Posted on by Myfrenchkitchen

Cheese platter and a tablecloth with a story

I sometimes serve individual cheese platters for the cheese course after the plat principal. I find it is easier to serve cheese this way, than having a heavy cheese board or platter going around at the table with each person having to find a place to rest the platter and cut his cheese. Along with the individual portions, I keep the platter close by, for those who want an extra helping and so the cheeses and their names can be seen.

…plat du fromage…

..st, marcellin, corsu vecchiu, tete de moine, morbier, fourme d’ambert, mango, kiwi and quince paté…

cheese plate

Suggestions:

  1. Serve small helpings of diced fruit in season along with your cheese. It is optional. In France you will very rarely be served some fruit with your cheese, but I find that most people enjoy a hint of fruit on the cheese plate, eevn if only for its uplifting colour!
  2. DON”T forget a good red wine!
  3. I prefer to serve simply une baguette tradition with the cheese, simply becasue the slices are small and crusty and aren’t overwhelmingly heavy and is just perfect with any cheese.
  4. NO butter!
  5. NO crackers!
  6. Honey is also a good accompaniment to some cheeses as well as a quince paté.
  7. Serve a variety of cheese – start from a hard cheese, a soft and creamy one, a blue cheese and a goat’s cheese as basis and add to that maybe an unknown cheese or exotic or an artisan cheese, or your favourite.
  8. Round cheeses are normally sliced from the middle outwards. Triagular cheeses are easiest to lay flat and sliced from the thin end upward to the thickest. A pyramid is sliced from the top to the bottom.
  9. Serve a tete de moine (the frilly cheese in the photo below) on the shaving board(if you have one), as it always pleases the guests to shave  some for themselves.
  10. You can serve thse individual cheese platters as a starter, or as  a small  aperitif before the meal, but then skip the cheese course after the main dish.

…tete de moine, pouligny st pierre, st. marcellin,  fourme d’ambert, morbier, corsu vecchiu, …

cheese platter 1

* I can’t walk past anything that has a story. I own broken cups, and burnt linen and chewed up books and mildewed paintings – all because they have  stories behind them. My wooden floorboards still  have patches of old paint drippings. I left part of a wall unpainted, because we discovered abeautiful old frieze. I refuse to replace the old glass of some of our windows with double glaze, because it is still the original glass and you can see the tiny bubbles and other defects.

…chewed up old medicine journals and letters, dug up from our garden…

..porcelaine pieces dug up from our garden in Montlouis sur Loire…

And so I have this beautiful  antique linen tablecloth with its complete set of napkins, whih I only bought because  it made me cry. It belonged to an old lady, who grew up in a typical bourgouise family. She received beautiful lines for her trousseau as a young girl, one of which was this set of table linen. She used it for her fromal dinners and one evening when entertaining guests, one napkin was dropped on the floor, the family dog got hold of it and chewed it to get to the meat juices  on the napkin. So the elegant old Madame gently washed the napkin by hand, repaired it with needle and thread by hand, ironed it and placed it back with the set. When she got old alone, she went to an old age home, but had no children to pass her linens on to. So she gave it up to be sold. I was heartbroken when hearing this sad tale and couldn’t leave the brocante without it. I trust it is the truth, because I know Madame aux Brocantes, who specializes in old linens, very  well. She always keeps some things aside for me, especially when they have a story behind them.

…tablecloth with a story…

Each time I set my table with this beautiful linen set, I fold the chewed up serviette for myself.  I think of  old Madame and hope she looks onto me from wherever she is, with happiness.

* Always interested in how people lived in all ages, I recently got this cute calendrier for 2010, not for the calender but for the content, which holds tips and tales from days gone by.  Some are real good advice and some make you giggle…for you to decide which!

…astuce de grand-mére:

truc et astuces de nos grand-méres

*For whiter teeth – dip your finger in olive oil, rub it against your teeth and keep it for several minutes in your mouth before rinsing, OR, rub a sage leaf against your teeth once a week.

Posted on by Myfrenchkitchen

Stuffed cornes de boeuf peppers and a book on food and painting.

These cornes de boeuf peppers from Spain lend themselves ideally to stuffing and they are fascinating with their long and twisted shapes.

…cornettes de boeuf…


stuffed cornes de boef recipe

Suggestions:

  1. Any filling can be used…mushrooms, onions, peppers, courgettes, cheese, berries, broccoli florets, tomatoes, dried fruits, breadcrumbs, left over chicken, ground beef, quinoa, rice, lentils…
  2. Ordinary  sweet peppers or courgettes can be used instead of the peppers. Or more piquant peppers.
  3. Can be served as a starter or a vegetable accompaniment, or even a whole meal served on a green salad with a mustard vinaigerette.
  4. When stuffed tightly with a crumbs filling, it can be sliced and served as an aperitif on canapés, with a moelleux wine, (a sweet, fruity white wine).

In Octobre I  had an art friend visiting France and she stopped through here in Touraine, where we met for the first time after being blogging friends for a long time. See both her sites, Making a mark(in which she covers much more information than just art – her latest post is about Technorati and blogosphere…have  a look)  Travels with a sketchbook is all about her sketching and travelling.

Katherine and her sister and niece had dinner with us at home on their last night here and they brought me a beautiful book – Boire et manger that I wish to share with everybody. It is such an inspiration, seeing how food and art have walked hand in hand through all ages, depicting the habits and cultures and changes of the times and the different symbolisms of different foods, some of which we still hang onto today; cherries being a symbol of love and volptuousness, bread being the symbol of the body of christ, the apple seen as the origin of sin. I wish I could share the whole book with you, but here are a few excerpts. I hope they delight you as much as they did me and inspire you to be creative with food, not that I mean to paint it, but to “paint with it”! And above all, to respect it!

You can see more examples on Africantapestry at Food sketches and a book on dining a painting.

boire et manger

…jeunes garcons mangeant des fruits: Bartolomé Esteban Murillo(1645-46)

Jeunes garcons mangeant des fruits - bartolomé esteban Murillo(1645-46)

Le melon-meaning: Sweetness, earrthly pleasure, friendship.

  1. Maybe  look between the two boys could be interpreted as a silent dialogue between them to decide which fruit they prefer; the grapes or the melon, both having existentially different symbols.
  2. In the mythical sense the melon symbolically represents the earthly sweetness and pleasures of the flesh.
  3. the melon is always not only the cosen sweet ness of both adults and children, but a symbol of friendship, because the quality of the kin of the melon can determine the quality on its flesh.
  4. Grapes, givng birth to wine, could be reference to the spiritual path and the need to follow it.

…la table d’office: Siméon chardin(1756)…

La table d'office -Jean Baptise Chardin(1756)

Olive and oil – meaning: Grace of the Holy Ghost, conscience, clemency and charity.

  1. The European porcelain soupterine accentuates the refinement of the table.
  2. Two coilcans are presnt- one for oil and one for vingar, the usage of both these condiments togheter would be reaffirmed during the ages.
  3. The rustic terrine had a specific culinary function, which was the making of paté and was typically French cuisine.
  4. This still life present a contrast between elegance and rustic in the display of the kitchen tools and refined tableware. Chardin was fascinated by the culinary arts and gastronomy and used both at the same time to create his art.
  5. The silver warmer with silver seen as a noble metal, was part of the refined table and added to the elgance of the piece.

…nature morte avec des fruits et un homard: Jan Davidsz de Heem(1648-49)

Nature morts avec des fruits et un homard - Jan Davidsz de Heem(1648-49) containers- meaning: the human condtion, refers to the content held within container

  1. The fruit represent the earthly pleasures and in deeper context they represent the joy of the spirit/mood.
  2. The ornate decoration on this pure precious metal container represents its excellence and gives it a symol of saintly spirituality.
  3. The lobster is a symbol of resurrection.
  4. The peeled lemon represents life; which gradually “peels” off the outer earthly layers to finally arrive at the soul.

…le mangeur de haricots:Annibale Carrache(1583-84)…

Le mangeur de haricots-Annibale Carrache(1583-84)

Dried beans- meaning: humility, poverty, continence

  1. the borken windeow represent the negligence of this humble environnement.
  2. The man eating the beans was a subject reintroduced to painting at beginning of the XVI century. Up until then this theme  was only kept to the indignant.
  3. The dried bean was condidered the most humle of the starch food and and represents the everyday food of the common peasant.

…l’enfant gaté: Jean Batiste Greuse(1865)

L'enfant gaté -Jean Baptise Creuze(1765)

Cutlery- menaing: Elegance, finesse, treason, word of God.

  1. The presence of the cauldron emphasizes the popular character of the represented scene.
  2. The little boy holds a silve spoon, which contrasts with the humble and diorganized environnement. During this era, a silver spoon was given to children, because silver was believed to have antibiotic properties.