This spell of warm weather is a delight and last night we enjoyed a BBQ in the garden with friends and family. Everyone brought something to the table – flowers, bread, nibbles, salads and puds as well as plenty of wine. So lovely to be able to sit outside until the early hours of the morning and enjoy the balmy summer evenings.
I’ve been playing around with vegan recipes a bit over the past few weeks and this recipe (in a slightly different form), was given to me by English friends Nettie and David. I’ve fiddled around with it a bit and made a few changes including the addition of cumin. It makes a lovely lunch served with baby new potatoes and some slow roasted tomatoes.
Following the outcry from independent shop owners around France, Jean Castex announced new measures last last night.
The Coteaux du Layon is perhaps most famous for its wonderful sweet wines but producers in Anjou have a wide palate to play with so tend to make many other styles of wine too including sparkling, dry white, rosé and red. The landscape is quite different to elsewhere in the Loire valley and is well worth a visit on foot, by car or cycling through the vineyards.
Carbon bisulphide (an alternative form of carbon disulphide) was already recognised as an effective insecticide when phylloxera first hit France. A difficult treatment, it vapourised at room temperature so required ‘injecting’ deep into the ground.
Vines are hardy plants that will grow in the most unlikely of places. Does that mean that we can make wine anywhere in the world?
Walk into any cellar in the Loire valley during harvest time and the chances are you’ll see wooden barrels with lots of chalk scribbles on the side.
