Canned

My husband's getting sick of hearing about yoga so here's my attempt to change the subject - yet I'm sure he will point out that I couldn't even refrain from using the 'y' word in the first sentence. Habits, eh?

So, it's been chilly in Hobart. On Saturday night we had dinner in front of the fire:

The menu was inspired by the south of France - even better, each course actually came from France, admittedly in a jar or a can.

It doesn't look particularly appetising yet, trust me, it was delicious and so incredibly simple to prepare. Entree was Foie Gras with brioche and toasted fig seeds:

Again, a big thank you to Nicole from Espondeilhan for providing us with the goods!
Followed by main course of Cassoulet with Toulouse sausage and confit de canard:

My husband likes to make this yet it consumes almost three days of work by the time you cure the duck legs in salt and then cook it submerged in duck fat, make the Toulouse sausage with the sausage making attachment on the Kitchenaid, and slowly simmer it all together with white beans. Or you can just open the tin and cook it in the oven for half an hour. If you are tempted and you live in Hobart you can buy it at the Wursthaus Kitchen at Salamanca - where else - and Peter will even probably sell it to you speaking French if you ask.

I have been obsessed with reading this tale of a Melbourne family who bought a chateau in Normandy:

So I made the French Flourless Chocolate Cake on page 280 for dessert:

I wish there was a recipe to follow for acquiring your own chateau in France. Sigh.

Needless to say we ate a lot of fruit and vegetables on Sunday to compensate for what we had done to our constitutions with this typically French feast.

Have you been admiring my Laguiole cutlery with the distinctive bee on the handle:

Did you know that the Laguiole bee is not trademark protected and that it can legally be manufactured anywhere in the world? That means that Laguiole cutlery that you buy at Your Habitat or Peter's of Kensington almost certainly doesn't come from the village of Laguiole in the Midi-Pyrenees famous for making knives. Ours does, we subjected the children to a day in the car to get there, ate the local speciality aligot in a restaurant in the town, bought the cutlery and Felix, who gets car sick, had the obligatory vomit down the windy mountain road to prove it.

On Monday night the whole family went to the boy's school art exhibition:

Our children over the years have been dragged around to so many exhibition openings of other artists work - yet on Monday it was their turn as they both had work included in the show. This was Felix's piece:

And Toby worked on this.....along with his whole kindergarten class:

On Tuesday there was no more posing around at art exhibitions, there was cross country to be run:

It was a long way.

R

Challenge.

So in the end all it took was a pep talk by Anna last night while I was rocking my second Bikram Yoga class for the day (to make up for having time off over easter) for everything to be OK. For most of this week I have been a very reluctant starter for class and was beginning to wonder if my peevishness was ever going to evaporate. After all, the 30 day challenge hasn't even reached the half way mark yet (it's still three days away not that I'm counting or anything). Anna reminded us that when Bikram says to 'kill yourself' before class he doesn't only mean physically. He's saying kill yourself with a capital 'S' for self. Kill your Self. You have to remember to leave everything at the door including your ego so that your mind and body can work in harmony. And let me tell you, my mind had been giving it to me big time. Yet, last night in the hot room, Anna's words made sense to me and somehow I managed to defeat my pessimistic voice - miraculously my outlook on the 30 day challenge and on life during the school holidays seems much better.

It also helped that today I initiated events which saw me have an hour and a half all to myself. Oh the decadence. It was exhilarating, and not only because I squandered the time in a cafe drinking strong gunshot green tea which gave me a serious buzz since I have been abstaining from caffeine.

It hasn't all been yoga and school holiday torture, I have been having a bit of fun. We spent easter here:

 There was no tv let alone wi-fi. Our children got back to basics including park equipment challenges:

playing under the sprinkler:

long walks in the countryside:

and by night, serious scrabble competitions:

 Oh, and the easter bunny came:

Luckily he has a predilection for Lindt.

We got back to town in time to celebrate our thirteenth wedding anniversary. Here we were on our wedding day, way back then:

We celebrated by getting a babysitter and went out to dinner a deux at Ethos:

I can't believe we have never been there before. The food was delicious in an unpretentious tapas style way:

My dessert had two of my favourite ingredients in it - rhubarb AND quince, although you can't really tell from this photo. It could be almost anything really:

And seeing that I'm on the subject of food, it was a red letter day today when I opened the post to discover a jar of foie gras sent all the way from the south of France by our fabulously considerate friend Nicole:

Thank-you, thank-you, thank-you. It's more than just foie gras though, its with armagnac and has toasted fig seeds to sprinkle on top. Can you imagine how delicious it is going to be? But wait, there was more as Nicole also thoughtfully included nougat, chocolate olives and samples from her children's afternoon tea supply:

Australian quarantine had obviously had a lovely time opening it to check that there was no risk. Happily they didn't confiscate anything. So Toby got to eat his individually packaged crepe which he was deliriously excited to discover came ready rolled with Nutella inside:

I wish we could buy those in a packet at the shops here.

R