A couple of years ago,
my husband and I went for a meal out one January evening in Le Bois d'Oingt, where my parents live. Because it was the first week of January a lot of local restaurants were closed so we ended up at 200 yeards from home Chez Gudefin, the oldest and only classic restaurant in the village (we also have a great creperie hidden in a little back alley, Le Buxonien, a pizzeria, a small new restaurant called Chez Mado and...oh yes, a kebab shop! (which used to be the greatest little place to have a simple bite on a Saturday evening but there you go!). Better than that, seeing it was the only place opened for miles, I called at lunch time to book a table, thinking it's bound to be packed....and made a right fool of myself

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I read that astonishing figure in the paper today...

I found it really depressing! As I mentioned in my "Poule au Pot" post last week, I was brought up on saving and re-using leftovers mroe often than not. And without going to extremes like keeping 1/4 of a dryish lemon in a Tupperware for months in the fridge (don't laugh, my mum does that)  we do pretty well I hope.
One dish I find brilliant to finish leftover roast beef is my mum's tarte a la viande (meat tart)

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It has to be about chicken today...
since i have been watching Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall 's chicken run 3 nights in a row this week. I really REALLY hope he'll succeed in making a difference. We had chicken at home when we were kids and it was great fun watching them walking around snatching worms from the grass! The other thing shown in tonight prgogram was how to make several meals of 1 cut of meat...but I think they should have spent more time on this , considering the main objection to switching to free range chicken was the price- understandably
Using leftovers is something I saw my mum and dad, and also my grandparents do at home all the time

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Every year it's one of my favourite tradition...
After Christmas that is. On January 6th ,everywhere in and around Lyon (and France) we celebrate the Epiphany in our own particular way: "on tire les rois" (we pull the kings). I have had to look up where the expression comes from: Apparently all the Christians used to celebrate Christmas on 6th January. When a new calendar was adopted, Catholics started celebrating Christmas on December 25th while other Christians kept the same date as before (If I understood it properly). So the Catholics started celebrating the Epiphany (when the Wise Men came to visit Jesus)on January 6th!
Depending on which part of the country you are, the type of galette varies. Last year, I was in Marseille on that date. We had a very nice, light and round brioche type cake topped with big pieces of glacés fruits. The brioche itself had a light hint of orange blossom water, it was delicious!
But back when we were little,

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I can't believe I have "abandonned" my blog for nearly 3 weeks...

blame it on Christmas! Happy New Year to anyone wo will read my late night posts by the way . Since you ask (?) Christmas was great! Relaxed family time, a roast duck, a bit of foie gras (to go with THE onion jam from dad!) and a couple of visits to the pub...100 yards away from the house, would be criminal not to. Amongst the pile of presents was one I had on my wish list for a while and SO trilled to have finally got it: The River Cottage Meat Book. If you half like good meat, get yourself a copy it's well worth it. I particularly wanted to look at the first part to get to grip with the correct terms for each cut of meat...in English!. I have been struggling a couple of times at the butcher trying to explain which cut I wanted without any success, hopefully this it the end of that. One of the cuts I am after at the moment is "palette"  (which happens to be a shoulder of porc) to make one my favourite winter dish: Petit salé.

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