Lunch at the river with Ted

Now that Ted is here, and due to the rainier weather, we’ve stumbled upon the house’s UK satellite television. Our daily routine starts with a little Everwood at 9am, going into town for a cafe and croissant, maybe visiting a pastry shop or two, and then planning when will we watch the daily episode of ‘Friends’-savouring it, since it plays 6 times a day, but all of the same episode.  Don’t get me wrong, we are still doing lots of biking both in and out of the rain and taking time out to enjoy the countryside.

Fresh strawberry tart from local pastry shop

I guess the highlight of this week was on Wednesday at about noon, when all of a sudden, out of the blue, a very loud, siren starts going off.  Now, growing up in Canada, I’ve never experienced anything quite like this.  At first, I thought maybe it was a fire alarm going off somewhere in the house, setting off a shear panic, running around the house to see if anything was on fire, until we went outside and it could be heard all over.  This set off a whole new set of panic when we finally learn that it was an air raid siren and OMG what is going on! We all look at each other and think, did we miss something while watching TV, are we are being attacked!  I think we even thought, is there a bomb shelter here!   What is going on!  First the volcano erupts, then we think we lost Ted at the TGV station and then Paul’s appendix bursts!  Doomed is all that comes to mind.  After about 15 minutes, and 2 sirens later, we finally learn that the first Wednesday of each month, at noon, they test all air-raid sirens in France.  Interesting.  Glad it was nothing more than that.

Well, we are off to pick up Paul and Anna-Paul made a valiant effort traveling after having his appendix removed suddenly Tuesday morning.  We are looking forward to their arrival, and lots more fun to come!

Sablet vineyards in the back.

Our goal was to eat lunch at a little cafe that we had found 4 years ago in Gigondas, but as things go, our little cafe had changed hands, but it was still delicious-who can go wrong really, the sun is shining, we’re on our bikes and we’re in France.

Lunch in Gigondas

Our journey’s also took us to a little winery in the Chateauneuf-du-Pape region called Chateau des Tours.  UB and Scott came a way with some great picks.

UB and Scott wine tasting

UB and Scott have now left, we were sad to see them go, but Ted has just arrived!  We are glad he is here, let the adventure continue.

Ub's birthday cake.

We’ve also been on the hunt for macarons.  Here in the south they are a bit harder to find.  One of the local pastry shops had a few, quite good, but I think our favourites so far were the ones we found in Avignon.  They were bright and colorful and packed full of flavor.  We even stumbled upon a ‘macaron making kit’ at the local grocery store and picked one up just for fun-we’ll see how they turn out.

Macarons from local pastry shop.

Off to do some more biking, more later.

Since we’ve arrived we’ve been busy.  We started with the market on Tuesday were we picked up some great pastries and cheeses and olives.

Breakfast in Vaison.

Market haul.

And we’ve been doing lots of biking.  At first I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to climb Mt. Ventoux, on account that I was finding the lower mountains a bit harder than I remembered, but it wasn’t until Matt looked at me and said “why are you in the big chain ring?  No wonder you are finding it so hard!”.  Much to my relief, and 2 days later, I am now climbing with much more ease.

Biking with Mt. Ventoux in the background.

Yesterday, we also had a nice surprise.  UB and Scott arrived!  They too were on edge due to the volcano, but they arrived safely, with lots of energy and excitement and are raring to go.  We’ll see what the next few days bring.

We finally arrived safe and sound Monday morning.  It turned out that there were quite a few people who had the same idea.  Many were furiously trying to rent cars to take them back home-mainly Germany and Switzerland.

So we picked up our car, turned on the GPS and started en-route to France.

We arrived about 7pm last night.  Glad we are here.  House is great, the sun is shining and we can’t wait to start biking!

More later, we off to bike.

I’ve noticed over the years, that everyone in our family makes them a bit different.  Some melt their butter, others don’t, some just form balls and bake them whole, while others flatten them with forks and then bake, but each version turns out a bit different.  My grandmother’s were by far the “gold standard”, plump and chewy, light in crumb and color, and were what we all tried to achieve.  One difference with her recipe was that she used shortening instead of butter, not surprising since she grew up in the depression, and this is by far the biggest difference between her version and ours. Here at Sablétine we use good old butter, and lots of it.  Our version is chewy and light, and not too sweet.  Come in and check them out or try baking of a batch at home.

Grandma Sauer’s Molasses Cookies:

3/4 cup butter, melted and cooled

1 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup fancy molasses

1 egg

2 teaspoons baking soda

2 cups all purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 350F.

Melt butter, and let cool to room temperature.  Then mix melted butter, sugar and whip with a paddle attachment until combined, add egg, and whip until light and fluffy.  Slowly add molasses.  In a separate bowl, mix all dry ingredients.  Then slowly add to wet, do not over mix.  Once combined, chill 1hour in fridge.  Scoop into small balls, roll in white sugar, place on baking tray, flatten with fork and bake 7-10 minutes.

Sift together:

2 cups all-purpose flour, 1 teaspoon baking soda, 1/2 teaspoon salt

Cream together:

1 cup butter, 1 cup brown sugar, 1/2 cup white sugar, 2 eggs, 1 teaspoon vanilla

Add your dry ingredients to the wet, and then add 1 cup of cranberries and 1 cup of white chocolate chips, or however many look delicious to you.  If you want to try something different you can also try adding some pecans or macadamia nuts for added crunch and flavour.  Bake these cookies in a 375 oven for about 10 minutes, let them cool, and then enjoy!

Someone asked me this question the other day, and until now I haden’t really given it much thought.  Now, before I start, I have to say that some pastries are a french pastry shop must -croissants, pain au chocolat, tarte au cirton, elcair, opera etc., but others are my own creations.

I think some of my ideas stem from the fact that I really do love to bake, and from that, I love to experiment with different flavor combinations and textures, so thats a start.  But I think, a lot of my ideas come from the fact that I am constantly researching.  I love looking at cookbooks with bright bold pictures, flipping through various food and baking magazines discovering new trends, reading others’ blogs to see what they are cooking up, and checking out a host of foodie websites, so I guess some of my inspiration also comes from here.  But I think most of my ideas come to fruition while I’m exercising.  You see, as some of you may have come to know, I am an avid runner and cyclist, and am a real proponent of “doing your exercises”-as UB would say.  And for me, that is when my creative juices start to flow.  These are the times when my mind runs free.  Maybe it is the fresh air or the simple release of stress that comes along with owning your own business, but this is when most of my ideas come to.  It is one of my favorite times of the day, where my mind just shuts off and is able to open up to new ideas and that is how I create these pastries.

In fact, at Sablétine we make these crescent shaped pastries entirely by hand, so they take as long as a few days to make from the raw ingredients to the finished product, and require a good dose of skill, strength, and patience.

The whole process starts by rolling out butter into thin sheets so that it can be folded into a basic yeast dough.  This rolling of  butter and dough together is done repeatedly (a good workout for the arms) until the two seperate components have become evenly blended.  The dough then needs to sit overnight only to be rolled out all over again the following day, wherein the individual croissants are cut and rolled.

For a regular croissant, the dough is cut into triangles and rolled up, however, for something like our pain au chocolat (chocolate crossiant) the dough is cut into rectangles and folded over a few times with some dark chocolate.  Then these need to sit out and proof overnight AGAIN! and then they are finally ready to be baked and devoured.  As Ted would say “Deeeelicious”!