Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Bangor, County Down, Northern Ireland
Friday in Nice dawned cool and sunny, perfect for us to finish packing our bags to leave. I was still in the shower at 8:30 when Pierre gave Walt and Reed two bottles of freshly pressed olive oil that he’d just brought back from the mill. Then he left to go harvest over at the other property so I missed the chance to say goodbye, but it’s just as well, since there’s not much else I could say to Pierre except thanks for all the really good food, and hope you catch that wild pig!
Anne took us to the Nice airport at 11 am, plenty of time to check in for our 2 pm flight and then get some baguette sandwiches for lunch, and an International Herald Tribune to read… we went through security without difficulty and then relaxed in the remarkably uncrowded international departures lounge, with a view of the Mediterranean, and the towering space well lit by the sun. Our EasyJet flight was the first time I’d been on a plane without assigned seats and I was impressed with how rapidly the boarding process was finished, and how much space there was for our carry on bags in the overhead bins. Perhaps it has something to do with Europeans not owning so much junk as Americans? In any case, our flight crew was Irish as was the pilot, and we enjoyed the very smooth flight. Refreshments were not free, and this, too, added to the general pleasantness of the trip, as the flight attendants were not hustling up and down the aisle slinging beverages at everyone whether they wanted one or not. Our trip through customs went easily too, since we weren’t EU passport holders we went into a different line than everyone else, and didn’t have to wait to see the immigration officer. Anna Kavanagh was waiting for us as we emerged and welcomed us all with big hugs – what a pleasure to finally meet her in person after communicating so regularly via email since April. After a funny moment when Walt tried to sit down in the driver's seat by mistake, she drove us in her Honda Prelude to the house in Bangor, about a 20 minute drive from the Belfast Int’l airport, pointing out things of interest on the way, such as the shipyard where the Titanic was built. We met Michael when we got back to the house, as kind and friendly as Anna, and we felt immediately at home with them and in the house.
After so much time of not being able to communicate well, talking with Anna and her husband Michael was luxurious, and the effect was compounded by our surroundings in this house, which is a solid, well built brick house in a neighborhood of matching houses, at the end of a cul de sac not too far from the sea. Upstairs are 3 bedrooms and a bathroom, and downstairs is a laundry room, den, living area, and dining room/kitchen. Anna and Michael added on the beautiful kitchen/dining area 5 years ago, so we’re cooking our meals and washing our dishes with almost brand new appliances in a kitchen painted a warm pumpkin color, appointed with a radiantly heated slate floor, and black granite countertops, overlooking a carefully tended back garden with lots of flowering shrubs, including a fuschia, which both Walt and I love but which is too tender to grow in Idaho.
It may rain a lot here, but the climate is mild enough, judging by the number of palm trees we’ve seen planted in yards, including this one. Much to Reed’s delight there is also a big goldfish pond in the back yard, with plants and rocks, developed enough now to the stage that they don’t have to feed the fish anymore since they can survive on what’s there naturally. Reed came running in the first day to have me come out to see the little frog that was out on the rocks next to the pond.
There is a whole gaggle of boys who live on this street, whom Reed met Saturday afternoon when they all gathered in the circle of the cul de sac in front of the house to play football (soccer, that is). They gave him some cursory words of instruction (“You can’t use your hands, only your feet”) and let him join in. We watched surreptitiously from the front window, not wanting to miss Reed’s first pick-up soccer game with the lads but also to be sure there wasn’t any trouble. All went well; Reed apparently scored once or twice and had an assist, and later in the day young Charlie came to play with Reed by himself, and he seems a nice enough little boy, aged 6 like Reed.
Anna and Michael fed us heartily in typical Irish fashion, real comfort food for us: potatoes, peas, chicken pie, carrots and parsnips with gravy on Friday night, and steak, potatoes, and cabbage with gravy on Saturday night. Yum yum yum. Friday night we allowed ourselves to be guests, and Saturday night we did the washing up after dinner so Anna and Michael could finish their packing. I was astounded at the amount of time Anna spent with us on Saturday, driving us around to show us the basics and help us get our bearings, taking us to the nearby town of Newtownards to introduce us to the greengrocer most devoted to local food, pointing out the best butcher, etc. As I recall as we were leaving on our trip we barely had time to sleep much less play host to anyone; but I guess we were emptying our house, which is an entirely different thing than turning the whole furnished thing to a housesitter. Anna had also prepared a whole booklet of info for us to make our stay go smoothly, and now not only do I simply like Anna I have a great deal of respect for her organizational abilities! Birds of a feather, we are.
Anna and Michael left at 2 pm Sunday and as it was getting rainy about that time we made a fire and stayed in for the afternoon. Monday we rose with the sun and headed out after breakfast to town, going by way of the coastal path, which isn’t the quickest way but certainly the prettiest. The coastline is rocky and grey, the water surging in and out in a fairly substantial tidal flow. There were plenty of gulls and herons and cormorants fishing for their breakfasts, and we saw a seal, too, a glossy black head a few yards out from the rocks. The coastal path is wide and paved, lined on the one side with hills and tall Georgian-era terraced houses painted in pretty colors and on the other side with grass leading down to the rocks, attracting joggers, bikers, and lots of dog walkers; almost everyone says good morning, although I did notice we got more friendly hellos on Monday as a nicely turned out family than I did this morning as a lone woman in running pants. The path leads into the center of Bangor and its marina and as we walked along alternating our gaze from the snug houses to the picturesque harbor I began to miss the place in advance, knowing how attached I’ll be by the time we have to leave next spring. I also remembered why I love the British Isles so much – looking at the houses makes me feel safe, as if I have my hands constantly wrapped around a cup of hot milky tea. I had forgotten that feeling in France, and no matter how much I love those stone houses with tile roofs, France never makes me feel safe, at least, it hasn’t happened yet.
We found the library, temporarily housed in a small mall while the real one is renovated, and checked out some books with Anna’s library card, then found the Oxfam thrift shop where we purchased a couple of warm things for Reed to wear. Here we realized how friendly the Irish can be: the staff called Reed a good lad, gave him some candy, told us all about things we can do in Bangor and the rest of the sights in Northern Ireland, decanted on the weather, and made us feel thoroughly welcome, all in about 15 minutes. By the time we found the bustling Heatherlea bakery/café/deli up the street we were hungry and Walt and Reed discovered their flaky sausage rolls. I noted their many varieties of pastries and cakes and quickly decided that Reed and I would come here for treats on our special days out, as reward for good violin practicing and good school work.
We went further up the hill and found the main train/bus station and then a little past that is the 80’s modern leisure center, which has at least 3 indoor swimming pools – another thing to add to our arsenal of winter activities. We went a little further towards the butcher that Anna had recommended, to get some fish and chips for lunch from the little place on the corner - Collins Hot Foods - she had pointed out to us. We made the mistake of ordering two full orders of chips (with salt and vinegar of course) as well as two full orders of fish – one chip order would have been plenty, as it turns out! We crossed the road to find a place to sit down, since the chip shop turned out to be carry out only; fortunately it wasn’t raining and we settled out of the wind inside the walls of the cemetery of a church. Some of the graves dated to the 1700s, and the cheerful caretaker didn’t seem to mind us sitting in there to eat at all.
We got home in the early afternoon, and Charlie and his little brother Harry appeared shortly afterwards. We welcomed them inside at first until we discovered that Charlie and Harry together are little hellions, so the boys were all sent outdoors again and will not be invited inside anymore. Then we discovered that throwing rocks at the fish is too great a temptation for boys other than Reed so we have also decided not to allow any other children in the back garden. Poor Walt played policeman almost all afternoon while I worked on some writing assignments upstairs, but he won’t have to do that again. They’ve got the whole circle of the road in front in which to play, and selfish as it may seem I don’t intend to spend my afternoons supervising children who need more supervision than Reed!
The days stretch out long here, even with the early sunsets. It must be the effect of not having any farm work to do, not having anywhere that we have to be, giving me even more time than I could imagine. At home the afternoons were gone in a few minutes, always! How unfair, that the people with the most to do are given so little time each day; those of us who are doing nothing apparently have all the time in the world in which to do it.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Olive Harvest in the Mediterranean
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
St. Isidore – Nice
We keep having to remind ourselves, when we look around, that we’re not in Southern California. Palm trees, orange lemon lime bergamot etc.,. the rocky hills covered with scrub, some pollution from the big city and some fog from the sea…and sun, sun, sun, warm enough to work in shirtsleeves even at the end of October.
It’s sieste time after lunch, but in a little bit we’ll get back to it. Here things are a little more scheduled than at les Fromentaux. We start work at 8 am and don’t quit until lunchtime, and then we work for a few hours in the afternoon as well. But it’s a pleasure: Anne and Pierre Magnani are the nicest people you could meet. They have a small organic farm right here in the midst of the suburbs of Nice, up in the hills, so that the various plots of land under cultivation are on terraces that are about 15 meters wide and 50 meters long. Some of the terraces have hoophouses on them and some are open. Anne makes things like peppers preserved in oil, or with salt, vinegar and sugar, a pepper sauce with fresh ginger leaves (I don’t know what this is really but Pierre got one for me and it smells fabulous), lemon curd, and citrus confiture, as well as doing things like sprouts. Pierre grows vegetables such as cucumbers, squash, salads, beans, fennel, onions, leeks, etc., which he distributes through a CSA and also at the market in Old Ville Nice. Pierre is so good looking, like a movie star, I can imagine he has a very loyal clientele! They have one employee, Gregoire, who lives in Nice. Our first day we spent the morning spreading fertilizer on some fennel on one of the lower terraces, and then digging it in and weeding at the same time: backbreaking work with a kind of hoe/spade with a handle about 2 or 3 feet long. Our first lunch was fabulous: roast pork, salad, ravioli, bread, cheese, wine. Everyone eats together (the boys are at school 4 days a week so they’re only at lunch with us on Wednesdays) on the terrace outside the kitchen, and afterwards there is a bit of time for a sieste, but not a real long time. In the afternoon we helped prepare the CSA shares after harvesting strawberries. Walt weighed out the strawberries while I washed and prettied up the leeks. I put leeks in the boxes and then we weighed out the onions and put them in too. When everything was ready Anne and Pierre took everything to their CSA pickup spot at 5 pm and we stayed home with the boys who were wild and I got dinner ready. At first I thought their wildness was just because Reed was here with them but after being here a couple of days I see that they are just wild a lot of the time. I was glad when it was 7 and it was time for all the boys to take showers and get jammies on before dinner, so things calmed down then a little. Dinner was geared towards the boys; Anne had me make fish nuggets and fried potatoes and salad.
Our second day we continued with the fennel plot and once we finished them we moved on to the onions, so that by the end of the day we were quite exhausted, and my hands had matching blisters since I hadn’t put my gloves on, thinking it wouldn’t be that bad. The soil is reddish and full of round rocks anywhere from 1 inch to 3 inches in diameter, which make the little hoe clang and ricochet each time you thwonk it into the ground. Whereas at La Bourange weeds were apparently never taken on, here, they try to keep the rows clean somewhat. When Pierre’s Italian parents bought this land in 1955 the whole valley was just farms (this farm faces west – southwest, and the sea is off to the left, to the south) but now right below us are huge stores and parking lots and a cinema, and a bit further are some very big and very busy roads, and on the hillsides are lots and lots of houses. They used to grow flowers and other things; now they raise some rabbits and chickens and come down in the afternoon to make sure we WWOOFers are behaving. They speak Italian so we don’t communicate very well but they’re friendly and try to talk to us anyway. They look just like you’d expect 70 year old Italian farmers to look and I hope I can get a picture of them before we go. Off in the distance we can see a couple of villages, one is St. Genet (sp?) and the other I can’t remember the name. Pierre told us that there was a castle surrounded by houses in St. Genet in the middle ages, and then during the plague, they burned all the houses, because at that time they were made of wood. When they rebuilt they used stones.
Lunch the second day was just as good as the first: salad, gnocchi, roast chicken and potatoes, sliced tomatoes with balsamic vinegar and olive oil, cheese, wine. And then, we didn’t have time after work to moan about being tired because Pierre was going to a dentist appointment and to deliver a flat of tomatoes to a restaurant and said we could go with him in the truck at 5 pm and that the restaurant where he was taking the tomatoes sells olive oil and does olive oil degustations (tastings). When Reed heard this he did a little dance of excitement.
So we showered up quick and got ready to go into town. We walked around a not too interesting street – enjoying being upright instead of bending over a row of fennel - while Pierre had his dentist appointment and then afterwards Anne and the kids met us with the orange Kangoo (it’s the French SUV apparently) and we piled in and went into old town Nice, parked in a parking garage and then walked through the narrow winding streets, Pierre carting a flat of tomatoes the whole way, until we got to the tiny little place called Oliviera. The proprietor was so glad to see Pierre and exclaimed over the beautiful tomatoes; there were about 5 or 6 varieties, the end of the season for them. The proprietor gave us a taste of two olive oils, the first was very mild and was from cailleton (I think that is the spelling) olive trees which is the one that grows right here in Nice. The second started with the letter B and was from another place not far away, and it was spicier, with a little bite to it. Reed was breaking up the bread into little pieces and just soaking up the oil and popping it into his mouth as fast as he could. Then the proprietor asked, what fruit does it remind you of? Green? And without thinking about it, just tasting, I blurted out, banana. And he looked at me with great surprise, impressed. Exactly. That’s the first time I’ve ever tasted from the gut and not my brain. I’ll have to try that more often. Then we went to a place just around the corner which serves Nicoise food very cheap, and had a eat with your fingers meal of socca (chickpea flour, olive oil, water, and salt, I think, cooked kind of like crepes), pizza, farcis (tomatoes, zucchini, and onions, stuffed with a savory mixture of egg, breadcrumbs, ham, and ?), and to drink, Orangina. Reed and the boys were so wild all the time that it made it hard to concentrate on the incredible sights in nighttime old ville Nice, but still we gaped at the old Italian looking buildings, the Cours Saleya, the English Promenade along the beach, the houses on the hillside curving around above the bay. The city is seductively beautiful; the Mediterranean an unbelievable blue in the day, lined with palatial buildings, but at night, it’s a glittering reflection of diamond lights, as if everyone in Nice lives with a balcony view of the sea, as if no one could be unhappy or desperate.
Friday, October 19, 2007
St Isidore, Nice
Wednesday morning was not quite so back breaking as I was assigned the job of pruning off the currants (cassis or groseille, I need to look this up), while Walt cut down some unwanted weedy trees. Pierre and Gregoire worked on getting the hoophouse deconstructed, and after lunch we joined them with getting it all taken apart and moved up to its new home. Then we got the framework put back together before we quit at 5 pm. Lunch was a stir fry with soy sprouts, mushrooms, bacon, and some greens, a salad of bitter chicory greens with some parmesan, and rice. Since the boys were here they ate leftover gnocchi and chicken and potatoes and salad.
Towards the end of the day things got a little wacky, getting the last set of pipes in place on the greenhouse frame required some fine tuning and at one point Gregoire tried to wrench something into place by hanging on it and one end of the pipe detached and he fell flat on his back on the ground from about 8 feet up. This resulted in a bent piece of pipe that had to be replaced, which took an extra 20 minutes. Shortly thereafter I was also trying to get something into place while standing in the wheelbarrow and I stood too far to the front and the whole thing tipped over with me in it; fortunately it was a clean, graceful fall to the ground and I landed upright, and bowed gracefully to Walt and Gregoire’s applause.
Dinner is always a little chaotic with Pierre and Anne’s two boys, Dmitri (age 10) and Rafael (age 6), who never listen to her, throwing balls around the living room and jumping on the couch. Dirt was my trial in the Auvergne but here in Nice, it is hyperactive boys. But the food is always really good and Pierre especially seems to enjoy sharing good tastes with us. Wednesday night we had slices of eggplant that were sautéed, with two kinds of mushrooms, chanterelles and death trumpets (!) sautéed with lots of garlic, bread, some ham on the side, cheese, and chocolate cake. Afterwards Anne played the piano so the boys could sing, and then she played Hey Jude (ironically enough, the tune Andre is always humming as he works on the bread in the Auvergne) and we sang along. She also played some Edith Piaf songs and sang one for us, always enjoyable, and Anne has a nice voice. She tried to get Pierre to sing an Italian song but he steadfastly refused, claiming to have a bad voice, which is probably true. Although he has a way of sort of singing “C’est ne pas grave!” (It’s nothing serious!) when little things happen that make him a wonderful person to work for. I didn’t even find out until tonight that last night the sanglier (wild pigs) got into the new leek crop and ruined them all, a lot of work and income lost. This morning I would never have guessed, although he must have been very upset.
We had intended to go harvest olives at the property across the way but the truck wasn’t starting this morning (yet another thing that would have sent Walt into a downward spiral but which didn’t seem to faze Pierre) so we quickly changed programs, and Walt and I harvested strawberries (fraises), weeded the cabbage (chou), and I harvested green beans (haricot vert). Pierre was over at the other property doing something else, and Anne fixed lunch for us and Dmitri, who was home because his teacher is on strike. Small pieces of chicken cooked with onion and coconut milk, spaghetti with butter and some cheese, salad, and yogurt for dessert.
We were actually glad to be working today after spending yesterday, our day off, hoofing it down the winding narrow road with no sidewalk to St Isidore to catch a bus that was late into Nice (there was a train strike yesterday all over France that put the kibosh on our plans to go to the beach in Cannes) and then walking a lot once we were in Nice. The bus we were on started to turn in a direction that wasn’t where we wanted to go so we hopped off at the next stop and started walking, and quickly realized that we needed to catch another bus to get across town. It was a good day but very tiring, with all the traffic and people. We were helped by some very nice college age girls to get the right bus to the Vieux Ville – old city – and then they went out of their way to walk us to where we could see the narrow streets that we were after. Don’t let it be said that the French aren’t friendly or helpful – on this trip we have yet to meet anyone who hasn’t been solid gold, practically. We found a little place to eat panini and crepes for pretty cheap for lunch and then splurged on Italian ice cream before we went over to the beach and found a place to hang out for a couple hours.
The beach is mostly smooth light gray stones, and during this time of year not too crowded. All along the curving bay are palatial hotels and apartment buildings, with restaurants and bars at sidewalk level. Next to the beach, across the street from all the hotels, is a wide promenade that stretches for miles for walking or biking. There were a few hardy souls in the sea, which is certainly a swimmable temperature, but with the breeze and the sun just warm enough to bask in wearing jeans and a sweater, it would be icy cold to get out of the water. There was one small place where they had brought in sand, so Reed and I made ourselves at home there, me reading a book and Reed digging a deep hole and making little sand structures using the small bucket and spade we’d brought in the backpack. He kept running back and forth to the water to fill the little bucket. The Mediterranean is a spectacular color of blue, a reflection of the sky, of course, and I hope Reed always remembers the day he spent on the beach in Nice. Nearby was a handsome and smiling German family with a set of twin babies and an older girl with blonde hair who must’ve been about 2 ½. She came over and plopped herself down by Reed who promptly shared his bucket and shovel with her and they played contentedly side by side for about an hour. She gave him a little box of raisins as a thank you for sharing. I had to admire the mother with the twins; she was able to completely ignore the one in the stroller that was squalling while she breastfed and cuddled the other one before switching babies, and she managed to ignore both of them for a good five minutes while she calmly got her hair fastened back so it wouldn’t get messed up in the wind. Such nerves – of course you’d have to be that way to come all the way to Nice from Germany with three infants under the age of 3.
Tonight is another rugby match on television; France is playing Argentina to see who will get third place in the world cup. We’re going to watch it with the Magnanis, and I will think about Andre and Kevin and whoever else is watching it at Les Fromentaux.
Saturday, October 20, 2007
St Isidore, Nice
Mealtimes with the Magnani family when the children are present are always chaotic but the food is so good that I do my best not to mind, and also to sympathize silently with Anne, raising two spirited boys. Thursday night Anne had aikido and prepared some potato and radish green soup before she left, so we started with the soup, and Pierre followed with an omelette, and brought out the charcuterie and cheese and bread – and then showed how to rub fresh garlic on a little piece of bread and put it in the soup, which transformed it from merely good to really good. And then… he made a little mouthful for me. A small piece of bread, with some butter, a little bit of dried ham (like prosciutto, sort of, something his brother imports from Italy), a slice of tiny pickle, a drop of his special sweet and sour pepper relish, and a piece of cheese, kind of like manchego or parmesan. He handed me this little mouthful of stuff and I popped it in my mouth…heaven. Meanwhile Rafael next to me is squirming and climbing down and not eating anything except cheese, and Pierre has to repeatedly get up and set him bodily in his chair. C’est la vie.
Last night Anne made pissaladiere, the famous Nicoise pizza of caramelized onions, olives (with the pits still in them), and anchovies, on a kind of pastry crust. It was absolutely delicious, I could have eaten five more pieces just like the one I had, but since there really was just one piece for each person I managed to restrain myself.
Today we harvested for the Saturday market. I picked the last of the green beans of the season, and then pulled out the plants, and then helped Walt finish harvesting strawberries, and also weeded a little of the cabbage which was a little tricky since it is tucked in between two rows of raspberry canes. Ouch.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
St. Isidore, Nice
We tried to get Pierre to tell us something to do Saturday but he said to wait until he came home from the market; then when he came home he was so tired he just wanted to sleep, so by the time we did anything it was almost dark. Anne set us to work cleaning the little peppers that they pickle and sell, and we got about 1/3 of the way done before Pierre came out and told me to stop. It was almost dinnertime and it was dark and I think maybe Pierre couldn’t relax in front of the t.v. with me just outside the window scrubbing peppers with a toothbrush in cold water.
Pierre cooked rabbit for dinner and invited me to watch how he did it. Cut rabbit up into pieces, sear it in very hot vegetable oil in a dutch oven until it’s all brown and delicious looking, then add a dollop of red wine and keep at high heat until it evaporates, then add a mixture of diced up onion and celery, branches of thyme and rosemary, some diced tomato, some other dried herbs, salt and pepper, and some water, then turn down the heat and put the lid on and let it simmer. He presented it on a big platter with rice in the center and the pieces of rabbit all around the edge, with the gravy in a separate bowl. It was so good. Tonight he roast a chicken with chestnuts, which was also fabulously good, alongside some of the last of the green beans, and a bitter green salad with a vinaigrette that had garlic and onion and parmesan in it. I’m not sure if I really like chestnuts, but the chicken was so good the chestnuts get a good review too.
I asked if the kids would like me to cook something American for them and the unanimous decision was hamburgers so I’m to make a shopping list for Anne and I can cook them Tuesday, I think. Funny that I can make so many different things but that here in France what people seem to appreciate is that I know how to make good hamburgers. I wonder if I should ask Anne to buy ketchup?
Today I had a solo adventure that was great fun simply because I was alone, even though the errand itself – to go into Nice to find an internet place – was pretty mundane. I walked down the hill and found the Lingostiere station (by accident, trying to walk to the huge stores we can see at the bottom of the hill, unsuccessfully) where I caught the little train into Nice, where I walked for a little ways until I found the internet place very close to the big train station where we arrived. When I was done I headed straight back to the little train station, stopping at a boulangerie/patisserie for a couple slices of pissaladiere before I headed back home to make the long steep trek back up the hill. While I was gone the kids and Walt and Anne and Pierre went to a pretty place on a harbor at St. Laurent where the kids rode their bikes while Anne went for a run and Pierre and Walt sat and drank coffee and read the newspaper. I was sorry to miss that but glad to have had some time to myself, to make Nice a little bit mine.
The weather at night now is quite cold, so that we’ve been using the heater in our cabin and in the bathroom cabin much more than we did at first, when it seemed like summer all the time. In the mornings it is windy and cool until the sun manages to makt it to this land, close to 11 am, and then it warms up, and the afternoon is pleasant. Funny how much the weather can change in just a week, and I wonder what it will be like in Ireland, if it will be as cold and wet and dark as I’m imagining it will be, using Sitka, Alaska as my benchmark. I figure if I expect it to be as bad as Sitka in November, I can’t be disappointed, because nothing could be as wet and cold and dark as Sitka in the winter. Except maybe Little Port Walter.
Monday, October 22, 2007
St. Isidore, Nice
Today was the day to prepare the CSA shares (AMAP in French) for the Magnani’s customers so we headed out into the brisk wind and chilly air first thing this morning with Pierre to harvest. We started with lettuce, lovely big heads of tender sweet leaves, which grow through holes in plastic to keep them from getting dirty from underneath. Then Pierre harvested beets and leeks and green onions while Walt and I gathered things up into the plastic bins; then Walt harvested the basil while Pierre took me back up to the house driveway to work on getting things washed up. It was absolutely freezing – my fingers were numb from the cold water but I persevered and tried to be quick, knowing that Walt and I have been painfully slow at times and not wanting to disappoint Pierre today, since Gregoire is off this whole week. Pierre went back down to harvest chard and cilantro and radishes, and then it was lunchtime. We ate leftovers, sat around for a short while, and got back to it, finishing up the washing and then starting in on harvesting strawberries. Since it was nice and warm in the tunnels it was a pretty pleasant job, the first time I’d been really warm all day, plus there is always the extra advantage of being able to eat the ones that are flawed slightly and can’t be put in the boxes. Sometimes a big fat juicy one will have a place where a little bug nibbled a small hole but now there’s no bug, and the rest of the strawberry is fine, so dang it, I just have to eat it. These strawberries are like perfume in your mouth, in a good way, and so delicate they don’t last more than a day after they’re picked and have to be handled with the gentlest touch. We only had about an hour and a half to do both tunnels so I stayed on my feet, stooped over, and discovered that my capacity for stooping has improved in the past week, although it was still tiring at times. But with Pierre’s mother’s help we managed to finish just in time to get them into boxes and weighed and put into the boxes along with everything else, and Pierre drove off with everything at about 5:45 while I sprayed everything down and made it look like nothing had happened in the driveway, despite all the lettuce and basil and strawberries etc. scattered everywhere. All in all a satisfying day, especially when I got a piece of stale bread and spread it with Nutella to eat in the sun as soon as I finished working at 6 pm.
The sun went down shortly after that, though, and it got cold very quickly, so I was glad to find that dinner was raclette: boiled potatoes and ham with cheese melted in a special contraption right at the table, accompanied by tiny pickles and pickled onions. It is so cozy, and the kids love it. Reed ate 3 potatoes, so he ought to be quite full. Pierre got out a bottle of the local Bellet AOC white wine, which was absolutely wonderful, not too sweet or dry, just perfect with raclette. I can’t remember what the two kinds of grapes are used in the local white but one of them is Chardonnay, perhaps the other was Rolle? Or Cinsault? I never claimed to be a wine professional. Anyway, it is a friend of Anne and Pierre’s who makes it and the label says Clot Dou Baile with an ‘ over the o in Dou. I wish we had time to go to the winery to meet her but that’s the way it goes.
Reed was very good during our long day of work, not hassling us too much to come to his restaurant or store, and trying to help with things whenever he could. Eventually he picked up quite a collection of oranges from underneath all the trees so after work he and Walt made some juice. Reed’s behavior has improved quite a bit in the last week or so, perhaps as a result of being around Rafael who is so wild so much of the time. In any case, at the table Reed is like an angel, eating his food, sitting still, asking for more, etc. He said raclette was the best thing ever and we should eat it every night.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
St. Isidore, Nice
We’ve been harvesting olives for the past two days so believe me when I say I was too tired to write last night, but the first thing I have to tell about is Bobotte. Bobotte is an old sailor who lives in a caravan (RV) on the property across the river that Pierre and Anne rent or own, I’m not sure which. It takes about 20 minutes to drive there since the bridge is way down the road. He has greenhouses and citrus trees and olive trees on it, and Bobotte lives there by himself (except for a mama cat and 4 kittens). He’s half deaf, apparently, so when he talks he always sounds grouchy, and he wears a blue fisherman’s sweater and a fisherman’s cap with a brim. Well, Bobotte is grizzled and lean, and he smells a little, and he smokes, and the caravan smells badly of cats, but for the past two days we’ve eaten lunch in Bobotte’s caravan, and feasted both days. And he is gracious and hospitable, too. When we arrived yesterday morning the first thing we did was get the tarps down under the trees and then it was time to drink coffee, which he served to us in his 3 matching delicate demitasse cups, which are white with a gold rim. Alongside were some lovely buttery Breton cookies. When we came in to eat lunch, pushing the kitties off the seat cushions so we could sit down, a salade nicoise was waiting for us at the table, with some of Pierre’s fresh and delicious tomatoes, tuna, onions, anchovies, olive oil, hard boiled eggs. Yum. Then, roast chicken, and spaghetti, with a platter of 3 cheeses for dessert. Then, more coffee. It is harder to understand Bobotte than it is Pierre, but we managed to make a bit of conversation. I saw him watching Reed with the kittens and decide silently that Reed was a good boy since he was handling the kittens so carefully. Later in the afternoon he brought Reed an entire package of the yummy Breton cookies, so I know he’s an old softie.
We worked all afternoon until about 5:30 pm and then came home and I made hamburgers for dinner, and then fell into bed at 8:30 without helping with the dishes. Reed fell asleep quickly since he’d been with us at the olive harvesting all day long without anyplace to lie down. He was at his wits end by 4:30 or so but held on until the end like a trooper.
Today we started earlier, leaving at 8 am on the dot. Bobotte had coffee for us again, with another really tasty kind of cookie. Pierre’s parents came this morning too, but left after a while since it sounded like grandma wasn’t feeling very well. We were getting a lot done and then Anne and the kids arrived, it being their day off from school. So Reed and the boys ran around playing rough and tumble games (something like attack hide and seek) while we worked as fast as we could trying to get halfway done by noon. Bobotte made lunch for everyone, starting again with tomatoes and onions in vinaigrette, and some foie gras with bread, and a salad very similar to coleslaw made with some kind of julienned vegetable, then, steak, with roast potatoes, and some kind of vegetable gratin with cheese, followed by the cheese platter. Then, more coffee.
Harvesting olives by hand basically involves whacking the tree branches with a long piece of bamboo to make the olives fall off onto the tarps. Yesterday that’s what I did most of the time. There is a machine to help with the harvesting but it is too heavy for me to hold for long. This morning I discovered a sore spot on my shoulder, and realized that I would have to whack more gently if I expected to last the entire day. But whacking more gently doesn’t get the olives off the branches. So I started harvesting by hand the olives I could reach easily, using my fingers like rakes. The routine settled into Pierre using the chain saw to prune the big branches, while Bobotte and I would harvest olives off these cut branches by hand or with a little rake especially designed for olive harvesting. Then, when Pierre was done chainsawing (not the usual procedure, this year the trees need lots of pruning) he would get the electric machine that makes harvesting go faster. It’s on a long pole, with a cylinder shaped contraption with long rubbery fingers sticking out on the end that spins around and whips the olives off the branches. The olives are a mixture of green and black, different levels of ripeness, and apparently they are early this year, and very abundant. Last year, he said, they had 18 cases altogether, and by tonight we had 33 and they’re not even done.
The olives were supposed to be delivered to the mill tomorrow morning but at lunchtime it became obvious that even after harvesting we still need to do some kind of winnowing procedure to get the leaves out which will take hours SO Anne called the mill on her cell phone right there at the caravan table (all 8 of us eating in there, very crowded) and managed to get the appointment changed to Friday morning at 6 am. I was expecting that we would then work again to finish the harvest tomorrow but it turns out that Pierre is just going to let the olives fall onto the tarps and that we don’t work tomorrow in principle, as it is always the WWOOFer’s day off. Reed had a better day today than yesterday since we brought his pillow and quilt from the cabin to relax on in the back of the van, a cozy nest on an overcast day. I’m glad not to work tomorrow but I feel bad since I didn’t get to say goodbye to Bobotte. When we left I thought we were coming back tomorrow. WWOOFers are transient, though, so he’s probably used to us coming and going.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
St. Isidore, Nice
Well, we were lucky not to be harvesting olives today, as later in the morning it clouded up and started to rain, and all day it got worse and worse, pouring down rain and blowing too. I’m sure the ground needs it – apparently in the mountains where Anne and Pierre grow potatoes it didn’t rain at all this summer where it usually rains a lot, so they didn’t get a potato crop. We slept in and then I got Reed his breakfast and then I stayed in bed reading for a couple hours while the boys did some exploring around the farm before the weather turned bad. I spent an hour washing some clothes by hand so we’d have clean clothes for the first couple days in Ireland. Around lunchtime Walt’s back started spasming again like it did in Iowa, only this time it happened while he was on the bed already, so we were able to quickly get him relaxed and situated for an afternoon of rest, so that by suppertime he was up and walking around and able to take the boys trick or treating to the neighbors in the pouring rain (how very like home!)
We spent the afternoon in the cabin with the heat cranked, both to be cozy and also to help the laundry dry, while I packed everyone’s bags, and Walt napped, and Reed tried to nap unsuccessfully, and he also worked on some Halloween art since Anne had asked him to help decorate for Halloween. When I went inside around 3 to get my CD from the living room Pierre was eating lunch after finishing the olive harvest. I continued puttering around, getting dishes washed and the bathroom emptied of our stuff, etc., until it was time for Reed to go up to the house to get dressed in some kind of mask for trick or treating. Anne had forewarned the relatives upstairs and some of the neighbors that the kids would be coming so they would be prepared, and so around 6 pm off the kids trooped with Walt. The olive winnowing had just begun, under a big umbrella attached to the back of Pierre’s van, with grandpa in the back of the van dumping the olives onto a chute, grandma and me helping push the olives down the chute, and Pierre holding the power blower to blow the leaves out of the olives as they rolled down into the bin. I helped do that for a couple of hours before Anne came out to say dinner was ready and Pierre told me to go eat. Anne had decorated with Halloween candles and streamers, fixed a very nice meal of lentils with ham and carrots, and boudin noir, and a tomato salad, and even a pumpkin pie (!) so it was too bad, she said, that it had to be this way, with the olives going on, Pierre working, and her being tired from pickling peppers, so we couldn’t enjoy the evening together with some good wine. I’m disappointed not to have enjoyed that scenario too – but understand, too, how some work can’t wait and on the farm life is not always a party.
I have to make note, that despite all the work happening here, with Pierre doing all the outdoor work and Anne doing all the marketing and organizing and all the stuff with the kids, everybody tired all the time, that meals have all been eaten at home, cooked mostly from scratch. Lunch and dinner, every day, something hot and fresh and good. This was also true in the Auvergne – nobody went out to eat or to a bar. The only meal we’ve had away from home with our WWOOF hosts was last week when we delivered those tomatoes to the olive oil place in vieux ville Nice, when we went to the street food place and ate farci and socca and pizza washed down with Orangina. Wow – it was warm enough that night to almost not wear a sweater – how long ago that seems now!
The rain keeps drumming on the roof, a wonderful sound for being lulled to sleep. The next time I write we’ll be in Ireland, assuming that our schedule goes as planned tomorrow: wake, finish packing, taste the new olive oil, get driven to the airport, check in, and fly to Belfast.
St. Isidore – Nice
We keep having to remind ourselves, when we look around, that we’re not in Southern California. Palm trees, orange lemon lime bergamot etc.,. the rocky hills covered with scrub, some pollution from the big city and some fog from the sea…and sun, sun, sun, warm enough to work in shirtsleeves even at the end of October.
It’s sieste time after lunch, but in a little bit we’ll get back to it. Here things are a little more scheduled than at les Fromentaux. We start work at 8 am and don’t quit until lunchtime, and then we work for a few hours in the afternoon as well. But it’s a pleasure: Anne and Pierre Magnani are the nicest people you could meet. They have a small organic farm right here in the midst of the suburbs of Nice, up in the hills, so that the various plots of land under cultivation are on terraces that are about 15 meters wide and 50 meters long. Some of the terraces have hoophouses on them and some are open. Anne makes things like peppers preserved in oil, or with salt, vinegar and sugar, a pepper sauce with fresh ginger leaves (I don’t know what this is really but Pierre got one for me and it smells fabulous), lemon curd, and citrus confiture, as well as doing things like sprouts. Pierre grows vegetables such as cucumbers, squash, salads, beans, fennel, onions, leeks, etc., which he distributes through a CSA and also at the market in Old Ville Nice. Pierre is so good looking, like a movie star, I can imagine he has a very loyal clientele! They have one employee, Gregoire, who lives in Nice. Our first day we spent the morning spreading fertilizer on some fennel on one of the lower terraces, and then digging it in and weeding at the same time: backbreaking work with a kind of hoe/spade with a handle about 2 or 3 feet long. Our first lunch was fabulous: roast pork, salad, ravioli, bread, cheese, wine. Everyone eats together (the boys are at school 4 days a week so they’re only at lunch with us on Wednesdays) on the terrace outside the kitchen, and afterwards there is a bit of time for a sieste, but not a real long time. In the afternoon we helped prepare the CSA shares after harvesting strawberries. Walt weighed out the strawberries while I washed and prettied up the leeks. I put leeks in the boxes and then we weighed out the onions and put them in too. When everything was ready Anne and Pierre took everything to their CSA pickup spot at 5 pm and we stayed home with the boys who were wild and I got dinner ready. At first I thought their wildness was just because Reed was here with them but after being here a couple of days I see that they are just wild a lot of the time. I was glad when it was 7 and it was time for all the boys to take showers and get jammies on before dinner, so things calmed down then a little. Dinner was geared towards the boys; Anne had me make fish nuggets and fried potatoes and salad.
Our second day we continued with the fennel plot and once we finished them we moved on to the onions, so that by the end of the day we were quite exhausted, and my hands had matching blisters since I hadn’t put my gloves on, thinking it wouldn’t be that bad. The soil is reddish and full of round rocks anywhere from 1 inch to 3 inches in diameter, which make the little hoe clang and ricochet each time you thwonk it into the ground. Whereas at La Bourange weeds were apparently never taken on, here, they try to keep the rows clean somewhat. When Pierre’s Italian parents bought this land in 1955 the whole valley was just farms (this farm faces west – southwest, and the sea is off to the left, to the south) but now right below us are huge stores and parking lots and a cinema, and a bit further are some very big and very busy roads, and on the hillsides are lots and lots of houses. They used to grow flowers and other things; now they raise some rabbits and chickens and come down in the afternoon to make sure we WWOOFers are behaving. They speak Italian so we don’t communicate very well but they’re friendly and try to talk to us anyway. They look just like you’d expect 70 year old Italian farmers to look and I hope I can get a picture of them before we go. Off in the distance we can see a couple of villages, one is St. Genet (sp?) and the other I can’t remember the name. Pierre told us that there was a castle surrounded by houses in St. Genet in the middle ages, and then during the plague, they burned all the houses, because at that time they were made of wood. When they rebuilt they used stones.
Lunch the second day was just as good as the first: salad, gnocchi, roast chicken and potatoes, sliced tomatoes with balsamic vinegar and olive oil, cheese, wine. And then, we didn’t have time after work to moan about being tired because Pierre was going to a dentist appointment and to deliver a flat of tomatoes to a restaurant and said we could go with him in the truck at 5 pm and that the restaurant where he was taking the tomatoes sells olive oil and does olive oil degustations (tastings). When Reed heard this he did a little dance of excitement.
So we showered up quick and got ready to go into town. We walked around a not too interesting street – enjoying being upright instead of bending over a row of fennel - while Pierre had his dentist appointment and then afterwards Anne and the kids met us with the orange Kangoo (it’s the French SUV apparently) and we piled in and went into old town Nice, parked in a parking garage and then walked through the narrow winding streets, Pierre carting a flat of tomatoes the whole way, until we got to the tiny little place called Oliviera. The proprietor was so glad to see Pierre and exclaimed over the beautiful tomatoes; there were about 5 or 6 varieties, the end of the season for them. The proprietor gave us a taste of two olive oils, the first was very mild and was from cailleton (I think that is the spelling) olive trees which is the one that grows right here in Nice. The second started with the letter B and was from another place not far away, and it was spicier, with a little bite to it. Reed was breaking up the bread into little pieces and just soaking up the oil and popping it into his mouth as fast as he could. Then the proprietor asked, what fruit does it remind you of? Green? And without thinking about it, just tasting, I blurted out, banana. And he looked at me with great surprise, impressed. Exactly. That’s the first time I’ve ever tasted from the gut and not my brain. I’ll have to try that more often. Then we went to a place just around the corner which serves Nicoise food very cheap, and had a eat with your fingers meal of socca (chickpea flour, olive oil, water, and salt, I think, cooked kind of like crepes), pizza, farcis (tomatoes, zucchini, and onions, stuffed with a savory mixture of egg, breadcrumbs, ham, and ?), and to drink, Orangina. Reed and the boys were so wild all the time that it made it hard to concentrate on the incredible sights in nighttime old ville Nice, but still we gaped at the old Italian looking buildings, the Cours Saleya, the English Promenade along the beach, the houses on the hillside curving around above the bay. The city is seductively beautiful; the Mediterranean an unbelievable blue in the day, lined with palatial buildings, but at night, it’s a glittering reflection of diamond lights, as if everyone in Nice lives with a balcony view of the sea, as if no one could be unhappy or desperate.
Friday, October 19, 2007
St Isidore, Nice
Wednesday morning was not quite so back breaking as I was assigned the job of pruning off the currants (cassis or groseille, I need to look this up), while Walt cut down some unwanted weedy trees. Pierre and Gregoire worked on getting the hoophouse deconstructed, and after lunch we joined them with getting it all taken apart and moved up to its new home. Then we got the framework put back together before we quit at 5 pm. Lunch was a stir fry with soy sprouts, mushrooms, bacon, and some greens, a salad of bitter chicory greens with some parmesan, and rice. Since the boys were here they ate leftover gnocchi and chicken and potatoes and salad.
Towards the end of the day things got a little wacky, getting the last set of pipes in place on the greenhouse frame required some fine tuning and at one point Gregoire tried to wrench something into place by hanging on it and one end of the pipe detached and he fell flat on his back on the ground from about 8 feet up. This resulted in a bent piece of pipe that had to be replaced, which took an extra 20 minutes. Shortly thereafter I was also trying to get something into place while standing in the wheelbarrow and I stood too far to the front and the whole thing tipped over with me in it; fortunately it was a clean, graceful fall to the ground and I landed upright, and bowed gracefully to Walt and Gregoire’s applause.
Dinner is always a little chaotic with Pierre and Anne’s two boys, Dmitri (age 10) and Rafael (age 6), who never listen to her, throwing balls around the living room and jumping on the couch. Dirt was my trial in the Auvergne but here in Nice, it is hyperactive boys. But the food is always really good and Pierre especially seems to enjoy sharing good tastes with us. Wednesday night we had slices of eggplant that were sautéed, with two kinds of mushrooms, chanterelles and death trumpets (!) sautéed with lots of garlic, bread, some ham on the side, cheese, and chocolate cake. Afterwards Anne played the piano so the boys could sing, and then she played Hey Jude (ironically enough, the tune Andre is always humming as he works on the bread in the Auvergne) and we sang along. She also played some Edith Piaf songs and sang one for us, always enjoyable, and Anne has a nice voice. She tried to get Pierre to sing an Italian song but he steadfastly refused, claiming to have a bad voice, which is probably true. Although he has a way of sort of singing “C’est ne pas grave!” (It’s nothing serious!) when little things happen that make him a wonderful person to work for. I didn’t even find out until tonight that last night the sanglier (wild pigs) got into the new leek crop and ruined them all, a lot of work and income lost. This morning I would never have guessed, although he must have been very upset.
We had intended to go harvest olives at the property across the way but the truck wasn’t starting this morning (yet another thing that would have sent Walt into a downward spiral but which didn’t seem to faze Pierre) so we quickly changed programs, and Walt and I harvested strawberries (fraises), weeded the cabbage (chou), and I harvested green beans (haricot vert). Pierre was over at the other property doing something else, and Anne fixed lunch for us and Dmitri, who was home because his teacher is on strike. Small pieces of chicken cooked with onion and coconut milk, spaghetti with butter and some cheese, salad, and yogurt for dessert.
We were actually glad to be working today after spending yesterday, our day off, hoofing it down the winding narrow road with no sidewalk to St Isidore to catch a bus that was late into Nice (there was a train strike yesterday all over France that put the kibosh on our plans to go to the beach in Cannes) and then walking a lot once we were in Nice. The bus we were on started to turn in a direction that wasn’t where we wanted to go so we hopped off at the next stop and started walking, and quickly realized that we needed to catch another bus to get across town. It was a good day but very tiring, with all the traffic and people. We were helped by some very nice college age girls to get the right bus to the Vieux Ville – old city – and then they went out of their way to walk us to where we could see the narrow streets that we were after. Don’t let it be said that the French aren’t friendly or helpful – on this trip we have yet to meet anyone who hasn’t been solid gold, practically. We found a little place to eat panini and crepes for pretty cheap for lunch and then splurged on Italian ice cream before we went over to the beach and found a place to hang out for a couple hours.
The beach is mostly smooth light gray stones, and during this time of year not too crowded. All along the curving bay are palatial hotels and apartment buildings, with restaurants and bars at sidewalk level. Next to the beach, across the street from all the hotels, is a wide promenade that stretches for miles for walking or biking. There were a few hardy souls in the sea, which is certainly a swimmable temperature, but with the breeze and the sun just warm enough to bask in wearing jeans and a sweater, it would be icy cold to get out of the water. There was one small place where they had brought in sand, so Reed and I made ourselves at home there, me reading a book and Reed digging a deep hole and making little sand structures using the small bucket and spade we’d brought in the backpack. He kept running back and forth to the water to fill the little bucket. The Mediterranean is a spectacular color of blue, a reflection of the sky, of course, and I hope Reed always remembers the day he spent on the beach in Nice. Nearby was a handsome and smiling German family with a set of twin babies and an older girl with blonde hair who must’ve been about 2 ½. She came over and plopped herself down by Reed who promptly shared his bucket and shovel with her and they played contentedly side by side for about an hour. She gave him a little box of raisins as a thank you for sharing. I had to admire the mother with the twins; she was able to completely ignore the one in the stroller that was squalling while she breastfed and cuddled the other one before switching babies, and she managed to ignore both of them for a good five minutes while she calmly got her hair fastened back so it wouldn’t get messed up in the wind. Such nerves – of course you’d have to be that way to come all the way to Nice from Germany with three infants under the age of 3.
Tonight is another rugby match on television; France is playing Argentina to see who will get third place in the world cup. We’re going to watch it with the Magnanis, and I will think about Andre and Kevin and whoever else is watching it at Les Fromentaux.
Saturday, October 20, 2007
St Isidore, Nice
Mealtimes with the Magnani family when the children are present are always chaotic but the food is so good that I do my best not to mind, and also to sympathize silently with Anne, raising two spirited boys. Thursday night Anne had aikido and prepared some potato and radish green soup before she left, so we started with the soup, and Pierre followed with an omelette, and brought out the charcuterie and cheese and bread – and then showed how to rub fresh garlic on a little piece of bread and put it in the soup, which transformed it from merely good to really good. And then… he made a little mouthful for me. A small piece of bread, with some butter, a little bit of dried ham (like prosciutto, sort of, something his brother imports from Italy), a slice of tiny pickle, a drop of his special sweet and sour pepper relish, and a piece of cheese, kind of like manchego or parmesan. He handed me this little mouthful of stuff and I popped it in my mouth…heaven. Meanwhile Rafael next to me is squirming and climbing down and not eating anything except cheese, and Pierre has to repeatedly get up and set him bodily in his chair. C’est la vie.
Last night Anne made pissaladiere, the famous Nicoise pizza of caramelized onions, olives (with the pits still in them), and anchovies, on a kind of pastry crust. It was absolutely delicious, I could have eaten five more pieces just like the one I had, but since there really was just one piece for each person I managed to restrain myself.
Today we harvested for the Saturday market. I picked the last of the green beans of the season, and then pulled out the plants, and then helped Walt finish harvesting strawberries, and also weeded a little of the cabbage which was a little tricky since it is tucked in between two rows of raspberry canes. Ouch.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
St. Isidore, Nice
We tried to get Pierre to tell us something to do Saturday but he said to wait until he came home from the market; then when he came home he was so tired he just wanted to sleep, so by the time we did anything it was almost dark. Anne set us to work cleaning the little peppers that they pickle and sell, and we got about 1/3 of the way done before Pierre came out and told me to stop. It was almost dinnertime and it was dark and I think maybe Pierre couldn’t relax in front of the t.v. with me just outside the window scrubbing peppers with a toothbrush in cold water.
Pierre cooked rabbit for dinner and invited me to watch how he did it. Cut rabbit up into pieces, sear it in very hot vegetable oil in a dutch oven until it’s all brown and delicious looking, then add a dollop of red wine and keep at high heat until it evaporates, then add a mixture of diced up onion and celery, branches of thyme and rosemary, some diced tomato, some other dried herbs, salt and pepper, and some water, then turn down the heat and put the lid on and let it simmer. He presented it on a big platter with rice in the center and the pieces of rabbit all around the edge, with the gravy in a separate bowl. It was so good. Tonight he roast a chicken with chestnuts, which was also fabulously good, alongside some of the last of the green beans, and a bitter green salad with a vinaigrette that had garlic and onion and parmesan in it. I’m not sure if I really like chestnuts, but the chicken was so good the chestnuts get a good review too.
I asked if the kids would like me to cook something American for them and the unanimous decision was hamburgers so I’m to make a shopping list for Anne and I can cook them Tuesday, I think. Funny that I can make so many different things but that here in France what people seem to appreciate is that I know how to make good hamburgers. I wonder if I should ask Anne to buy ketchup?
Today I had a solo adventure that was great fun simply because I was alone, even though the errand itself – to go into Nice to find an internet place – was pretty mundane. I walked down the hill and found the Lingostiere station (by accident, trying to walk to the huge stores we can see at the bottom of the hill, unsuccessfully) where I caught the little train into Nice, where I walked for a little ways until I found the internet place very close to the big train station where we arrived. When I was done I headed straight back to the little train station, stopping at a boulangerie/patisserie for a couple slices of pissaladiere before I headed back home to make the long steep trek back up the hill. While I was gone the kids and Walt and Anne and Pierre went to a pretty place on a harbor at St. Laurent where the kids rode their bikes while Anne went for a run and Pierre and Walt sat and drank coffee and read the newspaper. I was sorry to miss that but glad to have had some time to myself, to make Nice a little bit mine.
The weather at night now is quite cold, so that we’ve been using the heater in our cabin and in the bathroom cabin much more than we did at first, when it seemed like summer all the time. In the mornings it is windy and cool until the sun manages to makt it to this land, close to 11 am, and then it warms up, and the afternoon is pleasant. Funny how much the weather can change in just a week, and I wonder what it will be like in Ireland, if it will be as cold and wet and dark as I’m imagining it will be, using Sitka, Alaska as my benchmark. I figure if I expect it to be as bad as Sitka in November, I can’t be disappointed, because nothing could be as wet and cold and dark as Sitka in the winter. Except maybe Little Port Walter.
Monday, October 22, 2007
St. Isidore, Nice
Today was the day to prepare the CSA shares (AMAP in French) for the Magnani’s customers so we headed out into the brisk wind and chilly air first thing this morning with Pierre to harvest. We started with lettuce, lovely big heads of tender sweet leaves, which grow through holes in plastic to keep them from getting dirty from underneath. Then Pierre harvested beets and leeks and green onions while Walt and I gathered things up into the plastic bins; then Walt harvested the basil while Pierre took me back up to the house driveway to work on getting things washed up. It was absolutely freezing – my fingers were numb from the cold water but I persevered and tried to be quick, knowing that Walt and I have been painfully slow at times and not wanting to disappoint Pierre today, since Gregoire is off this whole week. Pierre went back down to harvest chard and cilantro and radishes, and then it was lunchtime. We ate leftovers, sat around for a short while, and got back to it, finishing up the washing and then starting in on harvesting strawberries. Since it was nice and warm in the tunnels it was a pretty pleasant job, the first time I’d been really warm all day, plus there is always the extra advantage of being able to eat the ones that are flawed slightly and can’t be put in the boxes. Sometimes a big fat juicy one will have a place where a little bug nibbled a small hole but now there’s no bug, and the rest of the strawberry is fine, so dang it, I just have to eat it. These strawberries are like perfume in your mouth, in a good way, and so delicate they don’t last more than a day after they’re picked and have to be handled with the gentlest touch. We only had about an hour and a half to do both tunnels so I stayed on my feet, stooped over, and discovered that my capacity for stooping has improved in the past week, although it was still tiring at times. But with Pierre’s mother’s help we managed to finish just in time to get them into boxes and weighed and put into the boxes along with everything else, and Pierre drove off with everything at about 5:45 while I sprayed everything down and made it look like nothing had happened in the driveway, despite all the lettuce and basil and strawberries etc. scattered everywhere. All in all a satisfying day, especially when I got a piece of stale bread and spread it with Nutella to eat in the sun as soon as I finished working at 6 pm.
The sun went down shortly after that, though, and it got cold very quickly, so I was glad to find that dinner was raclette: boiled potatoes and ham with cheese melted in a special contraption right at the table, accompanied by tiny pickles and pickled onions. It is so cozy, and the kids love it. Reed ate 3 potatoes, so he ought to be quite full. Pierre got out a bottle of the local Bellet AOC white wine, which was absolutely wonderful, not too sweet or dry, just perfect with raclette. I can’t remember what the two kinds of grapes are used in the local white but one of them is Chardonnay, perhaps the other was Rolle? Or Cinsault? I never claimed to be a wine professional. Anyway, it is a friend of Anne and Pierre’s who makes it and the label says Clot Dou Baile with an ‘ over the o in Dou. I wish we had time to go to the winery to meet her but that’s the way it goes.
Reed was very good during our long day of work, not hassling us too much to come to his restaurant or store, and trying to help with things whenever he could. Eventually he picked up quite a collection of oranges from underneath all the trees so after work he and Walt made some juice. Reed’s behavior has improved quite a bit in the last week or so, perhaps as a result of being around Rafael who is so wild so much of the time. In any case, at the table Reed is like an angel, eating his food, sitting still, asking for more, etc. He said raclette was the best thing ever and we should eat it every night.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
St. Isidore, Nice
We’ve been harvesting olives for the past two days so believe me when I say I was too tired to write last night, but the first thing I have to tell about is Bobotte. Bobotte is an old sailor who lives in a caravan (RV) on the property across the river that Pierre and Anne rent or own, I’m not sure which. It takes about 20 minutes to drive there since the bridge is way down the road. He has greenhouses and citrus trees and olive trees on it, and Bobotte lives there by himself (except for a mama cat and 4 kittens). He’s half deaf, apparently, so when he talks he always sounds grouchy, and he wears a blue fisherman’s sweater and a fisherman’s cap with a brim. Well, Bobotte is grizzled and lean, and he smells a little, and he smokes, and the caravan smells badly of cats, but for the past two days we’ve eaten lunch in Bobotte’s caravan, and feasted both days. And he is gracious and hospitable, too. When we arrived yesterday morning the first thing we did was get the tarps down under the trees and then it was time to drink coffee, which he served to us in his 3 matching delicate demitasse cups, which are white with a gold rim. Alongside were some lovely buttery Breton cookies. When we came in to eat lunch, pushing the kitties off the seat cushions so we could sit down, a salade nicoise was waiting for us at the table, with some of Pierre’s fresh and delicious tomatoes, tuna, onions, anchovies, olive oil, hard boiled eggs. Yum. Then, roast chicken, and spaghetti, with a platter of 3 cheeses for dessert. Then, more coffee. It is harder to understand Bobotte than it is Pierre, but we managed to make a bit of conversation. I saw him watching Reed with the kittens and decide silently that Reed was a good boy since he was handling the kittens so carefully. Later in the afternoon he brought Reed an entire package of the yummy Breton cookies, so I know he’s an old softie.
We worked all afternoon until about 5:30 pm and then came home and I made hamburgers for dinner, and then fell into bed at 8:30 without helping with the dishes. Reed fell asleep quickly since he’d been with us at the olive harvesting all day long without anyplace to lie down. He was at his wits end by 4:30 or so but held on until the end like a trooper.
Today we started earlier, leaving at 8 am on the dot. Bobotte had coffee for us again, with another really tasty kind of cookie. Pierre’s parents came this morning too, but left after a while since it sounded like grandma wasn’t feeling very well. We were getting a lot done and then Anne and the kids arrived, it being their day off from school. So Reed and the boys ran around playing rough and tumble games (something like attack hide and seek) while we worked as fast as we could trying to get halfway done by noon. Bobotte made lunch for everyone, starting again with tomatoes and onions in vinaigrette, and some foie gras with bread, and a salad very similar to coleslaw made with some kind of julienned vegetable, then, steak, with roast potatoes, and some kind of vegetable gratin with cheese, followed by the cheese platter. Then, more coffee.
Harvesting olives by hand basically involves whacking the tree branches with a long piece of bamboo to make the olives fall off onto the tarps. Yesterday that’s what I did most of the time. There is a machine to help with the harvesting but it is too heavy for me to hold for long. This morning I discovered a sore spot on my shoulder, and realized that I would have to whack more gently if I expected to last the entire day. But whacking more gently doesn’t get the olives off the branches. So I started harvesting by hand the olives I could reach easily, using my fingers like rakes. The routine settled into Pierre using the chain saw to prune the big branches, while Bobotte and I would harvest olives off these cut branches by hand or with a little rake especially designed for olive harvesting. Then, when Pierre was done chainsawing (not the usual procedure, this year the trees need lots of pruning) he would get the electric machine that makes harvesting go faster. It’s on a long pole, with a cylinder shaped contraption with long rubbery fingers sticking out on the end that spins around and whips the olives off the branches. The olives are a mixture of green and black, different levels of ripeness, and apparently they are early this year, and very abundant. Last year, he said, they had 18 cases altogether, and by tonight we had 33 and they’re not even done.
The olives were supposed to be delivered to the mill tomorrow morning but at lunchtime it became obvious that even after harvesting we still need to do some kind of winnowing procedure to get the leaves out which will take hours SO Anne called the mill on her cell phone right there at the caravan table (all 8 of us eating in there, very crowded) and managed to get the appointment changed to Friday morning at 6 am. I was expecting that we would then work again to finish the harvest tomorrow but it turns out that Pierre is just going to let the olives fall onto the tarps and that we don’t work tomorrow in principle, as it is always the WWOOFer’s day off. Reed had a better day today than yesterday since we brought his pillow and quilt from the cabin to relax on in the back of the van, a cozy nest on an overcast day. I’m glad not to work tomorrow but I feel bad since I didn’t get to say goodbye to Bobotte. When we left I thought we were coming back tomorrow. WWOOFers are transient, though, so he’s probably used to us coming and going.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
St. Isidore, Nice
Well, we were lucky not to be harvesting olives today, as later in the morning it clouded up and started to rain, and all day it got worse and worse, pouring down rain and blowing too. I’m sure the ground needs it – apparently in the mountains where Anne and Pierre grow potatoes it didn’t rain at all this summer where it usually rains a lot, so they didn’t get a potato crop. We slept in and then I got Reed his breakfast and then I stayed in bed reading for a couple hours while the boys did some exploring around the farm before the weather turned bad. I spent an hour washing some clothes by hand so we’d have clean clothes for the first couple days in Ireland. Around lunchtime Walt’s back started spasming again like it did in Iowa, only this time it happened while he was on the bed already, so we were able to quickly get him relaxed and situated for an afternoon of rest, so that by suppertime he was up and walking around and able to take the boys trick or treating to the neighbors in the pouring rain (how very like home!)
We spent the afternoon in the cabin with the heat cranked, both to be cozy and also to help the laundry dry, while I packed everyone’s bags, and Walt napped, and Reed tried to nap unsuccessfully, and he also worked on some Halloween art since Anne had asked him to help decorate for Halloween. When I went inside around 3 to get my CD from the living room Pierre was eating lunch after finishing the olive harvest. I continued puttering around, getting dishes washed and the bathroom emptied of our stuff, etc., until it was time for Reed to go up to the house to get dressed in some kind of mask for trick or treating. Anne had forewarned the relatives upstairs and some of the neighbors that the kids would be coming so they would be prepared, and so around 6 pm off the kids trooped with Walt. The olive winnowing had just begun, under a big umbrella attached to the back of Pierre’s van, with grandpa in the back of the van dumping the olives onto a chute, grandma and me helping push the olives down the chute, and Pierre holding the power blower to blow the leaves out of the olives as they rolled down into the bin. I helped do that for a couple of hours before Anne came out to say dinner was ready and Pierre told me to go eat. Anne had decorated with Halloween candles and streamers, fixed a very nice meal of lentils with ham and carrots, and boudin noir, and a tomato salad, and even a pumpkin pie (!) so it was too bad, she said, that it had to be this way, with the olives going on, Pierre working, and her being tired from pickling peppers, so we couldn’t enjoy the evening together with some good wine. I’m disappointed not to have enjoyed that scenario too – but understand, too, how some work can’t wait and on the farm life is not always a party.
I have to make note, that despite all the work happening here, with Pierre doing all the outdoor work and Anne doing all the marketing and organizing and all the stuff with the kids, everybody tired all the time, that meals have all been eaten at home, cooked mostly from scratch. Lunch and dinner, every day, something hot and fresh and good. This was also true in the Auvergne – nobody went out to eat or to a bar. The only meal we’ve had away from home with our WWOOF hosts was last week when we delivered those tomatoes to the olive oil place in vieux ville Nice, when we went to the street food place and ate farci and socca and pizza washed down with Orangina. Wow – it was warm enough that night to almost not wear a sweater – how long ago that seems now!
The rain keeps drumming on the roof, a wonderful sound for being lulled to sleep. The next time I write we’ll be in Ireland, assuming that our schedule goes as planned tomorrow: wake, finish packing, taste the new olive oil, get driven to the airport, check in, and fly to Belfast.
Auvergne Autumn
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Retournac
On Sunday morning I held a book in my hands that had been printed in the 1500s, one of the rare cookbooks (the oldest one) in the collection at Chateau du Fey, about which Kyri and Anne are writing a book. It was just one of a number of previously unbelievable things that happened this weekend, the first, being invited to interview Anne Willan (who has Julia Child’s mint plant growing in her herb garden and who remembers Calvin and Alice Trillin visiting once), the second, to be spending the night in a room on the top floor in a 17th century chateau overlooking Burgundy, and then, to eat food prepared by her trainees who are on their way to become prep cooks at Michelin-starred restaurants, and finally, to discover that the cooking school at this chateau to which I aspired is about to close as they are selling the place and moving to California to be near their daughter. To discover it all, and to dream about becoming a part of it for a little while, and then to find out it is just about to be dismantled… well, I’m searching for a simile to no avail. But it’s probably for the best; I woke up in the middle of the night with my blood pounding through my veins, so fiercely that the duvet nestling against my ear was pulsating with it. It might have been the coffee that I had after dinner (why oh why did I do it?), or it might have been the stress of trying not to do or say anything stupid. I finally got back on the train at 1:15 pm and was able to relax; I finished reading my book in the middle of the afternoon and so spent the rest of the journey looking out the window and people watching, wondering if there is any way in hell I can ever live in this country where no one complains about second hand smoke. Or maybe that was the caffeine crash talking. On the other hand, at 6 pm in the train station people were mobbing the sandwich shop, grabbing baguette sandwiches filled with miniscule amounts of ham and cheese or tomato and mozzarella, and slices of fruit tart for their supper, instead of eating burgers and fries, and that cheered me up.
I was very glad to get back to our humble little farm in the Auvergne late Sunday evening, and to get up Monday morning and do the cheese as usual and to milk the goats. Reed was glad to see me and I heard all about his and Papa’s weekend, especially their promenade with the goats up the hill, where Reed walked around calling “allez!” and some of the goats would follow him wherever he went. Renee’s food for lunch was delicious – lamb, rice, carrots in a creamy sauce. I helped Renee gather wood just up the hill for wintertime kindling, and after lunch I weeded in the herb garden until it was time to go over to La Bourange to help harvest the beans. Walt helped the men move some very big pieces of equipment, which look like antique but still serviceable grain sorters. Reed played in the sandpile and watched some t.v. with Thelio, babysat by Else. Bean picking was no picnic but since we were able to pull up the bean plant and stand upright while we stripped the dried pods off the plant, it wasn’t too bad. Then we sat around the table with the whole gang and 4 other wild-haired guys (who helped move the grain sorter), drinking wine and eating cheese while the sun went down and dinner time approached and then went by, wondering when anyone was going to offer to head back home. Finally we got home and while I quickly got Reed fed and into bed, Walt and the guys rustled up some leftovers for dinner, since Renee was not home.
This morning Renee and Andre had an appointment at the bank so she asked me to do the new cheese as well as turning the older ones, which made me happy. Then I cleaned the place really well, hung out some laundry, cleaned up a little in the gite, and helped Renee get lunch ready by prepping carrots, hard-boiling eggs, and washing and destemming spinach. She made spinach cooked in a kind of cream sauce with some hardboiled eggs nestled around the edge of the pan, a tomato and aubergine tart, and a carrot salad with vinaigrette. Else made some real mayonnaise that went fabulously with the carrot salad and also with some of the extra hard-boiled eggs. Reed kept asking for more. After lunch Walt and Renee went on a shopping mission while Reed and I stayed home at Reed’s request; he played while I did some weeding and mint harvesting.
When Walt and Renee got home from a successful shopping trip for groceries for us and light fixtures and paint for her, she took me over to La Bourange for some potato harvesting, but it was too bad that I got there with about 10 minutes left to work, digging on hands and knees through the dirt to find the potatoes and then, since I didn’t know which ones were marketable and which ones weren’t I just sort of put them towards Marie so she could deal with them. We wandered slowly back through the field, remarking on the different varieties of squash which are soon to be harvested. More wine was then had by all. (Work, here, is something that happens in between socializing, and it takes very little excuse for a gathering, no excuse at all, really. At home it would take more than a year to see friends as many times as we’ve seen these folks in just about 3 weeks.) Then I spent the next 2 hours standing around trying not to feel really stupid and unnecessary while Andre sorted some grain by hand, Beranger worked on the tractor, Brigitte and Jeremy dealt with the goats, Amaya (Beranger’s girlfriend) took care of Thelio and shelled mustard seeds and Kevin and Marie went out in the truck to pick up the bags of potatoes from the field. I wandered around petting the cat, talking to Thelio every now and then, drinking wine when it was offered to me, and listening, listening, listening, listening as hard as I can, trying to find the magic button in my brain to push that will make the endless incomprehensible words that pour over me like a river into something I can grab hold of. I spent five or ten minutes making sure I knew how to ask someone’s name, so I could learn Jeremy’s. Jeremy and his girlfriend Brigitte just bought a farm about 20 minutes away from here, and soon they’ll be moving their goats from Beranger’s farm to their own. (I’ll confess here to having a crush on Jeremy, he’s very cute, with wire-rimmed glasses that give him an intellectual air despite the baggy brown sweater – Walt was absolutely not surprised when I told him, having been wearing a pair of glasses like that himself when I met him.) So when we finally stood up to go I said, in the best French I could manage, “I’m sorry, but I do not know your first name.” And like magic, he answered me! And then Beranger made some comment about me speaking French more that I didn’t quite catch. Beranger is so cool, I am afraid to try to talk to him, even though yesterday when we arrived and I was greeting everyone he put his face to me for the first time for the whole kiss kiss kiss routine. Still, it took all my courage to do what Andre asked me to do: go down and ask Beranger (in French of course) where the empty grain sacks were. Yikes! But I did it. “Beranger, Andre asks, where are the empty sacks? Like up there (in the barn)?” Two full sentences in one night, whew.
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Retournac
I didn’t see anyone milk the goats this morning so I guess that’s it for this season. Renee told me the other day that this week would be the end of the cheese, and I think I saw her ladle out the last of it this morning, after I’d ladled the next to last bucket when I went down right after my bowl of Bonjour. French people really do drink their coffee out of bowls, and at this house at least, they use a lot of sugar in it. Considering how little dessert they eat normally, though, I think sugary coffee doesn’t do much harm.
The day started out with lots of fog, which cleared up just enough for me to work outside on sanding some of the kitchen chairs that Renee wants to paint. It was nice until lunchtime was just finished, when it started to sprinkle lightly. We quickly gathered up the things that shouldn’t get wet and while everyone went off to do their things – whatever those things are – I quickly cleaned up the gite since Renee was having a visit from the social services person in regard to their being a foster family. It turned out fine, I guess; when the woman came with Renee up into the gite the rooms were all clean and the living room was nicely arranged and there I was in the gite kitchen, making chocolate chip cookies for our special dinner tonight. There is an Irish couple living in Retournac that is friends with Renee and she invited them to dinner – how thoughtful of her! So my contribution is chocolate chip cookies.
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Retournac
Not quite the last of the milk. The goats got milked last night, so there was another bucket of cheese to ladle out this a.m. Renee was running off to a meeting so Walt and Reed and I got the goats all alone, which was the first time we’d done it unsupervised. The old billy goat was acting rather aggressive due to his romantic interest in one of the girls, so we didn’t try to grab him to fasten him up, knowing that someone would be home that could do it later. Renee made a wonderful dinner: a kind of terrine made with spinach and fish, pureed separately, and then layered prettily, served with some cabbage and tomato salad and a sauce that was made with fresh mayonnaise, mustard, parsley, garlic, and egg whites folded in last. The main course was a potato tourte with a mushroom sauce, and dessert was of course chocolate chip cookies and an apple tart. The chocolate chip cookies were a big hit. Kevin the Irishman was a caricature of an Irishman, as Andre said; hard drinking, friendly, but not too subtle. His wife Christine is actually French, not Irish, but her English accent was completely English, from having lived in London. Lots of whiskey was polished off during the meal so by the end the conversation had deteriorated badly. Fortunately Reed, who had begged to be allowed to stay up so he could meet the company and talk some English, ended up falling asleep in the living room chair around 9 pm, just as we got started eating, and so at 11:30 pm we had an excuse to go to bed as we carried him to bed.
Renee was gone most of the day so I was in charge of getting the leftovers together for lunch; I also wrote a column for the Spokesman pretty quickly since it turned out there had been 3 Wednesdays one month and they were short one column for October. I wrote about making yogurt cheese, since that is kind of what we’re doing here with the goat cheese. I helped Kevin sort some onions, spent some time with Reed, hung up some more laundry, put away the dishes, swept the kitchen and entry, and painted one of the kitchen chairs that I’d sanded yesterday. We collected the goats and sheep again this evening to head back to the barn, fed Reed pancakes for supper and got him into bed, read a story, and then headed to the kitchen for croque monsieur – the traditional ham and cheese sandwich. I made some crepes for dessert, since it seemed rather thin with just croque monsieur for supper. The whole gang gathered yet again, this time to celebrate Brigitte having finished her diploma in agriculture. Yet another bottle of whiskey was opened, and when it was gone Philippe – another goat farmer just down the road – went to town for another. Fortunately Jean-Pierre rescued us from the whiskey fest. He is a neighbor who comes over quite often in the evenings, who speaks pretty good English after having spent time in the US making a film about LaFayette. He brought over his huge Meade telescope this evening since the sky was so clear, and showed us some galaxies and stars, galaxies like M13, M31, etc. My favorite was looking at the constellation Pleiades. He also brought over a geography game about the United States in English that is just the right difficulty for Reed, and some Magic School Bus books about space (in English) that Reed can borrow. He was thrilled today to have some new books to look at, and to play the Name That State game. Funny that we had to be out of the country to start learning the names of the states in a more “formal” way than the license plate game.
Friday, October 5, 2007
Retournac
I did the cheese this morning and then while I was washing up afterwards stood dreaming and scheming about how to make cheese in my own fromagerie someday. Where that will be, I don’t know. We are in the difficult stage of being away from home – when the honeymoon is over and home is looking pretty good, and easy, and comfortable. I talked about it with Reed yesterday, when he was saying how homesick he was, telling him how I remembered from the first time I was away from home for a long time, how the first month was great, the second month was hard, the third month not quite so hard, and by the fourth month, I didn’t want to come home at all. The trick is not to make any rash decisions about where you want to be and what you want to do when you’re in any of these stages, and to remember in the hard stage that it will get easier.
Walt opened our window today since it was getting a bit dank in our room – the fresh air in here really helps. This area is very moist – even on sunny days it starts out foggy, and in the evening the dew falls very hard. The goats don’t go out to pasture until after lunch, possibly that’s for the grass to dry some, I’m not sure. So clothes don’t dry on the line very quickly and the ground is always damp and cool. Great for the skin but tough if you’ve got a mildew problem, as we do in this room in the shower area.
I started in on the new batch of quince but didn’t get very far before it was time to run to town for some bread and lettuce for lunch. Renee made a fabulous tagine with lamb and served it with rice. Then at lunch Marie asked if I wanted to help her harvest this afternoon, so I went with her and Kevin to two different fields to harvest carrots, lettuce, frisee lettuce, cabbage, celery, fennel, corn, cucumbers, and tomatoes. I enjoyed being out there with them; the cabbage patch, for instance, was just next to the Loire, right below a huge cliff, with the woods stretching up into the hills as far as I could see, and behind me, stone houses with wooden shutters on the windows and clothes hanging out on the lines in the side yards to dry. I was able to cut the fennel unsupervised after she showed me how to do it, and with the lettuce although I couldn’t do what she was doing, I could prep it so her part of it would be faster. It improved my mood considerably to be doing something really useful on the farm. At lunchtime Walt and I were just sort of eating without trying to talk at all, and then Renee said something to Walt about he’ll never get any better at speaking French if he doesn’t speak French! So I said, in the best French I could manage, I think perhaps you are tired of my French. And Andre, who was sitting right next to me, turned to me and in a very clear deadpan said, “Quelle Francais?” “What French?” Renee and I both made the motion of getting stabbed in the heart as we cracked up, and I said “Ouch!” in French – “Aie!” Nevertheless, when I arrived back home at 6:30 after we filled up the back of Marie’s truck with vegetables for the market in the morning, I was quickly invited to sit, filthy hands and all and have a drink of what turned out to be the best grape juice I have ever had, as Renee and Andre sat and drank some with one of their bread customers. Andre said it is a very very old kind of grape that they don’t make wine out of anymore because it is bad for the head, like absinthe. It’s okay to drink fresh, apparently. It’s called Bacot, I believe, and it grows at La Bourange at Beranger’s house. The juice is a lovely reddish pink, and when I first tasted it I thought it was raspberry juice – it is even the right color to be raspberry juice. It must have made delicious wine, too bad it’ll kill you.
Walt spent the afternoon painting Renee’s kitchen chairs and helping make the loaves of bread and get the bread out of the oven, and Reed stayed with him, being industrious and happy, thank god. The pizza Renee made for dinner was mostly cheese, but a mixture that included some blue and some goat, so it was delicious and filling. We drank more of the Bacot grape juice, and then had some apple compote for dessert. I noticed a bottle of maple syrup in the cupboard, so I got that out and had a little with mine, and everyone took turns having a spoonful, trying it with the compote, reading the label to see what you were supposed to eat maple syrup with, discussing the flavor, etc. It was quite an artifact.
And here’s a French paradox. Renee lives a very uncommercial life and apparently has no pretensions. But tonight on the news magazine show that was on while we were waiting for the pizza to come out of the oven, there was a little bit on Christian La Croix, the designer, and she very excitedly told me, “Couture Francais!” Then she proceeded to tell me she loved La Croix, that he was tres originale, and something to the effect that she could die and go to heaven happy if she could just once have a dress by La Croix. His clothes were very colorful for sure, and Renee loves happy colors – we’ve been painting the kitchen chairs blue, red, yellow, and green – so I can see the attraction. But if I’d been able to make a put down joke about fashion, it wouldn’t have gone over well, I understand now. Even French hippies admire the new fall collection.
Sunday, October 7, 2007
Retournac
The weekend has passed more pleasantly than I had expected, since we awoke to rain on Saturday morning after a rather sleepless night due to the big black dog from La Bourange– Alzac or something like that – getting into the gite in the middle of the night, drinking out of the toilet, and then peeing all over the floor. We cleaned it up before we went back to sleep. So in the morning we were doing laundry and cleaning up around the gite and the fromagerie since it was a Saturday and Renee was gone for the day and we had no major plans, and since it was raining the day wasn’t looking very good. Well lo and behold about mid morning it stopped raining and we could see good weather coming in from the west so we ate canned cassoulet for lunch and set out on a walk to town, yelling at the 3 dogs to Restez Ici! Two of them listened but Tibet came with us, all the way into town, so when we got down to the busy street Walt took off his belt and used it as a leash so Tibet wouldn’t get run over by a car. On the way we stopped to pick some grapes that were growing over the fence of a property that didn’t have a house on it, just a trailer under a shelter that looked empty. They tasted like Concords only were somewhat sweeter I thought, and very good for eating as they were.
We stopped at the train station to ask about the route to Nice, and then we walked down to the river path and had a snack sitting on a bench looking at the Loire river and the part of Retournac that is on the other side, and then we walked slowly back home, stopping for a while to just hang out in a warm and sunny place where there were smooth river rocks for us to lay on and for Reed to build something with. Right about there is one of Beranger and Marie’s vegetable plots so I showed Walt and Reed where I had been working on Friday and I picked a couple of baby carrots for us to eat. When we got home it was fairly late in the afternoon. Andre and Kevin were watching rugby but I went to lay down for a couple of hours – a delicious afternoon rest, so rare for me. I have to tell about the rugby world cup that is happening right now. The New Zealand team is the All Blacks, and just about every commercial on television these days has a rugby theme. The French have done very well, defeating the huge New Zealanders last Saturday in Cardiff. We watched the game after dinner on Saturday. New Zealand took an early lead and things didn’t look good for the French, but then they fought back to make it a close game. Then they took the lead, and managed to hold on to it in a very exciting finish. Not being familiar with rugby I’m fascinated by how primal it is, at least this particular match. At the beginning the two teams stood facing each other and did this whole intimidation thing, doing their chest beating and chant routine. I don’t know the words but they must be saying things like “We’re gonna crush you, you weenies.”
Sunday we woke with no expectations but those plans changed quickly when I went down for a cup of Bonjour at about 9:30 in the morning after feeding Reed his eggs. Renee Jo showed me the brochure for the “Fete de Bio” in nearby Beaulieu and asked if we wanted to go. She was going to leave in about 20 minutes, so I said, Sure, and went to wake Walt up and cook his oatmeal so he’d be ready to go. It turned out to be a regular organic fair kind of like our Renaissance Fair in Moscow but for only organic producers. There were meats and cheeses and breads and jams and wine and beer and produce and clothes and pillows and soap and candles and herbal remedies and all the things you’d expect at an organic fair, except there was so much good cheese and so many small producers just from this region, it gave me hope and a new appreciation for Renee and Andre’s circle of friends and what they – and we – believe in. I sense, although I have no proof of course, except from what I see of Andre and Renee’s lifestyle, that these small producers and farmers make a living on far less than you would think is possible, because they are so frugal. People don’t have a closet full of clothes, they have a couple sweaters and a couple pairs of pants and that’s it. Their houses are small, they eat off the farm and they don’t eat as much, they drive tiny cars that get great gas mileage. There are many many small farms here with 30 or so goats.
After the fete de bio we went straight to a party at one of these farms for a friend of Renee’s who is going away. The gently sloping clover field below the house, next to the goats, was filled with people – some of whom were familiar to us by now - and a couple of big tents, one of which held the drinks: bottles and bottles of homemade beer, homemade wine, homemade cider, hard and soft, whatever your heart desired. Across the field near the barn they had a sheep roasting on a spit, with the fire to the side in a rack, and the spit turned by an electric motor hooked up to a bicycle wheel by a belt. We greeted and kiss kiss kissed all the people we recognized and talked some to Geri’s parents from Bozeman who were very nice. There was some traditional music for a while, with the accordion and hurdy gurdy; later it changed to jamming electric guitars, and later still to acoustic swing. When the meat was finally done in the middle of the afternoon they went around with plates of it, offering everyone a helping, and boy, was it delicious. Tender, with just a bit of a salty brown crunch on the outside. In the meantime, two other tables were filled to groaning with pizzas, tarts, salads, breads, and apple tarts of many varieties, nectarine or peach? cake, chocolate bread, apple and chocolate tart, gingerbread, custard tart, etc etc. I wanted to keep trying everything but finally ran out of room. One of the drinks I was offered by long haired Raphael (who had helped move the heavy machinery at La Bourange last week) turned out to be some kind of fermented drink made by putting the leaves of a certain tree in with water and sugar. It was quite refreshing, with a sort of lemony herb flavor that wasn’t quite lemon. I need to find out what kind of tree it was before I forget. Frenette something or other. There was a fire to which the little kids kept adding hay so the smoke was thick and left me smelling as if I’ve been camping in the woods. The party went on all afternoon and we finally came home around 5 pm; when I asked at 9 pm where Andre was Renee said he was still at the same party. Amazing. Surely the food must be completely gone by now?!
This farm was situated on the south-facing slope of a gently undulating hill riddled with stone walls surrounding small pastures which are all connected by little grass pathways between the stone walls. Off in the distance on the valley hillsides some of the trees are starting to turn bright red and in some places it is hard to tell the red tile roofs peeking out on the hillsides from the red trees. Reed had a ball exploring all the little “secret” paths among the terraced fields and I feel a soft place growing in my heart for this part of France where the morning fog alone provides enough moisture for the pastures to stay green and the sun shines late into the afternoon, lighting up the trees and gardens and the goats grazing on the hillsides and the buff-stoned barns and houses and reflecting off the Loire, full now of spawning trout, at the bottom of the valley.
Jean-Pierre came tonight with the internet print out of the international space station viewing schedule. So we went outside a few minutes before 9 pm and watched the western sky intently, worrying about the cloud cover that obscured Arcturis for a bit, until finally, there it was: a bright point of light in the sky, definitely not an airplane, moving rapidly in an arc. It faded from view in just under 2 minutes, as it passed out of the path of the setting sun’s rays. Jean-Pierre told us it goes around the earth in 90 minutes, so they see 16 sunrises and sunsets each day. How confusing must that be!
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Retournac
We began our last week here at the farm, I think (we’re still waiting to confirm with the people in Nice); the weather is definitely autumnal and the farm is in transition to the cold weather. Every once in a while when I’m looking off into the fields next to the woods I see the leaves from a single tree blow off all at once in a great fluttering of yellow. The cheese has truly stopped now. The last batch is aging in the fromagerie and I scrubbed out the main room from top to bottom this morning, and this morning, Renee Jo let the dogs drink the goat milk out of the pail. I couldn’t believe it, I wanted to grab it and take it inside for us to drink but was speechless as usual.
Yesterday I cleaned up in the gite while Walt helped Renee sand the kitchen table for painting. Lunch was pasta and vegetables. Renee asked us if we wanted to go with her to harvest apples after lunch and we said Sure! So we piled in the car with her and drove to a beautiful little town called Crossac where her friend Yves lives in a very big old house that has been renovated in a kind of modern way, with a beautiful south facing yard and garden. Renee’s friend Mireille went along too; turns out Yves sometimes needs a little help with things – he travels for his work with nuclear energy – and will let Mireille live in the house (separate from his own tidy quarters) rent free for just ONE HOUR of work a day. We couldn’t believe it, talk about a sweet deal. Mireille, too, called it a “dream.” In English, so we’d be sure to understand. Walt and I were immediately trying to figure out how we could swing the same deal next spring! Then Yves led us to where the apple tree was that needed harvesting and we all gathered around with buckets and ladders and picked for a couple hours until the tree was almost bare and the back of Renee’s car was completely loaded with big feed sacks full of apples. They’re for cider and were added to the batch harvested today by Walt, Amaya, and Audrey at Michel’s house in Retournac, and I believe all of them will be taken to a press somewhere, and then the bottles brought home.
When we got home I weeded in the herb garden and harvested the melisse which smells like lemon verbena but I’m not sure exactly what it is in English, finally coming in when it got dark. Dinner was simple but delicious, I’m not sure if the actual dish was called “Pommes de Terre en Robe de Champs” (Potatoes in Field Dress, literally) or if that is just what they called potatoes that haven’t been peeled. Anyway, they’d been boiled in their skins. You take some potatoes on your plate, peel off the skin, slice them up, and then eat either with butter and salt, or something called sarasou (sp?), which is a fabulously tasty mixture of fromage blanc de chevre, (basically goat yogurt), garlic, and parsley. The plate of charcuterie was also on the table, and after dinner Renee Jo made a big pitcher of tisane from the verveine, and she cut little pieces of nougat for us to have with it, very small amounts because it is very sweet and rich and full of nuts.
This a.m. I did the usual stuff with laundry and sweeping, scrubbed the fromagerie, and worked on the book review of Anne Willan’s new cookbook that I’ve promised the Spokesman. Lunch today was fish, pasta, and a lettuce salad with the leftover potatoes, and some fresh apple juice and yogurt for dessert. After lunch Renee Jo left to go visit two old people that she volunteers to visit with, and Walt and I took the goats out to pasture all by ourselves, and then finished sanding the kitchen table and primed it so tomorrow we can paint it yellow. Then I bundled up the melisse that I harvested into bunches and hung them to dry, while Walt worked on getting the flagstones put back in place where the new drain line had been run from the boulangerie down under the house. He already rebuilt the portion of stone wall that had been taken out for this line. There are two huge piles of sand up by the boulangerie, probably for the mortar for putting the stones on the walls, so Reed has been playing happily up there for the past couple of days. We told him this morning we were worried about having to take him to the doctor for tests since he’d been so angry and rude and bossy lately, and this seemed to do the trick, at least for today. Getting mad at him certainly hadn’t worked. Our next farm will have two boys for him to play with, so we’ll see if having peers helps.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Retournac
Today was a watershed day; I cooked for everyone for lunch, an American style meal of fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, corn, rolls, and salad, with chocolate chip cookies for dessert. Renee Jo and Kevin especially love the chocolate chip cookies. We had been trying to figure out when would be the best meal for this to happen, and none of the evenings seemed to be working out so I suggested lunch. Then this morning at 10 a.m. while I was puttering in our room and getting ready to go down to the fromagerie to do some more scrubbing, Renee Jo came and asked if I wanted to do the lunch today – for ten of us: her, Andre, Else, Beranger, Amaya, Marie, Kevin, Reed, Walt, and me. So I took the car and went to town for groceries, getting a few things for us at Spar, the grocery store, and then to the boucherie (butcher) for the chicken. I asked for 6 cuisses de poulet, and could he please cut them in two for me, which he did, chop chop chop. I’d probably shop at this butcher every day if I lived in Retournac, I have to admit – he was quite handsome and friendly, like a movie version of a French butcher, only real. Then to the greengrocer for a lovely head of lettuce.
I came home and started peeling potatoes (from Beranger’s farm, not the store), got them going for the mashed potatoes, and then started the chicken. Things came together pretty well, although the gravy was not my best effort by any means, I should’ve used more milk but was afraid of using up the entire liter. We ate in the gite instead of the kitchen since we were so many and Renee Jo and Else were painting flowers on the chairs that we just finished painting in bright colors, and finishing up the legs and little trim pieces of the table in different colors. It was chilly in the gite room so we lit a fire in the fireplace which thrilled Reed. I spent a lot of the afternoon washing dishes except for the exciting moments when Walt came back from taking the goats out to their field to tell Kevin and me that they’d escaped. So I went back there just in time to find the goats and sheep coming back into the enclosure, except one of the sheep got tangled up in the collapsed fence and couldn’t get up. So I went to rescue that one while Kevin got the fence put back up, and then we rounded up all the little squirts – the baby goats - that wanted to stay on the fresh grass just outside the fence. They kept trying to sneak out through and under the fence, since the electricity wasn’t on yet. Despite all of this, when Walt and I went back to get them back to the barn at 6:30 they were all outside the fence again on the fresh grass, except for the one sheep that got bit in the leg by Roma’s dog (Roma is Teddy Lou’s boyfriend), who was standing where she should have been, inside the fence by the right gate, waiting patiently. Then we had another disaster, sort of. All the sheep and goats were inside the barn, except for the buck Castagnol, who was still over eating acorns. When he finally headed toward the barn, suddenly Tibet and Shava chased him clear across the field from the chevrerie to the yurt. Then they went after the pig. When we told Andre about it tonight at dinner I said I believed the dogs would never do that with him and he said I was right.
After lunch Renee Jo helped me call our next WWOOF host near Nice and it turned out she spoke English pretty well so I was able to talk with her; she said Sunday night arrival would be fine. So after I talked with her on the phone I got online and got our tickets to Nice purchased, and hopefully tomorrow I can run into town with a box we need to mail back home and then get our tickets at the station.
Yesterday was a long rainy day that turned out better than I expected since Jean-Pierre came by at noon to deliver a drill that Walt needed to borrow, and said he could come back after lunch to pick us up so we could see his house and what he’s doing to rebuild the old part. He lives way up in the hills on the other side of Retournac on Mont Gerbizon, where there are lots of walking trails and viewpoints. He showed us his ruin that he is rebuilding into a rental house or two, and then took us on a drive to a trailhead, with the enthusiastic dog Chausette (Sock) running alongside, where we walked just a little ways to a view of Retournac and the Loire and the valley. On a sunny day it would have been spectacular but it was quite foggy and beginning to rain so we just got glimpses of the town far below through the thick mist blowing through. Then he drove us around to a few neat places in the area, showing us the Garoche, a road that used to be a railroad track (with some spectacular dropoffs) and where there was a train sabotaged during the war, and a place where there used to be a huge lake millions of years ago and you could see the sedimentary layers from what used to be the lake bottom, and to a couple of very old churches, a village called Mezeres (Misery), and a village called Rosieres, and another village where he lived with his wife a while back before they were divorced apparently. Jean-Pierre has made 4 or 5 documentary films for the French schools in the U.S., the last one about LaFayette, filmed from Minnesota all the way to Louisiana. Now he’s looking for other work but there’s not a lot in this area I guess. Every once in a while, he’d tell us, here you can see the volcanoes in the distance if it was not foggy. But the fog and the rain gave the whole afternoon an otherwordly feeling. I’d keep wiping the steam off the inside of the car window to try to see out so I wouldn’t miss any of the houses or barns in the hamlets and villages we’d pass through, while Reed pressed up against my side trying to warm up after getting wet during one of scenic stops, and I wrapped the coat that Jean-Pierre had loaned me tighter around my shoulders.
When Jean-Pierre brought us home it was about 4:30 and no one was home, so we made ourselves some hot chocolate and then I started baking another batch of chocolate chip cookies. I finished them while Walt and Reed were watching Charlie and the Chocolate Factory on DVD, a bizarre and fantastical movie with a good moral and ending. Reed was completely entranced and not too freaked out by the scary parts. Kevin had been hunting for chanterelles so he fixed those for dinner (Renee and Andre had gone to a meeting for Education Sans Frontieres), and we had leftover potatoes and lentils and leg of lamb, along with the chanterelles, all quite delicious. I find that I am so hungry here at lunchtime and dinner that everything tastes good, even things I never fixed at home because I thought I didn’t really like them that much, like quinoa, or eggplant, or lentils with just a little cream.
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Enroute from Retournac to Nice
Toulon
We are now experiencing our first big delay during our travels – there has been some kind of accident on the tracks between here and Nice (later - turns out to have been a suicide) so our train will be sitting here an extra hour and a half. We were already not supposed to arrive in Nice until 8:47 pm and now it will be closer to 10:30 pm – very late for us, as we got up at 6 am and got on the train in Retournac at 8 am. Oh well, the people with us on the train seem to be handling the delay with good humor, possibly since it is a Sunday night and nobody has any appointments – just trying to get home after the weekend I suppose.
We spent a pleasant few hours in St. Etienne this morning between trains, eating pain chocolat and drinking chocolat and soaking up the sun while we read our books sitting on the fairly clean platform in the very quiet station. Nothing much happening early on a Sunday morning in France, that’s for sure.
Speaking of early morning, I got up REALLY early Saturday morning, yesterday, to go with Beranger and Else to the market in St. Etienne where they sell their vegetables and meat, and now, since the cheese is finished, they take the bread from Les Fromentaux as well. I had asked Marie about going earlier in the week and Friday night she said that if I wanted to go with them in the truck I should be ready to go at 5:25 am. So there I was, showered and dressed if not bright eyed and bushy tailed. Whenever I know I have to get up early and I’m afraid of missing the alarm, I don’t sleep well. On top of that, Walt wasn’t sleeping well, so when I was trying to sleep, he was keeping me awake – I was very cranky all night, even dreaming during the times I was actually asleep that I was awake and trying to go to sleep. As I stood outside next to the picnic table I could see the headlights from Beranger’s car coming across the ridge from La Bourange, and when they got to the house we all piled in the truck, actually a van, which was fully loaded with the vegetables, the bread, the sawhorses and boards for the tables, baskets for display, umbrellas in case it rained, etc. Then we drove a little ways to La Navette, Beranger’s other place which has a house in need of renovation but also a boucherie, and picked up the coolers full of fresh meat, and the little pop up refrigerated meat case. They had on a radio station that played “oldie” tunes from the US and some French ones too, and fortunately they each only smoked one cigarette during the hour drive through the dark on the winding roads to St. Etienne.
When we arrived at the market place we unloaded everything; I stood in the back of the truck and hefted down the totes so Else and Beranger and Marie (who came in her car) could grab them. They were still getting all the vegetables into baskets and it was still dark when the first customers started arriving to buy bread and haricots (green beans); when it got full light and the place was getting busy I headed out to walk around since there was nothing I could do to help them at this point. St. Etienne has a pretty center, with lots of shops. Nothing was open at that hour except bars and cafes, and since it was cold and I was freezing I found a cozy and friendly looking one, ordered a chocolat chaud, and parked myself in front of the flat screen tv which was on a music video channel, playing oldies but goodies like the Doobie Brothers and Abba. There was also a French singer guitarist filmed back in 1984 singing a pretty song called Prendre Un Enfant, to which the woman behind the bar sang along. The hot chocolate was very hot and very chocolately, absolutely what I needed to warm up. When I was good and warm and the hot chocolate was completely gone I headed back out to find a store where I could buy a pair of socks (I was wearing my Tevas barefoot as I always do on the farm but it was much colder than I had expected). I quickly found a little store that had a cheap pair and also scarves so I got a big black one and wrapped it around my neck, nonchalantly, in what I hoped was a French style. With socks and the scarf I was much happier, and so I headed back up towards the market, saw that it was completely busy, and then saw that the Museum of Art and Industry was just behind the market place. The museum was having an exhibit on Lafayette, and I learned more about the early relationship between France and the US than I ever learned in school, mainly the fact that Lafayette played a pivotal role in the American Revolution and in fact the war would probably have been lost without him and all the French weapons (many of them manufactured in St. Etienne) that the Caron de Beaumarchais smuggled to the “Insurgents.” Incroyable. The museum had 3 floors plus the basement, with the basement being devoted to the bicycle industry in St. Etienne, the most important for bike manufacture in all of France; another floor to weapons; and another one to ribbons, another industry which made St. Etienne the thriving city it is today. The looms were huge and very complex, and I learned about the relationship between Lyon, which manufactured silk, and St. Etienne, which used some of the silk for ribbon making. Later when I went to the gift shop I saw racks and racks of ribbons made locally, as well as some silk scarves, and was captivated by the colors and designs, my mind realing with creative possibilities for curtains and place mats and napkins. So far that’s one of the best things about being away from home: all the new possibilities that present themselves to me, now that I have time to think.
We got home just around lunchtime and then I did a little packing and tried to take a nap without success – but still it felt good to just lie in bed, completely toasty, with my eyes closed. Renee said she was happy to stay home or happy to go to the dance, so I decided to stay home to have a quiet night and watch rugby, since I was pretty tired and we had to get up early this morning again. We brought in the goats for the last time, doing a really great job except with getting Castagnol tied up inside, because he was extremely focused on a particular female and would absolutely not stand for Walt catching him. When he's really horny his tongue sticks out, if he could only see himself in a mirror! We sent Reed up for help and he came back with Renee Jo, who together with Walt got Castagnol under control. We got Reed off to bed, and then Renee Jo made a special dinner, starting with a nice white wine, Coteaux du Layon I believe, with a delicious creamy soup made of potatoes, peas, and carrots, and then bread with a country pate, and then gougeres (a savory cream puff, without the cream in them) with a tomato sauce. Wow. Afterwards we watched France lose, barely, to England, in the Rugby World Cup, rather sad. But it was late and we were tired afterwards, so we just gave Andre (Dede) his goodbye kiss kiss kiss and headed up to bed. It was hard getting dropped off this morning by Renee; she has been so kind, most recently taking us on Friday afternoon up to the top of Mont Madeleine so we could hike a little ways to see the incredible view to the south. We could see La Bourange down at the curve of the Loire, and then further to the west a little bit and higher up, Les Fromentaux. We could see for miles and Renee reminded us that if you think you have problems all you have to do is come up here and they become very small. She has a good philosophy about life. I couldn’t help but tear up when she took us to the station and be amazed at how you can become attached to people even though our French was so limited; fortunately there were some Irish people there to catch the train to distract us from our sadness at leaving, even though we are ready to be somewhere where there isn’t goose and rooster poop all over the front sidewalk…
Retournac
On Sunday morning I held a book in my hands that had been printed in the 1500s, one of the rare cookbooks (the oldest one) in the collection at Chateau du Fey, about which Kyri and Anne are writing a book. It was just one of a number of previously unbelievable things that happened this weekend, the first, being invited to interview Anne Willan (who has Julia Child’s mint plant growing in her herb garden and who remembers Calvin and Alice Trillin visiting once), the second, to be spending the night in a room on the top floor in a 17th century chateau overlooking Burgundy, and then, to eat food prepared by her trainees who are on their way to become prep cooks at Michelin-starred restaurants, and finally, to discover that the cooking school at this chateau to which I aspired is about to close as they are selling the place and moving to California to be near their daughter. To discover it all, and to dream about becoming a part of it for a little while, and then to find out it is just about to be dismantled… well, I’m searching for a simile to no avail. But it’s probably for the best; I woke up in the middle of the night with my blood pounding through my veins, so fiercely that the duvet nestling against my ear was pulsating with it. It might have been the coffee that I had after dinner (why oh why did I do it?), or it might have been the stress of trying not to do or say anything stupid. I finally got back on the train at 1:15 pm and was able to relax; I finished reading my book in the middle of the afternoon and so spent the rest of the journey looking out the window and people watching, wondering if there is any way in hell I can ever live in this country where no one complains about second hand smoke. Or maybe that was the caffeine crash talking. On the other hand, at 6 pm in the train station people were mobbing the sandwich shop, grabbing baguette sandwiches filled with miniscule amounts of ham and cheese or tomato and mozzarella, and slices of fruit tart for their supper, instead of eating burgers and fries, and that cheered me up.
I was very glad to get back to our humble little farm in the Auvergne late Sunday evening, and to get up Monday morning and do the cheese as usual and to milk the goats. Reed was glad to see me and I heard all about his and Papa’s weekend, especially their promenade with the goats up the hill, where Reed walked around calling “allez!” and some of the goats would follow him wherever he went. Renee’s food for lunch was delicious – lamb, rice, carrots in a creamy sauce. I helped Renee gather wood just up the hill for wintertime kindling, and after lunch I weeded in the herb garden until it was time to go over to La Bourange to help harvest the beans. Walt helped the men move some very big pieces of equipment, which look like antique but still serviceable grain sorters. Reed played in the sandpile and watched some t.v. with Thelio, babysat by Else. Bean picking was no picnic but since we were able to pull up the bean plant and stand upright while we stripped the dried pods off the plant, it wasn’t too bad. Then we sat around the table with the whole gang and 4 other wild-haired guys (who helped move the grain sorter), drinking wine and eating cheese while the sun went down and dinner time approached and then went by, wondering when anyone was going to offer to head back home. Finally we got home and while I quickly got Reed fed and into bed, Walt and the guys rustled up some leftovers for dinner, since Renee was not home.
This morning Renee and Andre had an appointment at the bank so she asked me to do the new cheese as well as turning the older ones, which made me happy. Then I cleaned the place really well, hung out some laundry, cleaned up a little in the gite, and helped Renee get lunch ready by prepping carrots, hard-boiling eggs, and washing and destemming spinach. She made spinach cooked in a kind of cream sauce with some hardboiled eggs nestled around the edge of the pan, a tomato and aubergine tart, and a carrot salad with vinaigrette. Else made some real mayonnaise that went fabulously with the carrot salad and also with some of the extra hard-boiled eggs. Reed kept asking for more. After lunch Walt and Renee went on a shopping mission while Reed and I stayed home at Reed’s request; he played while I did some weeding and mint harvesting.
When Walt and Renee got home from a successful shopping trip for groceries for us and light fixtures and paint for her, she took me over to La Bourange for some potato harvesting, but it was too bad that I got there with about 10 minutes left to work, digging on hands and knees through the dirt to find the potatoes and then, since I didn’t know which ones were marketable and which ones weren’t I just sort of put them towards Marie so she could deal with them. We wandered slowly back through the field, remarking on the different varieties of squash which are soon to be harvested. More wine was then had by all. (Work, here, is something that happens in between socializing, and it takes very little excuse for a gathering, no excuse at all, really. At home it would take more than a year to see friends as many times as we’ve seen these folks in just about 3 weeks.) Then I spent the next 2 hours standing around trying not to feel really stupid and unnecessary while Andre sorted some grain by hand, Beranger worked on the tractor, Brigitte and Jeremy dealt with the goats, Amaya (Beranger’s girlfriend) took care of Thelio and shelled mustard seeds and Kevin and Marie went out in the truck to pick up the bags of potatoes from the field. I wandered around petting the cat, talking to Thelio every now and then, drinking wine when it was offered to me, and listening, listening, listening, listening as hard as I can, trying to find the magic button in my brain to push that will make the endless incomprehensible words that pour over me like a river into something I can grab hold of. I spent five or ten minutes making sure I knew how to ask someone’s name, so I could learn Jeremy’s. Jeremy and his girlfriend Brigitte just bought a farm about 20 minutes away from here, and soon they’ll be moving their goats from Beranger’s farm to their own. (I’ll confess here to having a crush on Jeremy, he’s very cute, with wire-rimmed glasses that give him an intellectual air despite the baggy brown sweater – Walt was absolutely not surprised when I told him, having been wearing a pair of glasses like that himself when I met him.) So when we finally stood up to go I said, in the best French I could manage, “I’m sorry, but I do not know your first name.” And like magic, he answered me! And then Beranger made some comment about me speaking French more that I didn’t quite catch. Beranger is so cool, I am afraid to try to talk to him, even though yesterday when we arrived and I was greeting everyone he put his face to me for the first time for the whole kiss kiss kiss routine. Still, it took all my courage to do what Andre asked me to do: go down and ask Beranger (in French of course) where the empty grain sacks were. Yikes! But I did it. “Beranger, Andre asks, where are the empty sacks? Like up there (in the barn)?” Two full sentences in one night, whew.
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Retournac
I didn’t see anyone milk the goats this morning so I guess that’s it for this season. Renee told me the other day that this week would be the end of the cheese, and I think I saw her ladle out the last of it this morning, after I’d ladled the next to last bucket when I went down right after my bowl of Bonjour. French people really do drink their coffee out of bowls, and at this house at least, they use a lot of sugar in it. Considering how little dessert they eat normally, though, I think sugary coffee doesn’t do much harm.
The day started out with lots of fog, which cleared up just enough for me to work outside on sanding some of the kitchen chairs that Renee wants to paint. It was nice until lunchtime was just finished, when it started to sprinkle lightly. We quickly gathered up the things that shouldn’t get wet and while everyone went off to do their things – whatever those things are – I quickly cleaned up the gite since Renee was having a visit from the social services person in regard to their being a foster family. It turned out fine, I guess; when the woman came with Renee up into the gite the rooms were all clean and the living room was nicely arranged and there I was in the gite kitchen, making chocolate chip cookies for our special dinner tonight. There is an Irish couple living in Retournac that is friends with Renee and she invited them to dinner – how thoughtful of her! So my contribution is chocolate chip cookies.
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Retournac
Not quite the last of the milk. The goats got milked last night, so there was another bucket of cheese to ladle out this a.m. Renee was running off to a meeting so Walt and Reed and I got the goats all alone, which was the first time we’d done it unsupervised. The old billy goat was acting rather aggressive due to his romantic interest in one of the girls, so we didn’t try to grab him to fasten him up, knowing that someone would be home that could do it later. Renee made a wonderful dinner: a kind of terrine made with spinach and fish, pureed separately, and then layered prettily, served with some cabbage and tomato salad and a sauce that was made with fresh mayonnaise, mustard, parsley, garlic, and egg whites folded in last. The main course was a potato tourte with a mushroom sauce, and dessert was of course chocolate chip cookies and an apple tart. The chocolate chip cookies were a big hit. Kevin the Irishman was a caricature of an Irishman, as Andre said; hard drinking, friendly, but not too subtle. His wife Christine is actually French, not Irish, but her English accent was completely English, from having lived in London. Lots of whiskey was polished off during the meal so by the end the conversation had deteriorated badly. Fortunately Reed, who had begged to be allowed to stay up so he could meet the company and talk some English, ended up falling asleep in the living room chair around 9 pm, just as we got started eating, and so at 11:30 pm we had an excuse to go to bed as we carried him to bed.
Renee was gone most of the day so I was in charge of getting the leftovers together for lunch; I also wrote a column for the Spokesman pretty quickly since it turned out there had been 3 Wednesdays one month and they were short one column for October. I wrote about making yogurt cheese, since that is kind of what we’re doing here with the goat cheese. I helped Kevin sort some onions, spent some time with Reed, hung up some more laundry, put away the dishes, swept the kitchen and entry, and painted one of the kitchen chairs that I’d sanded yesterday. We collected the goats and sheep again this evening to head back to the barn, fed Reed pancakes for supper and got him into bed, read a story, and then headed to the kitchen for croque monsieur – the traditional ham and cheese sandwich. I made some crepes for dessert, since it seemed rather thin with just croque monsieur for supper. The whole gang gathered yet again, this time to celebrate Brigitte having finished her diploma in agriculture. Yet another bottle of whiskey was opened, and when it was gone Philippe – another goat farmer just down the road – went to town for another. Fortunately Jean-Pierre rescued us from the whiskey fest. He is a neighbor who comes over quite often in the evenings, who speaks pretty good English after having spent time in the US making a film about LaFayette. He brought over his huge Meade telescope this evening since the sky was so clear, and showed us some galaxies and stars, galaxies like M13, M31, etc. My favorite was looking at the constellation Pleiades. He also brought over a geography game about the United States in English that is just the right difficulty for Reed, and some Magic School Bus books about space (in English) that Reed can borrow. He was thrilled today to have some new books to look at, and to play the Name That State game. Funny that we had to be out of the country to start learning the names of the states in a more “formal” way than the license plate game.
Friday, October 5, 2007
Retournac
I did the cheese this morning and then while I was washing up afterwards stood dreaming and scheming about how to make cheese in my own fromagerie someday. Where that will be, I don’t know. We are in the difficult stage of being away from home – when the honeymoon is over and home is looking pretty good, and easy, and comfortable. I talked about it with Reed yesterday, when he was saying how homesick he was, telling him how I remembered from the first time I was away from home for a long time, how the first month was great, the second month was hard, the third month not quite so hard, and by the fourth month, I didn’t want to come home at all. The trick is not to make any rash decisions about where you want to be and what you want to do when you’re in any of these stages, and to remember in the hard stage that it will get easier.
Walt opened our window today since it was getting a bit dank in our room – the fresh air in here really helps. This area is very moist – even on sunny days it starts out foggy, and in the evening the dew falls very hard. The goats don’t go out to pasture until after lunch, possibly that’s for the grass to dry some, I’m not sure. So clothes don’t dry on the line very quickly and the ground is always damp and cool. Great for the skin but tough if you’ve got a mildew problem, as we do in this room in the shower area.
I started in on the new batch of quince but didn’t get very far before it was time to run to town for some bread and lettuce for lunch. Renee made a fabulous tagine with lamb and served it with rice. Then at lunch Marie asked if I wanted to help her harvest this afternoon, so I went with her and Kevin to two different fields to harvest carrots, lettuce, frisee lettuce, cabbage, celery, fennel, corn, cucumbers, and tomatoes. I enjoyed being out there with them; the cabbage patch, for instance, was just next to the Loire, right below a huge cliff, with the woods stretching up into the hills as far as I could see, and behind me, stone houses with wooden shutters on the windows and clothes hanging out on the lines in the side yards to dry. I was able to cut the fennel unsupervised after she showed me how to do it, and with the lettuce although I couldn’t do what she was doing, I could prep it so her part of it would be faster. It improved my mood considerably to be doing something really useful on the farm. At lunchtime Walt and I were just sort of eating without trying to talk at all, and then Renee said something to Walt about he’ll never get any better at speaking French if he doesn’t speak French! So I said, in the best French I could manage, I think perhaps you are tired of my French. And Andre, who was sitting right next to me, turned to me and in a very clear deadpan said, “Quelle Francais?” “What French?” Renee and I both made the motion of getting stabbed in the heart as we cracked up, and I said “Ouch!” in French – “Aie!” Nevertheless, when I arrived back home at 6:30 after we filled up the back of Marie’s truck with vegetables for the market in the morning, I was quickly invited to sit, filthy hands and all and have a drink of what turned out to be the best grape juice I have ever had, as Renee and Andre sat and drank some with one of their bread customers. Andre said it is a very very old kind of grape that they don’t make wine out of anymore because it is bad for the head, like absinthe. It’s okay to drink fresh, apparently. It’s called Bacot, I believe, and it grows at La Bourange at Beranger’s house. The juice is a lovely reddish pink, and when I first tasted it I thought it was raspberry juice – it is even the right color to be raspberry juice. It must have made delicious wine, too bad it’ll kill you.
Walt spent the afternoon painting Renee’s kitchen chairs and helping make the loaves of bread and get the bread out of the oven, and Reed stayed with him, being industrious and happy, thank god. The pizza Renee made for dinner was mostly cheese, but a mixture that included some blue and some goat, so it was delicious and filling. We drank more of the Bacot grape juice, and then had some apple compote for dessert. I noticed a bottle of maple syrup in the cupboard, so I got that out and had a little with mine, and everyone took turns having a spoonful, trying it with the compote, reading the label to see what you were supposed to eat maple syrup with, discussing the flavor, etc. It was quite an artifact.
And here’s a French paradox. Renee lives a very uncommercial life and apparently has no pretensions. But tonight on the news magazine show that was on while we were waiting for the pizza to come out of the oven, there was a little bit on Christian La Croix, the designer, and she very excitedly told me, “Couture Francais!” Then she proceeded to tell me she loved La Croix, that he was tres originale, and something to the effect that she could die and go to heaven happy if she could just once have a dress by La Croix. His clothes were very colorful for sure, and Renee loves happy colors – we’ve been painting the kitchen chairs blue, red, yellow, and green – so I can see the attraction. But if I’d been able to make a put down joke about fashion, it wouldn’t have gone over well, I understand now. Even French hippies admire the new fall collection.
Sunday, October 7, 2007
Retournac
The weekend has passed more pleasantly than I had expected, since we awoke to rain on Saturday morning after a rather sleepless night due to the big black dog from La Bourange– Alzac or something like that – getting into the gite in the middle of the night, drinking out of the toilet, and then peeing all over the floor. We cleaned it up before we went back to sleep. So in the morning we were doing laundry and cleaning up around the gite and the fromagerie since it was a Saturday and Renee was gone for the day and we had no major plans, and since it was raining the day wasn’t looking very good. Well lo and behold about mid morning it stopped raining and we could see good weather coming in from the west so we ate canned cassoulet for lunch and set out on a walk to town, yelling at the 3 dogs to Restez Ici! Two of them listened but Tibet came with us, all the way into town, so when we got down to the busy street Walt took off his belt and used it as a leash so Tibet wouldn’t get run over by a car. On the way we stopped to pick some grapes that were growing over the fence of a property that didn’t have a house on it, just a trailer under a shelter that looked empty. They tasted like Concords only were somewhat sweeter I thought, and very good for eating as they were.
We stopped at the train station to ask about the route to Nice, and then we walked down to the river path and had a snack sitting on a bench looking at the Loire river and the part of Retournac that is on the other side, and then we walked slowly back home, stopping for a while to just hang out in a warm and sunny place where there were smooth river rocks for us to lay on and for Reed to build something with. Right about there is one of Beranger and Marie’s vegetable plots so I showed Walt and Reed where I had been working on Friday and I picked a couple of baby carrots for us to eat. When we got home it was fairly late in the afternoon. Andre and Kevin were watching rugby but I went to lay down for a couple of hours – a delicious afternoon rest, so rare for me. I have to tell about the rugby world cup that is happening right now. The New Zealand team is the All Blacks, and just about every commercial on television these days has a rugby theme. The French have done very well, defeating the huge New Zealanders last Saturday in Cardiff. We watched the game after dinner on Saturday. New Zealand took an early lead and things didn’t look good for the French, but then they fought back to make it a close game. Then they took the lead, and managed to hold on to it in a very exciting finish. Not being familiar with rugby I’m fascinated by how primal it is, at least this particular match. At the beginning the two teams stood facing each other and did this whole intimidation thing, doing their chest beating and chant routine. I don’t know the words but they must be saying things like “We’re gonna crush you, you weenies.”
Sunday we woke with no expectations but those plans changed quickly when I went down for a cup of Bonjour at about 9:30 in the morning after feeding Reed his eggs. Renee Jo showed me the brochure for the “Fete de Bio” in nearby Beaulieu and asked if we wanted to go. She was going to leave in about 20 minutes, so I said, Sure, and went to wake Walt up and cook his oatmeal so he’d be ready to go. It turned out to be a regular organic fair kind of like our Renaissance Fair in Moscow but for only organic producers. There were meats and cheeses and breads and jams and wine and beer and produce and clothes and pillows and soap and candles and herbal remedies and all the things you’d expect at an organic fair, except there was so much good cheese and so many small producers just from this region, it gave me hope and a new appreciation for Renee and Andre’s circle of friends and what they – and we – believe in. I sense, although I have no proof of course, except from what I see of Andre and Renee’s lifestyle, that these small producers and farmers make a living on far less than you would think is possible, because they are so frugal. People don’t have a closet full of clothes, they have a couple sweaters and a couple pairs of pants and that’s it. Their houses are small, they eat off the farm and they don’t eat as much, they drive tiny cars that get great gas mileage. There are many many small farms here with 30 or so goats.
After the fete de bio we went straight to a party at one of these farms for a friend of Renee’s who is going away. The gently sloping clover field below the house, next to the goats, was filled with people – some of whom were familiar to us by now - and a couple of big tents, one of which held the drinks: bottles and bottles of homemade beer, homemade wine, homemade cider, hard and soft, whatever your heart desired. Across the field near the barn they had a sheep roasting on a spit, with the fire to the side in a rack, and the spit turned by an electric motor hooked up to a bicycle wheel by a belt. We greeted and kiss kiss kissed all the people we recognized and talked some to Geri’s parents from Bozeman who were very nice. There was some traditional music for a while, with the accordion and hurdy gurdy; later it changed to jamming electric guitars, and later still to acoustic swing. When the meat was finally done in the middle of the afternoon they went around with plates of it, offering everyone a helping, and boy, was it delicious. Tender, with just a bit of a salty brown crunch on the outside. In the meantime, two other tables were filled to groaning with pizzas, tarts, salads, breads, and apple tarts of many varieties, nectarine or peach? cake, chocolate bread, apple and chocolate tart, gingerbread, custard tart, etc etc. I wanted to keep trying everything but finally ran out of room. One of the drinks I was offered by long haired Raphael (who had helped move the heavy machinery at La Bourange last week) turned out to be some kind of fermented drink made by putting the leaves of a certain tree in with water and sugar. It was quite refreshing, with a sort of lemony herb flavor that wasn’t quite lemon. I need to find out what kind of tree it was before I forget. Frenette something or other. There was a fire to which the little kids kept adding hay so the smoke was thick and left me smelling as if I’ve been camping in the woods. The party went on all afternoon and we finally came home around 5 pm; when I asked at 9 pm where Andre was Renee said he was still at the same party. Amazing. Surely the food must be completely gone by now?!
This farm was situated on the south-facing slope of a gently undulating hill riddled with stone walls surrounding small pastures which are all connected by little grass pathways between the stone walls. Off in the distance on the valley hillsides some of the trees are starting to turn bright red and in some places it is hard to tell the red tile roofs peeking out on the hillsides from the red trees. Reed had a ball exploring all the little “secret” paths among the terraced fields and I feel a soft place growing in my heart for this part of France where the morning fog alone provides enough moisture for the pastures to stay green and the sun shines late into the afternoon, lighting up the trees and gardens and the goats grazing on the hillsides and the buff-stoned barns and houses and reflecting off the Loire, full now of spawning trout, at the bottom of the valley.
Jean-Pierre came tonight with the internet print out of the international space station viewing schedule. So we went outside a few minutes before 9 pm and watched the western sky intently, worrying about the cloud cover that obscured Arcturis for a bit, until finally, there it was: a bright point of light in the sky, definitely not an airplane, moving rapidly in an arc. It faded from view in just under 2 minutes, as it passed out of the path of the setting sun’s rays. Jean-Pierre told us it goes around the earth in 90 minutes, so they see 16 sunrises and sunsets each day. How confusing must that be!
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Retournac
We began our last week here at the farm, I think (we’re still waiting to confirm with the people in Nice); the weather is definitely autumnal and the farm is in transition to the cold weather. Every once in a while when I’m looking off into the fields next to the woods I see the leaves from a single tree blow off all at once in a great fluttering of yellow. The cheese has truly stopped now. The last batch is aging in the fromagerie and I scrubbed out the main room from top to bottom this morning, and this morning, Renee Jo let the dogs drink the goat milk out of the pail. I couldn’t believe it, I wanted to grab it and take it inside for us to drink but was speechless as usual.
Yesterday I cleaned up in the gite while Walt helped Renee sand the kitchen table for painting. Lunch was pasta and vegetables. Renee asked us if we wanted to go with her to harvest apples after lunch and we said Sure! So we piled in the car with her and drove to a beautiful little town called Crossac where her friend Yves lives in a very big old house that has been renovated in a kind of modern way, with a beautiful south facing yard and garden. Renee’s friend Mireille went along too; turns out Yves sometimes needs a little help with things – he travels for his work with nuclear energy – and will let Mireille live in the house (separate from his own tidy quarters) rent free for just ONE HOUR of work a day. We couldn’t believe it, talk about a sweet deal. Mireille, too, called it a “dream.” In English, so we’d be sure to understand. Walt and I were immediately trying to figure out how we could swing the same deal next spring! Then Yves led us to where the apple tree was that needed harvesting and we all gathered around with buckets and ladders and picked for a couple hours until the tree was almost bare and the back of Renee’s car was completely loaded with big feed sacks full of apples. They’re for cider and were added to the batch harvested today by Walt, Amaya, and Audrey at Michel’s house in Retournac, and I believe all of them will be taken to a press somewhere, and then the bottles brought home.
When we got home I weeded in the herb garden and harvested the melisse which smells like lemon verbena but I’m not sure exactly what it is in English, finally coming in when it got dark. Dinner was simple but delicious, I’m not sure if the actual dish was called “Pommes de Terre en Robe de Champs” (Potatoes in Field Dress, literally) or if that is just what they called potatoes that haven’t been peeled. Anyway, they’d been boiled in their skins. You take some potatoes on your plate, peel off the skin, slice them up, and then eat either with butter and salt, or something called sarasou (sp?), which is a fabulously tasty mixture of fromage blanc de chevre, (basically goat yogurt), garlic, and parsley. The plate of charcuterie was also on the table, and after dinner Renee Jo made a big pitcher of tisane from the verveine, and she cut little pieces of nougat for us to have with it, very small amounts because it is very sweet and rich and full of nuts.
This a.m. I did the usual stuff with laundry and sweeping, scrubbed the fromagerie, and worked on the book review of Anne Willan’s new cookbook that I’ve promised the Spokesman. Lunch today was fish, pasta, and a lettuce salad with the leftover potatoes, and some fresh apple juice and yogurt for dessert. After lunch Renee Jo left to go visit two old people that she volunteers to visit with, and Walt and I took the goats out to pasture all by ourselves, and then finished sanding the kitchen table and primed it so tomorrow we can paint it yellow. Then I bundled up the melisse that I harvested into bunches and hung them to dry, while Walt worked on getting the flagstones put back in place where the new drain line had been run from the boulangerie down under the house. He already rebuilt the portion of stone wall that had been taken out for this line. There are two huge piles of sand up by the boulangerie, probably for the mortar for putting the stones on the walls, so Reed has been playing happily up there for the past couple of days. We told him this morning we were worried about having to take him to the doctor for tests since he’d been so angry and rude and bossy lately, and this seemed to do the trick, at least for today. Getting mad at him certainly hadn’t worked. Our next farm will have two boys for him to play with, so we’ll see if having peers helps.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Retournac
Today was a watershed day; I cooked for everyone for lunch, an American style meal of fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, corn, rolls, and salad, with chocolate chip cookies for dessert. Renee Jo and Kevin especially love the chocolate chip cookies. We had been trying to figure out when would be the best meal for this to happen, and none of the evenings seemed to be working out so I suggested lunch. Then this morning at 10 a.m. while I was puttering in our room and getting ready to go down to the fromagerie to do some more scrubbing, Renee Jo came and asked if I wanted to do the lunch today – for ten of us: her, Andre, Else, Beranger, Amaya, Marie, Kevin, Reed, Walt, and me. So I took the car and went to town for groceries, getting a few things for us at Spar, the grocery store, and then to the boucherie (butcher) for the chicken. I asked for 6 cuisses de poulet, and could he please cut them in two for me, which he did, chop chop chop. I’d probably shop at this butcher every day if I lived in Retournac, I have to admit – he was quite handsome and friendly, like a movie version of a French butcher, only real. Then to the greengrocer for a lovely head of lettuce.
I came home and started peeling potatoes (from Beranger’s farm, not the store), got them going for the mashed potatoes, and then started the chicken. Things came together pretty well, although the gravy was not my best effort by any means, I should’ve used more milk but was afraid of using up the entire liter. We ate in the gite instead of the kitchen since we were so many and Renee Jo and Else were painting flowers on the chairs that we just finished painting in bright colors, and finishing up the legs and little trim pieces of the table in different colors. It was chilly in the gite room so we lit a fire in the fireplace which thrilled Reed. I spent a lot of the afternoon washing dishes except for the exciting moments when Walt came back from taking the goats out to their field to tell Kevin and me that they’d escaped. So I went back there just in time to find the goats and sheep coming back into the enclosure, except one of the sheep got tangled up in the collapsed fence and couldn’t get up. So I went to rescue that one while Kevin got the fence put back up, and then we rounded up all the little squirts – the baby goats - that wanted to stay on the fresh grass just outside the fence. They kept trying to sneak out through and under the fence, since the electricity wasn’t on yet. Despite all of this, when Walt and I went back to get them back to the barn at 6:30 they were all outside the fence again on the fresh grass, except for the one sheep that got bit in the leg by Roma’s dog (Roma is Teddy Lou’s boyfriend), who was standing where she should have been, inside the fence by the right gate, waiting patiently. Then we had another disaster, sort of. All the sheep and goats were inside the barn, except for the buck Castagnol, who was still over eating acorns. When he finally headed toward the barn, suddenly Tibet and Shava chased him clear across the field from the chevrerie to the yurt. Then they went after the pig. When we told Andre about it tonight at dinner I said I believed the dogs would never do that with him and he said I was right.
After lunch Renee Jo helped me call our next WWOOF host near Nice and it turned out she spoke English pretty well so I was able to talk with her; she said Sunday night arrival would be fine. So after I talked with her on the phone I got online and got our tickets to Nice purchased, and hopefully tomorrow I can run into town with a box we need to mail back home and then get our tickets at the station.
Yesterday was a long rainy day that turned out better than I expected since Jean-Pierre came by at noon to deliver a drill that Walt needed to borrow, and said he could come back after lunch to pick us up so we could see his house and what he’s doing to rebuild the old part. He lives way up in the hills on the other side of Retournac on Mont Gerbizon, where there are lots of walking trails and viewpoints. He showed us his ruin that he is rebuilding into a rental house or two, and then took us on a drive to a trailhead, with the enthusiastic dog Chausette (Sock) running alongside, where we walked just a little ways to a view of Retournac and the Loire and the valley. On a sunny day it would have been spectacular but it was quite foggy and beginning to rain so we just got glimpses of the town far below through the thick mist blowing through. Then he drove us around to a few neat places in the area, showing us the Garoche, a road that used to be a railroad track (with some spectacular dropoffs) and where there was a train sabotaged during the war, and a place where there used to be a huge lake millions of years ago and you could see the sedimentary layers from what used to be the lake bottom, and to a couple of very old churches, a village called Mezeres (Misery), and a village called Rosieres, and another village where he lived with his wife a while back before they were divorced apparently. Jean-Pierre has made 4 or 5 documentary films for the French schools in the U.S., the last one about LaFayette, filmed from Minnesota all the way to Louisiana. Now he’s looking for other work but there’s not a lot in this area I guess. Every once in a while, he’d tell us, here you can see the volcanoes in the distance if it was not foggy. But the fog and the rain gave the whole afternoon an otherwordly feeling. I’d keep wiping the steam off the inside of the car window to try to see out so I wouldn’t miss any of the houses or barns in the hamlets and villages we’d pass through, while Reed pressed up against my side trying to warm up after getting wet during one of scenic stops, and I wrapped the coat that Jean-Pierre had loaned me tighter around my shoulders.
When Jean-Pierre brought us home it was about 4:30 and no one was home, so we made ourselves some hot chocolate and then I started baking another batch of chocolate chip cookies. I finished them while Walt and Reed were watching Charlie and the Chocolate Factory on DVD, a bizarre and fantastical movie with a good moral and ending. Reed was completely entranced and not too freaked out by the scary parts. Kevin had been hunting for chanterelles so he fixed those for dinner (Renee and Andre had gone to a meeting for Education Sans Frontieres), and we had leftover potatoes and lentils and leg of lamb, along with the chanterelles, all quite delicious. I find that I am so hungry here at lunchtime and dinner that everything tastes good, even things I never fixed at home because I thought I didn’t really like them that much, like quinoa, or eggplant, or lentils with just a little cream.
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Enroute from Retournac to Nice
Toulon
We are now experiencing our first big delay during our travels – there has been some kind of accident on the tracks between here and Nice (later - turns out to have been a suicide) so our train will be sitting here an extra hour and a half. We were already not supposed to arrive in Nice until 8:47 pm and now it will be closer to 10:30 pm – very late for us, as we got up at 6 am and got on the train in Retournac at 8 am. Oh well, the people with us on the train seem to be handling the delay with good humor, possibly since it is a Sunday night and nobody has any appointments – just trying to get home after the weekend I suppose.
We spent a pleasant few hours in St. Etienne this morning between trains, eating pain chocolat and drinking chocolat and soaking up the sun while we read our books sitting on the fairly clean platform in the very quiet station. Nothing much happening early on a Sunday morning in France, that’s for sure.
Speaking of early morning, I got up REALLY early Saturday morning, yesterday, to go with Beranger and Else to the market in St. Etienne where they sell their vegetables and meat, and now, since the cheese is finished, they take the bread from Les Fromentaux as well. I had asked Marie about going earlier in the week and Friday night she said that if I wanted to go with them in the truck I should be ready to go at 5:25 am. So there I was, showered and dressed if not bright eyed and bushy tailed. Whenever I know I have to get up early and I’m afraid of missing the alarm, I don’t sleep well. On top of that, Walt wasn’t sleeping well, so when I was trying to sleep, he was keeping me awake – I was very cranky all night, even dreaming during the times I was actually asleep that I was awake and trying to go to sleep. As I stood outside next to the picnic table I could see the headlights from Beranger’s car coming across the ridge from La Bourange, and when they got to the house we all piled in the truck, actually a van, which was fully loaded with the vegetables, the bread, the sawhorses and boards for the tables, baskets for display, umbrellas in case it rained, etc. Then we drove a little ways to La Navette, Beranger’s other place which has a house in need of renovation but also a boucherie, and picked up the coolers full of fresh meat, and the little pop up refrigerated meat case. They had on a radio station that played “oldie” tunes from the US and some French ones too, and fortunately they each only smoked one cigarette during the hour drive through the dark on the winding roads to St. Etienne.
When we arrived at the market place we unloaded everything; I stood in the back of the truck and hefted down the totes so Else and Beranger and Marie (who came in her car) could grab them. They were still getting all the vegetables into baskets and it was still dark when the first customers started arriving to buy bread and haricots (green beans); when it got full light and the place was getting busy I headed out to walk around since there was nothing I could do to help them at this point. St. Etienne has a pretty center, with lots of shops. Nothing was open at that hour except bars and cafes, and since it was cold and I was freezing I found a cozy and friendly looking one, ordered a chocolat chaud, and parked myself in front of the flat screen tv which was on a music video channel, playing oldies but goodies like the Doobie Brothers and Abba. There was also a French singer guitarist filmed back in 1984 singing a pretty song called Prendre Un Enfant, to which the woman behind the bar sang along. The hot chocolate was very hot and very chocolately, absolutely what I needed to warm up. When I was good and warm and the hot chocolate was completely gone I headed back out to find a store where I could buy a pair of socks (I was wearing my Tevas barefoot as I always do on the farm but it was much colder than I had expected). I quickly found a little store that had a cheap pair and also scarves so I got a big black one and wrapped it around my neck, nonchalantly, in what I hoped was a French style. With socks and the scarf I was much happier, and so I headed back up towards the market, saw that it was completely busy, and then saw that the Museum of Art and Industry was just behind the market place. The museum was having an exhibit on Lafayette, and I learned more about the early relationship between France and the US than I ever learned in school, mainly the fact that Lafayette played a pivotal role in the American Revolution and in fact the war would probably have been lost without him and all the French weapons (many of them manufactured in St. Etienne) that the Caron de Beaumarchais smuggled to the “Insurgents.” Incroyable. The museum had 3 floors plus the basement, with the basement being devoted to the bicycle industry in St. Etienne, the most important for bike manufacture in all of France; another floor to weapons; and another one to ribbons, another industry which made St. Etienne the thriving city it is today. The looms were huge and very complex, and I learned about the relationship between Lyon, which manufactured silk, and St. Etienne, which used some of the silk for ribbon making. Later when I went to the gift shop I saw racks and racks of ribbons made locally, as well as some silk scarves, and was captivated by the colors and designs, my mind realing with creative possibilities for curtains and place mats and napkins. So far that’s one of the best things about being away from home: all the new possibilities that present themselves to me, now that I have time to think.
We got home just around lunchtime and then I did a little packing and tried to take a nap without success – but still it felt good to just lie in bed, completely toasty, with my eyes closed. Renee said she was happy to stay home or happy to go to the dance, so I decided to stay home to have a quiet night and watch rugby, since I was pretty tired and we had to get up early this morning again. We brought in the goats for the last time, doing a really great job except with getting Castagnol tied up inside, because he was extremely focused on a particular female and would absolutely not stand for Walt catching him. When he's really horny his tongue sticks out, if he could only see himself in a mirror! We sent Reed up for help and he came back with Renee Jo, who together with Walt got Castagnol under control. We got Reed off to bed, and then Renee Jo made a special dinner, starting with a nice white wine, Coteaux du Layon I believe, with a delicious creamy soup made of potatoes, peas, and carrots, and then bread with a country pate, and then gougeres (a savory cream puff, without the cream in them) with a tomato sauce. Wow. Afterwards we watched France lose, barely, to England, in the Rugby World Cup, rather sad. But it was late and we were tired afterwards, so we just gave Andre (Dede) his goodbye kiss kiss kiss and headed up to bed. It was hard getting dropped off this morning by Renee; she has been so kind, most recently taking us on Friday afternoon up to the top of Mont Madeleine so we could hike a little ways to see the incredible view to the south. We could see La Bourange down at the curve of the Loire, and then further to the west a little bit and higher up, Les Fromentaux. We could see for miles and Renee reminded us that if you think you have problems all you have to do is come up here and they become very small. She has a good philosophy about life. I couldn’t help but tear up when she took us to the station and be amazed at how you can become attached to people even though our French was so limited; fortunately there were some Irish people there to catch the train to distract us from our sadness at leaving, even though we are ready to be somewhere where there isn’t goose and rooster poop all over the front sidewalk…
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