My dad used to make a beautiful concoction, and I believe it was very similar to a French pudding called a clafoutis.  Julia Child has a recipe for cherry clafoutis in Mastering the Art of French Cooking.  I tried it with cherries, which are traditional, and have to say I prefer my dad’s way, which is to use peaches instead.

Dad’s clafoutis was made in a pan on the stove, but the real clafoutis is made in the oven. My dad put ripe sliced peaches in a pan with butter.  He then made a dough of eggs, flour, milk and sugar, and poured that over the fruit, and then let it simmer until firm.  Delicious!

The French clafoutis is similar, in that one puts the fruit in a baking dish, pour the batter over the fruit and then bake it in the oven.  I first made it in Osoyoos when Jim and his new boyfriend Brian came for the weekend, and everyone seemed to like it.  I served it mighty hot though, and decided next time it needs to be warm.

I made another peach clafoutis for Marilyn, who came for lunch last Sunday.  I hadn’t seen Marilyn in two years, and she’s the great friend who used to work in my business, Rucastle and Schiller Workskills.  She also worked for me at Nuttier than a Fruitcake, and rented one of our houses downtown for 11 years until she was displaced by Denis himself.

For Marilyn’s visit I tried sprinkling a package of vanilla sugar and brown sugar over the top after it came out of the oven.  Then I served it warm with whipped cream and Marilyn really liked it and asked for the recipe, which I figure is a good sign.

On Wednesday Luke phoned and said he had a few days off between oil rig drills, so was heading home and would be here in time for dinner.  He’d already invited his friend Tyson over, so I phoned Denis and invited him too.

I had bought some cherries so thought oh what the heck I’ll try the traditional cherry clafoutis today for something different.  That was a mistake, as the cherries don’t get all nice and soft like the peaches do.

As you may know, Luke is renting the pink house in mom’s orchard as his home base when he’s not working, so he headed right down there on Thursday morning.  I was glad for the peace and quiet as I’d had too many peach martinis the night before.

Before he left I struck while the iron was hot and asked him if he might help an old lady with her large property and implored him to weed whack around the vegetable beds for me.  He looked surprised for a moment, but then composed himself and said why sure.

I walked the dog, and when I got home it was done and he was already heading south, without a good bye as usual.  I guess he just thinks I’ll figure out he’s left on my own, and of course he’s right, it’s just odd.  However, I shrugged, as the job was done and that was the main thing as it’s too hard for me to do.

I went down there with the dog and decided to weed near the beds and sure enough I managed to grab a wasp and was stung between my index and middle finger on my right hand.  As I was sick already, I took this as a sign, and headed straight into the house to lie down.