French Leave (C4): THE sub-title The Chef, His Wife And His Mother-In-Law gave a big clue to the theme of the third in the series about John Burton Race's move with his family to south west France.

John wasn't looking forward to a week-long visit by mother-in-law Patsy. "We get on as long as I am in France and she's in England," he explained.

He was more interested in bread. Having abandoned his job as an over-worked chef in London, he was determined to learn about French bread-making and record some of the old recipes before they were lost forever.

He was excited at finding a bakery with a wood-burning stove, one of only a handful in the whole of France, and less excited at the prospect of fighting with Patsy for the hearts, minds and stomachs of his six children.

The scale of the problem was revealed when Patsy unpacked her suitcase to reveal the ammunition for her culinary counter-attack - bags of sliced processed bread, tins of baked beans, and packets of chocolate biscuits.

John was rendered almost speechless on seeing these provisions. "This is obviously a joke," he said, all too aware that Patsy wasn't joking.

Things went from bad to worse. "She's everywhere," moaned John, as Patsy kept changing and moving things in the house.

Then she insisted that the whole family go to church. John - "I want to go to church like a hole in the head" - couldn't remember the last time this had happened.

Happily, a couple of days later he escaped the real life mother-in-law joke called Patsy and renewed his quest for fresh bread. He travelled to a neighbouring village where the baker had been up since 3am.

There followed a detailed account of the making of the bread. The baker suggested there was nothing better to touch than dough mix. "I can think of one or two things that would be slightly better," said John. The baker said something else in French. "I'm not going to translate that last bit," said John, smiling at what was presumably a saucy remark.

This was one of the best days John had had since he moved to France - until he returned home to find wife Kim and Patsy had been on a shopping expedition and the children were gorging on chocolate and snacks.

"This is really embarrassing," he admitted. "I'm an ex-chef trying to do a cooking book in the home of good food and they're sitting there eating Dairy Milk chocolate."

Published: 03/10/2003