A Seasonal Dish, but the 'Lazy Way'

For some bizarre reason I woke at 6 am on Sunday morning, rather than my usual 5 am. A whole hour of my life had gone by without my knowledge, or my permission.

I had gone to bed the previous night in the knowledge that I would have a Cepe Omelette for my breakfast, but a whole hour of relaxed gastronomy had been rudely taken from me.

                                        

 

After we left France on September 3rd, I'd heard (and had seen on Facebook) that there had been a bumper harvest of Cepes (Boletus Edulis) in the woods around our home. For the whole three months we were there this year we hadn't eaten a single wild mushroom; and it pained me!

As I think I'd mentioned previously, I'd feared that we wouldn't have mushrooms, and I'd bought several tins of 'Cepes preserved in oil' just in case. They are certainly the next best thing to fresh; but expensive. There was 'half a tin' in the fridge left-over from a meal the previous day.

However, as I'd had less time to indulge my fantasies, I took a short-cut, and rather than prepare an Omelette, I had 'Cepes with Fried Eggs' instead; something I had never done before.

So, let me tell you dear reader that my breakfast was just as good in its de-constructed state, as it would have been as an omelette. In fact I did think that when I open another tin, I will do the same again; I almost preferred it. This may sound like a Péché to all Frenchmen, but I can assure them that the spirit of gastronomy has not suffered by my laziness.

This (above) was the Cepe market in my nearby village a couple of weeks after we'd returned to Blighty. The anxious buyers are all behind the barriers, waiting for the bell to ring to signal the market open.

So, should we change the period of our stay to include September rather than June? It would mean less swimming, but more Cepes. We could even go mid-June, and stay until mid-September in the hope that we'd have a crop of Cepes before leaving. But then again there are the Chestnuts which start falling towards the end of September. It's all a gamble.

By the way, my 'Cepes with Fried Eggs' were totally delicious.