A weekend road trip

Friends. food, wine and a trip through the vines.

The vines of Caunes-Minervois.

Last weekend, we left the dogs and cat in the hands of our wonderful house sitters, Eamon and Clare, and headed north for a weekend in Caunes-Minervois. We were guests of Trevor and Nichola Gulliver at their annual St John Fête du Vin. Trevor is the co-founder of the pioneering and always-a-treat St John, one of our favourite London restaurants (I had my 40th birthday there). They bring together their friends: chefs, journalists, suppliers, producers, neighbours, about eighty loud and lucky souls, for a weekend of great food, wine, chat, laughs and, for the most gung-ho, skinny dipping in the local lake.

The highlight of the weekend is Saturday lunch at a long table, laid out in St John’s Twelfth Century winery on the Boulevard Napoléon in the village of La Livinière. Its name comes from the Occitan viniera, which means vine, and wine has been made here since Roman times.

This lunch is like the best wedding you’ve never been to, with different vintages of the same wines, and an entirely irresistible (to me) menu of lambs’ brains on toast with a sauce of green herbs, barbecued quail with tomato salad and the best green beans in the world, cheese, then bowls of cherries on ice. If there’s anything I would like to eat more, I am yet to find it.

When we’re spending a lot of time in the car, I always like to pack some snacks and apparently these can’t always be crisps. So for our trip to Caunes-Minervois, I made today’s recipe, a ham, gruyère and green olive cake – do give it a try, for summer picnics, something to go with cocktails, or as a secret treat to stash in the glove compartment.

The gates of the winery in La Livinière.

Trevor at the grill, with a hundred spatchcocked quails.

Lambs’ brains with green sauce.

Like the best wedding you’ve never been to.

Grilled quail and Boulevard Napoléon wines.

The best green beans in the world.

Tomato salad, with tomatoes bought in Narbonne market.

Devoured quail.

Cherries on ice.

I can’t remember quite where I shot this: In wine, there is wisdom, In beer there is freedom, In water there is bacteria.

Every year, Trevor designs T-shirts for the weekend. This year he created this one, a reference to the farmers’ protest where they turned road signs upside down to demonstrate their frustration at the challenges they face. I write more about that in the post below, if you’re interested.

Almost there

When we went away for the weekend, we used Trusted Housesitters to find a verified and reviewed housesitter to keep our pets company while we were gone. This link will give you a 25% discount off your membership, should you wish to join. We’ve used them a few times now, and we’ve always had a very good experience.

Ham, gruyère and green olive cake

There seems to be a great love for savoury cakes, cakes salés, in France – and they call them cakes, pas gâteaux – with a green salad at lunch,  made in mini-sizes to go with an apéro, or as something to take on a picnic.

They’re incredibly easy to make, and a good way of promoting leftover odds and ends to a more glamorous future. Ends of salami, bits of cheese, bunches of soft herbs on their last gasp, half a jar of flame-grilled peppers, a few olives – experiment, fold them in, and you have a snack worthy of the cocktail hour. You can use all plain flour, or a mixture of plain flour and spelt flour as I do here.

Makes 1 x cake salé loaf, I use a loaf tin that’s 23x13x7cm