L'Art et Lard 2019

The second weekend in October is the art and food festival l'Art et Lard at Le Petit Pressigny. This year I concentrated on the Lardy bits rather than the Arty bits. I did notice that there was a lot of ceramics this year.

Weekend soccer game. The home team is in orange.

I parked at the sports field and discovered there was a local league soccer game in progress, so stopped to watch for a few minutes.

Someone prepared for the event early.

The ever popular English Tea Room, run by local British women every year, and a great success.

The most eye catching cake had an extraordinary green coconut and lime frosting. I thought it was very Rugby World Cup. It was proving very popular with the punters and more than half of it was gone by the time I got there at 10.30 am.

Tommy and his Braslou beer.

Braslou Bière is one of the many artisanal breweries springing up in the Loire Valley in the last few years. I haven't tried their beer yet, but I hear it is good.

My lovely friend Sandy, who with her partner Tony, grows and sells organic apples.

Gaetan Raguin prepares fouaces, the local version of pita breads.

Gaetan Raguin, who speaks excellent English, is the organic artisan baker behind Co-pain. These fouaces looked really good, although I did not try them. He does everything by hand, using locally grown wheat, barley and buckwheat and a sourdough levain.

Catherine Vandamme and her rare breed poultry and rabbit products.

Catherine Vandamme has established herself as a breeder of local rare breeds of poultry (the Géline de Touraine, a black hen) and the Gris de Touraine rabbit. Here is a recipe from Les Carnets de Julie for Géline à la lochoise.

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