We are five days away from the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year. As a result the sun doesn’t come up until 9h00 and is down by 17h00, so getting up on Sunday for the Fête de la Dinde in Licques was somewhat of a challenge. But it was worth it.

Every year the town of Licques holds a festival in honour of the turkey. A hundred or so turkeys are paraded along the main street of the village followed by the town dignitaries. I had the camera set on a high ISO in anticipation of a fast and active turkey dash but it ended up being a very slow and stagnant move through the crowd. The turkeys did little more than amble, quite comfortable with all of the attention and un-miffed by the hundreds of people that had come to watch.

The town is famous for its traditionally reared organic turkey and has been celebrating this event since the 17th century. I was moved to find that they have celebrated this event for such a long time. The town continues to show enduring adoration and appreciation for an animal that has provided, I imagine, many local jobs and much financial security for the town.

As part of the festivities there was also a brilliant food producers market. There were wines, cheeses, a variety of milks and icecreams, honey, fresh, cured and conserved meats and of course … fresh turkey.

In the main square there is a stone statue of a turkey showing just how important this bird is to the towns people. Behind it, just for this special day was a gigantic cauldron brewing the town’s famed liqueur ‘Licquoise’. Unfortunately I was completely engaged with ‘chasing’ the ambling turkeys that I missed the drinking of the contents of the cauldron … fortunately there’s always next year!

I love eating flowers. Some months ago that would have seemed quite strange to me but nonetheless, I have become a flower eater. I made this salad to accompany fish a few afternoons ago and thought that I would share it. It has a few handfuls of mache; a few handfuls of rocket; purple basil, as much as you can spare and about the same quantity of naturtium flowers to basil leaves. Wash and drip dry all of the ingredients, throw them together and drizzle with olive oil. I find when picking the nasturtium flowers that it is best to leave about 10 – 15 cm of the stem left on the flower so that you can put them in a vase of water until you are ready to add them to the salad. I also pinch the stem off as close to the flower as possible when I’m ready to use them. You can eat the entire flower, and they are quite delicious. They have a subtle flavour with a slight velvety texture when they reach your tongue. It’s quick, glorious and real show stopper when it lands on the table.

My sunflowers have finally tipped their heads which signals the end of Summer and the slow decent in to Winter. Seeing that they looked so solemn today in the wind and the rain, I thought I’d post these pics to hold on to their glory for just a tinsy bit longer. Have a great weekend everybody!

Just over our southern departmental border, is the Abbaye et Jardins de Valloires. A couple of weeks ago we went to see the garden but I was secretly there to eat. All of the fruit, vegetable, herb and floral components of the dishes come from the garden and the  daily menu is inextricably linked to the season and what is flourishing in the garden on that day. I was certainly not disappointed, there were so many new flavours and textures for us to try, the use of edible flowers and root vegetables were by far the most exciting.

The garden. Although the abbey dates back to the 12th Century, the garden is a modern creation. It maintains a number of  styles and diverts from ideas normally associated with traditional French gardens. The sculpted and immaculately kept lawns, hedges and topiaries represent a traditional French garden but the floral, vegetable and shrub gardens between the lawn and the Abbey are designed in the style of an English garden, divided into beds with no borders or paths, just well maintained grass. Running the full length of the garden to the left there is a ‘naturalistic’ walkway that is a very wide path that has a massive variety of trees and shrubs, many that flower. As it is elevated above the rest of the garden you get a wonderful view of the entire design as you move along the walkway. There are over 2000 species of plant, 5000 taxa and over 200 varieties of ancient and modern rose.

The Abbaye is the only complete 12th Century cistercian abbey in France. It has had quite a tumultuous history with war and a fire that took out a large section of the building. Today the abbey is home to a group of children who live there permanently as well as a hotel which you wouldn’t know was there by the lack of obvious hospitality finishes and domestic evidence.

We had a thoroughly enjoyable day and I would recommend a visit to anyone nearby. Make sure to visit in the summer months however because the cafe is closed when vegetable production is low and without the flowers in full bloom it would not do it justice.

The inner court of the Abbey.

250 year old espaliered pear tree. The monks used to make liquor with the fruit.

Humans have been producing synthetic Ultramarine for close to two hundred years. It is a process of turning a white brick composing of clay, sodium carbonate and sulphur into the a blue brick of unprocessed pigment then processing this brick into a pure, rich pigment. The final pigment product is used in a phenomenal range of products from cosmetics to plastics, paints, inks and coatings. It gives the blue colour to water bottle lids manufactured all over the world and allows manufacturers to produce the richest, darkest blacks, would you believe that ultramarine is a component of mascara and car interior plastics?.

At the bottom of this post I have embedded a short film I found on YouTube to show you a bit about the process and production of ultramarine at Holliday Pigments.

*UPDATE* I have been asked (very nicely) to remove a number of photos and the link to the short film which I believe were the heart and soul of this post so I apologise for the lack of coherence and a good sense of the Holliday factory. The pictures that depicted the shear beauty of the factory have been removed and unfortunately the effect will have to be left to your imagination. Take an image of any factory situation and then cover every square millimeter in ultramarine pigment dust. Astonishingly beautiful.

Hundreds of changing textures adorn the floor from boots and rubber tyre tread.

A poor photograph but it captured the true richness and depth of the colour perfectly.

The company also manufactures Manganese Violet which is created using a different process to Ultramarine production and I managed to get a couple of photos whilst the technicians were working on its creation. A unique colour indeed!

I have invented a new sport … extreme gardening! So extreme that I broke my leg doing it yesterday! What a silly thing to do. Although, it is not so surprising when you learn that I broke my arm flying a kite. I grew up riding horses, racing motorbikes and waterskiing and only ever got the occasion wind, bump, scrape or mouth full of dirt. It seems utterly ridiculous to have broken my leg, out at midnight chasing away slugs. I managed an impressive two breaks and now sport an 8 cm long screw to show for my midnight murderous antics. Unfortunately this benches me for a few weeks but not to worry. If I can sneak up the guilty garden path without my husband seeing I shall be back to it in no time!

We finally ate our first strawberry of the season, it is the very one in the photograph above. I am growing a pink flower variety this year and they are so very sweet. I’d never seen pink flowered strawberries before and couldn’t leave the nursery without some. I have nine plants in pots, hopefully they will keep us fed for the summer.

I have a very good friend, the best of sorts, who is also an extremely talented ‘chef de cuisine’. Some of my favourite food memories have been made and prepared by his hands and over time he has taught me a lot about cooking and food appreciation.

He works all over the world so I get loads of brilliant, delicious pictures to scour through regularly. Last week, he emailed me this superb platter which he served to guests attending a garden wedding in Spain. He cooked and served solo for this event which is a feat in itself but more importantly in the panic and shear enormity of the task at hand, he faultlessly manages to be creative, have fun and enjoy the experience.

I was hoping the photo would serve as inspiration for this seasons dining! All of the cuttings came from the family’s garden …

Food and photo by Ali Palmieri.