Food in Provence (and elsewhere)

There’s time in the morning for some chores (a batch of washing, checking on the water kefir crystals, shopping…), then I have a quick lunch and it’s off to the pop up kitchen again. There’s nothing to do for the butter bean mash (it’ll just need heating through later), so I’m set to work to cook 46 courgettes: grill them for a few minutes to produce the nice grill marks then cook them in the oven for a while.

There’s nothing much left to do for the main course but the canapé team need some help so I head to the demo kitchen. After chopping some cucumber—it takes longer to decide how it should be chopped than the chopping—I slice some radishes, arrange 100 pieces of seed cracker on trays (I later top many of these with smoked haddock and pickled beetroot) and then prepare some beef fillet for a tartare topping.

After the staff meal (salads, pasta, almond cake & ice cream), there’s still not much to do for the mains so I’m back again with the canapé team—topping those seed crackers and then putting broad beans and my radish slices in filo pastry tartlets with a ricotta filling.

When I return to the main kitchen, there’s someone warming the butter bean mash so after the starters have gone out

it’s time to plate the mains and my role is to add the grilled courgette half…

… to the plated main course.

After dessert…

… it’s time for cleaning up. And after that there’s still time for younger members of the crew to head off to the pub but bed seems a more attractive destination for me!