Aux Petits Oignons - Speisekarte

"I'd hoped to be there at at the latest on the Sunday this year. I'd spoken to friends from school on the Saturday and blithely set off to Brive at A quick trip off the moutain, jn of the and later slap bang in anywhere in the centre I want to go. All the traffic was coming off the motorway and heading south on the old through Donzenac Ile de France, Belgians, Dutch, the lot! No manners no nothing and can the local yokels clear the route they have second home to go and they're already hours late. They even think that where I live is some animated recreation as if all local residents are some sort of animatrons to guide the glorious Parisiens to the slate quarries. Next year, I'm going to forget I'm bilingual swear like a trooper in my best imitation of Hyacinth we went to the same school, resurrect my inner St Trinian and get my lacrosse stick out and practice throwing a ball against a wall with menace. Either that or festoon the house with Cymru am Byth posters and something derogatory with a range of Welsh slates and upwards arrow and in French call that a slate? Pfft! I did a U turn before I got stuck, around from jn whipped around the roundabout, St Antoine de Plaintades, power of the internet, did the hill it's easy money for Brive, sorted. Only took me hours to do hours stuff. Sunday planned to go to for Sunday lunch, rang and booked. Said Have had to change my mobile twice due to cable faults etc etc Left at well on a good day I can do the journey in an hour, knowing all the back ways via Perigueux, the old Trelissac, etc etc By the time I got from Brive to near the Manoir, I'd been on the road over hours, there were lots of heaving hail, rain, blinding sun, no snow, but just about everything else. Twice. As I neared the Manoir, there was a Dutch nova with a roof box doing at least I was driving with a neck collar I have arthritis in my neck, broken spines etc etc and the next one will kill me quickly if I'm lucky. I had all lights on including front and rear fogs due to the weather, to be safe to see and be seen. I drive in the lorry lane if there's space to let the idiots arrive early in the next world hoping they don't take me with them. I overtook a little black Dutch Nova or something even smaller with a huge roofbox. It was terrifying and I may have gone a little faster to get myself out of danger. No such luck, near the Manoir, you couldn't see the surface without daring to brake I have no intention of learning to aquaplane I put my flashers on. The idiot was doing I pulled in to the right, tried not to close my eyes in horror when he shot past me at about or faster and saw that not only did he have no fog lights on at all, neither front nor rear. He had neither dipped beam nor sidelights. Probably saving the battery or something. However, the model was so new shape I've never seen one even at Brive. I got to Bertric at half in need of something seriously medecinal. They were closing. My face fell. I explained the roads and the fact that I hadn't had breakfast. They know me. I said that I didn't mind what I ate, but that I have a horrid hypothyroid problem that turns into hypothermia when I get too stressed. I'm RQTH for it, too. Lovely. I'd hoped to go to Evensong, too, but that was a non-starter, too. They said that there was nothing left, in the kitchen, zilch! Not even steak? Must have been like the plague of locusts.... They forced me to sit down, had a Picoan panaché, Mme asked me if a smoked duck and gesiers salade would be OK, apologised for it being home made. So I had a huge duck, walnut and everything salad that would have filled an oval party tray, ready to fight with a steak knife if necessary it was so lovely. This was followed by a steak, so tender, that I even ate it nearly saignant my damp toes were wriggling in pleasure like a month old. Then they gave me cheese, and topped it off with the last dessert Tiramisu. The offer was strawberry, the decided to a proper one with a vengeance, ristretto, from their state of the art coffee machine. When I asked if they had a decaff on arriving they were out of stock. I'd never said I drink it because I'm allergic to caffeine, just never said, assumed they'd realised. Not the thing to have in your resto during a crise sanitaire, a woman of a certain age with a caffeine allergy, especially one with a history of polyps awaiting a coloscopie; I couldn't stop laughing. Talk had turned to serious matters before I ate. Food. I begged some paper and a biro and translated a ginger beer recipe on the hoof, saying that the trad lemonade from Aldi would be perfect and they'd know the bottles would take the pressure. Even better the lemonade at a silly price could be used behind the bar and the bottles recycled. I gave them, I hope, my traditional pork pie recipe, in French. Lent him my copy of Faites vos Patisserie comme Gaston Lenôtre to have a browse saying he was welcome to copy, legally anything that took his fancy. Even if it fell apart, it only cost me and have now a reserve one. Told him how you could use the chocolate sauce for sundaes, prepared desserts very easily, and pointed out that even eaten by the spoonful each time he opened fridge for inspiration it's good plain chocolate, milk, full fat crème fraîche and a little butter. You can add a little sugar, but I don't. The tarte pomme amandine is the reason I bought the book in the first place. I've made it a million different ways since in Bandol. But even I, can do it start to finish in less than an hour including getting it out of the oven; It's recipes for a commercial kitchen and made to work; Yes you can make nearly of crème amandine, it freezes and a blast chiller it would keep for several weeks. Frozen it keeps for months. As does the pastry, nearly as much butter as puff. You can roll it out to around if you have to. Just don't try and pick up the tart after; We finished with my telling him how I make truffles tasting like a gin and tonic, saying that I've never made them like a Southern Comfort and lemonade with a cherry, but I think I know how; He probably spent all evening making truffles and making Madame taste them. When the sun came out, I saw a nice little house, and don't know how but he's even heard how I know the President of the Fete Committee and his friends. All I can say is the gentlemen concerned is a real gentleman of the road in his artic, and his friends were very kind to me when I was in desperate search of food on the way home from the Aga dealers near Futurescope needing to get a quote for the demontage of the beast before the former marital home was no longer in our ownership. The lady owner of the truck stop thought I was going to give her a bad name and the kitchen closed mins early. And let me have a decaff with rather bad grace. The first one apologised and said why, we chatted as I drank my coffee, as as I have some bits of paper from each side of the channel, he asked me if I could help with something that was bothering him. He asked me why you had to have children by ivf if you've had prostate cancer....I studied the same physiologie course at Manchester even though I was a medical biochem student from Umist. I learned some fascinating facts about bungee jumping while a consultant at a bank that issues loyalty credit cards for various organisations. Anyway my fame had travelled, I'm known. Everywhere it would seem, I think I'll start wearing a burka; I hope Mme found something nice at both Lidl and Aldi to suit her tastes, and look forward to going back after either the next, or the next operations I'm having in the next weeks. It's always a pleasure to see them, they are a lovely couple and how they manage to keep the price the same without skimping on quality with Employers national insurance to pay on all staff, when it's only in the UK, I just don't know. The only alternative for the small business is to work over hours a week and prepare more and more of everything themselves. And they do it because despite covid, despite NI on staff wages being years ago, in and they want to keep the doors open, keep feeding people as they do it so well, and with such good heartedness and love in the food, I admire them wholeheartedly. I just couldn't do it week after week and year after year the way they've done. Chapeau!! A très bientôt."