spider,  lastly is the 'orchis troll'....

which should please all Nordic readers as well as readers of Nordic myths.

Curiously enough this year the 'orchis bouc' - the one that smells of billy goat - has not come back to protect my front gate from unwanted intruders - in fact it does not seem to be appearing anywhere.

notes from the La Chaise study...adult bedroom

OK - so originally these two rooms had a floor to ceiling wall between them and were part of the addition to the main house when the then proprietor added them in order to house his mother in law - including the barn and wine cellar and the two small rooms that housed wine barrels  and the present day woodshed - 

The room that is now - as I write 17/04/23 - my bedroom was originally the main living/sleeping room for the in-laws, there was a wood fired stove where there is now my wash-basin... and the downstairs room was the kitchen/dining sitting room..there was a glass panelled door between the two...Cooking was done in the open fireplace next to which was a cupboard for crockery and other useful stuff.

When Harry was born the upper room became his bedroom and I had added a washbasin, we (the parents) slept in the room down a short flight of stairs - the room that is now ((april 23) set up as a dining room - and Clea later joined him there.  So they had a sleeping room and, down the short   of steps - a playroom with all their toys.  There was a memorable incident:   Clea could not yet walk, so slithered down the steps to get to the toy area....she fell and let out a tremendous yell, Harry came rushing to find me, was reassured to see her sitting up....'I thought she was broken' he said.

Some years later - when Harry had graduated to an extended 'lit bateau' upstairs in the attic and Clea had the whole front room to herself, with a very posh desk, lots of dolls and soft toys...my architect cousin Tom from the Netherlands came to stay.   The good thing about architects is that they can always see improvements, the bad thing is that it often costs money...

John and I used the upstairs room as our bedroom - pat self on back for useful washbasin - and John used the downstairs room as his office.   We had installed my Dutch grandfather's imposing oak desk - the one he used when he was chief of police in Rotteram - and John added an expensive leather desk chair that swivels. A Jotul cast iron stove warmed the room - Clea had once managed to set fire to its flue, at least then we did not have to have it swept...

Tom came, sort of approved but pointed out that the wall between the two rooms was not only useless but also ugly - it had to come down. The damp walls could be hidden, according to him, by elegant oak panelling and, indeed, in the place of the demolished wall clothes hanging cupboards could be installed. The proportions of the panelling were directly linked to the panels of the half glass door to the garden....

Mores notes about 'Stuff' in the house....

 Sorry 

but this is going to be a bit of a ramble, like the previous one....

All the 'blue' glass stuff in the house - whether bowls or other form of containers - is Jordanian glass - we bought in in Bahrain no doubt...all hand shaped and blown - and tougher than it looks..

Also the hall cupboard which also has brass inlay probably also came from Bahrain...

When your father decided to set up his freight agency in Bahrain - I forget the year but there had just been a huge upsurge in the price of oil and the Arabs were feeling rich and hugely buying 'stuff' - causing much shortage of cargo space, hence the freight agency - he rented an unfurnished house and imported a 'package' of house furniture from a London retailer (Conran or Habitat) which comprised beds, tables, chairs, probably a sofa...

Communication was by telephone and telex machines which were operated by punched tape produced by a form of typewriter which I had to use....fortunately having done a typing course many years before...Unfortunately the climate of Bahrain was very humid which meant the tape was often damp and could tear....so I had to iron it before processing it..

The brass table in the sitting room dates back to this period too - it probably was imported from nearby India...

The screens upstairs decidedly came from India, sadly I no longer remember what tropical hardwood was used...

As I was having a conversation with Clea in the sitting room, she raised a question about a conple of paintings....and I asked her if she was curious about all the things, would she like some background? Answer yes...

But first I should answer the question: why elesphants and bears?  When the war ended in the Netherlands, roughly in 1944 - I was only just born.   My mother, an excellent scrounger and finder of impossible things during the war, found me a bear, a very big bear.   Bear and I shared a cot for many years.

My maternal grandfather, Brigadier Coloneil Wilhem van der Vlerk, when courting my future maternal grandmother, was posted to what was then the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia).  Every year he was away he posted her an elephant, large black with ivory tusks.  Eventually there were four - of whom I now have three ....on the lintel of the kitchen doorway.

When my mother took me to England - she had married an English soldier - Bear came with me and also my new ability to read - in Dutch of course.    Somewhere in the boxes there is a picture of me sitting at a child's desk, reading a book - it was Barbar the Elephant - I assume it is in Dutch.   I use the present tense because it is somewhere in La Chaise, in fact there are several Barbar the Elephant books upstairs - the large foolscape sized, hard backed ones. She and her new husband moved frequently - almost every five years - my main security was Bear and my Barbar the Elephant books

But now, into the sitting room ....where I see a child's chair with a pink padded seat - that is MY chair that came with me from the Netherlands - in the picture it was painted blue and yellow...There is a second child's chair, more in the English style with rounded back...possibly Regency period.   It came from Kimsbury, the Percival house in Gloucestershire - which will crop up from time to time...and was probably used by your father..John.

The large gilt framed pictures over the radiator (bad positioning!!) are of the River Spey in Scotland - a precise point which John used to fish for salmon every July, a passion he learned from his father, Alexander Hope Percival.  I cannot remember why or when we acquired these paintings - including the little one over the CD shelvwes - but I do know that the River Spey was usually running through muddy,mossy, weed-full GREEN stuff.

Somewhere there is a photo of John fishing under the bridge in the picture...and I have very clear memories of the fight with winds to cross that bridge, even when in a car...    

John's mother had bought a house at Nethybridge, just outside of Grantown on Spey, for herself as a rival interest to Kimbsbury, and for her fishing mad hushand, Alexander, and son John. They spent most of the summer there when Alexander retired and before John had to take a job..

The sitting room furniture came mostly from Kimsbury ( a fairly hideous Victorian country house) when John's father decided to sell the property - my favourite piece is the rocking chair   I did not chose the colours - as far as I can remember - Catherine, John's mother was very fond of pink and blue for decorating..

The very large bird tapestry is one that I bought - I think - in Fulham (London) way back when, probably 50 years...probably for my house which I had just bought in Clapham (south London)...but I cannot swear to this...hanging next to it is a fly whisk with ivory handle and horsehair, it would have been used by the elephant mahoots...

The two framed embroideries have different histories: Clea thinks I did the one on the terrace wall but I doubt this, too perfect, too long to create. The other is one I definitely had framed, it was part of a fire guard that had got damaged.  Below it is the most interestting piece of furniture in the room - a corner cupboard probably of the Georgian period - probably the most valuable as well.

The three white board shelves holding all the DVD's are the only sign of DIY by John - but then the disc collection was his...the two metal birds on the bottom shelf are Persian oil lamps; the gilt and orange drum on the shelf above is a Chinese 'biscuit' container, on the topmost shelf there is an ostrich egg and what I think is a South Korean tea-pot that John back from a trip there...

(The sofa is of no interest whatsoever except that it is covered by an old pink kelim in need of repair)

There are two pieces of furniture which I believe we brought back from our time in Bahrain - the rectangular brass table and the two tier brass inlaid trolley which has been so wonderfully restored by Eric le Belge..

The floor carpet is definitely an Afghan which John probably bought in a London sale...all I can remember about it is that he said its colour was due to being soaked in camel pee...actually I think I might have bought it at Peter Jones, Sloan Square....