The Condominial Assemblea...

is a facet of italian life which is universally loathed, but apparently impossible to eradicate from the system. One of those many make-work positions that the Italian authorities have dreamed up (along with that of geometra and, to a significant degree, bookkeeper) is that of condominial administrator. These people do nothing - apart from endlessly seeking opportunities to line their own pockets at the expense of condominial members - and charge significant amounts of money for the privilege. In any building where there are more than four seperate households, any one of the householders is legally entitled to register the building as a condominium, which then requires the services of an administator to jump through all sorts of unnecessary bureaucratic hoops on behalf of the condominium, at the end of which process nobody is any the better off (apart from the administrator, who is smiling all the way to the bank). And the annual meeting of the condominial members with their administrator is the aforementioned and deeply disliked assemblea.

When we first bought the property in Via Fucini, it seemed a good idea to register it as a condominium, since there was one other householder in the building at that time, and it seemed a practical means of getting them to pay their share of the buildng costs such as connecting the house to the town drainage system, and stripping out the baroque accumulation of gas, water and electricity pipes which festooned the walls of all the common parts, as the result of many previous decades of uncontrolled installations. The first administator we appointed was lousy beyond description - there was no sign of her actually having done anything, not even summon a condominial assemblea, after more than five years! -  but her existence did at least serve the purpose intended, and all of the condominial upgrade programme went through more or less without a hitch. When the Technical Dept then pointed out to her that for her to submit an annual bill in these circumstances was nothing short of a joke, she took umbrage and resigned. Which you would have thought would have been the end of it, and the condominium concept could have been allowed to sink into nothingness. Nope. Not a bit of it. Once a condominium has been conjured into existence, there it is......for ever. Administrator No 1 had to keep on maintaining the books until a replacement had been found and appointed.....or is it annointed?...in her place, and she could pass on the baton of grasping incompetence to her eager successor.

Who in this instance was Signora A, a dumpy woman with badly dyed hair and a voice that suggests she is the crossbreed offspring of a corncrake and a Black and Decker drill. At high volume. Entering into the spirit of things with gusto, her first action as administrator was to declare that the condominial electrics  were not up to code, and lo-and-behold she just happened to have an electrician who would be able to re-do the entire system.....for a price which was only slightly more than double that which the TD then managed to get from a competitive supplier. To the annoyance of Signora A's tame electrician, and I imagine also to the increasing pangs of hunger knawing in Signora A's back pocket (but, never mind - the next time the drains needed cleaning, she was there in a flash with a plumber she 'happened to know', whose subsequent bill was sufficient to keep both himself and Signora A's back pocket happy for quite some time...) For four years now, there has been a constant fight between her and the TD about payment for condominial cleaning....which we organise, pay for, and charge back to the condominium  - but which the ghastly Signora A sees as an unexploited back-pocket opportunity, into which she hasn't yet managed to get her grappling hooks. Once a year, she charges for submitting a tax return for the condominium....400 euros (ker-ching!)....and another 600 euros, merely for existing (ker-ching!); in the most recent accounts, she included one charge for maintaining a register of the names and details of all members of the condominium, and another charge for putting a label with her own details on the back of the front door to the building (ker-ching! ker-ching!) ...not one centesimo of which translates into value for anybody who actually lives there. Does she circulate the accounts for the condominium every quarter, as it was agreed several assemblea ago that she would do? Nope. Does she submit competitive quotes for consideration by condominial members whenever work is to be done? Nope. Does she actually do anything at all which is for the practical benefit of the people who pay her? You tell me......!

So, why do we put all put up with this dreadful woman, and subject ourselves once a year to the painful process of a condominial assemblea? For the simple reason that it removes - or at least reduces - the opportunity for conflict with the neighbours. Any sensible group of intelligent adults ought to be able to sort out condominial issues amongst themselves. You'd think. But, on the ground floor in Via Fucini, is a resident .....well, in italian, the word would be stronzo.It isn't a polite term, and it isn't a complimentary one, either. But I can't really think of a better one - and any of the english equivalents are more or less unprintable.  Our fellow condominial members go in fear and loathing of this man, and would do anything in order not to have to deal with him directly. On occasion, they have independently or together come to ask if TD would deal with 'him-downstairs' for them in relation to some issue or other where some degree of agreement was necessary...or else they engage in the most complicated acrobatics in order to have rushed through an announcement, followed swiftly by the commencement and completion of some work to their own property all  while they know that 'him-downstairs' is away on holiday, and that the work can already have been finished before he will have returned.

And we aren't alone, it seems, in having a 'him-downstairs'. The Paoli have one in their own building, where the presence of their own administrator serves the same purpose (with exactly the same collateral damage along the way - for example, a construction of relatively bog-standard mail boxes in their condominial hallway, the cost of which was an eye-watering 2,000 euros!). It appears conceivable that the length and breadth of Italy, the extensive existence of a tribe of 'him-downstairs'es is behind an entire industry of Signora A's and their hungry back-pockets. And a parallel tribe of condomial members, whose occasional passing references to the fact that they have to attend an assemblea sometime soon are met without fail with sympathetic faces and possibly a reassuring and encouraging pat on the shoulder. There are no words sufficient for the occasion.

At our latest assemblea, last week (held in the apartment we still own in Via Fucini, but where nobody lives...so there is no heating even in winter, and the assemblea generally finishes quickly as the threat of hypothermia becomes ever stronger), I did suggest that we hold off reappointing the appalling Signora A, and that we have a competitive vote for administrator appointment in say, six weeks' time. It got nowhere, of course, as that would have involved having another assemblea - which nobody in their right minds would choose to do - and anyway, as Margharetta put it, before she fled to her own central-heating upstairs (and in the full hearing of Signora A, glowering in the shadows), she has never heard of an administrator that anybody is actually enthusiastic about, and so we might as well have this one as any other.

Which leaves it open to have another candidate in place for the next assemblea, this time next year. And we have in fact heard of an administrator who works out of Cascina, of whom good things are actually apoken. 

It may be counting chickens, but I like to imagine that the dying cries of a Black-and-Decker-corncrake can be heard, however distantly, coming in on a westerly breeze.

One can but hope...

The Garden...

is full of neat (ish) piles of branches, as the result of much progress this past week in the annual tree-pruning programme. The small fruit trees were all done weeks ago, and in fact generally get polished-off in the course of a single day. As with all more complicated tasks, the larger trees, I tend to put off...and put off....and put off - to the extent that some of them were not done at all, last winter. Ergo, all the more need to get at them properly, this time round. Thus far, the large pear tree, and both of the large plums have been sorted out, and now resemble oversized bonsai.

The large pear tree, with severed branches piled up in the background, beneath the pergola

I moved onto the Old Orchard, yesterday afternoon, and have now dealt with one of the large cherry trees, as well as the apricots, one of the greengages, and two of the apple trees. Assuming tomorrow's weather is clear, I hope to finish off the remaining apple and greengage trees, and try and make sense of the two remaining (and somewhat punk) large cherry trees.

The yellow plum tree - not quite finished, since I haven't yet worked out how to get at the last difficult bits, above the vine pergola

And that will then be job-done, until this time next year...and on Monday I can then move on to pruning the wisterias, the jasmines, climbing roses, solanums, and grape vines...before sorting out the last of the transplant programme for this winter of roses, libertias, germanicas, tulbarghias, and that tall nameless grass that resembles a lightweight Pampas Grass, and which I would never have chosen but since it snuck in in the pot along with another plant from Noaro, I haven't had the heart to chuck it out (and in fact don't now dislike it - but it is in the wrong place, and has to be moved.)

Fig tree pruning, beside the romitorio

In so far as it can in winter, the garden is looking good. Many of the camellias are dripping with flowers - with many more still to get going - the hellebores are just starting to open, likewise the chaenomeles; one rather confused azalea is in full bloom...odora aureomarginata is about to break into scented flower, and the wintersweet and lonicera fragrantissima are both working away - the latter so much so, that every time I go anywhere near it, am assailed by the fruity perfume like one of those rather effete flavoured teas favoured by those who find the real thing too much of a challenge.

Pulcherrima Striata

Lonicera Fragrantissima

And the citrus crop is currently pretty impressive - the sweet oranges we've just about finished for this season (half a dozen each morning, squeezed for juice, lasts us just over a month), but the bitter oranges and lemons are producing at an industrial rate, and marmalade production will be on the cards any time now.

Lemon Tree, just outside the tinello door

Bitter Oranges, in abundance

And, now, I'm off to soak in my post gardening bath...with attendant four-footed curled up beneath the towel rail, and another chapter or so of Siri Hustvedt's deeply excellent 'The Blazing World' .

Tonight's dinner:

Courgette Tarts

Roast Beef, with Pheasant Gravy; Yorkshire puddings (winter fare!)

Vanilla soufflés, with marmalade centres.

Partridge Pastries with Pear and Spinach

Adapted from a recipe of Alain Senderens, this was a splendid first course for dinner on Christmas Day, with the added benefit of being Partridge-and-Pear christmas themed (which hadn't occurred to me in advance, and so was entirely fortuitous). Although the dish has a number of steps, nothing is very complicated, and it is largely an assembly-job immediately prior to serving - as such,  it lends itself well to entertaining.

For four.

Ingredients: 1 quantity puff pastry, made with 500g flour, 75g butter, 2 tsp salt, 1 cup water, 500g chilled butter; egg wash, made with 1 egg and a little cream; 4 generous tbs cooked spinach (frozen spinach is fine); 1 onion, finely chopped; 3 oz butter; pinch nutmeg; 1 pear; half tsp sugar; 50 ml cream; 2 tbs cognac; 1 partridge; zest of 1 orange; 5 juniper berries; half tsp dried thyme; quarter cup marsala; 1 tsp arrowroot; salt & pepper.

Method:

1. Roll out the pastry to a thickness of 2mm. Cut out 8 discs of 10 cm diameter each. Put four of them on a greased or lined baking tray, and brush with egg wash. From the remaining four discs, use an 8 cm cutter to remove the centres, then place the outer rings on top of the four bases; put the 8 cm 'inners' also onto the baking tray, brush with egg wash, and mark with cross-hatched lines with the tip of a sharp knife. Place the baking tray in the fridge for 30 minutes, then bake in a 200 degreeC oven for fifteen minutes or so, until risen and browned. Set to one side.

2. Bone the partridge. Put the bones in a small saucepan, cover with water, and simmer for half an hour or so to make stock. Free the partridge skin from the flesh beneath, and stuff under the skin with a mixture of 1 oz butter, the thyme, half of the onion, orange zest, crushed juniper berries, and a little salt (retain enough of the stuffing mixture to make a poultice on top of the bird). Place the prepared bird - with its poultice in place -  to one side, for half an hour at least, then heat the oven to 220 degrees C and roast the bird (it should only take about ten minutes)

3.  Melt half the remaining butter in a small pan, and sauté the remaining onion; when softened, add the spinach, nutmeg and half a tsp salt; stir to combine, and keep warm.

4. Peel, quarter, and core the pear. Cut each quarter into two slices. Melt the remaining butter in a small frying pan, and in this sauté the pear slices briefly, sprinkled with the sugar. Turn the slices over in the sugar-butter mixture, then add the cognac and boil to evaporate, then add the cream and boil for two minutes to thicken. Keep warm.

5. Strain the partridge stock, and boil to reduce. Mix a tsp of Marsala with the arrowroot, and then add this, along with the rest of the marsala, to the stock; it will take five minutes or so to thicken, and at that point check and adjust seasoning as necessary (if you want a more complicated flavour, add a little soy sauce, but in this case be careful not to add too much salt). If you prefer a lighter colourd sauce, add a spoonful or so of cream at the end of cooking.

6. If necessary, re-heat the pastry shells in a warm oven or warming drawer, before putting one each onto a heated late for serving. Divide the warm spinach between the shells, and then place the pear slices in their cream on top of the spinach; take from the partridge four good slices, and place one each on top of the pears. Spoon a little of the sauce over each slice of partridge, and another spoonful on the plate beside the pastry shell, on which place the cooked pastry 'inner'. 

Serve.

Poulet au Vin Jaune

is the name this dish would go by, if I hadn't, in cavalier fashion, changed two of the three central ingredients from the original version. One from the early days of Nico Ladenis, you would have to be either extremely rich or merely deeply stupid were you to follow the recipe as NL describes it (and, what's more, insists that it should be made whilst respecting without question the ingredients as listed). Vin Jaune, an obscure wine from the Jura, retails at around £110 a bottle, these days, and morels - even dried - can rarely be found for less than around £25 for a small jar. Forget it! A perfectly serviceable Gewurtztraminer and a handful of dried porcini work quite acceptably, and all without venturing into the territory of a second mortgage*. For obvious reasons, I can't state precisely to what extent these variations take the end result away from what Mr Ladenis had in mind, but this dish is extremely good as described, and has the advantage of leaving plenty of excellent sauce for other and subsequent uses. The first time I tried the dish was several days before I was responsible for the main course as part of our Masterchef Weekend 2014, and I used the leftover sauce to very good effect on spit-roast rabbit wrapped in prosciutto, which had been stuffed with pancetta and fennel seed. And the reason I'm prompted to post it now is because a variation on the same rabbit recipe (except this time, also stuffed inside a suckling pig) will be taking centre-stage for Christmas dinner, later this week. That being so, and with 'programmed eating' in mind, we'll be having Poulet au Gewurztraminer tomorrow evening....and leaving plenty of sauce at the end!

* since first writing this...I have found the source of this recipe, from which NL originally took it - a book edited by Francis Amanutegui, published in 1970; the author is much less inflexible than NL, and states that in the absence of 'Vin Jaune' 'any dry white wine will do'...  

For Four.

Ingredients: 1 chicken, cut into eight pieces: generous handful of dried porcini; 8 oz butter; half a pint Gewurztraminer; 1 pint cream; flour (to sift); seasoning (to taste)

Method:

1. Generously cover the porcini with boiling water and leave to sit for forty minutes or so; then, strain the mushrooms from the soaking liquid, and filter the soaking liquid through kitchen paper. Retain the strained liquid and the porcini. Heat the oven to 180 degrees C.

2. Melt the butter in a heavy ovenproof casserole. Dredge the chicken pieces with flour, and season them with salt and pepper. Sauté the chicken in the butter, enough that they lose their raw appearance, but try to avoid letting them brown.

3. Ensure all the pieces are in one layer in the casserole; cover it, and place into the oven, for about twenty minutes. At the end of this time, drain as much of the melted butter as you can from the pan.

4. Put the casserole back on the hob, without lid, and add to it the mushrooms and their soaking liquid (perhaps half a cup of the liquid, not more). Over medium heat, add to this the wine and the cream, and cook at a gentle simmer until the sauce has thickened slightly to become uniformly velvet in texture. Serve as soon as possible once the sauce has reached this point - if left to sit while you get through other courses, it might risk misbehaving!

December...

so far, is being a month of the elements. It began at three a.m. on the 1st, when I was woken by the sound of rain drumming on the roof overhead, and (sighing) I pushed the bedcovers back in order to go and do the usual. Which, when the rain sounds like that, means having to go downstairs in order firstly to lift the rug in the Tinello, and then to see that there are rolled towels along the bottom of the french windows in the Pranzo. Whichever idiot it was who was in charge of works when they last renovated this house was clever enough to direct all of the drainage from the rooftops of the house, the Teatro Lux next door, and the whole of the southern aspect of the church (probably a couple of acres of rooftop, all-told) into one solitary drain, leading from our courtyard; and if that wasn't enough, they then concreted the entire courtyard, thus making it into an impermeable basin. The combined effect is that when - as happens perhaps half a dozen times a year - we get the sort of intense downpour which reminds us that Pisa is in fact only a couple of miles inland, and so prone to marine squalls, then the volume of water is too much for the drain to deal with, and so... it doesn't. Instead, it backs up, the courtyard fills with water with impressive speed (normally, once it has started to back-up, then within ten minutes the entire place is under about a foot of water, and rising), and water starts to come up through the Tinello floor. I'm never quite sure why the latter happens, but it isn't a big deal; generally, a couple of minutes with a mop and bucket is enough to deal with it, and once the floor is dry once more then the rug goes back into place.

On these occasions, almost invariably worst case is that the water level rises in the courtyard sufficiently to lap the sills of the french windows - a foot above ground, and so not too vulnerable - before the squall passes, and the water disappears again almost as quickly as it appeared in the first place. On one occasion, it started to soak in, through the towels, and all looked a bit worrying, before the rain receded, and the water-level dropped once more - and once, when we were away, in London, water had clearly swept in, throughout the ground floor, and rather dramatically caused a low-lying transformer behind one of the kitchen cupboards to blow, leaving the house without power for a couple of days. Luckily, on that occasion, Olga had come in and dealt with all of the clean-up operation before we returned, and we could subsequently only guess at the impressive nature of the event from finding leaves and other debris from the courtyard in obscure parts of the ground floor over the following weeks. That, and the mangled remains of the exploded transformer, of course.

I expected this time to be no different from others. The rain drummed down, I dealt with the rug and the towels...while the storm got markedly worse, with almost constant crashes of thunder and lightning, and the harsher intermittent sound of hailstones bouncing up from the ground outside and ricocheting against the windows. If anything, the rain got more intense, and the water level was already up to the sills. TD was present by then, and between us we gathered every towel in the house, to increase the defence blockade as best we could. At which point, the water started to flow in under the left-hand french window in the Pranzo, and although I tried to hold towels in place against it, the force was too strong, and in seconds water was flowing in and cascading down onto the Pranzo floor like a miniature version of Niagara. Gallons and gallons per minute. Rapidly, we decided to abandon the Pranzo, and made a dam of towels across the bottom of the doorway into the kitchen, to contain the water in the Pranzo (if possible). TD then realised that water was also cascading from the courtyard into the Pantry, and so he rushed off to do the same across the doorway from the Pantry into the Scullery - even the four-footed's bed had been called into action by that point, and was sacrificed to the greater good as part of the dam structure. He didn't mind at all, as he was finding the whole event quite exciting, until he got shouted at for getting underfoot as I was lifting the dining chairs out of the water to put them on top of the table, after which he retreated to a far corner of the kitchen, to watch events from a distance, in cautious silence.

 And so, the storm passed on, the rain stopped, the thunder and lightning faded into the distance...and the Pranzo was two inches and more under a sheet of water, which reflected the lights from the display cabinets rather prettily, I thought, with reflections of the glass and porcelain inside them, and reflected light shimmered up across the ceiling beams as I waded through the water and started to bale. TD was dealing in the distance with the flood at that end of the house - the Cantina was at least six inches underwater, he reported later - and he got the technological benefit of using the karcher to suck water up by the gallon before depositing it down the sink in the lavanderia, while I baled out the lake in the Pranzo by the age-old expedient of mopping it up with towels and a bucket. Eighteen towel-loads wrung out equalled one bucket-full, to be emptied into the kitchen sink, and then another eighteen, and then another eighteen, and then another eighteen, and then....you get the idea. I think it was after about the fifteenth or eighteenth bucket that I actually began to see little islands of tile appearing here and there above the surface of the water; and then the little islands became an archipelago; and then, it was a floor with puddles on it, rather than vice versa.....and eventually, I was able to remove the towels from the doorway, and (sort of) declare victory.

By the time it was fully light, the house was damp, but no longer flooded, tea had been made, and TD retreated to bed once more, mug of tea in hand, while four-footed and I  regarded each other somewhat balefully, and decided to get on with the day.

So, that was element number one: Water.

Element number two would have to be Earth. The storm gave way to a week or ten days of gloriously sunny weather, perfect for gardening, and the start of the chores I'd lined up for winter. I extended the beds at the top of the North Lawn, to allow for division and replanting of bearded irises, as well as a whole lot of Munstead Lavenders to go in, and I put four new hydrangeas under the edge of the pergola (Kokonoe Tama, Anthony Bullivant, Merveille Sanguine, and Paniculata Sundae Fraise); at the other end of the garden, I put in a couple of hundred flagged iris bulbs (Hildegard - a pale blue, to mix in with the Purple Sensation already there from last year), and added an Indigofera Gerardiana and a Loropetalum to the shrubbery, and replanted a whole lot of bergenias which looked in need of a less sunny spot before next summer;   then, I cleared out the area under the Camellia grove at the end of the agrumi lawn, added a couple more camellias (blush pinks, but nameless) to take the grove down to the edge of the lavender path, and transplanted about fifty ajuga plants from the lower shrubbery, and mixed them in with about forty tiarellas, which I hope will spread to become dense underplanting beneath the Camellias as they mature. Finally, before the weather broke, I planted ten new bamboo plants (phyllostachys bissettii) along the southern perimeter of the garden, which should become a dense screen within a year or two, and shield us from the increased noise and activity that seems inevitable now that the Seminary has handed the pavilion over the the Scouts for their future use.

Loads of earth was involved....wet and rich and dark...and most of it seemingly attached to the four-footed's paws. (I don't understand why it is that the cats, who also come and watch as I work, remain as clean and unsullied at the end as they were at the outset). Four-footed loves gardening, and always joins in enthusiastically, before managing to carry much of the garden back indoors with him again, about his person. Which he knows he does, and by the time I catch up with him, I invariably  find he has already put himself in the bath and is patiently waiting for the water to be turned on and for his paws and tummy to be washed and dried. Actually, he isn't merely 'waiting', since he loves the process almost more than anything else, and the expression on his face as he sits in the bath is a mixture of anticipation and accusation, as though daring me to say that he doesn't on this occasion actually need a bath.

So, plenty of Earth, as element number two.

Element number three: Fire.

The Poles turned up, two days ago, and with minimal fuss and chaos, installed the stovepipe for the wood stove in the kitchen, which has stood there for the past two years merely as a decorative object, while we summoned up the courage to initiate a process of making holes through walls and roofs in order to render the thing operational. As the choices seemed to be either GianCarlo or the Brazilians, our hesitation was entirely understandable. In either case, the process would have resulted in the whole house being  shrouded in dust and clogged with rubble, with who knows what irreperable damage to life and property along the way. Enter Kristoff and his team, and the work was carried out with so little disturbance you'd barely know they'd been there (under the careful and meticulous guidance of the TD, I must add...Kristoff initially appeared to have some ideas of his own about how it should be done, and was firmly but politely put right back on track by the TD - and kept there - with results as indicated). In drilling up through a 40 cm wall, to emerge on the other side of the wall and one floor up, and then to make a hole through the roof exactly the size to accommodate the stovepipe, the Poles made less mess than the four-footed manages on any standard gardening afternoon. And they didn't even jump in the bath and look accusing straight afterwards!

And so, for the past two evenings, the kitchen has been truly home-and-hearth-like, with flames dancing exactly as ordered, and all well with the World.

So by my reckoning, the only element still lacking for the month is Wind - and doubtless Christmas will take care of that! (Later note - it did, but not in the way expected...we had a gale on the day after Boxing Day, and the Christmas tree, out in the barn, blew over rather dramatically in the middle of a tremendous downpour...uprighted subsequently, it resembled a slightly drunken actress, unsteady onher pins, for the remainder of the Christmas period).

Tonight's dinner (post flight - we're about to leave for the airport):

Bouchées à la Reine

Roast Beef, etc

Apples baked in Cream, Brown Sugar and Cinnamon

November Garden

We have had weeks and weeks of (almost) unbroken Indian Summer - which goes some way to make up for the dreariness of the non-summer which preceded it.

The last gasp of greenery, before it all drops...

 The four-footed, on a mission...

Grey Cat, looking winsome, as she tries to ignore the fact that to have reached this spot on the office balcony, she can only have walked right through the deeply-for-cats-off-limits house!

The last al-fresco lunches...in fact, the last time we ate outside was just before the end of the month. The barn will now be mothballed until Spring for dining, but we can sit beside the wood-stove instead, at the far end of the barn, and convince the locals that we are indeed mad, to be outside at all at this time of year.

Parthenocissus, framing the view of the agrumi lawn.
 

Last roses - although, in fact, they will probably linger on with infrequent blooms right through until Christmas. This one is Alec's Red - an amazingly fragrant bloom, like concentrated turkish delight. 

And the vivaio, in the old well-house, with the trays of plants at various stages of preparation for transplanting - here: tiarella convoluta, sweet woodruff, and munstead lavenders...

acanthus seeds, bearded iris (I'm not sure what kind, collected from a rather fine germanica we inherited in the wasteland of the garden when we arrived), crinums, dietes bicolore, and a disparate collection of libertia and surprise lilies.
 

And even a hint of mists, if not of mellow fruitfulness.

Today, of course, we have rain, and a house full of Polish builders, who are - with admittedly impressive housekeeping skills along the way, from which a variety of Brazilian and Italian workmen of our acquaintance could learn much! -  making a complicated hole through an old and very thick wall, to allow a stovepipe to travel from the kitchen on the ground floor and emerge in the dressing room on the first floor, from where it will be childsplay (famous last words) for it to emerge through the roof, and we will thereafter have a fully-functioning wood stove in the kitchen, at long last, with dancing flames, and the whole home-and-hearth thing all ready for the onset of winter. Against a background of drilling and vaccuuming, the four-footed is looking distinctly thoughtful and sticking close, at my feet as I sit here and type.

Dinner this evening, at ths rate, is anybody's guess - it rather depends on the state of the kitchen as the day progresses! Sandwiches, maybe....

Galmiche's Lemon & Lime Tart

It seems inevitable. Whenever I trumpet a technique as being 'the best way of making...', you can be certain that at some future point I will discover one I think is better. I know I've posted at least two different methods for puff pastry, several years apart, and I'm conscious that I no longer follow the method I described on here for making farmhouse bread (the rising times are shorter, but I now let the flour and most of the water stand for half an hour before first mixing in the yeast - it makes it rise better; the additional step is apparently called 'autolysis'. It works.). In his 'Pedant in the Kitchen', I remember Julian Barnes getting quite aerated on one occasion about the fact that when he rang Jane Grigson ( a  mucker of his wife, so he had the phone number to-hand) to check the detail on one of her recipes he was trying to follow, not only could she not see what his problem was in understanding what she had written, but she further frustrated him by saying airily at the end of the conversation that anyway she 'didn't do it that way any more'. Which I think completely threw him, as the concept of there being more than one way to achieve the desired result was not something he wanted to hear, as he struggled with beating meringue and adding flavouring, or whatever it was, and all he wanted to know was what was 'the right way'. Choice was an undesirable additional that he could do without!
But, the fact is, that all cooks change their minds regularly about their preferred ways of doing things ....sometimes, I suspect, from boredom, and sometimes because they really have found a better way.

Anyway. Lemon Tart. For years, I've been doing it the way I posted on here in 2009 - five years ago! A light lemon-flavoured custard of cream and eggs, set gently inside a pre-cooked shortcrust pastry shell. It is very good....I wouldn't knock it. But this one - recently discovered from Daniel Galmiche's deceptively straightforward Brassierie Cookbook - is better! The appreciative noises around the table at the first mouthful will attest to that. The flavour is intense and edgy, and show-stopping.

For one nine-inch tart (halve the quantities for a 7 inch tart):

Ingredients: shortcrust pastry, made with 10 oz plain flour, 8 oz butter, half tsp salt, and 50 ml water; 1.25 cups sugar; 1 cup lemon juice; zest of 2 limes; 7 eggs; 1 cup cream.

1. Roll the pastry to line the tart form, and leave to rest in the fridge for half an hour; heat the oven to 180 degrees C, and bake blind ten minutes with the weights inside and another five without - the pastry should be fully cooked, and biscuity. Reduce the overn temperature to 100 degrees C.

2. Add the sugar to the lemon juice in a small pan, bring to the boil over high heat, then reduce to a low simmer for ten minutes - the quantity should reduce a little over this time. Then, add the grated lime zest and leave to cool, off the heat.

3. Beat the eggs with the cream, and add this to the cool lemon/ugar/lime mixture. Allow to sit for an hour, for the flavours to blend together.

4. Carefully, pour the cream mixture into the tart shell, and bake for approx 45 minutes at 100 degrees C.  Allow to cool before serving. (One additonal option is to sprinkle the surface with icing sugar and brown it briefly with a flame thrower, in order to give the tart a crisp surface; allow to cool once more before serving, if you do this.)

Excellent with vanilla ice cream!