Le château de Martinvast, en Normandie

I was working on organizing some photos that I took in 2004, a year or more before I started blogging. This is the Château de Martinvast, AKA the Château de Beaurepaire, near Cherbourg on the Cotentin peninsula. It's just 15 miles north of the village of Carteret. CHM and I were there to see old friends and to do some sightseeing.

I don't remember this château clearly. There are so many châteaux in France that it's hard to keep track of them. Martinvast was originally a medieval fortress, but it was badly damaged during the 100 Years' War in the 14th century between England and France. A Renaissance château was built on the site in the late 16th century. That building was modified over the counse of the 18th and early 20th centuries.

Una focaccia

With all the chilly, damp weather, we spend a lot of time indoors these days, and a lot of that time in the kitchen. Yesterday, we made a focaccia bread, which resembles a pizza but has a much thicker, breadier crust. In this case, the bread crust was made with four parts wheat flour and one part white corn meal. Here's what it looked like:

Just above on the left is the dough that Walt made and that we used to make the focaccia bread. It had been punched down and spread out on a baking sheet for a second rising in a warm oven. On the right above is the crust ready for the oven with all its toppings in place, except the olives and cheese

Other toppings were a thick tomato sauce made with shredded, chopped chicken and cubes of pre-cooked sausage meat. Thyme and black pepper went into the dough and dried oregano went on top before the cheese strips and olives were arranged on top and everything was drizzled with olive oil.

Inondations

Yesterday morning I went to the supermarket on the other side of the river from our house. 
That involves driving along the river road to the old bridge in Saint-Aignan and crossing the river.
What I saw along the river road looked sort of like this.

I say I it looked "sort of like this" because this is a photo I took in March of 2006, when there was flooding about like what we're having here these days. Parts of France are underwater, especially from Brittany down the Atlantic Coast to Bordeaux and on to Toulouse. We're not getting the worst of it here, but it rains nearly every day in Saint-Aignan. More rain is predicted for tomorrow. Meanwhile, a tornado touched down this morning up north near the Belgian border.

Clafoutis aux figues

Yesterday morning I was looking through our downstairs freezer where we keep things for long-term storage. I stumbled upon a plastic bag with 16 frozen figues in it. It was time to use them or lose them, so decided to make a fig clafoutis, a sort of crustless custard tart. Above left you see the figs once I thawed them and cut each one in half, and above left are the makings for the custard: milk, eggs, sugar, and flour.

What you do is mix together all the custard ingredients. You butter a baking dish and arrange the figs in a single layer. Then you pour the custard mix over them and put the dish into a hot oven and let it back until the custard sets up and starts to brown. Take it out of the over and sprinkle some slivered almonds and raw sugar over all that. Put it back into the hot oven and let it brown a little more. Serve it at room temperature or cold, spooning it out of the dish. I wouldn't try to unmould it.