What's for dinner?

In addition to my collection of cookbooks, I have some vintage French menus.  Some of these are framed and are on the kitchen wall.  I love them.  They're all hand written and beautifully decorated and I find it really interesting to see what was being served all those years ago.

One I have is dated for today, 12th April, but in 1919 but sadly I don't know where the meal was eaten or what it was for.  It was not long after the end of the first World War so it's a pretty impressive menu.  I love the mystery surrounding it and I'm a little envious of the Spring vegetable soup - it was obviously a warmer Spring in 1919!

Here's my translation of it.  My apologies for any mistakes!

Potage Printanier, a spring vegetable soup

Soles La Vallière, sole, I guess cooked in the style of "La Vallière" (perhaps something favoured by Louise de La Vallière?)

Filet du Boeuf aux Morilles, fillet of beef with morels

Asperges Sauce Mousseline, asparagus with a hollandaise sauce

Poularde à la Lucullus.  A fattened hen, served with a garnish of truffles

This is followed by Glace Manon, Fruits and Desserts

It's certainly more elaborate than what we had for dinner!

My new Larder

So what have we been up to over these cold winter months?

One project was the creation of a larder.  We have a very French arrangement (not surprisingly I guess as we're in France) of a separate toilet next to our bathroom.  There's an extension on the back of the house which contains the kitchen, the 1980s beige bathroom and a separate toilet.  They're all North facing so very cold.  We plan to update the '80's beige that is our bathroom but that's another story for another day because it's dependent on installing a new bathroom upstairs. Anyway, it just seemed awkward and wrong having the toilet in a separate room so, not that long ago, Joe drilled through the bathroom/toilet wall, bashed out a chunk with a wrecking bar, removed the bidet from the bathroom and threw it out of the window then moved the toilet next door into the bathroom where it belongs.

The small "room" that was the toilet then had a good scrub down.  Some shelves were added and I made a light fitting out of one of my vide grenier bargains from the summer, inspired by the lights I saw in Roscoff.  I then painted the door with blackboard paint - great for a shopping list

It's wonderful to have the extra storage, especially as it stays so cool in there.  Much better than having a cold toilet!

Coming out of hibernation.

Hurrah - the clocks have changed and summer time is officially here.  It does feel as though I can come out of this kind of hibernation I've been in.  It's been a very slow winter most of which we seem to have had little or no web connection.  Couple that with the fact that we had to batten down the hatches for most of January to avoid big snow and rain, rain, rain and there really hasn't been a whole lot of blogging going on.  However, today the sun is shining, as it has for the last couple of days and so we ventured out to one of our favourite antique shops to have a browse and I came home with a new acquisition!

Three vintage storage tins for the kitchen.

I think they're fabulous and look great on the shelf next to the cooker looking after my stock cubes.

A New Year and a new project

Happy New Year!  I really hope that 2013 brings you everything you wish for.

Well I started the new year with a new project.  I've been a fan of  Helen Dickson of Bustle and Sew for a while now and have been itching to try some of the gorgeous projects from her website and magazine.   She produces so many fabulous ideas and designs, the list of things I wanted to make was growing ridiculously long.  So, with a couple of spare days over the New Year, I hid myself a way in my studio and am now the proud owner of a lovely wall panel for the kitchen (as featured in the January Bustle & Sew Magazine) and I also used the cup applique to make a matching teacosy.

My new kitchen!

Well it's nearly finished.  After over a year of struggling with the what had to be one of the worst designed kitchens going and it's 30cm of "worktop" we decided enough was enough.  We didn't have masses of money to throw at it and, in the long term plan of things, it isn't going to stay a kitchen so we had to be inventive. 

The kitchen as it was:

First thing was work top and having been starved of worktop for a while I wanted lots (and now have about 4m, oh yes!!).  We were going to buy an oak block worktop from the UK but living in France getting it here proved difficult.  It was a bit big and heavy for the car roof and getting someone to bring it over cost almost as much as the worktop itself.  Instead, we bought a belt sander, which was a similar price to the oak worktop, and turned some of the remaining original floorboards from the bedroom into a beautiful, characterful, solid chestnut worktop.  We removed the streaks of owl poo first!

How the worktop started out:

Then cupboards.  Fitted cupboards were out of budget so instead we found an old sideboard which was the right dimensions, only 35 euros and came complete with a rectangular marble top ideal for rolling pastry.  After ten minutes with "Reg" the wrecking bar removing some of the extra detailing and a quick sawing off of the legs the cupboard was ready to paint.

Trying the sideboard out for size post Reg and saw.  This wasn't our paint job!

Next was the sink.  The existing sink I actually didn't mind too much, even if it's draining boards clearly weren't designed for draining.  The main problem was that it was just too big so, another shopping trip found us another sideboard for 45 euros (complete with a top we've yet to use).  We used it as a temporary kitchen cupboard before we took the kitchen apart.

Again, after a few minutes with "Reg" taking the top off, some sawing at the back and another paint job we dropped the new white ceramic sink in.  The sink cost 73 euros from the local brico shop.

Finally, after a trip to Ikea for some shelves, the purchase of some end of line, 50% off tiles and a quick paint of the walls our new kitchen was finished.  Well it wasn't quite that simple, there was some swearing, a broken tap, numerous trips to the local brico and probably some more swearing but we think the end result was worth it.

The butchers block that Mr Joe built from the remains of old oak cider press.  The curtain hides the gap for the dishwasher.

A wall to display my lovely cat plates.

And finally with my lovely new oven raring to go - or it will be when the house electrics are sorted, a very long story...