As a connoisseur, everything that Alexandra makes is luxurious and quite fancy. Her repertoire of jams reflects a love of French literature as shown in her new range of haute couture Confiture des Anges such as the highly decadent Memoires de Vignes. I can only reveal that it involves burning off the alcohol from a bottle of Monbazillac wine, a lot of stirring, adding sugar, saffron and gold.
The farm with its walls of sandstone and lauze roofs called Le Repaire near Verteillac, has been in Alexandra’s family for three hundred years. Set back off the beaten track in an ancient Périgordine hamlet, she watched as her grandparents grew every vegetable and fruit possible in their potager and crucially learnt about
respect for the land which left a deep and lasting impression on Alexandra.
Four years after it was started, L’Or des Anges is making waves. The safranière is thriving and this year the couple have diversified and planted 1,200 truffle oak saplings and the power and prestige of the mighty truffle is as much as saffron.
Not content with selling just one high end product, the Simonoff-Arpels are truly pushing the boat out in terms of producing authentic quality products from the produce of the land that they love and respect.
Find out more at: lordesanges.com
See Alex's delicious saffron rice pudding and scallop recipes on pages: 114-115
There is an ancient Greek story that goes… Krokos, a mortal youth and companion of the messenger god, Hermes were practicing their discus throwing when Hermes accidentally hit Krokos on the head, fatally wounding him. On the very spot where he was felled, a beautiful purple flower sprang up, the Crocus sativus, or saffron crocus. Three drops of blood from Krokos’s head fell on the flower, from which three vivid crimson stigmas grew.