Hello French Market friends,
For the last 50 years at Easter, in the village of Bessieres, near Toulose 
in France, members (Chevaliers) of the World Federation 
of the Giant Omelette of Bessieres, create a huge omelette with 17,000 eggs, which is shared with the inhabitants of the village and the numerous visitors. This custom originated a long time ago, with a tradition at Easter, when the villagers would go around the local farms and collect fresh eggs to make omelettes, to be served to the poorer
members of the community. Subsequently, the young people would gather on the banks of the Tarn river on Easter Monday to share an omelette. Afterwards the tradition developed into making a massive, single omelette, in the centre of the village, shared freely with the entire village and friends. Each year this 
giant omelette is cooked in a 3 metre wide frying pan, created by famous blacksmith, Bernard Cauchois. The omelette is accompanied by specially baked, long bread loaves weighing 28 kgs each, created by the local baker Jean Audu. The bread loaves are solemnly carried to the event on stretchers, surrounded by the chefs. Nowadays, the concept has spread to different parts of the world and become a global confederation. The members promote the idea of friendship based around a crazy idea. My question is, what does one do with 17,000 egg shells?
This weekend in Cape Town we welcome over 20,000 runners who are participating in the Total Sports Two Oceans Marathons. It
is 
possibly one of the most beautifully scenic runs in the world. The Ultra Marathon race on 15 April, starts in Newlands and extends over 56 kilometres travelling down the Indian Ocean side of Table Mountain and returning on the Atlantic Ocean side of Table Mountain. A huge challenge, even for the super fit to make the distance before the 7-hour cut off gun. The half marathon on Sunday route is 21km and cut off time is 3 hours. In addition, there are a several shorter fun runs happening around the city.
We have lots of delicious cheese to offer all the visitors in town this weekend. We have bio organic, raw milk Camemberts from 
Normandie which have an amazing flavour and lovely soft creamy centres. These come in individual boxes and are 
ideal for picnics and alfresco entertaining. You can also pop them in the oven and bake them to create a fondue. We have the gold medal winning Brie de Meaux by Donge, which has been hand-ladled and stored on mats of straw during its maturation. The centre is soft and full of flavour. Try some of each and you will note that this Brie tastes completely different to the Camembert.
For our sports people we have lots of Italian pastas and gnocchi. The filled pastas include a wide range of
flavours. We also have various different sauces to serve with them. This includes the Barilla tomato-based sauces: Arrabiata, Bolognese, Basilico and Napoletana and the Italian truffle sauces.
For my recipe this week I chose a recipe for the carbo-loading runners who will be running the Cape Town Marathon
. This is a heart-warming dish that tastes great and really fills one up. This pasta dish is made with a rich cheese sauce. We have a wonderful array of cheeses, and I selected 3 different cheeses, to give a more interesting taste to the sauce. The Comte gives richness, the Bleu gives a deeper, stronger flavour and the Parmigiano gives a saltiness to the taste. This sauce can be used with any of our frozen pastas from Italy, I think the best pairing is with the spaghetti. I recommend serving this pasta with a glass of Gerard Bertrand Pinot Noir from the Languedoc region in the South of France. See Recipe below.
Wishing all the runners a successful and safe Marathon race this weekend.
Regards