"At the L'Arpège restaurant on Rue Varenne, celebrating something, anything will do, with my wife Jo, to justify coughing up for the 13-course tasting lunch menu of what must be the best Michelin three-star vegetable cuisine ever.
The vegetables and fruit are grown on chef Alain Passard's own organic potager, southwest of Paris, from heritage seed varieties, cultivated without machines, just horse and human power, on both clay and sandy soil. The perfect aroma of a named heirloom vegetable is concentrated, and every mouthful is like tasting something for the first time, even simple things such as carrots or onions. Their four tomato gazpacho is deservedly legendary."
BUT I'M NOT, SO . . .
"I'll go up into our own garden potager in Sussex and fill a basket with big fat Witkiem broad beans, a buttercrunch lettuce and an intensely flavoured Babbington's leek. Rummaging around in the herbaceous border also guarantees a lot of leafy wild rocket. The herb patch supplies loads of oregano, marjoram, thyme and summer savoury. I chop up the herbs and leek, add grated Parmesan and a couple of eggs to make an omelette. I shell and boil the broad beans and douse them with olive oil and lemon juice, and have the lettuce and rocket with an aioli made with home-made mayonnaise. All this with a few slices of wholemeal sourdough from Judge's Bakery."
In conversation with Marie-Claire Digby
Craig Sams is co-founder of Green & Black's chocolate and co-author with Josephine Fairley of Sweet Dreams - The Story of Green & Black's Chocolate. Green & Black's will participate in the Taste festivals in Dublin (June 12th-15th) and Cork (June 27th-29th).