My First Puffball

For so many years, I've been dying to try a puffball - their solid mushroom flesh looked so satisfying, and it would be so gratifying to find one and then have mounds of the flesh to gorge on, free of gills and stalks.

Well I didn't exactly find my first, because it was growing in some friends' garden. There were loads of them, slow-mo popping out of the ground, like bubbles appearing in boiling water. I chose a medium-sized one (about 15cm across) and carefully pulled it off the ground. It had such a small area joined to the earth compared to the size of the mushroom.

That was last night. At lunchtime today, I peeled half of it (slugs had been munching the outside) and sliced it. It was lighter and softer than expected. I then obviously had to try my first puffball fried in butter with garlic and parsley. It was soooo damn good! Soft and silky - not slimy - with the distinct mushroom flavour.

The other half will go in an omelette for my supper.

My puffball experience has added to the loveliness of my autumny day - the first really cold day after a run of hot weather, so I lit the fire before going out into the sunny, crisp, dewy, morning to the village market. When I got back, the house had warmed up and I sat working by the fire until my mushroom lunch...

Tunisia-Inspired Meal

I made moutabel, humous and flatbreads for some friends, followed by ojja. I was really pleased with the result, and my guests naturellement loved it all. The moutabel made good use of my bumper crop of aubergines, too.

The ojja was made with garlic, olive oil, green peppers, cumin, aniseed (didn't have caraway), green olives, merguez sausages and garden tomatoes, with eggs broken in near the end.


Humous with olive oil, smoked paprika and basil flowers


Moutabel with pomegranate molasses, walnuts and parsley


Anyone know where I can get whole blanched almonds in the Dordogne? I want to make the cous-cous we had in Tunisia, but in this part of France almonds only seem to be available either with their skin or flaked.

Snail Feast

June spent in France was wonderful; catching up with old friends, enjoying the novelty of the amazing produce, re-acquainting myself with my kitchen and garden, and proper hot summer weather.

When I first arrived, my herbs were being munched by a plague of snails. So I decided to resolve the problem by munching them. Previously, I had been put off by unsuccessful snail-cooking attempts, and there were never that many of them to cook. This time there were dozens and dozens, and I was determined to make them delicious. I had three weeks to purge them (fed only on bread followed by days of nothing at all), before serving them up to friends as a goodbye meal at the end of my stay.

Three weeks of culinary adventures and good times went by. The day of the feast arrived hot and sunny, and I drove my blue banger to the village to get some still-warm baguettes, wine, salad, a massive bunch of parsley and butter. Then, back to my little beauties...

I boiled a huge jam pan of water, rinsed off the snails, shook them to make them retreat into their shells, and winced as I chucked the lot into the boiling water. Job done, the worst bit over. After a few minutes, the snails were draining and cooling and definitely dead. I extracted each one from its shell and removed its twirly gut end, before boiling the meats with herbs and stock veg for 3 hours. The shells were rinsed, boiled in fresh water, and left in the sun to dry.

Meanwhile, I chopped the mountains of garlic and parsley, stirred them into soft butter, and seasoned the mixture with plenty of salt.

Then came a few hours of stuffing each snail back into a shell, each squadged in with a load of the persilade (garlic and parsley butter).

Preparing snails

Next, I dressed the table, mixed the salad, opened the wine, and set out nibbles. Once my guests had arrived, and were having aperitifs, I put the snails in a hot oven for 20 minutes. Out they came, sizzling and smelling fantastic. I dished them up at the table and finally found out that my snail adventure had been a success - they were absolutely delicious, and this was confirmed by my guests, who were Dutch, English and French. The Frenchman commented that he hadn't had snails in ages, and it was funny that this time they had been cooked by an English person. The Dutchman had never eaten snails, and was delighted by them. The Englishman had tasted my previous attempts and was relieved that these were not only edible but extremely palatable and moreish. Hmmm even more salt with the butter next time, though, I think.

Tasty snails

I was thrilled that I had been able to make these slimy creatures tasty at last, and that I had put my snail glut to such extremely good use. All the effort and man hours had been worthwhile. I will definitely be making this a regular pest-control exercise/snail party.