It is April, isn’t it?

This is not going to be a happy flower.

Housebound.  Just as we thought it was time to get some early planting done, BAM!  Nature had another idea – and what an idea that was: snow.  I wouldn’t say we were buried with just an inch of snow, but in all honestly, we are only hours away from May, so this is a little off.  We were stuck inside all day long watching the snow fall and counting the hours down when we could perhaps have a cocktail without sounding worrisome.  All our garden plans have been put on hold for the meanwhile as the snow melts and things dry off. 

The strawberries I planted last week are going to hate us…

We can barely see the mountains in front of us.

This flower is not too happy either.

Seasonal labor

 

Here we go again – the season of back aches, filthy fingernails, sore muscles, rusty knees, tired arms and dirt.  Not to mention weeds, lots and lots of weeds.  Yet again, I swear I’ll get the better of them this year, I swear I will. 

You’ll see.

I promise.

Geez, who am I kidding.  I'll start off strong and then fade faster than cheap jeans in hot water. 

darn it.....I hate being truthful with myself.

Got milk?

 

I’m certain one of the unexplored benefits of living in Europe is the ease of drinking out of the liter milk carton versus the gallon.  I would even say it’s 3.78 times easier – and still no glass to wash.

Exact Change Please

On Saturday, I went to pick up a few odds and ends.  Since the total for some nuts and bolts, a paintbrush, and some masking tape were rather minimal, I paid cash.  I handed the cashier a twenty and then patiently waited.  She held the bill her hand and just stared at me.  I felt awkward, so I did a double take to make sure I gave her enough, sure enough, I had.  She looked at me and repeated the total, “18euros and 42 cents”, with an emphasis on the later.  You see, French cashier like exact change, and I didn’t have it.

For the most part, I try to give the cashiers exact change, but I don’t always carry a fully loaded change purse with me.  Sometimes I can give them a penny or five cents to round it out; it makes it easier for them and my pockets a little lighter.  The “voluntary obligation” of always having the exact change is something I struggle with.  I was cashier back in high school.  I learned to make change without the register doing it for me, so I question why the obligation of always having that 42 cents on command.  Isn’t the register full of money to do that exact thing for them?

If I wanted to get philosophical, I can state I am doing my civic duty by helping out another human being by holding up the check-out line as I search my pockets for any spare change to make her life easier.  Or, I can argue I’m hurting society by making that cashier more dependable on computers and not letting her use her brain to do some simple math.  In the end, I’m not sure which is the right choice.  I’m either going to be shamed into carrying pounds of coins or simply have to accept the disgruntled looks.  For someone who’s been working hard on fitting in, I find it strange that I’m leaning towards the later.  But given that many of my pockets have holes and that I absolutely hate to sew, I seem to have no other choice.

Unwritten Rules

When I was a kid, we always got in trouble if we put the ice cream carton back in the freezer when it was empty.  I guess the dumb thing was not throwing it away, but the truth is, I put it back in the freezer because I wasn’t supposed to be eating that ice cream in the first place.  If I put the ice cream carton in the garbage, I was busted.  When my father went for his after dinner snack, I’d just play dumb and blame one of my brothers or sisters.  “I don’t know”, I murmured, “I didn’t eat the ice cream”. 

The unwritten rule of the house was not to put the empty carton back; as I got older, I understood that.  I still ate the ice cream; I just learned to buy more before my Dad got home.Each society, or even household, has unwritten rules we must abide by; they keep peace in the house or help us become accepted.  It’s not easy learning these unwritten rules because they aren’t something you can pick up in a newspaper or text book.  They are something that needs to be experienced, and this comes by trial and error.

In France, everyone you pass says “bonjour”, regardless if you know them or not.  It’s a courtesy; it’s part of the unwritten rules of society, but, that’s an easy rule to pick up on.  There are others though, depending on the situation, which are not so evident.  They depend on the people and scenario involved.  These are make or break moments, and I am witnessing one in a very small circle of my life.  Should the unwritten rules be stated or should the situation be allowed to run its natural course?  It’s more complex than just buying more ice cream, but the lesson is the same: are you willing to following what is expected of you, or are you willing to pay the consequences?

And in my spare time....

 

Loisir: [French]  /lwasir/ nm spare time: leisure activity

Not many people I know would say they have a lot of spare time on their hands; in fact, most people would say they are overloaded.  Work, school, family; all these things add up at the end of the day.  This doesn’t seem to stop some of us from starting something new: the weekend warriors, house fixers, garden tinkerers, artists.  Most people who are completely over their limit during the weekday often find something to do on the weekend.  Christophe spent to whole week cutting wood, but that didn’t stop him from trying to trick out his chainsaw so he could make his own carpentry wood.  He had spent hours on YouTube watching videos from the Northern United States and Canada where large men in flannel shirts proudly flaunted their do-it-yourself skills.  As for me, I decided to make paper.  It’s an easy enough process with quick results, and I didn’t have to spend the same amount of time hearing the whine of a large machine in my ear. I remember a girl at college whose major was paper making and the sculptures she made from her paper were more than just a little cool.  Today was my second run at it, and the paper came out a little more regular, not that I want it to be like the stuff I can buy in the store, but at least I didn’t need two hands to pick it up.  Why do we do this?  Why, on Monday, do we look forward to the next weekend where we promise ourselves to relax only to find ourselves exhausted on Sunday night from our creative exploitations?  Does it make that rare venture into nothingness even more relaxing, or do we do it so we have something to talk about on Monday morning?  I don’t have the answer – for me anyways, but I know I’m happy with the results of trying something, whatever it might be, even when I fail.  As for the papermaking, I’ll stick with it for a while.  It’s still winter, but spring will be arriving soon.  Then I can take my loisir, whatever it might be, outdoors again.    

Grève!

"France"
Quick: What word associations do you make?

Wine.  Yes
Cheese.  Yes
Love.  Oh, la la …Bien sûr
Strikes.  ???

 

Once you get to know France a little more, you’ll see they like to strike.  Over the holidays, there is always a threat of us missing a flight, whether it be the airline workers or the train conductors that get us up to the airport.  I’m for unions; I was in one when I was a teacher.  My union did a great job negotiating for my needs and I had no problems supporting them for the work they did on my behalf.  Thanks to their hard work, I never had to strike.

This last year, I had friends who went on strike.  They are Chicago Public School teachers and they went on strike for 7 days.  When the strike was called, they did not know when they were going back to work.  Negotiations needed to be made and only when a satisfactory deal was meet did they walk back into the classroom.  These are the type of strikes I knew; hard shut downs that were meant to send a message when backs were put against the wall.

In France, strikes occur differently.  They are soft strikes; that is, they are not indefinite; they last only a day.  The trains don’t run, airline baggage doesn’t get checked, or teachers don’t go to school – for a single day.  The next day, everything is back in order as if nothing has happened.  This occurs quite often, for example, elementary school teachers went on strike yesterday.  Today, everything is back to usually.  I’m not questioning the reasons for a strike, but the method.  Quite often, the needs of workers are not met and they’ve simply missed a day of pay.  Sometimes, a second strike day is called a few weeks later, but the moment has already passed.  There are not more negotiations and the workers’ contracts have already been modified.  The second strike day is just to say they are not satisfied with how things went down.  I’ve seen this happen time and time again, so I wonder why French workers stick to the soft strike.  It doesn’t seem to really work, at least from my perspective.

The Glamorous Life

A lot of people ask me how life is different in France.  There is a lot: the food, the culture, the language, all very predictable elements.  I guess what people don’t expect is, just like elsewhere, there are days that nothing exciting happens.  On this blog, I try to point out some of the really fun differences, the oddities of life not lived anywhere but here, but the hidden truth is sometimes my life is just ordinary.  I do the laundry, clean the bathroom, make dinner – all very glamorous things.  Today is one of those days.  I do try to temper this with trips to the market or complete immersions into cultural events, but honestly, the ins and outs of living, the daily needs, are simply a part of life, no matter where we live.  We all try put forth the image of our lives well lived, that we’re arrived, and somehow have become the person we have wanted to be, that we have somehow achieved “glamour”.  Sometimes that happens, other times, not.  I’ve never tried to lie about life here; I’m still working on being the person I want to be, and that person who writes about cheese, lives in a 600 year old house, and writes about some of the odd things about life in rural France, still needs to clean the toilet and have ordinary days from time to time.

Past cables

It looks more like a stick than a cable in this photo, but this end is located just at the entry of the village.

This looks like an ordinary cable, but at one point, it crossed this valley:

Somewhere far on the other side of the trees, where the mountains start to rise up again, the cable ends.  Just a few generations ago, men crossed the valley using this cable.  I don’t know if they zip lined across or had some cart that toggled along, but the cable used to hang hundreds of feet above ground.  The villagers would cross the valley so they could cut trees down in the forest unnoticed.  Then, they would burn the wood, smothering it to created wood charcoal, and sell it to the inhabitants of the plain.  The plain is only 15 miles away, but at that time, it was a different world.

Nowadays, most of the cable is buried in the ground, but Christophe followed it a few years ago.  Where it ended, the trees were younger than the surrounding forest, and he found a giant, blackened cauldron, which was most likely used to burn the tress.  A neighbor has the lid; which must be a story in itself as how something so big made its way back to the village.

It’s just a small reminder of the village’s history. It’s over 600 years old, and while some of its past has been unearthed, I’m betting most of it is still undiscovered.

Just wait a few minutes …. the weather will change

First snow, then sun.  What's next?

One thing that struck me since moving to the Pyrenees Mountains in Southern France is how quickly the weather changes.  Currently, the Midwest, where I grew up, has temperatures hovering above freezing after reveling in 60 F degrees and record highs.  In my recollection of things, there was always a warm up and cool down time as the seasons changed.  It’s somewhat “normal”, if we can call any weather pattern normal these days.  The changes that struck me the most since arriving here is that these extremes can happen all within one day.  Right now, it’s snowing; ten minutes earlier, it was sunny.  I can literally be outside working in a t-shirt one day and be trapped in the house the next due to strong winds and a foot of snow on the ground.  I’ve never experiences such extremes in such a short amount of time, unless you counted the mood swings from my high school Spanish teacher.  That aside, I never know what to expect; the laundry takes days to dry on the line and I don’t know what to wear.  Perhaps that is why Europeans are known for dressing in layers; one can simply peel off or slip on whatever whenever it’s needed.

The snow has stopped and it’s clouding up.  We’re either in for a warm up or a blizzard is coming.  I’ll get out my swimsuit…. and my wool hat.

And sometimes Friday.

United States had the most hits this week, so it's the darkest green,
but any shaded country is where a connection was made too.

 

Some of you might have noticed I’ve missed a few Friday posts over the last month or so.  I sweated about the first one, but then I noticed the world didn’t stop and people still came back to the blog without a complaint.  Then I missed another, and another.  I don’t like saying I’m going to do something and then let slide, so I’ve decided to make a minor adjustment: and sometimes Friday; that is, I’m changing my statues from “Lynn blogs every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to and sometimes Friday.”

The change is all in the wording.  I’ll still blog on Fridays, but I don’t want to set myself up for something that might not happen every time.  This way, when I do post, it’s more of a bonus than a letdown; a positive spin, so to say.

Life: that’s the reason for the change.  Like you, I’ve got responsibilities and I want to live up to them.  I want to experience the moments I share, not just hear about them from others. I’m going to be taking this time to research a few more agents, look into independent publishing, and after some serious nudging, start my next book.  I’ve got a few chapters ideas in my head that need to be jotted down anyway.  I might even try to weasel in some cooking.

I’m thrilled for the following I have, and am overjoyed with the worldwide support I get.  I see it all on a global map blogspot provides me. I get to see what posts are popular and where the hits come from. For examples, hits from the United States: clearly my friends and family and hopefully, some agent checking out my work; hits from Ireland: friends of old who I’ve never forgotten and a time I hold dear; Australia: perhaps some family, and then there are the many others from Russia, Africa, and South America which I may never know the face behind.  Regardless, I love the support and hope my blog is providing those outside France the “French touch” they are looking for and some insight on the daily ins and outs here.

So, I’ll be back on Monday, perhaps with news of the weekend, a lunch menu, or just a funny story to share.  The same goes for Wednesday, and sometimes Friday.

Appreciate the Silence

I was in Montpellier recently and noticed this sign:

It means:

Appreciate the Silence

With a little less noise, we listen better.

I find this to be a noble effort on the city’s part, even though it will likely have little to no effect on decreasing the noise level.  Montpellier is a city that can be rather loud, relatively speaking.  It’s not New York or even Chicago, but I understand its reasoning behinds such a campaign.  Montpellier has thousands of students, constant traffic, and the city is also trying to fight a growing trend – smoking outside bars.  Indoors, smoking is no longer permitted, so many patrons move curbside, and along with them, comes the noise.  Sometimes, there are more people outside than inside and once quiet neighborhoods have become louder than Wrigleyville after a Cub’s home game. 

I do recall my life back in Chicago, and I did (gasp!) live in Wrigleyville once.  I learned to block out the sound of the bars’ closing time or the 4 am rounds of the garbage trucks.  I got used to it, just as now I’m used to the quiet.  At night, I’m woken up by the sound of wind or rain.  The worse is a fox howling, which sounds like an old asthmatic dog with laryngitis, but I prefer that over the sounds of neighboring bars and PBR induced monologs about philosophy as patrons are shuffled towards the door.

So, I like the idea of instilling into society a conscience of neighbors, the sounds produced, and the effects all that noise has on society and how it reacts.  If Chicago, New York, or Montpellier could be silent for just a few minutes, there would be a greater appreciation for what is shared and why.

As Mark Twain once said, “Noise proves nothing” so why not try proving something by just being quiet?  I think Montpellier is right in its idea to try to make the city a little quieter.  We do hear each other better when we learn to listen and appreciate when nothing is said at all.



Cheese: Brique du Forez

Brique du Forez

Given the abundance of cheese France produces, I’ve decided to tackle the subject once a month in a series of posts that bring some of the lesser known cheeses, (at least outside the France borders) into focus.  Some cheeses have a complicated history which I try to boil down to what makes them unique and notable, and others simply developed from “farm cheeses” made to be consumed where they were produced.  Either way, “Cheese” gives me a chance to explore one of the gastronomic delights of France and justify my excursions to a cheese monger as “research”.  And the research can be oh, so grueling…

Cheese: Brique du Forez

Christophe noted a new cheese had been purchased when he opened the fridge this morning, “Whoa, not what I was expecting before my coffee”, he said taking a step back.  “What did you buy?”

Brique du Forez is a soft cheese, made from goat or sheep milk and sometimes mixed with cow’s milk.  Its form is notable: rectangular, 17 centimeters by 8 centimeters and 2.5 centimeters high.  The name, brique, comes from the form of its pine mold in which it is aged.   It is fabricated in Auvergne, Puy de Dôme, which is located in the central and rather cold part of the country.  Traditionally, it is made from raw milk, but like with many other cheeses, its producers are caving into market trends and creating a pasteurized version.

No considerable history on the cheese has been found, except for the fact that the fermentation process has been modified from pressure to the use of lactic curds over the last 20-30 years.

Its texture is creamy, soft and has a slightly hazelnut taste.

Inspiration

Red Sweet Onion, Yellow Patisson, Tomatoes: Gardener’s Delight and Black Prince, Basil

I love this time of year; well, I love this time of year besides the blazing, unforgiving, and constant heat.  I can walk into the vegetable garden with no idea of what I’m making for lunch and I can fill my basket with almost anything I’d like and I’m back in the kitchen with a plan.  It’s more than just having a menu idea; the vegetable garden is a place where I find ideas about my life beyond the kitchen.  I often sit on one of the stone walls in the evening and try to take it all in: the garden, the surrounding mountains and forest, and the setting sun.  I hone my future plans and realize what ones are worth keeping and what ones need to be modified.  Perhaps because it is the only green space for the moment, the various colors, or the appreciation I get from watching my seedlings grow into plants that tower over six feet tall, but the garden is a place where I find my inspiration.  I learn more about who I want to be and how to be a better person.  It is constantly changing, and I hope me too, for the better.

My favorite color is green

My favorite color is green, and this is my yard:

It crunches when I walk on it.

This is a Mediterranean environment; no one’s grass is green.  I’m not even sure it’s grass; maybe it’s crab grass because each year it gets likes this and happily, it comes back the next spring.  The thing is, it usually not this bad nor is it so prolonged.  The yard has been like this for a month and a half, which is a record and, summer’s not over yet.  It would be completely absurd and irresponsible to even think about watering the grass since it would reduce the water supply for something so frivolous, but I ‘ve noted that doesn’t stop others from trying.  (As if a green lawn is not going to give away a secret.) 

The yard is not the only thing suffering; all the vegetation has taken a hit.  It’s been a hard summer as the trees, bushes, and flowers have tried to bounce back from a particularly brutal winter with freezing temperatures and bone-chilling winds.  We trimmed back a lot of new growth from the year before this spring because it had died from the head spinning winds.  What’s left has had a hard time regenerating.

The ground is dry and the sun is unforgiving. I’d have better luck breaking cement than trying to break ground.  Even my succulents are crying out for water.  We never got the seasonal spring rains so reserves are plunging and plants are digging their roots in deeper in hopes of finding something to drink.  Those that are surviving have been around awhile with well-established roots or it’s due to us watering them from time to time in hopes they’ll make it until in the next rainy season.  This is a hard environment and I am learning just how unforgiving it can be.  I should be happy that cutting the lawn has been tremendously limited, but a green lawn is something I miss.  That, along with anything green around me, anything.

Ham and Pickle roll ups....in France

I made these special for the photo and then ate them.

I feed ham and pickle roll ups to the French… and they liked it.

Yes, yes, those ham and pickle rolls that you either love or hate; the things that appear at almost every family party and disappear faster than the 7 layer dip.  Many consider these simple snacks a lowbrow culinary disaster and a guilty pleasure.  I served them at the annual village party and I didn’t even get to fill up my beer before they were gone, and I put them down right next to me. Who says the French are snobs when it comes to food?

French food will always have its impeccable reputation, but there is a trend I’ve been observing: the appearance of American finger food.  Pigs in a Blanket are now listed on caterers’ menus and dips have been spotted at weddings.  Not that they are called Pigs in a Blanket or the French know and practice the “double dipping rule”, but these items are replacing the traditional dried sausage and olives.  There is something to be said about that, but for the American counterpart, I’ve also seen a change: Brie with fruit compote is replacing cheese balls and sliced baguettes are in place of Chicken in a Biscuit crackers (and oh, how I loved those crackers).  Do I think the American palette is destroying the French cuisine?  Absolutely not.  The French staples will always stay even though there might be an ebb and flow in food trends.  Philadelphia Cream Cheese has been available for years, but placed in the “English Section” of the supermarket it was ridiculously priced at over six dollars a packet.  No one was going to touch it.  (I’ve tried explaining it’s not English, but even with the “Philadelphia” in its name, my cries fell on deaf ears.)  Recently, reasonably priced store brand cream cheeses have appeared that have conveniently piggy-backed upon the appearance of the real McCoy on Top Chef.  Cream Cheese’s popularity is growing which has tempted me to venture into my culinary dare. It’s worth saying again: I feed ham and pickle roll ups to the French… and they liked it, no they loved it. 

Will I try to pull out something even more profoundly American at next year’s festivities?  Absolutely.  I’ve got a catalog of dip recipes that need to be dusted off and broken out.  Will I partake?  No, not yet.  The French are devouring our finger foods, but until they get the “double dipping rule” down, I’ll search out something else.  Maybe I'll make a cheese ball.... with crackers, Chicken in a Biscuit crackers.  That should do the trick.

Pecking Order

View of the fig tree from the kitchen window.

I’m currently fascinated with the fig tree in front of our house, not because I like figs, but because of the commotion that is going on inside of it.  We’re in a draught.  The ground is dry and there are minimal bugs for the birds to eat which means they are looking for any food they can get their beaks into.  Currently, they are attacking the figs.

The other morning over coffee, I was startled to find three enormous blue jays in the fig tree that stands just outside the window.  They were squawking so loudly I couldn’t hear Christophe across the table from me.  They were pecking their way through all the ripe or semi-ripe figs on and chased all the other birds away until they had their fill.  It wasn’t until they were decidedly finished that the smaller birds arrived, peaking away at the open figs the jays had left behind.  It was like a choreographed scene: the jays exited stage right and the smaller birds made their entrance on cue.  There were some occasional flutters, but overall the smaller birds ate together peacefully, sometimes 15 at a time.  By late morning when the sun hit the tree, all the birds were gone, ducking for cover somewhere in the shade, leaving behind bits of fig on the ground for us to clean up.

This morning, the tree was calm.  The jays are gone and all the ripe figs have been eaten.  I thought it was a blessing because while watching the fluttery commotion is entertaining, cleaning up after the birds and half eaten figs is not.  That’s what I thought until I entered the garden; the jays have moved onto our tomatoes.

What the jays leave behind.

Do Fences Really Make Good Neighbors?

Do Fences Really Make Good Neighbors?

In theory, yes, but what do you do when someone doesn’t respect the fence?

French people love their fences.  It was one of the first things that struck me.  Each yard, no matter the size, is surrounded by a fence.  Most often, the fence is made of painted over cinder blocks or an occasional hedge, but in almost all situations, properties are enclosed in one form or another.  We live in the country, and our property is no exception to the rule, but animal fencing is used instead.  It’s a little less intrusive to the eye; the countryside is not squared off by towering cement walls.  There is a practical side to it too; it’s used to keep the local livestock from destroying the garden, or stepping on the septic tank, which has happened before.

Fences are constructed to delegate property lines and avoid disputes that erupt into larger incidents. France is small compared to the United States, and once someone becomes a property owner, it is defended fiercely.  Everyone wants their place to call their own, which could explain why fences are so abundant.  What is mine is mine, and what is yours is yours.  But, what happens when someone doesn’t respect the fence?  What happens when someone says, what is yours is mine too?

We have that in the village, and I can honestly say it can spoil everything that is good about this place. Christophe tells me every village, every town, and every neighborhood city has the bad apple that thinks that; that takes himself for the king of the land.  It doesn’t change the aggravation of the situation, but what the hell?  How high do the walls need to be built before someone realizes he is not allowed to cross them?  

Fences are only as good as the people who respect them, so if the respect is not there, a fence is useless.  One needs to build respect instead of walls; then, fences would not be needed and an unobstructed view of what lies ahead of us can be seen: a peaceful life.

I’m in the Weeds!



Can you find the tomato plant in this photo?



It’s almost mid-summer, and like many people who aren’t at the beach on vacation, I’ve got my head in the garden, more specifically,I've got my head in the weeds.  No matter how hard we try or no matter our good intentions, the weeds seem to get the best of us.  We’ve moved from “control” mode to “all out defense”.  I turn my back after weeding the tomatoes and they pop back up again like I’ve never been there.  It’s an all-out battle as we wait and hope for the first tomato to ripen without being strangled by the invasive intruders.  But, this is not new, we do this game every year and every year we promise not to let it get out of control.  I wonder when we will learn. 

Shoot!  I’ve turned my back on the onions again; I must get back to them before the weeds try to take me down too. 

I swear I just weeded the onions.

Happy 4th!

Why is it when I say happy 4^th everyone here looks at me and says, “No, not the 4^th, the 14^th”?

I’ll be searching for some sparklers today and plan to run through the sprinkler.  My head is filled with memories: parades, candy, and the Jesse White Tumblers (who you should really check out).

Happy 4^th of July everyone!  I’ll be decorating my bike with streamers and honking its horn all day through the village in celebration.