Pumpkin scones

In the middle of a hot summer, life's not easy for pumpkins, which crave for water.

But they survive, and perk up—as sprightly as ever—as soon as the sun goes down. Then, in autumn, the harvest is so impressive that you end up wandering what you might do with all your glorious pumpkins. Well, here's my well-tested suggestion: Make pumpkin scones !

First, you need to produce pumpkin purée. Slice the pumpkin into big pieces. Remove the seeds, but don't touch the skin. Place the pieces on a non-stick tray (called Tefal in France) and bake at 200 degrees for an hour and a quarter. Let the baked pieces cool, then detach the soft pumpkin from the skin and place the fragments in a big bowl.

To transform the baked pumpkin into a purée, the ideal solution is a a gadget such as you see in the above photo. (My daughter Emmanuelle first informed me of the existence of this inexpensive soup-making device, many years ago, and told me that it would change my life... and she was spot on.) I soon had a pile of pumpkin purée.

Pumpkin purée is great stuff in that you can ladle it into plastic bags, each bag holding a cupful of purée, and deep-freeze it for your winter scones. Now, let's look at the recipe for pumpkin scones. At one stage, you'll need an essential ingredient that Americans (world champions in the domain of pumpkin scones) designate as pumpkin pie spice. In France, this product is obtained by mixing together four familiar spices, shown here:

Here's the precise recipe:

— a tablespoon of cinnamon (cannelle)

— a teaspoon of ginger (gingembre moulu)

— half a teaspoon of nutmeg (muscade moulue)

— half a teaspoon of ground cloves (girofle moulue)

Add a pinch of salt and mix. Keep the mixture in a sealed jar. For each batch of pumpkin scones based upon the preparation I'm about to describe, you'll only use a teaspoon of the mixed spices.

Here in France, people who would like to try out superb Anglo-Saxon recipes such as scones are often mystified unnecessarily by the names of three basic ingredients, whose French equivalents are shown here:

For French readers of my blog, here are the explanations:

— So-called buttermilk is simply fermented milk: a Breton product designated as lait Ribot.

— Anglo-Saxon baking powder is simply the French stuff known as levure chimique alsacienne, sold in its familiar little pink paper packets.

— Anglo-Saxon baking soda is simply the French product designated as bicarbonate alimentaire.

In France, these products can be found in your local supermarket. Once you've got everything in place, the preparation of pumpkin scones is quite simple.

Dry ingredients. In a big bowl, mix together 2 cups (260 grams) of flour, a third of a cup (75 grams) of sugar, a teaspoon of spices (as described above), a teaspoon of baking powder (levure chimique), a half-teaspoon of baking soda (bicarbonate alimentaire) and a dose of genuine vanilla.

As far as the vanilla is concerned, a convenient solution is the sachet of powdered vanilla sugar. If you resort to the liquid extract, then a few drops should be added to the moist ingredients (described below). The nec-plus-ultra solution that consists of grinding dried vanilla beans from Madagascar is applicable if you happen to have a son such as my François who visits all kinds of exotic places on his archaic moped.

In the usual pastry-making manner, use a pastry-blender device or a pair of knives to insert 125 grams of unsalted butter (beurre doux) into the flour. Here's a photo of a pastry-blender:

Stir in a generous quantity of raisins (I prefer the soft white variety) and walnuts (from Gamone, of course).

Moist ingredients. In a small bowl, mix half a cup (an 8th of a liter) of pumpkin purée with the same volume of buttermilk (lait Ribot). Stir well.

Insert the moist ingredients into the big bowl of dry ingredients, and stir lazily until everything is humid: just enough, but no more. On a floured board, pat the dough into a flat slab, and cut out eight fragments. Place them in small non-stick pie cups of the Tefal kind: a must for pie-makers.

Flatten each scone in its tray, then brush the top surface with a mixture of an egg beaten with cream. Sprinkle the top of each scone with chunks of pistachio nuts or sesame seeds. Place the Tefal cups on a large Tefal tray, so that the underside of the scones won't be scorched. Bake at 200 degrees C for some 20 minutes. Here's the result:

In all modesty, I have to admit that these are surely the finest scones I've ever tasted. To be eaten with a glass of cool Sauvignon.

François Skyvington's moped road movie

Viewers in France and Germany have been reaching my Antipodes blog after Googling with the search argument "François Skyvington".

Residents of France and Germany can see replays of recent programs of the series entitled Détour(s) de mob (in German: Ein Moped auf Reisen) for a week after the broadcast date. People in Australia (François and his sister Emmanuelle are Franco-Australians) cannot unfortunately view the series. I have therefore not thought it worthwhile to carry on making blog posts about each program.

François Skyvington's moped road movie #7

Episode #7 of the road movie was presented on Tuesday afternoon.

In this episode #7, François has moved down to the coastal region of northern Germany known as East Frisia, which lies alongside the northern part of the Netherlands.

On a country road, he was surprised to come upon two teams of men who were playing a curious game that consisted of tossing a big ball as far as possible along the macadam.

The rules of game were not immediately obvious. Players and onlookers were scattered all along the road, and they would start to shout wildly as soon as a ball ran off the macadam and into the grass.

In fact, there's a red team and a blue team, from neighboring villages. Each team (if I understand correctly) has its own ball, and the game—known as bossein—can extend over a length of roadway of 5 to 10 kilometers.

Besides, the players don't seem to be troubled by the presence of vehicles on the road.

The winners are the team that uses the lesser number of tosses to cover the distance. So, in a way, it's a bit like golf. François had a toss or two, towards the end of the wet afternoon, but he wasn't particularly impressive.

After the match, he was invited along to a tasty meal that included large servings of sausages and potatoes, accompanied by beer.

By the time François was ready to leave the bossein context, night had fallen.

Next on the agenda, the following morning, was a visit to an ancient windmill.

It had been restored by Theo, who was now the chief miller.

Inside the windmill, François stepped into a fabulous machine world whose centuries-old wheels and cogs were made out of wood.

Afterwards, the miller and his wife initiated François into one of the old traditions of East Frisia: tea.

The next day, in the port of Emden, François found his way to a distinguished establishment that blends high-quality teas.

The East Frisians seem to be connoisseurs in the tea domain.

The specialist at Emden blends his teas with the same quest for excellence as a Scotsman blending whisky, or a Frenchman producing brandy.

The various alternatives are compared and judged as if the teashop were a laboratory... which it is, in a way.

And the specimens are served and compared in an experimental context.

The next day, François met up with a giant named Tamme who works as a chiropractor with horses.

Tamme uses a high-tech device that enables a lame horse to walk on a treadmill immersed in water.

Viewers were impressed by a sequence in which the giant chiropractor manipulated rapidly the leg of a giant horse in such a way that the bones made a distinct crack.

François was apparently capable of performing a similar manipulation on a lame horse.

Then he was brought in contact with a huge white horse that had some kind of a problem.

I held my breath when I saw François climbing up onto the back of  this beast... but everything went over well.

Even the incongruous presence of Tamme as a pillion passenger on the orange moped seemed to be problem-free.

Finally, François terminated his interesting experiences in East Frisia by an excursion in a marvelous old wooden sailing boat.

The combination of old wood and ropes had the same magic charm as the interior of Theo's ancient windwill.

The orange moped, too, went on this boat trip.

At one point, François (who, I believe, might be described as a relatively experienced sailor) took the helm.

The same North Sea winds that drove the old sailing boat (not to mention Theo's windmill) was generating electricity on the shores of East Frisia.

Back on land, François left East Frisia under a damp steel-gray sky.

As a TV spectator, I had greatly enjoyed the tone of this episode.

François Skyvington's moped road movie #6

Episode #6 of the road movie was presented yesterday afternoon.

François and his moped left the sunny south of France for another exotic corner of Europe: the German Bight, on the edge of the North Sea.

His excursions started at the North Frisian port of Husum, where François boarded a vessel for a bit of prawn fishing.

Funnily enough, the crew members were intrigued to find that their French visitor was accustomed to crunching into small cooked prawns without removing their shells.

Next, François abandoned temporarily his moped and took a plane out to the remote archipelago of Heligoland, some 50 km off the German coastline, where he had a rendezvous with Rolf Hagel, in charge of the local seal population.

They started out immediately, on foot, to inspect seals on the nearby beaches.

They soon came upon a pair of baby seals that had been abandoned by their mother.

They would have to be captured rapidly and transported to the local seal nursery for feeding and care.

Next, François boarded a ferry for the bleak windswept island of Pellworm, which seemed to lie in the middle of nowhere.

Here, men were constantly building and repairing sea walls made of wooden stakes and bundles of branches.

Taking advantage of the least strip of earth emerging from the waters in this steel-gray setting, these warriors of the sea strive ceaselessly to prevent the island from disappearing into the North Sea.

François was guided by a local resident, Knud, who, besides his work as a seawall supervisor, has a job as a barefooted postman, walking across the beaches to deliver mail brought across on the ferry. On this particular day, the island's postman got a helping hand from François and his moped.

François' final encounter in this lonely but lovely universe was with a lady named Ruth.

After meeting up with François in a mainland food-supplies store and piling his moped into her van for the trip towards her island home, Ruth parked her vehicle and took control of her personal train for the journey along a narrow causeway with the sea on both sides.

She explained that she only owns the train, whereas the railway line belongs to the German Republic.

As for her home, it's built on a mound of earth that rises magically out of the flat sandbanks and the sea.

Whenever the sea surrounds the house, they simply close the doors and windows.

François saw amazing photos of what the house looked like whenever there was a tempest, several times a year.

Apparently, at the top of the house, an emergency attic has been built on four hefty concrete pillars. So, even if the rest of the house were to be swept into the sea, Ruth and her children could wait in safety for the waters to subside.

For the second time in his road movie, François was surrounded by a big flock of sturdy sheep, which enable Ruth to earn her living in this exotic setting.

When François asked Ruth naively if it might not be better to reside on the mainland and only step across to the island to take care of the sheep, she replied with a smile that her ancestors had been settled in this remote paradise for the last two and a half centuries, and that she felt fine there.

Finally, François trudged back along the causeway beside his trusty steed.

A big fat ewe watched him leaving.

The animal seemed to be saying to itself: "Why would anyone decide to leave this marvelous island?" In one of Ruth's amazing photos, we saw that, in times of tempest, the sheep gather on the lawns of her house as if it were Noah's Ark.

It's easy to understand that—for Ruth, her children and her sheep—abandoning this kind of existence for a mainland house at the other terminus of her railway line would be unthinkable.