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Cooking & Travelling in South-West France Cooking & Travelling in South West France, ISBN 9781920989248 and books by Stephanie Alexander on sale at thebookshelf.co.nz Travel with renowned food writer Stephanie Alexander to the gastronomic heart of France, the legendary south–west, and discover its food, wine, history and culture. Illustrated with magnificent photographs by Simon Griffiths, this book takes you deep into the Dordogne and the Lot (also known by the old regional names of Perigord and Quercy), exploring the food markets and discovering the land of farmhouse cheeses, wild mushrooms, confits, walnuts, prunes, black truffles and foie gras. About the AuthorStephanie Alexander is one of Australias most highly regarded food writers. Stephanie has written eleven books, including Stephanies Menu for Food Lovers, Stephanies Seasons and Stephanie Alexander & Maggie Beers Tuscan Cookbook (co–author). Her signature publication, The Cooks Companion, has established itself as the kitchen bible in nearly 400,000 homes. A second edition of The Cooks Companion was published in 2004.Stephanie Alexanders philosophy is that there is no such thing as special food for children: if food is good, everyone will enjoy it regardless of age. In her latest publication Kitchen Garden Cooking with Kids, published in 2006, tells the story behind the recipes of the Kitchen Garden at Collingwood College, which Stephanie set up in 2001 in the grounds of a large inner–city school. It includes plans, activities and lists that together make up a blueprint that other schools may wish to follow. The program has given hundreds of primary–school children the opportunity to plant, grow, harvest, cook and eat the very best kind of food – freshly grown, organic, unprocessed and delicious. ExtractSarlat–la–Canda is perhaps the best–known town in the Dordogne region. Its medieval heart is treasured and well preserved, and around every curve of the twisting, narrow streets is glimpsed yet another interesting building or a different angle of the impressive cathedral. The guidebook warned us that parking on a Saturday morning would be hell. We managed without too much trouble but would advise other visitors to drive right through the town to the much larger car park on the road to Brive than to use the one designated for "Parking Tourisme". From the larger car park you will be approximately 15 minutes" walk from the market.And what a lovely market it is, in this most beautiful town. The stalls wend their way through various side streets as well as occupying the central Place de la Liberte. When Julie and I visited there was plenty of business going on, all conducted in a calm and courteous manner with no shouting or spruiking. As might be expected, stalls selling foie gras and confit were everywhere. If there were poultry stalls in profusion, so were there peach sellers. Such peaches! Small, with velvety, deep purple–pink skins, their flesh was purple bleeding to white and their flavour sweet and fragrant. These were the very special and rarely seen pches de vigne. Then there were larger ones with creamy–white, fine flesh, or with juicy yellow flesh that was crimson next to the stone. And the apricots – we nearly ended our friendship over these the first time we went to Sarlat. One woman at a stall right at the beginning of the market had baskets of large, ripe, rose–blushed fruit. Julie wanted to buy some but I demurred, fearing they would squash in the basket, and suggested they should be our last purchase. Of course, there were none left when we passed by again. We resolved to pounce next time and compensated with a tub of strawberries, admiring the wares on another stall of red gooseberries, blackcurrants, red and white currants, loganberries and raspberries. There were many stalls like this one, where the produce came from a particular farm. We bought fine walnut oil, and pork sausages for slicing (including one as round and grey as a stone called a galet du Perigord), and olives (wrinkled black and split green), and beans and potatoes, and shallots labeled as cuisses de poulet ("chicken–thigh" shallots), and enormous leafy salads that had been pulled from real garden beds, in contrast to the hydroponically grown, "designer"–sized salad greens that are increasingly saturating our markets at home in Australia. What a relief these French salads were. We also bought a small croustade aux pommes or apple tart. These tarts, variously called croustades, tourtires and pastis, come in various sizes and are popular throughout the south–west. "Pastis" seems to refer more specifically to the pastry itself, which is a work of art and resembles filo. It is stretched by hand and allowed to crumple and fold on the top of the pie into airy veils. The tart we bought was filled with an almond frangipane mixed with a puree of apples and a liberal lacing of eau–de–vie. Our autumn expedition to the market at Sarlat was on a rainy Saturday. Several in the group bought smart berets – others went for the less chic but more practical plastic rain bonnets that were the choice of many of the locals. An unforgettable feature of a French autumn market are the game birds hanging in full plumage – pheasant, partridge, pigeon – and wild rabbits still in their fur. Maggie bought a wild partridge and I bought two large rabbits and we looked forward to tasting them both. Everyone made at least one purchase at the copper cookware stall of Gerard Leclerc from nearby Pinsac. One pan came back to the house with us and was christened with some tiny and sweet moules de bouchot (cultivated mussels) I bought at the fish stall. The queue was very long. The man in front of me ordered 5 kg of the mussels and for one moment I thought I was going to miss out. My order finished the tub for the day. We had to be decisive at another stall also, where I spied several punnets of wild strawberries. I bought two, and one of super–sized raspberries, and paused to note the method used to make a jar of wild strawberry and raspberry jam. I rushed to tell the others of my find and when they crowded around to buy more, maybe 15 minutes later, the fraises des bois were all gone. We did buy several punnets of the small, sweet and highly perfumed local strawberries, and later Maggie made some delightful jam that reminded me of a similar recipe immortalised in my grandmother"s book of recipes and reprinted in The Cook"s Companion. The salads were being sold at an average of three for 10 francs (about A$3). No all–of–a–kind trays of hydroponic salads here, just freshly picked leaves, frilly or crispy or floppy depending on the variety. I chose frilly oakleaf, crispy escarole and a floppy butter lettuce. The tomatoes were bumpy and spotty and, once again, grown by the stall–holder. They tasted magnificent. About the AuthorStephanie Alexander is one of Australia"s most highly regarded food writers. Stephanie has written eleven books, including Stephanie"s Menu for Food Lovers, Stephanie"s Seasons and Stephanie Alexander & Maggie Beer"s Tuscan Cookbook (co–author). Her signature publication, The Cook"s Companion, has established itself as the kitchen bible in nearly 400,000 homes. A second edition of The Cook"s Companion was published in 2004.Stephanie Alexander"s philosophy is that there is no such thing as special food for children: if food is good, everyone will enjoy it regardless of age. In her latest publication Kitchen Garden Cooking with Kids, published in 2006, tells the story behind the recipes of the Kitchen Garden at Collingwood College, which Stephanie set up in 2001 in the grounds of a large inner–city school. It includes plans, activities and lists that together make up a blueprint that other schools may wish to follow. The program has given hundreds of primary–school children the opportunity to plant, grow, harvest, cook and eat the very best kind of food – freshly grown, organic, unprocessed and delicious.
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 "Cooking & Travelling in South-West France")