The Real Stuff

forget the table and chairs…imagine the rest!

Ok…I can see these shelves with stainless steel cabinets, on stone floors set within rock walls, some stone exposed walls and some hand troweled walls... rough cut beams will be sanded down and left open. 

Stainless steel LaCanche with stainless steel wall protection and a woodburning stove in the old farmhouse fireplace to make good soup and stews. We had Osso Bucco baked in the woodstove oven today, yum (with mashed potaotes and salad d’endive. Started with vegetable soup and fois gras :) because the Sheepfarmer’s sister was visiting for lunch.

I love simple contemporary, well done, in an old farmhouse kitchen. Perfect “melange d’etat brut et noble”

I need to get the Sheepfarmer to drag back in the original stone sink that is heaped outside :/ To be set into our “garden/vegetable preparation” wall

Dreaming about my kitchen project for turning this farmhouse into a B and B...still very much in the early pregnancy stage. :)

I think I might start with small personalized tours of our area and let people see what the “real, authentic” Basque Country is like.  Maybe some hiking or white water rafting.  How about some photography tours, maybe some cooking, maybe “brocanting,” Hunting for old books?  How about a couple of hidden galeries or art festivals off the beaten path…

The real stuff made here and not brought in and exchanged with Basque Country labels after removing the ones from China.

I am open to suggestions and any advice that someone might be willing to share with me.  I know the spots that “tourists” only dream of, away from the hordes and not visible on websites.  The restaurant (actually a couple restaurants/auberge) that cures his own xingara (Jambon de Bayonne) and grows his own vegetables and cans/preserves his own fois gras and paté.  Delicious.

 The berger that “trades” his cheese because he makes so little of it,  for himself, his family and his friends. In his little kayola high in the mountains where his sheep have eaten the first springtime flowers and drank fresh pure water from the springs that have gorged on melted snow. 

           I know the history, the culture, the people...

                              The “real stuff"