We are staying at the Manoir au quat’saison…it is very very very nice !
Check the website www.manoir.com
The garden is lovely and the service impeccable , Manu is having a massage in the bedroom and I am having a glass of red wine in one of the lounges.
I can’t wait for evening dinner !!
We went to Port Leucate for a kite Surfing Weekend with the boys…excellent weekend !
A lot of action, food and drinks, simply perfect.
First try at kitesurfing…success !!! We loved it and we are going to do more of it, now just have to wait for the nice weather to come back.
France in November was very nice…
Last weekend we had dinner at Tramshed in Central London. We had very nice food, but we had even better company with our long time friends Daniel, Gabriela and their kids.
We had so much to catch-up on that a single evening is simply too short.
So much has happened in each other’s lives that we had to pace ourselves to squeeze in some of the nice steak in our stomachs.
We also re-collected how “Michel” our common boss of 15 years ago, still inspires us in our everyday life as managers of teams.
Good health to these life long friends !!
I went to the London 2012 3D Print show this weekend, mind blowing stuff, with very nice atmosphere and a lot of open minded people. Although there is a lot of unjustified hype about the technology it will certainly change the world…
I even met Bre Pettis and was allowed to talk to him! (CEO of Makerbot).
The guys from Econolyst did a good job articulating the size of the market, the opportunities and key players. http://www.econolyst.co.uk/
We had a fantastic evening with Daniel Galmiche and our closest friends.
Below a few pictures of how to serve and then eat a beautiful piece of beef….then you must say thank you to the Michelin starred chef Daniel Galmiche : Link
This is a very nice dish from Lyon, France. It is a bit tricky to prepare the first time, but once you have done a few, it becomes second nature and can be prepared quickly. The secret in this recipe is to make sure that you “dry” the “panade” as much as possible. This will allow for Quenelles that will keep their shape in the boiling water and will also puff nicely if you cook them in the oven afterwards with sauces….Yummm….You can also cook in “hot” water rather than boiling water, it actually changes a little the texture which is very nice. As long as the water is above 67 degres, the eggs will cook.
Ingredients (for basic quenelles):
250ml Milk, 50g Butter (demi-sel),
10g of fleur de sel and teaspoon of pepper, nutmeg
100g Flour, 50g Fine semolina, 3 eggs.
To prepare the panade, put the butter and spices in a saucepan, once butter fully melted, take off the heat and put all the flour in one go. Mix quickly with a spoon or spatula.
Put the saucepan back on the heat. Here is the trick, mix continuously until the pastry comes off the saucepan as a ball of pastry. Then add the semolina, continue to mix until you get a ball.
Put the saucepan off the heat, add the eggs one by one, mixing well in between each egg.
Once the mixture is nice and smooth, put in a separate container with cling film and in the fridge for a couple of hours.
To cook the Quennelles, take out of the fridge and make small quenelles with 2 tablespoons. Like in this video. Drop in boiling or fairly hot water for 5 minutes. I like to use a chicken stock water to give a bit of taste already to the quenelles “Nature”.
In the picture above, I serve the quenelle with a very light soup, the kids love it.
You can also prepare the quenelle in the oven (after cooking in the water). My preferred one is sauce Nantua.
Enjoy…
’The nicest thing about NOT planning ahead is that business failure comes as a complete surprise, and is not preceded by a period of worry and depression!”.
Return trip from south of France, incredibly nice road for 900+km. One of the highlights of this road is the Viaduc of Millau. Definitely a marvel of engineering.
My friend “Antoine” at his house, relaxing in the south of France thinking only about our next tennis games our next beer or the next trip to the beach with the kids…
On my way to the annual Senior Management Meeting. Waiting for the plane to go to Orlando, Gatwick airport full of kids and 2 hours delay on the clock, this is a bad start to my day…
Done but of shopping, now officially bored.
Trying to stay away from my work computer, might have to clear my inbox just to occupy my mind.
During my last trip to France, I bought a ENO Plancha.
I did not buy the table/stand that goes with it because it would not fit in my car.
Because I live in the UK, there is no store selling Planchas and certainly no store selling plancha tables…
I decided to build one myself. I did browse for many different type on the web and then decided to build my own design. Below is the work in progress.
I has a few LEDs to provide minimal lighting outside.
During the design phase, I used openscad to test how to build the frame etc. I wanted to hide the gas bottle, have a drawer, have some lighting and have look of something robust, built to last.
I really struggled to find any good supplier of hardwood locally (Central London). I then found some wooden flooring OAK plank, which I thought I could hack into simple planks. I had to convert all the wooden floor plank to the correct width using a small jig on my festool table. Then I started building, freestyle as my brother wood say… I also added a few caster wheels to make it easier to move around. Given that the whole structure will be entirely made of oak wood.
It is getting closed to the day when I will be using it, that is if the weather gets better and rain stops falling.
[UPDATE]
Well almost finished now. It is now out of the garage and is ready for “finishing” with oils or varnish, not sure yet what I am going to do. Gas bottle fits neatly in the back and the cover fits as well…pfeew!…
I used laser cut small pieces of plywood to create spacers for the various planks and ensure that they would all look nicely spaced. you can see a couple in the picture here to the right side of the bottom.
Next on the list :
I might fit a proper plug to be able to bring a portable induction plate to put next to it and then I will have a full cooking Zone in the garden…
I have been frustrated at trying to get my 3D printer to work as it is supposed to.
Recently upgraded the various firmwares inside the machine to latest versions and doing some test prints of test cubes. Have been finding many small glitches in the various bits of software and it is driving me CRAZY !!!!.
The workflow for 3D printing is still VERY far from mainstream Grandma printing her earing aid to watch Murray win Wimbledon….
Not sure which one will make it first actually.
I am only trying to replicate a “wooden” spool to help a friend of Manu.
This friend makes customized spools with pictures etc…Her manufacturing process require plaster and building molds. She uses a wooden Spool but it deforms during the manufacturing process because of humidity etc.. She is therefore looking for a plastic spool. I offered to try to print one with my 3D Printer.
I created a spool in Openscad, then tried to print. 
However because of the overhang, it is better printed in 2 parts that assemble back to back.
I am now in Version 5 of the Openscad design and seem to be going backwards versus the very first version I printed. Trying to add to many detailed features created actually a more complicated shape which fails to print right.
Frustrated…
