Fred's newsletter 2.3.21

The secret to the best crème anglaise? Very, very good vanilla.

Good morning all,

Today is a big day for someone. By the time you get this newsletter, it will almost be time for our competition winner to be picked. We’ll make an announcement later today on our website.

Another week has gone by, it was a busy one but we did well and a thank you to the team. Delivering last Friday was hard and took what seemed forever. I have the feeling that lots of people were out and about, so the traffic was hellish. I think we managed our last delivery after 6.15pm, so my apologises if we got to you later than planned. It’s very hard to gauge what the traffic will be like.

Thank you all for the kind words regarding last week’s newsletter. It took some deep thinking to write. I could probably write a book about these experiences as there are many stories. For those who asked how I had managed to get fired from Le Nemrod, here goes…

It came to my mind a few times to run away. Especially during the week Thierry (the second apprentice) was at college when I had to endure the whole week on my own with the bully family. That was a very long week; a week with no-one to speak to during the afternoon break, or in the evening before bed. No-one to play with or chat to.

After three days alone, being ordered about and enduring some heavy bollockings from Turmeau, I had an idea that (I thought) was guaranteed to allow me to go home. In the kitchen there were three steps leading down to the cellar where I could ‘accidentally’ break my specs. What a genius idea, fabulously genius, here I go… I put my glasses on one of the steps and stepped on them, then a second time just to make sure no-one could fix them.

Turmeau was out, probably with a farmer, but the boss’s wife was behind the bar serving drinks. I went to see her with my glasses in my hands and explained that they were broken; that they had fallen on the floor while I carried the drum of peeled potatoes to the cold room. “Well what do you want me to do?” she said, “have you not got spares?” I replied no. “Call your mother then” she said. So I called her and told her to come and pick me up. Then I went upstairs to my room and waited to go home.

I packed up my things and lay on the bed. I cannot see without glasses and feel dizzy. I waited until I heard the brown Granada arrive. “Hurray” I thought, “I am going home”. I could already see myself playing with my friends the following day (once glasses replaced).

I didn’t even see my mum. The car drove off and I was left behind with some second-hand plastic spectacles that had to do until new ones were ordered at the specs shop. What a dreadful and disappointing experience.

This was the beginning of the end. I decided to do whatever it took to escape, so as not to suffer another year there. I began to have a heavy hand on the salt, a lazy hand on the peeling and I started to lose my memory when given instructions. It worked. By the end of the year (June, just before the holidays) I was given a hand-shake and a “best of luck to you” by the Turmeaus. Yeeha! I had won my liberty. But as I mentioned last week, it didn’t go down too well at home and I stayed in my room for the best part of a month before I was allowed out again. So there you are. Now you know!

Moving on to this week’s menu. I’m making veal and chicken white pudding with crème fraîche and morel mushrooms, as well as more fabulous fish and shellfish soup. Again we have artichokes as we’ve just entered the season, and the snails will be served with chorizo. I’m also making a pâté en croute with kid goat from Lunan Bay.

On main courses, we took a delivery of some beautiful Shetland native beef (kye) from Ronnie and Jakob and at Uradale Farm for our boeuf Bourguignon ‘of the week’. It’s fantastic organic beef and very tasty. Ronnie was one of the first in Scotland to champion Slow Food (joining in the early 2000s), taking a very different view on breeding beef. What a job he has done and now his son Jakob has taken over to follow in his footsteps. I think he is doing a fabulous job.

Ronnie was joined by Wendy Barrie on the first ‘Scottish’ expedition to Terra Madre in those early days. Wendy founded the Scottish Food Guide and there’s not much she doesn’t know about food in Scotland. Both Ronnie and Wendy have written a few words for us below. I’m grateful to them for sharing their experiences.

Joining the mains will be a roulade of organic chicken from Sascha and Hugh at Grierson Organic in Perthshire. The chickens will be completely boned out, then rolled with a chicken, crab and crevette filling - those three will complement each other quite well, I’m sure.

Then we have a very traditional dish from the Lyon area to the Dordogne: the caillette. You will have seen them on my menu often, I love them. It is the epitome of nose-to-tail cooking, using all of the meat. Over the years I’ve made caillettes using all types of animals: hare, rabbit, duck, mutton but this time I’m using veal and pork, including livers from both and some pork meat from the collar. Also in there will be fair amount of chard and spinach, all rolled up in pig’s caul before being braised and served with a wild garlic and tomato coulis.

The final main dish is a pork neck fillet blanquette with king oyster mushrooms. We have served it three or four times and it was loved by you all. To accompany all of this, the side dishes this week are celeriac and sweet potato raclette, fresh vegetables and a Comté cheese gratin.

For desserts, we see the return of the tarte fine aux pommes. It’s made with a buttered puff pastry and two types of apple, served with crème anglaise of course. The gluten-free chocolate nemesis is back, as well as mousse au chocolat, and of course our thick and rich duck egg crème caramel. Then there’s a pear and rhubarb crumble that I know will please a lot of you. And don’t forget the boxes of chocolates, or the orangettes, for a little post-meal treat or the while watching a movie ☺️

To answer a question we’re asked a lot: why does the crème anglaise taste so good? I just want to explain that good ingredients make good food; but to cut it short, it’s because we use real vanilla pods and we pay a premium for them. This guarantees a great result. We do not use vanilla powder, vanilla sweetener or any other substitute. In the same way we only use proper butter in our cooking and for our pastry.

Next week it’s Mother’s Day, and we’re aiming to publish the menu on our website this Thursday morning, and also to take orders that day. Make a note to check our website and place your order that day, as there’s a chance we’ll sell out before the normal ordering days of Tuesday/Wednesday.

For the boring news: we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves and assume things will change soon, therefore we won’t open our booking system until there’s more certainty.

Thanks to all of you that order every week, to those that order from time-to-time and to everyone who sends messages. All of us, the whole team, really do appreciate it.

A bientôt,

Fred