Friday, 22 November 2013

Is it winter yet where you are?

Our life in France

The weather has really started to change now, we have had a couple of frosts but then it is late November so I guess we should expect it now, still the grass continues to grow, much to John's disgust. and I actually picked some lovely lettuce from the garden yesterday.
We are certainly feeling the benefit of all the insulation John has put in and we really are quite snug, mind you the winter hasn't done it's worst yet.
The colder weather always get's the comfort food going in the kitchen, just put a nice hot and spicy beef curry into the slow cooker and made some cakes, I had made the mixture only to find I didn't have any sultanas so I have improvised with some dried cranberries and powdered almond so a bit like a bakewell flavour which is one of our favourites, It also got me thinking about the various things we can't seem to buy here, I can get sultanas but not currents, Naan bread is nowhere to be found but did find some in Noz which is a shop that buy's up liquidation stock, these will be a one off and probably will never be seen again, I have to say they were the most authentic we had ever tasted, I know some of you will say but of course you can get these things and I am sure you can in the big cities but we are rural...we do have an Asian shop fairly near by and if we wanted to we could ask the nice man and he will get us anything in the spice department but we have to wait until he goes to Paris....are you getting the impression we like spicy food!
Other things I miss is real bacon but our good friends from England bring a nice big pack when they come over, oh and yes the tea bags (we can get them here but they are very expensive) sadly you can't dunk French biscuits, no matter how quick you are they fall back in - never mind the wine makes up for it....
I would love to hear from other expats as to what you miss in the food department please.