Pot au Feu

A chilly wintry night in La Sechere with the fireplace roaring away. The dog is gnawing on a bone that should last him quite a while. I took him out around 10:30 and the sky was crystal clear with a half moon so bright that the fog coming up from the valley seemed to be glowing.
The house smells fragrant from the wood smoke and the scent of tonights dinner.
Janet made the perennial favorite French winter meal, a pot au feu.
The ingredients are fairly common, it just has to cook for a long time. She made hers with a package of cheap beef ribs. I dug up leeks from the frozen garden and found some thyme, parsley and celery leaves.
The basic technique is to take the cheap beef, usually something with a big marrow bone, cover it with water in a big pot with some gros sel (kosher salt should do fine, if not, regular salt), a clove or two of garlic, an onion studded with cloves and a bouquet garnii of thyme and parsley.
Bring the water to a boil and let it go for an hour, covered. Take the pot off of the fire and this time of year, just put it outside until it is cold and you can take the fat off the top easily. Then a few carrots, a bunch of leeks tied in a bunch. Use the whites and the greens. Some turnips...that's the basic winter vegetable assortment. Put them in the pot and put it back on the fire, covered for an hour or so. When you are getting ready to serve, boil a few potatoes, separately so they don't cloud the broth.
Remove the meat and vegetables, the bouquet garnii from the broth which now is highly flavoured. You can put some vermicelli noodles in or if you like, some tapioca pearls, here they are called perls de japon and are added to clear broths.
Keep the meat and vegetables warm. When you are ready to serve, have on the table a selection of condiments. Some chunky salt, we use sel de guerlande...a grey sea salt, some good hot dijon mustard, mayonaisse if you like and of course, cornichons!
(little sour pickles)
Serve the broth first in bowls. The tradition here is when the soup is almost done, the men make a chabrol...you pour a glass of red wine in the soup and drink it from the bowl, picturesque but a little messy especially if you have a goatee like me.
There are stories about the origin of the Chabrol but I keep hearing the one about a grape picker named Pierre Chabrol who when it was lunch time and finished with his soup asked for some wine. There was no glass, so he drank it from his bowl, he liked it so much that he did it every day from then on and it made him strong like Hercules and much more intelligent. Thew owner of the vineyard noticed this and he married the masters daughter, inherited the farm and lived to a very old age which he owed all to drinking a glass of wine mixed with his broth everyday.
This story was told to me by a 78 year old man who had convinced me that it would be an insult to turn down a glass in my bowl.
So, After the broth, serve the meat and vegetables, all steaming tender and scented with the cloved onion. Everyone takes a little salt on their plate and mustard and pickles and says "Bon Apetit, bien sur!"
The dog gets to lick the platter and have a bone!