Sunday, May 1, 2011

Half way celebration

Today is May 1, a National Holiday in France for Labor Day, but it is also the one-month "anniversary" of our arrival here at Les Hirondelles. To celebrate, we've invited our upstairs landlords, Tony and Marian, and the other English retirees we've met, John and Pat over for tapas. It's planned to be a simple gathering with lots of olives, wine, cheeses and tapanades. The main thing is olives, I suppose, as we still haven't opened the 4 pound jar of olives Dave bought at the olive coop. The weather promises to cooperate - more blue skies and a temp around 70, with a bit of wind.

More later.

But first here's a recipe for tartiflette that seems pretty similar to the one we ate at Villefrance-de-Conflent. I haven't tried it yet, but will before I leave. Also, I'm sure the waitress in the restaurant where we had the tartiflette said that theirs was made with raclette cheese. The bacon in the one we ate was really small matchstick pieces of ham. The French have a "bacon" they call "lardons" which in the US is closer to ham than to bacon. When I look up lardons in the dictionary, it tells me that the pork is salt cured but not smoked, but does translate the word as bacon. Lardons are typically used to add fat to a lean meat being roasted.

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