Flowers, Fries and Ferrets - A French Flea Market

It's the 1st of May, a national holiday here in France - a day where people exchange brins de muguet (bunches of lily of the valley) as a porte-bonheur or good luck charm. The sides of the roads in town are filled with people selling bunches of these delicate white flowers. Many of these people venture into local woodland to pluck the flowers themselves and are given free reign to install themselves and offer them for sale on this one day.

It's also La Fête du Travail (Labor Day), and many people will have had the day off and enjoyed an extra long lie-in this morning.

The 1st of May also marks the start of the season for brocantes - flea markets (or car boot sales) where people try to sell anything that may be cluttering up their homes. It's great fun, there's lots of haggling to be done and often a bargain or two to be found.

For people taking part, the fact that it's Labor Day and a day of rest doesn't prevent them from setting up their stalls from as early as 6:00 in the morning. We weren't taking part this year, so seeing that the forecast for heavy rain was in reality warm sunshine (maybe the weather man was having a lie-in too) we turned up around mid-day. The smell of BBQ and fries already filled the air...

The brocante was taking place in the grounds of a medieval donjon (a small castle) which resembles something out of a Disney fairytale.

The setting for the Brocante

Sometimes the presentation can be pretty minimalist...

A typical stall - going for the "spread it all out on the ground" look

This fearsome creature is quite possibly the worst thing we've ever seen on sale at a brocante - but one man's junk is another man's treasure!

Is that why it's called a FLEA market?

Need a bucketful of dolls...? Sorted!

At just 5 euros a head, the doll orgy was in full swing...

You could even get started on learning how to play pétanque or French bowls...

Balls? No, bowls - for pétanque

A couple of erm..."interesting" paintings to bring some cheer to your living rooms...

Awww, don't cry...


We reckon the seller will be taking this one back home with him...

"L'Américain" - we've no idea why it's known as "An American Sandwich", but this half baguette filled with two enormous sausages and Lord knows how many handfuls of fries was Miniman's lunch. The second half was a struggle! And yes the lady at the food stall really did use her hands to add the fries...

Lunch!

Another view of the brocante seen looking out from the woods across towards the village church.

The brocante and village church

So back to the symbol of the day - Lily of the Valley. We did of course buy a pretty bunch which we'd like to share with you, wishing you all the very best, wherever you may be.

Hopefully you'll feel a tiny bit closer to France on this beautiful spring day...

Pour Vous - Un Brin de muguet - some Lily of the Valley

Out of The Mouths of Children...

We've been catching up with some commissions this week (if you're still waiting, we'll get to you very soon...) and were preparing the photos when one of our neighbour's kids, who regularly stops by, noticed the full sized image below on the computer screen.

She stopped dead in her tracks.

"You can't tell from the photo that they are so very tiny!" she said and ran off into the office. A few seconds later she was back waving a pen in the air.

In the past we've popped coins, thumbs, matches and other bits and bobs in our miniature photos to give some idea of scale, and I guess we now take for granted that everyone realises how small these things really are.

But not Martine. Thanks to her, you can see how these tiny cupcakes measure up when compared to an everyday biro.

Flowers and Flavours - A French Country Show

Having recently seen some colourful posters popping up around town and having been tempted by the promise of "Fleurs & Saveurs" (Flowers and Flavours - although we went along more for the "Saveurs" than the "Fleurs"!), we decided to make a special effort getting up early(ish) on a Sunday morning to bring you a glimpse of a provincial French Horticultural show.

Unfortunately the warm spring sunshine we'd been enjoying for the last few days seemed to be enjoying the lie-in that we'd missed out on...

A few metres inside the gates and already our eyes were wide open and our mouths were watering! Homemade saucisson and pâté in a wonderful assortment of flavours - anyone for Cognac pheasant, bison or Auvergne blue cheese...? All available to try although so shortly after breakfast, a strong stomach is recommended!

Selection of saucisson and pâtés

The next stall to catch our eye was "Les Jardins de Marie" selling a lovely selection of award-winning jams and conserves. We had tried some of her produce before, so this time we were hoping she would be present so we could bring some back home with us...bingo! She uses some wonderfully inventive combinations of ingredients in her jams and you can see the full list at her site which is in French, but it'll give you the perfect chance to swot up on your French food vocabulary!

Homemade jams - flavours included straw (!), vanilla courgette and lily-of-the-valley

After sampling half a dozen exotic jams, it was time to choose. The biggest surprise was a Champagne jam...sublime! There is even the sensation of tiny bubbles exploding on your tongue...

We also chose Apple Cider and Haricot de Soissons (Soissons white bean - a local speciality). The latter is destined for some upcoming macaroons...

Not only are the jams delicious, they are beautifully presented too.

We came back with cider, white bean and the extraordinary champagne jam

And just in case anyone is doubting that we're in France, there was even a jolly fellow selling snail-based produce! The guy was so passionate about his snails - we'll spare you the detailed cross-section drawing of a snail indicating every single piece of a snail's anatomy (email us if you want to see it) and we'll just leave you with this one interesting fact: a snail has 20 000 teeth...

Vive la France!

Oh yes...as it was a horticultural show, it wasn't just food, food, food! There were even some plants and flowers to buy...

It was a horticultural show after all...

We even came back with some strawberry plants for the garden. Hopefully those tiny strawberry "fleurs" will be producing some strawberry "saveurs" before too long...

Some Photos from American Miniaturist

We finally have a copy of American Miniaturist #73 in our hands...the issue in which we have our little feature!

At the time of writing it's been with us for only a few hours, so we're still on a high from seeing our work featured in the magazine...but we thought we'd share with you a few of the photos that have been chosen for the feature. After all, it's a small magazine and despite some large photos being shown, we thought you'd appreciate having access to some of the originals, while giving a taste of what's inside to those who won't have the chance to see this issue.

All of these photos, including the scene above (which is featured on the cover!) can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Enjoy!

Long Macaroon Charlottes

French Restaurant Desserts - Cold Strawberry Soup & Crème Brûlée

Making an Apple Pie

Preparing Stuffed Baked Tomatoes

Homemade Chocolate Macaroons

We've been making miniature macaroons for what seems like years and happily have the option of popping out and simply purchasing from Ladurée if ever we want the real thing. However, we did want to try to make some ourselves...

After being motivated by the reading of dozens of recipes (of which no two were ever the same!) then being put off by dozens of horror stories recounting failed attempts at making macaroons at home, we at last decided on a flavour - chocolate! So far so good...

Armed with a recipe and a mental list of dos and don'ts, we set to work. First "do" - use old egg whites, some say the older the better...3 days, 5 days, a week. At this rate we'd never get started!

Fortunately, we'd recently started making ice cream at home for which egg yolks only are needed, so having kept the whites and with this twist of culinary fate on our side, we were back on track.

We'll not go into the details of how we made them here...there are other blogs and sites if that's what you're after, but with much anguish on the part of Emma and dribbling anticipation on Neil's part, the moment came when we had what looked like real macaroons ready to come out of the oven! And these are some from that batch...

So did the taste live up to the visuals? Well, you'll have to take our word that with their delicately crispy shell, soft moist interior and rich chocolate ganache, we'll be making some more very, very soon.

Unless we find ourselves in front of Ladurée again...