Le Mouton Qui Rit

Le Mouton Qui Rit is a Bed and Breakfast in Mailleroncourt Saint Pancras, France.

Half way between Holland and the Mediterranean sea, or 350 east from Paris, 200 KM from Geneva It has 5 rooms and a small appartment for max 6 persons

20/03/2026

The sheep have found a new home in a sort of sanctuary. Better this way than to the butcher. I always got too little for them anyway. A few sheep have been with us / me for more than 6 years. Fannie would occasionally snicker with laughter at the antics those little sheep got up to. The kids always loved playing with them. After Fannie's demise, it became gradually too much for me to take good care of them. When the gardener indicated that he was applying for a permanent job, I decided to sell them. Within a few days someone showed up from the sanctuary willing to take care of them. They were picked up last weekend; an all black lamb was born at the last minute. I think it's a good thing, for both of us. Then, one of the neighbours asked me if I was willing to let some horses graze the land. Under conditions I found that a good solution as well. The grass would be eaten and no more worries that the farmer usually harvesting the grass not showing up like last year.
Thus there are no longer sheep that laugh. Next, preparing to close the B&B next year. Some official stuff involved but for the rest it is simply taking the site down and no longer accepting paying guests. After 19 years it leaves me with a lot of beds for my friends 😁 but also it gives me a lot of freedom to start traveling around in europe. Something that was impossible while keeping the B&B open. If that is still possible with the war situation boiling over and spreading out in the nearby future. There are two major reasons for war, one of those are our power hungry politicians. We the people do not want war.

26/02/2026

Now the ultimate baguette jambon beurre recipe. I am now officially addicted to Jambon Beurre. 🤪🤪🤪

Take half a baguette from the bakery in Faverney - close to Vesoul. This bread is still baked in a wood fired oven. Be there before noon because after that they are often sold out. BTW you should order more than one baguette for your freezer. Just so one can enjoy this delicious bread more often. When you buy the baguette it feels a bit soggy. So I give it 5-10 more minutes in my pre heated oven at 180 C. Cut the baguette in half - over the length. Instead of butter I now put a modest layer of mayonnaise de Dijon (or just mayo with a touch of Moutarde de Dijon - or any mustard) on one halve, a generous slice of smoked ham, some slices of tomatoes, a few slices of Gruyere cheese, slices of an egg and fold it all together.

I like it the old fashioned way: the crust should be crusty. That's why I baked it extra for some minutes in the oven. If you don't like your crust craqué just use it as bought.

Have a nice bite!

22/02/2026

Last week browsing in this monstrous book, I found: "Baguette Jambon Beurre". This should be very easy to make, I thought. On Wednesday I went to the bakery in Selles, bought 2 freshly baked baguettes, from another shop some slices of Jambon fumé au hêtre (smoked on oak) you know, these large, jumbo sized plaques. Then went to CaféTé in Vauvillers to get a hot steaming cup of coffee. Coffee at CaféTé is really good. At home I sliced a baguette in half, still a bit warm, got a good layer of butter on one half, put a few slices of smoked ham on that and topped it off with some slices of tomato. Then made myself another cup of coffee with the Italian coffee maker. Put up Bach's Untempered Clavier, took a sip, boy was this coffee strong!!! And took a bite from my baguette. Instantly I understood why this type of sandwich is so popular. Could one replace butter with mayonaise de Dijon? Will try that next time. Add egg's and salad? Why not, food is open to experimentation isn't it?

Each morning while having my coffee I read a bit in this big heavy cooking book. This Saturday I was looking for a real classic French dish, well yeah what is classic. Found something: "Jarret de Porc" (shoulder or pork knuckle). This recipe does not need chef's abilities, I can do this. After a bit of Youtube scrolling, some more reading in other cookbooks and I am ready to cook this dish. Maybe some adaptations are needed. Stay tuned.

12/02/2026

Surrealistic! Thinking I was ordering a pocket sized book on cooking during the early 20th century in France. Arriving was a monster book of +5 Kg in A4 format! After some browsing I discovered that Amazon has its own Printing on Demand service. That is why a relatively rare book could arrive after 3 days at my doorstep. But over 5 kilo's! Had I ordered it when the description would have been more clear? I hesitantly, guess so. Cool nonetheless to have found a cookbook on the bourgeois kitchen in or for a time that elaborate cooking was for the upper classes.
Leafing through the, a bit chaotic organised (á la Française), cookbook I found much to my desire. A lot of influences from the Balkan, Prusian and German cuisines. Found delicious old fashioned ways to cook chicken. I am going to try 'em all out. This is my new bible.
Not surprisingly, the old fashioned way of cooking seems to be more, how to say that, elaborate than expected. More or less my style of cooking in the first few years in Le Mouton: a lot of everything with different stages in preparations.

Well, ready for the next cycle?

20/01/2026

Winter is a typical period to cook delicious soups and typical french dishes like Boeuf Bourguignon, Daube Provençale, Choux Croute, various Casseroles and something I often cook: Pot au Feu. Like Louis XIV said, a good dish and a nice wine is like heaven on earth ;=)
Also, when one grows older, one's appetite becomes less. Meaning an "all you can eat" resto is not attractive. Quality goes before quantity... so one tends to cook dishes that are really something out of the ordinary.
Especially this Daube recipe, I discovered recently, is something you'd like to try out. Take any piece of sheep, fry it for 10 mins and add anything like herbs, garlic - a lot, vegetables, patatoes and cook it (lid on pan) slow and low (

07/01/2026

Tinkering with an installation like the one here (solarfarm and RaspiPlex) is of course great fun. Programming bypasses, backup, backup of backup, security within security, encrypting messages sending to and from servers, installing redundancy etc. etc. is also serious fun. But sometimes things become over-complicated and it starts to reverse the balance between developing and maintenance. Then KISS (keep it simple stupid) kicks in, the dark and long winter evenings are well spent "kiss-ing" as a result.
When Le Mouton guests show interest in this sort of things I give them a tour and tell them about the intricacies of the SolarFarm (to heat pool and house) and RaspiPlex (kind of overgrown IoT) in general and tell how we (Wim, Frank and meself) build and designed it. Sometimes eyes become glassy or others start to open boxes or eye-ing connections. That is fun too! But it also got me to understand that all of this is starting to be a bit of complicated for the outsider. A conclusion that needs to be addressed when eventually selling the house.
Developing a system like this means reading a lot, trying out things, getting parts and changing ideas or meeting impossibilities. Fun again. This year generation V4.0 is in the make. (for those of you wondering what I do during off season time, apart from pottery) Some things need to be rebuild, reprogrammed or just added, just for the fun of it. Like last years doorbell system that blinks the gardenlights as well. Or installing a spin off from SETI e.g. radio astrology, a citizen science project that hopefully starts to release its definitive system specs and software this year. Or this years addition to the sniffer: an electronic rain meter (by counting the raindrops falling on a pannel). Installing a second Sniffer on the parking (pollution, solar tracking, speed of tractors...). I need to live 400 years to complete my project list.
When I retired who could have thought me ending up as a so called 'maker'? But this is fun, really fun and it keeps your brain busy or at least keeping you from sleeping during l'apèro time...

01/01/2026

Happy New Year to All of You!!!

What's going to happen this year with Le Mouton?
Actually to continue with what I did last year, on request of Fannie. To continue the B&B during the summer, be it on some lower level.
Secondly to have or organize some pottery workshops during the season and continuing to plant more roses at the parking and in the garden. There are even thoughts about expanding the garden a bit more to plant more stuff and make it a place one likes to sit and think.
The last 2 years maintenance lacked a bit, so that needs to be addressed again.
Picked up cooking again as well and experimenting with some strange stuff that totally not pleased my taste buts every time, but hey one can not have everything without sacrifices!
In all Le Mouton will continue its activities

13/12/2025

Today I tried my hand at a Japanese dish: ramen. The drive to make this dish was that I had a terrible ramen at a Japanese restaurant in Luxeuil les Bains. Very salty and little of the ingredients went in it. Well, for a commercial meal, for profit no doubt. That could be done better was my thought when leaving the restaurant. After studying some YT instructables, to my surprise all what was needed could be bought in the nearest supermarket. After 40 mins I had I think a better ramen, at least a lot less salty. Just a bit more practice and another dish can be added to my (memorial) cookbook. There seems to be a TV series on an American lady learning to cook ramen. BTW cooking an excellent ramen is not easy is my understanding.

25/11/2025

Some of you will recognize this.
Cataract in ones eyes takes over you life. Sneaky that creeps into your eyes. At least you know sight is becoming worse. You tell yourself: that is the age. From time to time one might think that driving is becoming a bit dangerous. You know, mistakes with parking and you react more or less to shadows on the road and cannot read the road signs any more. No need, you know your way around! You start compensating: you buy a really big monitor, a keyboard with RGB light and things with big letters. Why, screening the paper's blurpy headlines without reading the rest just was OK.
Then when up for a new set of spectacles one needs to visit an ophthalmologist (eye doctor). He refused to write a new recipe because the cataract should be removed first. S**t, I only needed stronger glasses I thought.
Well, 2 weeks ago I had my operation. Reading, typing and driving, these problems are gone. What a friend said: you will suddenly see a lot of dust and other dirt. So true! Started cleaning the kitchen today.

05/11/2025

Time for a real "pot au feu", a French type of meal. It really does not matter too much what you put into the soup. You can buy a package in the supermarket but that will give you the cheapest stuff. Here we like meat, fresh veggies, some self grown aromatic herbs and of course a handful of garlic cloves! Add a few liters of water up to a few cm's from the brim. Cook it on low fire for a few hours. This will give you a healthy soup.

This time a 10L pot is on the stove. Each day I will add something different to it. Like whole potatoes with skin, next day a lot of tomatoes and or other veggies. To finish the pot au feu a few meals /days later add pasta to create a (kind of) minestrone soup. If you finished the meat, put a few chunks of chicken or chops in it to brew along. Some more herbs will refresh the taste too. Do not forget to heat up the soup EVERY day and let it boil for at least 15 mins

Bon appetit!

23/09/2025

Last week ordered larding needles, today I found lard suitable for larding the piece of Filet de Veau I put in the freezer last week. Another experiment to master cooking. Picking up cooking again ! So for people asking how things are going. Well, slowly but surely things are getting back on trail. Now binch watching "Bon appetit your majesty".
It appeared I ordered the wrong needles. Last week the right one arrived. A lot more robust. This weekend a new chance to figure it out. The potatoe salad, a new recipe, was well received. Should keep that in my repertoire came a remark. With some improvements.

Adresse

15 Rue Fontenois
Mailleroncourt-Saint-Pancras
70210

Téléphone

+33384743907

Site Web

http://www.lemoutonquirit.eu/

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