Earlier in the year when we were busy planting out our vegetables in the new enlarged potager we decided to have a go at growing strawberries. Visions of pounds of luscious fruit to offer our visitors to the tearoom, rows of pots of home-made jam and tasty additions to our morning smoothies, sent us scurrying…
Category: FOOD PHOTOGRAPHY
Monochromatic – Rhapsody in Blue
I’ve been wanting to finish my marathon fruit photography series with the wonderful damsons we’ve just picked from the orchard. The colour of the bloom on the fruit is so blue and beautiful I’ve been wondering how best to capture it and had finally decided my plain blue crockery would be the perfect compliment. I…
Growing Tomatoes and Connecting with Nature
I’ve thought a lot about the state of the world lately as we’ve been picking the fruit in the orchard and harvesting vegetables and herbs from the potager and the herb garden. It seems to me a sad thing, that for all the miracles of modern science and technology, so many of the supposed advances we…
Blackberry Tuesday and the Colour Purple
Anyone looking at my recent blogposts would imagine I had a serious obsession with medieval churches and fruit. I’m going to add to this impression with my post for tonight and I make no excuses, it’s a busy time for fruit on the Hillside. Most of the apple trees in the orchard are ready for…
Dark Fruit #3 – Lemon & Lime
I thought I’d complete my triptych of dark fruit posts today although I originally had a number of other ideas in mind. I still haven’t organised my theatre photos and the brocante series promised from a few weeks ago has yet to be presented – I claim the distractions of summertime as mitigation. It also…
Alliums, Garlic and a Potager
It’s been a good year so far on the Hillside for our potager. The plot near the orchard which we had ploughed up by the local farmer last year looked intimidatingly large at first, more suitable for feeding a couple of rugby teams than our tiny household, but as Mr H has worked his green-fingered…
Dark Fruit #2 – Apricots
I had intended today to begin posting some photos of our summer theatre spectacular – first performance on Friday night – but as I’m still sorting through photos of the rehearsals and preparations and tomorrow is the dress rehearsal, I thought I’d wait a little longer to be able to include some of the costumes. Instead…
Darkest Fruit
Before moving to France 13 years ago I had always dreamed of having an orchard and indulging in a variety of homely pursuits like baking apple pies from my own apples and creating jams and conserves from my prizewinning strawberries and raspberries. We now have the good fortune to have just such an orchard and…
Exotic Fruits – The Cape Gooseberry -Physalis
I was browsing the exotic fruit aisle again in the supermarket this week and these wonderful Cape Gooseberries, or Physalis Peruviana to give them their proper name, took my fancy. I must confess that I still haven’t actually eaten a single one of them, so intent have I been on capturing their astonishing forms and…
Rustic Beauty – The Humble Turnip
After the lovely promising spring weather of a fortnight ago we’re suddenly plunged back into the damp and chill winds of November here on the Hillside. Our sunny moods have departed with the warmer temperatures and so my plans for more spring inspired images for this post have been moved aside to make way for an…
Artichokes and Vegetarians
I have a very dear friend whom I have known since university days, who is a pretty strict vegetarian. No leather handbags or shoes or buffalo hide jackets for this girlie, oh no, even her cats have been raised as vegetarians, at least whilst in her presence . (You know how canny cats can be…
Indian Spice and all things nice
It has been noted before on this blog – please see any of the numerous posts involving food! – that we are lucky enough to have our very own Masterchef here on the Hillside. I wish that I could claim that title for myself but I confess to being much more at home pointing my…
The Colour Purple & Red Onions
This week I was instructed by my very own Masterchef Mr H, to purchase some red onions on my weekly supermarket trip. Yes there are indeed penalties to pay for having one’s own gourmet chef – the eternal washing up, frequent cleaning of kitchen and dreaded supermarket run to name but three. I was however…
French Essence # 3 – Macaroons à la Française
I have always thought of macaroons (macarons) as a particularly French delicacy, a delightfully diminutive round cake, crunchy on the outside and soft in the middle made from ground almonds, sugar and egg whites. Endless varieties of flavouring and delicate pastel colours can be found in tempting tower displays in the finest French patisseries. …
French Essence #2 – Wine
A few years ago we worked for a while with a French estate agent helping to select properties we thought might appeal to potential English buyers. Given most people’s romantic notion of the perfect French dreamhouse, it was not difficult to dismiss the ranks of ugly concrete shoe boxes and Spanish style haciendas which sadly…
Sweets to the Sweet – BonBons and Marshmallows
For anyone with a sweet tooth France is probably the closest you can get to confection heaven. Bonbons, dragées, macaroons, sweet cakes, patisseries, brioche, chocolate truffles, nougat, meringues – the list of sugary delights is long and enticing. I have personally always had rather more of a weakness for savoury rather than sugary but…
French Essence #1 – Garlic
If asked to sum up the essence of French culture the average Francophile would probably come up with an impressive list, amongst which would undoubtably feature haute couture, Hermès, Coco Chanel, Dior, an array of philosophers, playwrights Voltaire, Molière, great novelists Victor Hugo, cinema, Brigitte Bardot, Gerard Dépardieu, Bordeaux wines, cognac, champagne, Paris, Versailles, Marie…
Seriously Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Russian Roulette
Although France is in many ways a culinary paradise there is one thing that the French tastebud does not seem to appreciate and that is the English version of hot and spicy. Rich and wine-flavoured, delicate, perfumed and oriental, mock Mexican and fruity Moroccan are savoured with the utmost appreciation but trying to introduce our…
Apples, hornets and apple pie……….
The strange weather conditions of this year have left the orchard looking bedraggled and bewildered. The spring cherries were waterlogged and the Maytime plums annihilated by hailstorms, now the apples, usually so abundant and wholesome, are rain-damaged and fast being eaten by wasps and hornets. There is , as always a silver lining for someone….
Figs , Fig Leaves and the Garden of Eden
There is an ancient town in the heart of Tuscany in Italy, famous for it’s alabaster, a beautiful translucent stone used for centuries to create windows, before knowledge of glassmaking arrived in the west from the Orient. We stayed just outside Volterra a few years ago and one of our favourite daily pastimes was a coffee and…
The Pomegranate, the Seasons and a few Greek Gods and Goddesses
Wandering around the aisles of the supermarket the other day, I came across the section devoted to ‘exotic fruits’. All kinds of alien forms and textures populate this particular aisle – spiky, fleshy, hairy, succulent – all originating from countries I couldn’t hope to place on a map and all ultimately fascinating and mysterious. Not…
Homely Things #2 – A Cup of Coffee
IMAGES OF THINGS THAT SPEAK OF HOME………. Black, white, fat, skinny, frothy, latte, Turkish, French, Italian, Patagonian, Arabica, Robusta, long, short,double, single, married, divorced – whatever your style of coffee, whether you drink it to stay awake, to round off a great meal or to revive your flagging spirits, that powerful aroma brings with it…
Homely things #1 – Baking and Eggs
Images of Things that speak of Home………. As someone who is not overly gifted in the art of cooking – let’s be honest, a slice of bread in a toaster runs the risk of total annihilation at my hands – I take a surprising pleasure in the process of baking. I still have my occasional…
Recipe : Asparagus, prosciutto and baked goat cheese………
A simple supper of delicious ingredients, perfect for two. Ingredients : A bunch of asparagus, washed, trimmed and peeled. 10 slices of Italian Prosciutto ham or similar. Clove of garlic sliced into matchsticks. A sprig of thyme. 160 grams of Saint Marcellin soft goat cheese or similar. Crusty bread to accompany. Blanch…
“Life is just a bowl of Cherries”
There is a garden in her face Where roses and white lilies grow; A heav’nly paradise is that place Wherein all pleasant fruits do flow. There cherries grow which none may buy, Till ‘Cherry ripe’ themselves do cry. Thomas Campion (1567 – 1620) …
Strawberries and cream………..
“Strawberries are the angels of the earth, innocent and sweet with green leafy wings reaching heavenward.” ~Terri Guillemet Strawberries and cream All photos © Jane Morley
View from a French Hillside 