In the grip of la grippe - how the project 333 larder got us through two weeks of illness

According to the headlines in France Bleu Limousin our department, the Haute Vienne, had exceeded the level of epidemic in the recent outbreak of ‘La Grippe’. Every year the TV adverts promoting the ‘flu jab start around October. The over-65s and those with compromised immune systems, such as asthmatics and cardiac patients, receive a free voucher, but I have since found out that anyone can have a jab for about €15. Since France experienced winter ‘flu epidemics which wiped out some of the elderly population, la grippe is high on the health agenda and there has been a dedicated ‘Sentinelles’ programme established since 1984. There is a ‘national ‘flu plan’, a monitoring body and regular news reports. Last time I checked Haute Vienne was still in red with 387 cases per 100,000 population – that’s just cases reported by GPs, not the 100s suffering in silence at home.

We usually get a couple of colds a year. In fact, the last time I had a cold was when we took a trip up to Denmark. My body still seems set in that routine familiar to many office workers – oh look, a holiday. Time to wind down, switch off and let that virus you’ve been fighting off whilst struggling to get your in-tray up to date, take over. However, we don’t go out in crowds much or have kids at school so I thought we were pretty safe from the dreaded grippe, provided we avoided bisous and washed our hands after every trip to the supermarket.

 

Then, OH realised he would have to call into the doctor for a repeat prescription. There’s no appointment system, it’s just first come, first served, so a few crafty techniques are necessary if a long wait is to be avoided. Market day numbers are usually down as there are more interesting things for the locals to do, especially if it’s the monthly livestock market. The regulars aren’t too keen on the remplacément either (locum), so any unusual car outside the surgery can be a good sign. It used to be possible to arrive early – say, 8am for a 9am start – but I reckon that these days they camp outside overnight. He was in the waiting room for less than an hour (that’s good!) but still managed to come back with the ‘flu.

Despite all the careful precautions la grippe took a few days to develop. Fortunately (I use that word advisedly) OH got it first. Then, just as he was starting to recover I succumbed. It’s a long time since I’ve spent so long in bed; the cat enjoyed it, she plays a good nurse. We had just about enough energy to take Bumble for a short walk (it rained most of the time so she was happy), watch a bit of TV and cook up some pasta. It was such an effort but at least with a larder full of tinned provisions we didn’t have to worry about shopping. I was grateful I’d only recently stocked up the 33 larder. We had a full complement of ingredients and were able to rustle up many of the quick and easy campervan recipes.

The 33 recipe project is now nearing completion. In fact, I think I have now found the penultimate recipe, as I will report in a future post. I’ve been tinkering with the ingredient list again, as I realised that the crunchy onion topping was still unopened. Substituting this for a jar of roasted red peppers in olive oil provides the scope for another couple of shopping-free recipes. The true worth of the fully stocked but minimal larder really became apparent during the recent period of sickness.

Finally, I recently read an interesting blog post on the subject of the Minimalist Larder (or pantry - as it's American). There’s a lot of advice that I already follow, like always emptying packets into storage boxes or tubs, and restricting the number of herbs and spices in the storage rack. However, there were two ideas I am going to try out. The first is to stick to the same brand of product – this is a great idea for pasta as I find that different manufacturers have different cooking times, so if you mix up the packs half of the pasta is just too al dente. The second tip was to have one shelf for the main set of ingredients and a second overflow shelf, topping up from the overflow shelf first before going shopping. At home I’m often guilty of having five tins of tomatoes in the cupboard, I suppose it’s a bit of a ‘prepper’ habit!