Bonjour French Market Friends,
This week in France, while firefighters brought the massive fire in Aude under control, an unusual event 
happened in the sea off the northern coast of France at Gravelines, between Dunkirk and Calais. A massive swarm of jelly fish clogged up the intake water pipe for the water pumping stations at France’s largest nuclear power plant. This led to the closure of 4 power plants until the jelly fish could be cleared out. Like the recent massive fire, the increase in the jelly fish is a direct result of global warming, because jelly fish breed faster as the water warms up. At no point was there any risk to the nuclear plant, but it could not operate without the cooling water. (Image courtesy Yahoo!News)
Talking of the sea and fish, I wish to remind you that we can access a whole range of 
fresh seafood products (excluding nuclear jelly fish). Whilst we do not keep these fresh products in the shop, we can bring them in, usually within 24 hours from an order placed. The fresh products include red drum sea bass they fly in each week from Mauritius, Loch Duart fresh salmon fillets from Scotland, salmon trout fillets, fresh oysters from the West Coast and Namibia, mussels in 2kg bags, abalone, black tige
r prawns, squid, octopus, crab and fresh seaweed.
Also, in the seafood range in the shop we have roe from various fish including the black lumpfish roe and red wild salmon roe (keta). We keep some caviar in stock from the Baerii sturgeon from Mauritius and Italy, Oscietra and Beluga from Italy. Do pre-order as we only keep a small quantity of the caviar in the shop.
On the agricultural side of France, the cows are happily grazing in the rich summer pastures up in the cooler mountain areas. There the wild herbs and rich grass add a great flavour
to the cow’s milk. This converts into cheese with great taste. I would recommend tasting a recent addition to our cheese range, the Tomme Crayeuse from the Haute Savoie. This medium firm textured cheese looks similar to a Tomme de Savoie but has a paler crust with a more chalky, crumbly texture – the flavour is subtle with hints of mushroom. In our Goat’s cheese range, apart from the delicious Buche de chevre log and little fresh crottins de chevre from the Loire region, we have allowed a local cheese to mingle with our French goats’ cheese, because it has a great flavour. This firm textured Renosterbos cheese, is made from milk of little Swiss Saanen goats that roam freely in their farm’s certified organic pastures on the slopes of the Groenberg, grazing on the renosterbos (Rhinocerous bush) which gives a subtle flavour to this cheese.
In our dry goods range we have added some more dried mus
hrooms from France. The Trompette de la mort (Craterellus cornucopioides) also known as the Black trumpet or Horn of plenty, they have a hornlike shape. Their woody flavour intensifies when they are rehydrated. They can be used in many recipes, the simplest is to rehydrate them and add cream and slowly simmer allowing the flavour to spread into the cream and serve this over pasta.
There are certain products from other countries that are quite unique in flavour, and we allow them to sit on our shelves alongside our traditional French products because of their uniqueness. For those of you who like a tangy flavour to add to your sauces, we received a new stock of Lea & Perrins sauce, (Worcestershire sauce) made from tamarinds, this also adds a real tangy zing to a tomato juice cocktail.
For those who enjoy a sweet treat, have you tried our macarons yet, made by French patisserie chef Cedric. They are getting so popular that we keep running out. I think it is because I display them on our lowest cake display shelf at the front of the shop, just at the children’s eye level so they see them as they walk past our shop.
This week 
I decided to share a really simple recipe for a winter warming dessert, an apple crumble, the secret to achieving the best flavour is by using French butter in the recipe, then dousing the apples in Cognac. Pair this with a glass of our excellent Frapin Cognac 1270. It will warm you up on a chilly winter day.
I hope you have a great weekend, and good luck to all the J22yachties taking part in the Regatta this weekend in Table Bay at the Royal Cape yacht club, hope you don’t freeze out in the Bay, take some Cognac with you to keep you warm.
Regards
Suzanne and The French Market Team