This morning started with breakfast of choice: pain aux raisons with coffee. Bien.
Then we started by rolling out and blind baking pastry cases for lemon tart. We then made a stuffing of pork, sage, and roughly a million other ingredients for the ballotine of chicken. Then the fun started: separating the chicken from it's skeleton. Not a simple process, and took about 40 minutes of precision knife work.
We had a chicken each to do, and then they had to be stuffed and rolled in the skin, and wrapped in foil: ready for baking. Then we whipped up the filling for 5 tarte au citron, and headed off to Bernard's for yet another 'light' lunch.
It all kicked off with the raspberry liqueur which I cannot remember the name of, plus a prune wrapped in duck breast. First course was a light and creamy chicken soup, with crusty bread, followed by 2 types of quiches: one was tomato, cheese and basil, and the other salmon and broccoli - both were beautiful.
David was bringing up our tarte au citron so we could test-drive our own cooking for dessert, so we were gearing up for that when...more lunch arrived! Roast pork with a mushroom sauce, and 3 types of vegetables. Eeek!
After that, the offer of cheese came. We declined, but the waitress came back a few minutes later to check (while really, really staring hard at me) that we really meant to say no... what the hell! Reputation is shot to pieces. Oh - and at this point the bottle of red wine had also started to get a dent. The lemon tart was ridiculously good, and I look forward to showing it off at Chateau Morton this weekend.
It's great being on holiday with fellow food lovers. I floated the idea that the new cupcake/macaron could be ... chocolate mousse. It could be flavoured so many different ways, and Bernard's recipe is second to none. Possible future career change on the cards. Philip pointed out at this point in the discussion that I should write in my notebook: "don't open - will end up hating mousse".
After lunch we did a tour of the castle in Gramont, which is absolutely beautiful, with some lovely gardens. After that, I went to Bernard's to de-vein the foie gras that I didn't have the stomach to do when feeling ropey on Monday. It's not easy, but quite relaxing, poking round a liver, ripping out veins. I have a feeling that after this week, my liver is not dissimilar. As Philip just pointed out out "even Bernard's foie gras looked like it was hit by a train afterwards" - it's not pretty. Bernard has an art gallery in the basement of his restaurant, and I got to check out the latest exhibits being hung by the artists. Some terrible, some quite pretty.
Tonight is the St. Clar fete, so I'm dressed up and ready for action! I have been told that dinner will almost definitely be "duck and chips". Fabulous.
Tomorrow morning we have a sauce to strain, and then I pack the car and head to Gaillac to re-create a 4 course lunch for the Mortons and guests. I'll have to post photos and solicit feedback as to whether all this hard work was worth it. Now, back to my rosé.
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