Joseph Voisin’s happy house

This week, a ghost story and a recipe for cauliflower crumble.

Jean Voisin is seated, second on the right. I wonder if one of the cheerful dark-haired men surrounding him is his son, Joseph?

I just returned from London so I didn’t visit the market visit this week. I’m getting back into my groove, doing laundry, kissing the dogs and cat, weeding the garden and bringing pots of bulbs I planted a few weeks ago up from the darkness of the cellar into the cool light of the hallway.

As I wasn’t here for most of the week, I was puzzling over what to write about this weekend and I suddenly thought I haven’t told you about our ghost.

I didn’t see him, though I have felt him. The first time we walked into this house it had been empty and shut up for a long time. On that first visit, we opened the shutters and let in the light. Motes of dust floated through the air. It didn’t feel like an empty house. It felt happy. As we walked through the rooms and I took in all of the patterned tile, none of it matching, the pink marble stairs and the painted windows, the etched glass and curling wrought iron balconies, my first thought was that whoever built this house built it with their whole heart and filled it with everything they loved.

In our family, we’re not afraid of ghosts. As they say on Hallmark cards, they’re just friends we haven’t met yet.

Remember I told you we held Angus and Olivia’s wedding here this summer? A few days afterwards, when all of the visitors had left, the plates and glasses were put away, the beds stripped and laundry done, I was having a cup of tea with my mother and she said, “I saw a ghost, you know”.

We had a wedding

I wasn’t terribly surprised. My mother has what they call the gift. This isn’t her first ghost. My Great Auntie Lily, my mother’s aunt, was Lancashire’s most celebrated medium in that time after the war when you could fill a village hall with women, almost always women, who wanted to know if you had a message from their John or Bert or Harry.

In our family, we’re not afraid of ghosts. As they say on Hallmark cards, they’re just friends we haven’t met yet. So when my mum said she’d seen a ghost I was more curious than alarmed.

On the day after the wedding she was sitting in the orangerie, the small lantern of a room tacked onto the end of the house, a luminous full stop at the end of the sitting room and dining room. She looked up and saw a man walking past the dining table towards her. “I knew he was a ghost, that if I looked away he would be gone. He was young, perhaps in his thirties, dark haired, dressed in black trousers and a white shirt with the collar removed, open at the neck. He was wearing a waistcoat embroidered all over the front with flowers.”

The view from the orangerie through the dining room to the sitting room.

“He looked so happy. He made me feel happy. He was carrying a glass of wine in each hand and he walked towards me, like someone at a party.”

She looked away and he was gone.

Almost every surface that can be covered in flowers in this house is covered in flowers, from the roses and cherry blossom painted on the staircase window to the sunflowers and narcissus on the mouldings. When my mother described the waistcoat, it made me think of Joseph Voisin who built this house. He was a wine merchant, the son of Jean Voisin, a prominent Nineteenth Century wine merchant. Jean Voisin built the Haussman-style building at the far end of the Quai de la Résistance (now the restaurant, the Château du Port) as his family home and business headquarters. His son, Joseph, built our house at the other end of the port.

Every detail in this house, from the painted and etched glass to the mouldings and tiles, is covered with flours and leaves.

Mismatched tiles in the kitchen. Be still my heart.

Was this cheerful ghost with his fancy waistcoat and glasses of wine Joseph Voisin? I don’t know, obviously, but I want to believe it was him so I will. I also want to believe that after this house he loved so much had been empty for so long, it made him happy that during that wedding weekend, we’d filled its rooms with beautiful young people, with life and noise and love, we’d eaten great food and drunk great wine, wine made from grapes grown in the same vineyards that had made his family’s fortune over a century ago.

So quickly, the house of his heart has become the house of my heart.

An advertisement for Le Mignon apéritif made by Jean Voisin, with the Chateau du Port in the background on the right.

Cauliflower crumble with hazelnuts and Emmental

In my experience, the French love savoury crumble. This is a good one. I make it with some buckwheat flour (sarasin) here, because I like the flavour it adds but you can certainly make it with wheat flour if you like or if that’s what you have and you don’t fancy a trip to the shops.

Serves 4 as a main course with a green salad, or 6 as a side dish

1 large cauliflower, approximately 1kg prepared weight
20g butter, plus a little more for greasing the dish
2 shallots, about 80g, chopped
1 tsp fresh thyme leaves
120g crème fraîche
A few gratings of nutmeg
60g Emmental, Cantal, Gruyère cheese, grated

For the crumble
60g buckwheat flour (sarasin)
40g plain flour
100g butter
40g Emmental, Cantal or Gruyère cheese, grated
50g hazelnuts, toasted* and roughly chopped
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
A few thyme leaves, to finish

*Tip: To toast the hazelnuts, place them in an ovenproof dish and put them in the oven you’ve heated up for the crumble for 5-7 minutes until they are fragrant and the skins are darkened – be careful not to burn them, use a timer. Tip them into a clean tea towel and wrap them up lightly. Let them steam for a couple of minutes, then use the tea towel to rub off the darkened skins. Don’t worry about getting every last speck of skin off.

1. Heat the oven to 200C/180C/Gas 6. Lightly butter a gratin dish – the one I use is an oval, earthenware one approximately 30cm long.

2. Cut the cauliflower into florets and steam the florets over a pan of boiling water for 5 minutes until just tender. If you don’t have a steamer basket, simmer them in a pan of boiling, salted water for 5 minutes then drain very well.

3. Warm the butter in a large sauté pan or casserole over a medium-low heat and gently fry the shallots with the thyme for 5 minutes. Add the crème fraîche, season well with salt and pepper and a few gratings of nutmeg, then stir in the cauliflower and cheese. Tip everything into the prepared gratin dish.

4. In a bowl, rub together the flours and butter until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs, still with some pea-size pieces of butter in the mixture. Season with salt and pepper and stir in the cheese and hazelnuts with a fork. Sprinkle the mixture over the cauliflower and back for 25-30 minutes until the top is golden. Scatter a few more thyme leaves over the top and serve.