Spring with Pierre Carrier
The smell of herbs and the delicate taste of tiny new vegetables provide a fitting welcome to spring. They herald a return to light cooking, quick fresh sauces and vegetable broths with subtle and refined flavours after the rigours of winter and the heartier cooking that went with it.

Seasonal Products
Spring's star products are fresh garden herbs grown in the "courti" (the local word for a kitchen garden), and tiny new vegetables rich in flavour and at their peak of tenderness, cooked simply, steamed and served with a little basil vinaigrette, in salads, or alongside a simply roasted saddle of suckling lamb.

The herbs from our mountains grown in the "courti" include savory, wild thyme, wild sorrel, orach, salad burnet, tansy and even "génépi" from the Fiz mountains.

The Bianchetto Alba spring truffle, or "March truffle" (tuber albidum pico), is the springtime little sister of the white Alba truffle (tuber magnatum pico). Though possessing a less intense taste, it still imparts a comparable flavour to pasta, eggs or, most traditionally, risotto.

On the sweet side, the spring favourites are red berries and rhubarb from the garden.