Bonjour French Market Friends,
The Southwest regions of France are starting to recover after 40 days of nonstop rain this week. Noah’s services were not requested but Pompiers Firefighting crews, civil protection groups and soldiers have been sent to the affected regions to help with recovery and rebuilding, particularly for farmers whose lands have been severely damaged by the floods. Just in the region of Charente-Maritime over 3000 homes and several hundred businesses were affected. The costs to insurance companies are estimated over EUR6billion (Image Facebook Vincent SDIS 16 Pompiers de la Charente).
Back here in CPT, yesterday we finished our Year End stock take and Financials, and I am glad to say that we had another excellent year. From where I started selling French cheese as a hobby 20 years ago, in The Old Biscuit Mill, a trend
setting market in CPT, to an established Import Export business this year, the results are strong and I keep looking at ways to grow. Our online business through our website Frenchmarket.co.za has been a distinct growth point. I was pushed into that because of the Pandemic, or we would not have survived. The significant support from delivery agent The Courier Guy has meant we can deliver overnight to most major cities in RSA (please tell your friends). The growth of our wholesale business with frozen french pastries has been consistent. Exporting into Namibia has been another strong growth point, whilst this requires a lot of careful management and complex paperwork to ensure compliance with all Dairy regulations, it’s been a great development!
Our results are due to the amazing support I have had from you and all my clients who have followed me over all these years and the new ones who have discovered my business at the shop and online. Plus the support and hard work, I get from my team, which means job security for them. I would like to Thank you, my client, for your continued support that has kept our business going by offering you a R100 gift voucher for our shop. Please email me and I will send you a voucher.
A business is challenging no matter how much care and planning is done. Actions in other parts of the world have a direct impact on all of us. Our latest freight shipment of 300kgs of cheese was due to fly yesterday (28 Feb) from Paris via Dubai to Cape Town. I however woke up to the news that due to the attack on Iran, and retaliatory attacks, Dubai airport was impacted and closed. At this stage I have no idea when the cheese will get here. I do know that luckily it is was still in Paris in chilled storage, so it is safe and I do h
ave a good stock on hand, so we won’t run out.
In addition to all our beautiful French cheese in store, I love the new seasonal produce we get from our local farms. New stock in this week are fresh figs from The Figary at Osdrift Farm near Worcester. The brand was launched by the Hugo family in 2015. These beautiful dark red figs are handpicked from the 25,000 Persian fig trees on their farm by their 60 pickers. We sell them in 1kg trays and individually and we can courier them around the country.
For my recipe this week I decided to share a recipe from one of my neighbours in my country village in France. In the countryside around my tiny cottage in Machat (which you can rent for holidays), my neighbours tend to make a lot of their own preserves and liqueurs from the produce of their potager (vegetable garden) and orchards. The summer sun helps kilos of fruit and vegetable to ripen, but it all ripens at the same time so to keep it edible through the winter, fresh products are bottled or pickled and packed away in large a cupboard, usually outside in a cold barn to keep the temperature low.
From the abundant orchards many liqueurs are also made with the fruit harvest. My 
neighbour in France, Corinne gave me an interesting Fig Liqueur recipe. I know most of us in the Cape have fig trees somewhere close by, so it is easy to find the baby fig leaves. She uses “Eau-de-Vie” (Water of Life) clear white spirit which I think can be found in a bottle store, otherwise use a bottle of clear schnapps as the base. The young fig leaves are cooked with the sugar and Eau de Vie then preserved. The flavour of this liqueur is similar to Chartreuse. Serve the liqueur slightly chilled with some little sables (small butter biscuits).
I wish you a peaceful week and hope my shipment of cheese gets here safely.
Regards
Suzanne and The French Market Team