Sunday, June 1, 2008
Chateau Lassalle
Sometimes in the early morning the sun streams through the bedroom window of the gite directly on to me in bed so that I throw off the covers and just bask there for a while like the sun-loving little green lizards that are everywhere in France. The birds are singing in the trees out in the pastures and gathering bits of wool from the fence to line their nests, and if it’s sunny the sheep are up early too, baa-ing for who knows what reasons.
The other morning I was awakened by insistent and persistent baa-ing; it went on for such a long while that I finally decided someone was in distress. I went out in my pajamas into the dewy grass between our terrace and the sheep’s new pasture, expecting to see someone tangled in some wire, to discover a big lamb had climbed onto the concrete cover of what I’m guessing is a septic tank and he was stuck there, about 2 feet above the ground, too scared to jump and ignored by all the other sheep who were probably thinking, just jump! I made a purposeful move towards him without knowing what I was going to do and the lamb, more scared of me than the distance between him and the ground, suddenly leaped, landing without any harm. I went back inside to bed and enjoyed the calmer baa-ing that followed.
The sun shone in this morning and I luxuriated in it, knowing that the vernissage went off fairly successfully last night although the crowds were not quite as large as hoped. But the weather really has been quite unseasonably cool and rainy and people are not getting into the festive summer going out kind of mood that they normally would be in by now. Apparently there is even some flooding that affected Nanette’s home, the friend who came to cook the curry on Friday and who did so much in the kitchen last night for the vernissage. Her husband Geoff, on his way home at 2 a.m., drove down into a dip in the road that turned out to be as deep as the windows of the car, which is now ruined.
Steve and a journalist at the vernissage
I spent the whole day cleaning out refrigerators and preparing the temporary “kitchen” workspace out in the big shed where the exhibit and party was held. Steve created a counter by strapping a large tabletop onto an antique single metal bedstead (the head and foot “boards” were level with each other), and I scrubbed down one of Steve’s wooden workbenches as a place to dish up the food. We filled up the sparkling clean fridges with tabbouleh, drinks of all kinds, Thai chicken curry, and sausages and smoked duck and pate and then I swept and swept until the concrete floors in the work area and around the “bar” were presentable, while another friend of Karina’s arranged flowers in old steel florists’ buckets for the tables and the children made themselves useful for a short time by following my directions to unstack all the chairs and put them at the tables.
Karina at the vernissage
I spent all Friday afternoon baking brownies for the vernissage in the new oven in the chateau kitchen which was tricky because the heat only comes from the bottom and I was having a hard time regulating the temperature, which caused more than one batch to be burnt on the bottom before the top was even done. But I eventually got them done and they were delicious, made with rich French butter, dark cocoa powder, and type 45 flour which is meant for gateaux, or cakes. Considering how much work the brownies were and how essential they were for the meal I was quite surprised that the person given the job of bringing out the double-stacked and foil-wrapped trays from the chateau to the party kitchen was 4 year old Ella. She squeezed them a little but didn’t drop them, so kudos to her.
Ready for the vernissage
I’ll see if I can remember the recipe, it’ll be in weights since that’s how the French and English measure for baking instead of using volume.
Carol's Chateau Lassalle Brownies
115 grams butter (1/2 cup I think)
7 g sugar (2/3 cup I think)
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1 g dark unsweetened cocoa (1/3 cup I think)
2 g all-purpose or pastry flour (1/2 cup I think)
¼ tsp. salt
¼ tsp. baking powder
Melt butter. In mixing bowl, mix sugar and eggs, add melted butter and vanilla and mix well. Combine dry ingredients in separate bowl and mix well, add to butter mixture and whisk gently until just combined. Spread in a buttered 8 x 8 baking dish and bake at 350 degrees F (175 C) until just barely done, probably 25 minutes. Don’t disturb the pan while baking. The top will look shiny and not quite done but will spring back if you touch it very gently and won’t sink when you take it out of the oven. Let cool in the pan, or let cool for just a few minutes before slicing into squares and removing gently from the pan while still warm, with a flexible spatula.
