Sending the sun from Uzès

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The Uzès tour was wonderful and bursting with sunshine, rosé, slightly unusual food like rabbit with anchovies and artichokes, roasted pigeon, roasted goat and salt cured duck, provencal cooking lessons and a big shopping hit at Les Indiennes traditional Camarguaise clothing shop in Nimes. Suddenly everyone came over all flowery gardienne (cowboy) shirts, frilly dresses, block printed linen, espadrilles and paisley scarves. The famous Uzès market opened its arms to us as we trawled through vegetable, wine, cheese and fish stalls having cheeky exchanges with my old friends and filling our baskets with baguettes and fougasses (slashed flatbread).

We rocked from one star restaurants to rustic farm lunches, trudged around the Pont du Gard but not before we hit the Sunday flea market and practically drowned ourselves in water consumption due to the summer heat, so much a part of Provencal life. Everyone in this area has sleek brown skin looking like its been rubbed in olive oil every day. And the spicy, herby wine! Occitania is the largest producer of organic wine in France – think red fruit, parsley, sage, rosemary & thyme –even flavours of lavender and juniper. The visit to St-Quentin-la-Poterie, a nearby village which specialises in pottery shops, was enchanting, especially our pottery painting workshop.

The last night bash with my friend Petra's paella and jazz musician friends Bernard and Christianne was at my place in Uzès, no-one fell down the stairs or out the windows and we all sang our hearts out.

I'll be doing it all again next year, 14 – 20 June 2024 – full details are on the website and bookings are OPEN!

Brouffado

Here's the recipe for one of my favourite southern French dishes – slow cooked beef with anchovies, capers and vinegar. Serves 6.

For the stew

1.5kg paleron (shoulder or topside) cut in 6 thick slices

a large onion, sliced

6 cloves garlic, chopped

3 tbsp capers

a strip of fresh or dried orange zest

2 bayleaves

6 cloves

freshly ground black pepper

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1/2 cup olive oil

1/2 cup red wine vinegar


For the paste

6 anchovies soaked in milk – really good quality ones like Ortiz

clove of garlic

tbsp olive oil

For the garnish

little gerkins

anchovies

chopped flat leaf parsley


For the garnish

little gerkins

anchovies

chopped flat leaf parsley

  1. Preheat the oven to 150 degrees Celsius.

  2. In an ovenproof dish layer the slices of beef, onion, garlic, capers, orange peel, bayleaves, cloves, pepper, nutmeg, olive oil and vinegar. Cover and cook in the oven 3 1/2 hrs.

  3. Pound the anchovies, garlic and olive oil to a paste. Add a little hot water if needed.

  4. Remove beef to a warm platter and stir the anchovy paste into the sauce. Heat through and pour over the meat. Put gerkins and anchovies on top and sprinkle with a little parsley.  This is normally served with pasta or Camargue rice.

I will continue teaching these provencal classes in my Uzès kitchen till the end of August. We have a small farmer's market every Wednesday where the good Languedoc soil is still clinging to the vegetables and a huge market on Saturdays where you can buy anything from a bed to an octopus. Our Uzès market has been voted the most beautiful market in the South and the fourth best market in France. Get in touch for a class if you're wandering this way.

A la prochaine, Peta