Pastis and olives

Yesterday we arrived in Arles for the Recontres Arles, a massive annual photographic exhibition that takes over the entire town. Our youngest son Flyn is showing some of his work at a restaurant called Le Corazon so we’re here for the next 10 days or so.

To get into the mood we picked up a bottle of my favourite pastis Henri Bardouin on the ferry on the way over. (Or favourite until now. I note the wine shop opposite has 3 brands I haven’t tried which all look interesting.)

Pastis, for those of you who aren’t familiar with it is an anise-flavoured liqueur that is particularly popular in Provence. It’s one of those acquired tastes like olives and espresso coffee that it generally takes time to learn to love. It’s pretty strong (the Henri Bardouin is 45%) so you drink it well diluted - about 1 part pastis to 5-6 parts cool water. Ice is frowned upon by purists as it stops the pastis taking on its characteristically milky, cloudy colour when diluted.

I like the Henri Bardouin one because it apparently contains over 40 different herbs and spices which makes it more complex and less licoricey than cheaper commercial brands. Its slight bitterness also makes it a great match with olives or olive-based pastes like tapenade spread on crunchy little toasts or bruschettini.

Image © stockcreations - Fotolia.com

Bardolino Chiaretto and seafood pasta

Yesterday I had lunch with some old friends in a chic little Italian restaurant called Trenta. It’s in in the upwardly mobile neighbourhood just west of Edgware Road in London into which Tony and Cherie Blair have just moved. (It also has a Jimmy Choo shop two doors down. It’s that kind of ‘hood)

The food, well reviewed, didn’t disappoint and the highlight for me was a dish called fregola sarda ai frutti di mare - a light dish of prawns (shrimp) and other seafood cooked in a fresh tomato sauce with a curious small round pasta rather like outsize couscous grains. It looked very pretty especially with the bottle of rosato we were drinking - an inexpensive Bardolino Chiaretto 2006 - with a fresh crisp acidity that in some ways made it behave more like a white than a rosé.

Bardolino Chiaretto is one of those Italian wines that has improved hugely in quality over recent years. It used to be, frankly, quite wimpy but this was charming, full of wild strawberry fruit and a perfect foil for the delicate seafood. This isn’t the first time I’ve discovered dry rosé goes well with prawns. I suspect it’s partly a colour thing. The colour of the seafood prompts you to think of a pink wine.

It also went particularly well with two of other other dishes we chose - a dish of sauted baby artichokes, new potatoes and melted goats’ cheese and buffalo mozzarella with grilled vegetables.

Trenta is at 30 Connaught Street, London W2 2AF. Tel: 0207 262 9623. There’s a set lunch at a very reasonable £14.50 for two courses which for this posh part of London is great value.

Cherry beer and cheesecake

If you’ve never tasted a fruit beer you might think this pairing sounds bizarre. If you have you can probably imagine just how good it would taste.

Fruit flavoured beers are nothing new but unlike many flavoured drinks they have real integrity, with a natural fresh fruit flavour. The best examples come from Belgium where they’re called by the Flemish name Kriek. They’re made by combining a lambic beer (one fermented from wild yeasts) with fresh cherry juice and are wonderfully tart and refreshing. The best example is Lindemans which comes packaged in a very pretty bottle with a paper wrapping.

You can drink a cherry beer with savoury foods (my favourite matches are with duck and with white-rinded cheeses such as Brie and Camembert) but I particularly like them with a creamy American-style cheesecake topped with fresh red berries including cherries. (The great thing about beer, as opposed to wine, is that because of the carbonation you can match pretty well identical flavours in your food and your drink without one knocking the other out).

Raspberry beer (Frambozen) is delicious with plain or berry-topped cheesecakes too.

Normandy cider and creamy sauces

Our final port of call on our recent French trip was a modest family run restaurant at Bourneville called Risle-Seine, a few minutes off the autoroute between Le Havre and Rouen (and therefore ideally placed for a last minute lunch before catching the ferry). It has no great pretensions but does what it does really well: simple classic country food served with decent, well-priced wines - and cider, we discovered this time.

As an aperitif I had a glass of gentle semi-sparkling cidre fermier from a local producer M. Lambert of St Thurien. French farmhouse cider has that classic cider apple flavour but tends to be rounder, sweeter and slightly less bitter than English cider and it was really delicious served with a feuilleté of asparagus with a rich cream and chive sauce.

We tend to be so paranoid about cream these days that one forgets just how delicious unpasteurised cream and a good creamy sauce can be. As with other sauces it becomes the most important part of the dish so far as choosing an accompanying drink is concerned, leading you towards a cider or a full-bodied white such as Chardonnay rather than a more aromatic white or a red. The combination would work equally well whether the sauce accompanies asparagus, chicken or salmon or indeed contains cider as an ingredient as in a creamy chicken and cider casserole or pie.

And for value for money you just can’t beat cider: my glass cost an extraordinary 2.10€ - just £1.42 ($2.79)!