Kitchen developments

Several things have been happenng around the kitchen of late...

First of all, Ed has added a length of pipe at the back of the wood-burning stove in the kitchen that allows the stove to move out of the fireplace to the edge of its space. We're hoping this will let more of its heat stay in the kitchen rather than going up the chimney. So far it seems to work. The only time we've had the stove lit so far, it was almost too warm for Ed to sit in his usual spot.

Since we've been here, the lighting for the kitchen table has a bare bulb hanging in the center of the kitchen ceiling, the center of the ceiling not being over the center of the kitchen table. Ed has moved the over the table and added a wicker lamp shade. The result looks nice but it's a substantial change in the lighting. The table is brighter with the lamp directly over it instead of over Kaye's head, but the rest of the room is darker. While we're sitting at the table, the work peninsula feels like a dark cave behind us. Suppose we'll get used to this or else replace the wicker shade.

Sunday we lunched at a ferme-auberge in the Dordogne. A ferme-auberge is a farm house, often, but not necessarily, with rooms to rent, where they serve meals, sometimes only once a week, and usually made all or largely of products for the farm. In this case, the dining room was in the old kitchen. Pots of duck à l'orange were simmering on the wood fire as we arrived. First we had a lovely pumpkin soup, then starters of duck rillettes or foie gras. To the left of the fireplace we spied a sink-like stone ledge similar to the one we have in our kitchen to the right of the door (visible at the edge of the picture above), with three openings like upside-down pyramids.

We've never been sure what these are and people we asked knew only that it had something to do with fire, but since there's no hearth underneath this didn't make much sense to us. So we asked our host, who spoke pretty good English, and he explained. It is indeed a cooking surface. When the food cooking in the wood-burning fireplace was done, a chunk of glowing wood would be put in one of the pyramid openings and the pot set over the opening. This kept the food warm without cooking it further. Of course there was ash falling on the floor below and some smoke coming into the room, but it was functional. Now we know. (We find the pyramids good places to drained rinsed out wine bottles.)

And a bonus picture of Pogo on the trail this morning ...