When it's Down-Home Cookin' and the Home is "La Pitchoune"... - Wednesday, 29 March

(This post from Provence)

On Wednesday, one group decided to do head down to Cap d'Antibes, at the end of a peninsula that juts out into the Mediterranean, for some beach-exploring, seaside lunching and lifestyles-of-the-rich-and-famous pretending! They also explored the arboretum at Le Jardin de la Villa Thuret, so you know it was educational as well!  Seriously though, their photos of the area & the ocean-mountain vistas, and their stories of their discoveries, were absolutely fabulous.

Karen Carr and I stayed at home to soak up the beauty in & around the house, pick up more groceries, and prepare a big feast for the evening!
* For our first course I made a rustic tomato tart - a pâte brisée crust with mustard, some of the fabulous tomatoes we had bought earlier in the week, assorted olives, the rest of our goat cheese, herbs from the garden, salt & pepper, and olive oil. It was great with a second bottle of the hard cider we bought for...
* For our main course, a pork loin roasted with onions, garlic, apples, butter, rosemary, and hard cider, its drippings reduced and then flambéed with Calvados.
* A simple green salad - we became very good at these as the week went along!
* Madeleines with fresh raspberries and chocolate. In the morning I was poking around in Julia's pastry cupboard to find something to inspire my dessert plans, and voilà, a mini-Madeleine pan. Problem solved!

Karen was a great sous chef. In payment, I imparted a few tricks of the French cuisine trade! But I told her that she would have to keep them a secret or I would make her pay for them. So don't even ask!!! (Only slight hyperbole here!)

The kitchen cleanup crew didn't grumble too much about all of tonight's dishes, always a sign of contented customers. Or at least ones who had had plenty of food & wine!

Sorry that I only got a photo of the tomato tart.  But rest assured that we all went to bed with full tummies!