Plump

I’d bought some mangoes last week, they were looking particularly plump, and I thought it would be nice to make some spicy, homemade mango chutney, to enjoy with poppadoms on these cold winter evenings.

It really is quite easy to make, you just need:

1kg or so of mangoes (this will make about 2 jars of chutney), peeled, and then chopped into 1cm cubes
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
2 teaspoons of ginger, grated
1 cup of vinegar, 1 cup of water
1 ½ cups of sugar, more if you like it sweeter
4 dried chillis
1 teaspoon of salt

I then made up a muslin spice bag containing:

2 cinnamon sticks
2 teaspoons of cumin
2 cloves
4 cardamoms (cracked) and
2 teaspoons of coriander seeds

Add the mango, garlic and water, and cook for about 10 minutes. If you like to have a puréed chutney, then mash the mango now. I didn’t do this though, as I prefer it chunky.

Add the rest of the ingredients and simmer for about 20–30 minutes, it really depends how juicy your mango’s are. You are looking for a sticky chutney consistency.

Sterilise some jars – I dip mine in boiling water – then place in an oven at 120°c for about 15 minutes.

Then pour or spoon the chutney into the jars, and leave to cool before storing in the fridge. It will keep around 6–8 weeks in the fridge, unless you’ve eaten it before then!

Permis de conduire

One of the hardest things as an expat, living in a country where we are not fluent in the language, is having to deal with lots of unfamiliar systems, and obtain all the relevant paperwork and permits you need to live in a country. Add to that the small matter of Brexit, which still seems to bring changes every week, and the complexity levels double. It can be quite challenging, and involves us in some interesting tasks. It can be difficult to continually ensure we are legal in every aspect. Somehow though, with the help of various very useful websites and forums, I think we manage it.

One such issue is our driving licenses. Brian’s license expires later this year, so under the Brexit agreement we now need to exchange his license for a french one. I cannot do mine as it is still valid, and the rules state only to exchange it on expiry.

To start the application he needed to sign into the ANTS (l’Agence nationale des titres sécurisés) website. To do this he had to have a sign-in from a recognised administrative body. He tried to use his government online identity, but as we are still waiting for our carte vitales (health registration cards), it seems, for some reason, that we’re not able to use that route, because something isn’t completed yet. And that’s one of the complications, it’s not always clear why things won’t work, or what’s needed to complete them. The best option then was to find another, easier way in. We decided the best way was to get our La Poste online presence registered, and use that. Those of you who follow my blog would have seen that we completed that the other day, which included another visit to Bar-sur-Seine to prove who we were by a trip to the post office in person. Our La Poste registration got us into the ANTS website, Hoorah!

Following the instructions we had read from the French Entrée website, we gathered all the materials it said we needed (including taking a rather good digital photo) and started our application. This all came to an abrupt halt at the photo stage, when we were informed we needed to get a ‘certified digital passport photo’ of Brian, not the photo we had taken. So we had to then research where we could get one. Fortunately, after 15 minutes searching, we found that there is a registered studio in Bar-sur-Seine.

Next day, we made a visit to the studio, based at the Intermarché, who very efficiently took the photo, certified it, then provided us a code. We entered the code into the ANTS website, and automatically Brian’s photo was uploaded for his license. It was all rather snazzy actually.

Having used our code, I must say the rest was simple. It is now all complete and we are waiting to be updated on what happens next.

To navigate all these little jobs we use a number of useful online resources. The ones we use, which provide good, useful information, are:

French Entrée

This is the digital magazine I wrote an article for in the first year we arrived in France, the link is here if you are interested to read it. My French entrée article

The UK.Gov website, living in France

Facebook also has a number of useful groups: strictly legal France, expats living in France and strictly santé France

What a difference

What a difference a day makes. We needed to be in Chatillon-sur-Seine by 9am this morning, as we had our annual check-ups at the dentist. It was blowing a gale at home, so we wanted to leave plenty of time to make the 30 minute journey. We’d literally gone from a vivid blue sky the day before to a murky wet grey day, with the wind ‘blowing a hooley’.

We looked at the forecast and it appeared that we were in the middle of a swirling front, moving east across Europe. Winds were up to 60km/hour.

Our journey was thankfully without any obstacles, and we arrived in plenty of time to settle ourselves down in readiness for the dentists chair.

I think neither of us relish the visit to the dentist, however I’m pleased to say all was well and we were soon finished and heading off to the Brico marché to pick up a couple of bits.

As we got back in the car, I mentioned to Brian that I felt we needed to do something else on this rather gloomy day to make it a bit more cheery. He suggested we went for lunch at the little café/brasserie in Bar-sur-Seine. So we made our way back towards Bar. We got there about 11.30, ordered some drinks and mentioned that we wanted to eat lunch today. It was a good job we arrived early and booked our table, as by about 12.10 the place had gone from just us, to a bustling restaurant full of hungry people, chatting about their day.

It was a delicious end to our morning.

Bare

We woke to vibrant blue skies on Sunday morning. The tree was looking very stately, airing its bare branches in the winter sun.

On a little stroll around the garden, considering what winter pruning jobs need to be done, I spotted a lone snowdrop poking its head out, also enjoying some winter sun. Seeing the first flowers of the year coming into bloom is so delightful.

It feels very early to see the plants and flowers budding, but it has been remarkably warm this last few weeks. I think we are in for a cold spell now though, let’s hope it doesn’t catch all the little early buds out.

Stepped up

By the time I’d tidied up the breakfast things, and popped some washing on, Brian had pretty much finished the wall off, and it was looking excellent. We know now though that he will need to fit a light on the stairs.

He has made a really good job cutting around the steps, and it’s a pretty good fit.

This afternoon he has been tidying up the door, ready to fit it later this week.

Boards

Brian didn’t take much encouragement to get back out in the atelier working on boarding up the stairs, I think he’s really enjoying his woodworking again.

The challenge is fitting the panels around each of the steps, which is definitely stopping him from finishing as fast as he would want. He is taking his time though, and making a really good job. I’m so looking forward to getting the atelier working again, I’ve got lots of different projects I’d like to get started, but with these jobs it’s always worth waiting for.

Galette des Rois

On 6th January, which is Epiphany, all across France you will be able to buy a galette des Rois in the boulangerie’s or patisseries. They are made from flaky pastry, filled with a rich frangipane (almond paste) filling.

This year I decided to make my own. It’s actually not too difficult. The trick for me was to buy the flaky pastry, and in France this is often sold already rolled and cut into rounds.

The rounds I bought though, I felt were a little too big, so I got Brian to cut them down, with slightly more accuracy than I think I would have had. I then placed one round onto a piece of non stick paper on a baking tray, and spooned the frangipane filling on. I’d made this earlier, and had left it to tighten up slightly in the fridge. You obviously don’t want it too runny, otherwise it will not stay in the centre of the pastry. The top layer of pastry then had to be placed carefully on, after having brushed water around the edge to help seal the two pieces of pastry together. The two pieces are secured by gently pressing a fork around the edge. Take time to do this well, so that no filling oozes out in the oven.

I then asked Brian to cut the decoration in on the top, he is just far more accurate with this type of thing than me. After that I brushed it with a milk and egg yolk mix, before baking it for 25 minutes at 180°c. I’m hoping it will be a tasty seasonal dessert for our guests tonight.

Frangipane filling

150g ground almonds
100g castor sugar
good pinch of salt
100g butter, unsalted (cut into cubes, and warmed to room temperature)
zest of an orange
2 large eggs
Optional - a dessertspoon of almond liqueur

• Mix all the dry ingredients together

• Add the butter to the dry ingredients and blend them all together into a thick, soft paste

• Gradually add the wet ingredients, continually stirring. If it appears too sloppy add a little more of the ground almonds

• Cover and leave to firm up in the fridge

Cut to fit

The day started with Brian adding some additional strength to the frame he’d made for the staircase. He did this by screwing in some further cross beams, just to give more support.

He could then start adding the planks of tongue and groove onto the frame. Because we are not blocking in the area under the stairs, he needs to cut every other board to fit around the staircase. So it will be a bit of a slow job. But there’s no rush.

Muesli toast

We woke to a very dark, grey, rainy morning. It made it particularly difficult to get out of bed, but Brian was keen to get on with boarding up the staircase to the atelier, and I had some jobs around the house that I wanted to get done, so we prised ourselves out of bed, and went downstairs to enjoy a delicious breakfast of freshly made, milky coffee and muesli toast.

We have just discovered muesli bread at our local boulangerie, and it’s absolutely delicious. A fresh bread with fruit, nuts and seeds in it, which makes extremely good toast. I’m wondering if it’s a seasonal bread, hopefully not, as I’d love to be able to offer it to our guests.

L’identité Numérique

January is whizzing along, and we seemed to have relaxed back into our routine. Not that any day is the same, or any week. Probably the most regular thing is getting up in the morning and deciding ‘What shall we do today’.

This morning we had planned to drive into Bar-sur-Seine to buy the wood Brian needs for the staircase, then go to La Poste (the post office) to have our identities checked, then order some chicken from the butchers for some guests arriving later this week and finally go to do some shopping at the Intermarché.

We bought the wood, which proved easier than we thought, as we managed to buy lengths that would fit comfortably into the back of the car. We also bought some hinges, which luckily we’d worked out were ‘G’ for gauche (left) and ‘D’ for droite (right), before we bought them. Unfortunately the butchers was not so successful, it is closed until next week, so we will need to use another one. We then went to the Intermarché, completely forgetting to go to the post office.

‘Blast’ I exclaimed to Brian, ‘we’ve forgotten the post office, and it’s now closed for lunch!’. The reason for the visit is that a lot of the government systems in France all link to a digital identity, through an online system called France Connect. You can verify this via various routes, all of which have stumped us to date - for one reason or another. However we are hopeful that the La Poste route, using our Carte de Sejour and our postal address (which they can obviously verify) will work - croisé les doights (fingers crossed).

Whilst we waited for the post office to open at 13.30, we went for a coffee. The bar was full of lunchtime business, which made me hungry, but I was keen to wait and enjoy our baguette when we got home with some fresh salmon pâté.

The post office visit, could not have been easier. We told the lady we needed to verify our L’identité Numérique and she seemed to know exactly what was needed.

She tapped our details into her handheld device, asked us to verify them, checked our Carte de Sejour, and input our electronic code (that we had generated ourselves on the internet and had then been sent to us via SMS). She then advised us we would get an email in one hour confirming all was complete. Let’s see how it turns out.

Block it in

The atelier has been getting dusty from the soot from the boiler room, and although we had had the boiler serviced, we were not sure it would completely fix the problem. So we decided we needed to do something more. We’d discussed a few ideas about how we could tackle it, which mainly revolved around blocking off the boiler room somehow. The question was, where do we block it in?

We decided the best route was to board the stairs in completely, as this would then give us a wall to run a handrail off as well, which I know Brian had wanted to do. So this morning he looked through his wood store, found some appropriate wood and started work on the wall to run up the side. We had also kept an old door from when we converted the bathrooms, so he started framing out the door to fit at the bottom of the staircase.

The door has been stored since a few years back, and needs a bit of fixing up, but it’s nothing a bit of Brian’s t.l.c won’t fix.

Tomorrow we will try and buy some wood to panel it all in.

Sooty and sweep

We woke early this morning, as our plumber was coming to service the boiler. We’d turned it off last night, so it had cooled down ready for him to start work on it when he arrived.

It had become a little bit sooty in the boiler room and we hoped a good clean and service of the boiler would help. I’m not sure we realised he was going to dismantle all the chimney, as well as the boiler, to give everything a thorough clean and service, but it’s really nice to see a good job being done. Everything is now swept clean and spick and span and ready for another 12 months of service.

Lopped off

It’s Wednesday morning, and I felt ready to take the Christmas decorations down today. Although I love to leave them as long as I can, I was keen to clean the house and start 2023 proper. It didn’t take us long to take the decorations off the tree, certainly not the same amount of time as putting them up, but then we are not stopping to drink Champagne - ‘Hmmmm now there’s a thought’.

We thought the best way to remove the huge tree from the salon was to cut it up, so Brian got the pruning shears and started to trim some of the branches. He then took the loppers to it and cut it in half.

That made it way more manageable to remove from the house.

The Good Life

I’m often asked where I get my reading material from. I do love a magazine, and used to read a lot of them in the UK. My french is improving all the time, but reading in french is still a lot of work, and sometimes I just need something easy to read, to help me switch off. Obviously accessing material on the internet makes life easier, however I have to say I do still like to read a printed magazine. Friends, when they are visiting, will often bring me the latest copy of some favourite magazines like Olive, Delicious or Good Housekeeping for me to read, but I do also have a printed copy of ‘France Today’ delivered. I do enjoy this, as it includes articles from all over France in its travel, and food and drink sections. They also share information on what is happening, what’s important to people living in France and current affairs.

https://francetoday.com/subscribe/

Francemedia group, also publishes a magazine called ‘Taste of France’. I love this one for its french recipes, both traditional and often with modern twists. I view this one online, which is not my preferred medium, but delivery to France is quite costly.

https://tasteoffrancemag.com

There are two digital only magazines that I do enjoy, and I find really useful. The ‘Good Life’ magazine written and edited by Janine Marsh is full of really interesting articles and inspirational places to visit. Then there’s ‘French Entre’, which is more around living and moving to France. So as an expat it has some super useful articles.

https://magazine.thegoodlifefrance.com/winter-2022/67403340

https://www.frenchentree.com

Windy on top

New year’s evening was wonderful, and crept on well into the morning, as our English friends began their countdown an hour after us. So it was a very slow start to New Year’s Day, in fact we only just made it up in time to say good morning to each other. We were definitely all in need for a bit of fresh air, so I suggested we head up to ‘plateau de blu’ and make a circular walk from there. The ‘Le tour de Noë les Mallets’ is about 6.5 km, and takes an hour and forty minutes, ideal for us. It takes in a hill or two to help get the blood pumping.

Such a pretty area, with amazing views. It was a little bit windy on the top of plateau de blu, but as we dropped down through the forest and into the village, it became more sheltered.

The path then led us back up the other side of the village, and around the top, back to where we’d parked the car. The sun was beginning to set, but we had time to enjoy a coffee in the open air, and to soak up the view before heading home.

We have detailed the route on our hiking page, where you can find a pdf map.

New years eve walk

New Year’s Eve, and the temperature was an unseasonal 17°c. As it was such a beautiful day, we decided we would venture out on a walk over to Loches-sur-Ource, where we planned to enjoy a little picnic by the river, before walking along to Landreville, and back home along the valley path. It would normally take about 3 hours, although as we had planned the mini picnic stop on route, so were prepared for it to take a bit longer.

I’d made some sausage rolls, and some gluten-free ones for my friend Sam. I had also prepared some jambon beurres (ham baguettes), along with flasks of coffee. We were all set.

The time was spent chatting and catching up on what we had all been up to over the recent months, and how things were different for us all now after the events of recent years.

It was lovely to idly chat, stopping to take photos or admire the views across the stunning, ever-changing landscape. When we reached Landreville, the village café was open, so we couldn’t resist but to pop in for an early celebratory new year bottle of Champagne.

From there it was not long before we were home again, and with the fire lit we were ready to start our evening. A wonderful bottle of ‘Transparence’ blanc de blanc, by Charles Jolly - one of our local producers - and our evening had begun.

Troyes cathedral

After lunch, we wandered around the quaint little streets of Troyes, popping into the many different churches. It was a little bit drizzly, but we didn’t let that spoil our afternoon. We then headed down towards the cathedral, a rather impressive building just a short walk across the canal from the main city centre.

On entering you are greeted by a beautiful nativity scene, complete with a little flock of sheep.

You go in through one of the smaller side doors, which does not reveal the enormity of the cathedral when you first enter. But as you walk right to the closed front door, into the central knave of the cathedral, the scale of it rather overwhelms you.

It certainly is a must to see on a visit to Troyes, a most impressive cathedral with some amazingly intricate stained glass windows..

Aux crieurs de vin

I’d discovered this little restaurant when we’d been Christmas shopping in December. We hadn’t had an opportunity to try it out, but thought it looked a good, traditional French restaurant to take our friends to over new year, so we’d booked a table for 1.30pm.

It’s actually a wine shop, with a restaurant on the side. It has a great ambiance, which was really what attracted us to it originally. We were so glad we tried it out, as the food was delicious. I had a pea soup with herring and horseradish cream on top for starter, whilst Brian had fillet mignon with a locally made mozzarella and a gravalax sauce. We all then had the beef with leek risotto for main. It was all very delicious, and somewhere we will be returning to.

Rosé

Friday morning we made a visit to Jérôme Cothias, the maker of the Champagne we’d enjoyed with lunch the previous day. He is based in the small village of Meurville, about 15 minutes from us.

Our timing was perfect, as they were in the process of degorging (dégorgement), which is where they freeze the dead yeasts, that they have spent weeks slowly collecting into the neck of the bottle, and then release them by popping the little plastic cap off. They then add the dosage (liqueur d’exposition), before closing the bottle again with its proper cork and cage.

The dosage is a blend of the same wine which is mixed with a pre-decided level of sugar. This both tops up the levels in the bottle, after the frozen yeasts have been removed, and is used to create a Nature, a Brut or a Demi-sec.

Whilst we watched the process Jérôme served us a 100% Chardonnay (Blanc de blanc) with zero dosage to taste. It was gorgeously fresh and light, but as he lays all his wines down on average for a four to five years before dégorgement, it enjoys a delicious complexity.

Arrival

We woke Thursday to a rather grey and drizzly day. Our friends were due to arrive for a long weekend stay over the new year, and we were expecting them around lunchtime. A few last minute jobs to get done before they arrived.

It was so wonderful to see them, a trip they had been planning for the last two years. We enjoyed a delightful light lunch together, pâté, fresh baguette, salad and a poulet ballottine, all washed down with a bottle of rosé de saignée by Jérôme Cothias.

Despite the weather, we decided to take a little walk through the forest and up to the point de vue, before a cup of vin chaud in front of the fire with some homemade biscuits.