Recipe for an exotic and delicious Curry Banana Soup

This is a recipe that is just so delicious that it comes with a warning: If you have made and served it once, you will be obliged to do so again and again and again. Everyone is made about it and cannot get enough of it! So, unless you are prepared to have your friends clamouring for more, don't even think about making it!

Brigitte's Spicy Banana Soup :

Butter, 1 onion, 1 clove of garlic, cardamom, ginger, chilli, cumin, chicken stock (1 ¼ l), cream/fleurette (1/4 l), 3 ripe bananas, curry powder, Noilly Prat (Vermouth)

Brown the onions and garlic in butter. Stir the bananas in pieces in with the curry. Add a shot of Noilly Prat and fill up with chicken stock, add all the herbs.

Make it smooth with a mixer. When ready, add the cream (don`t cook it any more then).

Serves 6 people.

(I also add a small pot of natural yoghurt which adds to the creaminess but breaks down the richness of the cream.)

Bon appetit!

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Follow the posters!

Just two of the many events in the Dordogne -- always something new, something interesting, something to do!
Watch this space for feed-back on these two events -- one creative, the other reminiscent of a time we all thought was long gone....



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Way back in May 2007 I posted this little article:
1 May: The Chelsea Flower Show comes to Lalinde!
I have always associated the First of May with Labour Day, the Day of the Workers, red flags with hammers and sickles, soldiers goose marching through the Red Square in the Kremlin, fist brandishing and banner waving demonstrations in the Place de la Bastille, calls to arms and passionate orators.
And then I moved to Lalinde, a gorgeous little village on the banks of the Dordogne River in the Southwest of France........
We do it differently here. On the First of May we have a flower market in the square opposite the mayor's office. The only red you will see is not the hammer and sickle flag, but the bright red of the geraniums and the verbenas. The only marching you will see is the row upon row of basil and rosemary and mint and oregano. The workers will be there – but preparing delicious plates with salad and charcuterie for the sellers and the buyers, and the only passionate oration you will hear is the discussion on whether Pierre's new yellow Impatience is as spectacular as Jean-Luc's new purple rose.

Oh! I do love living in the country!

And yes! I reiterate those sentiments now in May 2009! Yesterday, once again the lovely open area amongst the trees in front of the Lalinde mairie came alive with every kind of plant and flower of the region and the gardeners of the Dordogne came to look for the new and interesting and gloriously beautiful with which to adorn their lovely gardens.

Interestingly the market was substantially smaller than previous years -- and the words mexicaine, grippe, flu, have you heard..... were often heard amongst the plant-carrying customers. Not that a scary flu is going to halve an annual flower market, of course, but the worldwide financial crisis might -- as the people of the beautiful Dordogne Perigord, where the local economy is heavily reliant on tourism and visitors to the region, are most definitely starting to feel the pinch in more ways than one.

But --- we will survive -- and where better to survive than in this most wonderful corner of our beautiful planet!




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May Day : The history behind this important day in our calendar

In the year of 1987, the famous uprising in Berlin-Kreuzberg took place. As a protest against the integration of the labour unions and against the 750-years-celebration of Berlin, visited by the rich people, while homeless people died in the cold winter, and against the population census big riots in the streets and plundering of shops broke out. The years after this event, every year the Revolutionary 1st of May Demonstration in Berlin-Kreuzberg was organized. They wanted to stop this tradition e.g. by forbidding it or with brutal police violence, but no method reached its goal. The last years the police and state-bureaucracy wanted to forbid the demonstration route through Kreuzberg and they developed the idea of organizing a state controlled festival (Myfest) to occupy the streets and to split the people between political and non-political and between foreigners and people living in the district. The reaction by parts of the Revolutionary 1st of May Organizers was to make spontaneous - "illegal" - demonstrations directly through the Myfest area to show that the people support the Revolutionary 1st of May and that the police cannot stop it. Also because of the mobilization character for the anti-G20 protests, in the last year the organizations of the Revolutionary 1st of May 2007 at 18 o'clock have again been able to organize a big non-illegal Revolutionary 1st of May Demonstration directly through the streets of Kreuzberg, with about 8.000 to 10.000 people. In this year we are expecting to march the traditional Kreuzberg Revolutionary 1st of May route directly through all the crowded streets of Kreuzberg.

Quite something -- and not all of it completely silly either..........

As for me, I would much rather go for a beautiful walk along the Lalinde canal in this glorious weather we are experiencing, and on my way back pick a small bunch of Muguet -- or Lily of the Valley, the symbol of spring, love and happiness.. to add to the little bunches already filling my home with the glorious perfume of the those given to me by friends...

The tradition to offer lily of the valley or muguet on May 1 in a small amulet goes right back to before the Middle Ages.

I trust you too will receive a little bunch of Muguet today!


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I give a sprig of Muguet to every one of my readers......

Undeniably one of the most pleasurable customs in France is giving and receiving little bunches of freshly picked Lily of the Valley on the First of May. Waking up this morning and opening my front door, it was to find a beautiful sweet smelling bunch on my step, put their by a special friend. Then a text on my mobile with a 'virtual' sprig of Muguet from another friend. Then even more as I went to wander through the annual flower market in the Lalinde market square -- meeting up with friends, sharing this lovely age-old custom.




* Le muguet - convallaria maialis - or Lily of the Valley (latin convallis (valley),de leiron (lily) and maialis (of May)). The French name Le Muguet probably comes from the latin word muscus, because of the flower's strong perfume.
Le muguet is a flower that "porte-bonheur" -- brings happiness and the French have this wonderful tradition of giving little bunches of muguet to friends on the 1st of May -- a tradition that was started in 1561 by King Charles X when he gave all the ladies of his court a small posy of Lily of the Valley..

To pick muguet, you should use sharp secateurs and be careful not to pull the bulbs from the soil. --- If the bulbs or 'roots' of the plant are disturbed, the plant will not flower again next year.






Although the chief constituents of Lily-of-the-Valley are used in many beneficial medicines, one should take great care, as the entire plant is extremely poisonous -- even the water in which the posy has been kept, is poisonous and should be handled with great care. The constituents of the plant are two glucosides, Convallamarin, the active principle, a white crystalline powder, readily soluble in water and in alcohol, but only slightly in ether, which acts upon the heart like Digitalin, and has also diuretic action, and Convallarin, which is crystalline in prisms, soluble in alcohol, slightly soluble in water and has a purgative action. There are also present a trace of volatile oil, tannin and salts.


Lily-of-the-Valley is valued as a cardiac tonic and diuretic. The action of the drug closely resembles that of Digitalis, though it is less powerful; it is used as a substitute and strongly recommended in valvular heart disease, also in cases of cardiac debility and dropsy. It slows the disturbed action of a weak, irritable heart, whilst at the same time increasing its power. It is a perfectly safe remedy. No harm has been known to occur from taking it in full and frequent doses, it being preferable in this respect to Digitalis, which is apt to accumulate in the blood with poisonous results.
It also proved most useful in cases of poisonous gassing the soldiers at the front in WWI.

May Day traditions go back to the dawn of time. In the ancient world, it was the date when sailors went back to sea. It was the beginning of the third quarter of the Celtic year.In the middle ages, May was the month when betrothals were made.
At the turn of the century, the great fashion houses gave sprigs of lily-of-the-valley to their customers and apprentices on May Day.
By 1976, lily-of-the-valley was completely associated with May Day and every year tens of millions of sprigs of both wild and cultivated lily-of-the-valley are sold on this day.




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Chateau Lalinde : The perfect venue for your event

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