On being slightly past prime

We headed to the town of Grignan one sunny day to check out the roses. The drive isn't taxing and there's a lovely tea salon with a garden full of blooms right next to the town's lavoir--a circular pool that was once used for washing--as extra incentive.

Shortly after lunch, we got into our eight-year old Peugeot and headed on our way. I suspect that the rate of calculating the life span of cars is a bit like converting dog years into human ones, and puts our vehicle into something past middle age but not yet doddering. Like us, the car's surface shows some wear and tear and it's been needing a few replacements. The tab was less than the dental replacement that I need but still noticeable. We'd just put on two new tires and felt much safer if a bit poorer as we rolled through the Cotes du Rhone vineyards on our outing. The vines were looking very sprightly, waving their new tendrils straight up in the gently blowing air, in a celebration to spring, youth, rebirth and all the great May growing energy around us.

Once there, we realized that the roses were a bit past their prime too, still lovely but a bit overblown, the way I like to think of myself on a good hair day. A sudden burst of heat must have pushed them along but they made us happy anyway and glad we'd made the effort. From there, we headed for the tea salon, pots of Mariage Freres tea, an apricot rosemary tartlet and serene surroundings. In a wonderful display of life's serendipity, the roses in their small garden were just at peak and so we felt doubly rewarded for treating ourselves.

And so,whether springing fresh, at prime or edging towards decline, beauty and life give pleasure to those who seek and see.

Home Improvement

Last week was home improvement week here in Mollans which meant we spent most of our days on a ladder.

After painting the wall we'd had repaired last fall with special, water sealer paint, we moved on to ceilings--covering spots on my bedroom "plafond" and a total overhaul of Hallie's.

This, of course, required paint. Somehow, we managed to justify a trip to Avignon and the requisite gas by deciding paint would be cheaper at one of the big box stores there. And, since we were there, we thought we might as well visit one or two of our favorite clothing and shoe stores, just in case something caught our eye.

Luckily for the pocketbook, we weren't that taken with the apparel collection. It was really a good thing as the cost of paint sent us reeling. We'd planned on doing Hallie's walls too but, at about 45 euros for a 5 liter container (that's about $60.00 for a gallon and a quarter) of pale yellow paint, we decided to just focus on her ceiling for this year.

We also were yearning for our own ladder. Normally, we borrow one but it seemed time to step up (pun intended) and get one of our own. Arriving at the store, we realized we didn't know the word for ladder in French but fell on a nice stepladder that the store was using for stocking the shelves. We asked a passing clerk where they stocked "un de ca" or one of those. She laughed, told us the name in French--escabeau--and told us to follow her. At the ladder section, she left us and we found a lovely, four-step, aluminum stepladder for 42 euros. Ouch. We left it there, richer in vocabulary and cash. One container of ceiling paint later, we headed home.

Calling our friend, Ian, we borrowed his escabeau and settled in to our task. After scraping, patching, washing and taping over several days, we'd completed our prep and slathered on clean, white, transforming magic all from one single tub of paint. Bliss in a bucket.

Interspersed with all our labors, we made sure we were also enjoying ourselves. We went to markets, had a friend over for dinner--chicken, of course--and laughed a lot while dust and drips of paint fell in our hair while working. Not a bad week, all in all.

This Little Piggy Went to Market

Pigs seem to be a recurring theme in this spring's travels. Today, in the Nyons' Olive Co-Op, I came across Corsican sausages and had to smile. The little and not-so-little piggies of Corsica were with me most of the trip there, both live and cooked. Cuba too.

When Hallie and I told our friend, Cristiane, at the Hotel St. Marc here in Mollans, that we were headed to Corsica, she warned us to watch out for the black pigs on the road. It wasn't more than a few hours into our trip that we realized how right she was. We headed into the rugged, mountainous center portion of Corsica to start our visit and the chestnut trees that grow there feed both humans and pigs. We learned quickly to watch for the porkers while rounding the turns that resembled their corkscrew tails. Here's a mixed set of them--black, pink and in between--imperviously grazing as traffic rolled on by.




Later, we enjoyed them in a lovely cured sausage plate for lunch and their wilder cousin--the sanglier, or boar--in a winey stew one evening. The Corsicans feel the chestnuts flavor the meat and we thought we detected an underlying succulent sweetness. We managed to consume our share of chestnuts too along the way, fattening us up just as nicely.

The reoccuring part of this porcine remembrance is that I'd come across plenty of pork on my plate in Cuba as well. Roasted to tenderness, it came served in chunks, often with companion pieces of chicken. I came across pigs on the road there too, but this time caged.





It seems only right, in honor of all these piggies gone to market, to include an old recipe of mine for pork chops braised with chestnuts. Enjoy.

BRAISED PORK CHOPS WITH CHESTNUTS AND ONIONS

24 fresh chestnuts or unsweetened canned chestnuts
4 tablespoons Canola oil
3 cups sliced onions, (about 3 onions)
¼ teaspoon sugar
6 pork loin chops, 3/4-inch thick
-Pepper
½ cup all-purpose flour
2 cups low-sodium beef broth
1/3 cup port
1 (8-oz.) pkg. mushrooms, quartered

Preheat oven to 350°F.

If using fresh chestnuts, bring 2 quarts of water to a boil in a large pot. With a small knife, make an “X” on one side of each chestnut; drop into boiling water for 3 to 4 minutes. Drain. When cool enough to handle, peel with sharp knife. Slice chestnuts in half lengthwise; reserve. If using canned chestnuts, drain well; reserve.

Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a large skillet over medium heat. When hot, add sliced onions. Cook, stirring often, until onions begin to brown, about 10 minutes. Sprinkle with sugar; continue cooking until well browned, about 10 to 15 minutes. Reserve.

Pepper each chop; dredge in flour in shallow dish. Add remaining 2 tablespoons of oil to same skillet; brown pork chops in batches, about 5 to 8 minutes per side, adding more oil if necessary. Place chops in baking dish; cover with onions, chestnuts and mushrooms.

Add stock and port to skillet; bring to a simmer, scraping up any brown bits. Pour over chops. Bake, covered, until meat is very tender, about 1 ½ hours.

4 to 6 servings

Holidays, Parades and National Celebrations

While these blogs are about my journey this spring, they're also a reflection on events as they occur. As Memorial Day approaches, it seems appropriate to meditate a moment on national holidays. We Americans celebrate Memorial Day as the beginning of summer for the most part, often forgetting that it once was called Decoration Day and that it had its beginnings in the Civil War. Meant as a memorial to our fallen soldiers, it's been extended to visiting the graves of relatives and friends but, usually, it means a long May weekend.

It's a long weekend here in France too because, while only marginally Catholic, the French close up shop for fériés (holy days) and May 21 was Ascension Thursday. Like us, they're really enjoying the nice weather and here in Provence, wine festivals this weekend will be rampant. Next weekend, they'll do it all again for Pentecost and why not? Life needs lots of excuses to step back from the everyday and to meditate a bit, relax a bit more, and honor and celebrate according to inclination and belief.

The last month has been filled with these occasions in my travels, starting with Cuba. We were in Havana for May Day with a huge worker's parade, flags, and, naturally, rum. Of course, we had to go.

You don't go and line up for this parade. There are no floats or marching bands, just masses and masses of people, waving flags and carring banners, marching with others from their places of work and celebrating just that--being workers.

What we, as Americans didn't know until our local guide told us, was that May Day, also known as International Workers' Day, evolved from a Chicago labor event called the Haymarket Massacre where a dozen strikers were killed by police bullets. We now have our Labor Day in September, mostly the other holiday bookend to the summer season, but Cubans turn out en masse to parade through Revolution Square.

We went too. It seemed an opportunity not to be missed. We lined up with the workers from our hotel and marched along. Somewhere, in a review stand, many, many workers away from us, Raul Castro watched us all walk by. Rum was passed, flags were waved, and then it was over. A parade for everyone. The flags stayed with us though, sometimes draped from buildings or filling a huge square.




Once I arrived in Mollans, briefly, before leaving for Corsica, I came across another parade. This one was small, with townfolk following a procession of children and flag bearers to the town's war memorial. The date: May 8 when the Nazi surrender of World War II took place. No one worried that the parade was ragged; it was all in the thought.



Small speeches from the kids and then slightly longer adult versions reminded the crowd how monumental it was for the French to regain their country when the Nazis fell. Flowers went on the town's physical monument to their fallen war heros and and then the whole thing was over. Everyone went home for lunch and life went forward.

It made me pause and does again this holiday weekend to think how important "country" is to all of us--Cuban, French or American--and how we all need to be proud to be our respective nation's citizens. And yet, what a coincidence that all these flags being waved are the same colors: blue, white and red. So over this long holiday, think of how much we're all the same, have a hot dog, Cuban sandwich, or a croque monsieur, and appreciate your life, your work, and the land we've been given.

The Journey

Mary Driving the Steam Locomotive


Travel, like life, is about the journey and not about the destination. I'm here in Mollans finally but my gut feeling is that this spring's visit is going to be just that--a visit rather than a homecoming--and that the real substance of my thoughts will be reflections on all the wonderous ways and means it took to get here.

In the last few weeks, since railing in my last posting about paperwork, piles of work, and packing, I've been to Miami, Cuba, Miami, New York, the Paris airport, Avignon train station, Mollans, the port of Toulon, Corsica, the port of Nice, and back to Mollans.

I've been on multiple planes, buses, trains, including a steam-driven locomotive in Cuba, a horse-drawn taxi cart (read Cuba again), cars, and boats.

Now unpacked and settled for a too short stay here in our small village, I'm delighting in eating at home and even looking forward to some house-maintenance. It's great to light in one place for a while, especially when that place is home, be it part-time or not.

But my mind keeps trying to sort the jumble of sensory overload that I've brought with me. I need to unpack my mental suitcases as well as my physical ones and writing will help.

So, let's start chronologically and see what shakes out of my memory. The first city in my list, Miami, really just felt like a warm-up for my next stop in Cuba. I flew in and spent the night near the airport so as to be ready for the next morning's departure.

From very white bread Minneapolis, Miami and its multi-lingual and multi-accented population reminded me quickly that I'd be visiting a country where I don't know the language. The airport coffee bar staff person who gave me my total bill in Spanish along with my Cuban breakfast pastry was a quick intro to the next eight days of stepping out of the familiar and into the unknown.

Coming to Mollans isn't like that at all. I put on life here like a comfortable, cozy, well worn and washed tee-shirt. With friends, language and food all familiar now, I love the soft caress the fabric of my village gives me every time I return.

Cuba was different. With its "b" sounds for "v"s and its own dialect, my mind soon began working on the code of a newish language. While I can understand some Spanish because of my French, listening and reading became a mostly futile exercise. What I like to think of as the "Where's Waldo?" (or what the heck is happening now?) experience of travel started in full force.

And so, the week unfolded. We ate well, if simply for the most part, realizing that we Americans are incredibly spoiled by our abundance. Cuba's riches seemed to be elsewhere, in the people, the music, and the art. And the dance and the landscape. The rum and the cigars. In the peoples' sense of irony, humor, and love for their country.

That's not to down-play the Cuban food heritage but Cuba is not a hot-bed of prosperity, to put it mildly, leaving the possibilities for elaborate dining fairly limited. One of my favorite meals included Ropa de Vieja, a traditional braised beef dish that is now, like all beef, reserved for visitors. Since I recently taught a version at my home in Minneapolis, I'm including the recipe here. Try it and put on a little salsa music for atmosphere. More musings to come.

ROPA VIEJA OR “OLD CLOTHES” STEW
Braising Liquid
1 medium onion, coarsely chopped
1 stalk celery, coarsely chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon dried oregano
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon peppercorns
2 cups water
1 (14-ounce) can reduced sodium beef broth

2 pounds skirt or flank steak, or 2 pounds boneless chuck roast

Stew
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 medium onions, chopped
1 large green bell pepper, chopped
1 serrano, seeded and chopped
3 garlic cloves, chopped
1 teaspoon ground cumin
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 (14.5 ounce) can diced tomatoes in juice
1 red bell pepper, cut in strips
1 yellow or orange bell pepper, cut in strips
½ cup chopped green olives with pimento
2 tablespoons capers

For the braising liquid, place the onion, celery, garlic, bay leaf, cumin, oregano, salt and peppercorns in the bottom of a Dutch oven. Add the water and beef broth; stir to blend. Add the beef and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Reduce heat to the lowest setting and cook covered with the lid just slightly ajar for 1 ½ to 2 hours for the skirt or flank steak and for 3 hours for the chuck roast. Turn the meat halfway through the cooking process. Remove from the heat and let the meat rest in the liquid for 30 minutes. Remove and slice the meat into ¼-inch thick strips against the grain. Strain the braising liquid and reserve. Clean the Dutch oven.

In the cleaned Dutch oven, add the olive oil and heat over medium-low heat. Add the chopped onions and green bell pepper; sauté until softened, about 6 minutes. Add the Serrano; sauté 2 minutes. Add the garlic, cumin and cinnamon; sauté 1 minute. Stir in the tomatoes, beef and 1 ½ cups of the braising liquid. Bring to a simmer over medium-heat. Reduce the heat to low and cook, stirring occasionally for 1 ½ hours.

During the last 15 minutes of cooking, stir in the red and yellow peppers, the green olives and the capers. Most of the liquid will have cooked off and the meat will have shredded. Add additional braising liquid as necessary if the mixture seems too dry. Serve with rice.

6 servings

Shovel Ready

I'm shovel ready all right but I don't think any government aid is coming my way.

What needs shoveling is my office in Minneapolis. It's become a pit of papers in anticipation of leaving. Maybe I should retrieve the snow shovels so recently stored from winter here in the frozen North and literally dig myself out.

There's the stack of post-tax filing receipts waiting to be filed, travel documents sitting on the floor waiting to be packed in my carry-on, recipe notes for an article due before I leave on Friday, etc., etc., etc. I know I'm doomed. The documents will go with me and the article work will get done but the scattered detritus will remain, patiently waiting for my return. It's no wonder that France looks so good when all the annoying bookwork comes here to the States for tending. How nice,though, to have a place to escape for a while from the inevitable, complicated business of 21st century living.

In the meantime, I'm plodding my way through what I can sort without going right over the over-load edge of detail insanity. Once out of the office, there's the bedroom, with clothing waiting to be packed, winter clothes ready to be put away, and shoes like size 8 1/2 ants, marching from bed to closet to feet and back again. Oh the shoes. The sandals are emerging, two by two, like the animals on Noah's ark, already multiplying with the advent of spring.

Gotta love 'em; gotta hate 'em, like every obsession.

With the opportunities for shoveling out the chaos seemingly endless, cooking meals seems to be getting short shrift. Since a girl needs to keep up her strength, I'm still managing to get in my three squares. Tonight, for example, I've turned to a great little recipe from my Bistro Chicken book that focuses on easy, stress-free preparation with dynamite--and very French--results. Here it is for any fellow shovelers to try:

BLANCS DE VOLAILLE BONNE FEMME
Rustic Boneless Chicken Breast Sauté (Bonne Femme)

Bonne femme translates as good woman or good wife and the term, in cooking, usually connotes a rustic, country style of cooking, often with slab bacon, onions, and potatoes. Poulet bonne femme, the more customary treatment for chicken, uses bone-in chicken pieces and cooks a bit more slowly. I’ve taken the liberty of speeding up the process using boneless, skinless breasts. Today, the good wife or good husband—the bon mari—gets dinner to the table as quickly as possible.

4 servings

2 tablespoons canola oil
½ cup diced, thick-cut mild bacon
Four 6 to 8-ounce boneless, skinless chicken breasts
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon freshly ground pepper
¾ cup frozen whole baby onions, thawed
2 cups diced, cooked boiling potatoes (about ¾-inch dice)

Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat; add the canola oil. When hot, add the diced bacon; sauté until crisp, about 4 to 5 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon; drain on paper towels. Add the breasts, seasoned with 1/8 teaspoon salt and 1/8 teaspoon pepper, along with the onions. Sauté until golden brown on both sides, about 2 to 3 minutes per side. Reduce the heat to low, cover and cook, turning once, until the chicken is no longer pink in the thickest portion when cut with a knife, about 4 to 5 minutes per side. Remove the breasts to a warm platter; top with the onions. Cover with aluminum foil to keep warm.

Increase the heat to medium-high. When hot, add the potatoes and cook for 4 to 5 minutes or until browned; season with the remaining 1/8 teaspoon salt and 1/8 teaspoon pepper. Stir in the bacon. Scatter the potato mixture over the breasts and serve immediately.

Truc: Our salt pork tends to be a bit tough when simply sautéed and not simmered so bacon is a better choice here. If time allows and for a more authentic taste, drop the bacon in simmering water for about 5 minutes and pat the diced pieces dry before sautéing. It removes some of the smoky flavor.

For cooked potatoes in a hurry, quarter 2 or 3 medium boiling potatoes and cook them in a microwave-safe covered container with a tablespoon of water on high in your microwave until barely tender, about 8 minutes. If you start them before sautéing the bacon, they’ll be slightly cooled and ready for dicing while the chicken finishes cooking. Synchronizing your timing is one of the ways to get a meal done quickly.

It's April now and the piles for France surround me once again. This year we'll have a new tablecloth. We bought cheery, cherry red fabric on closeout last fall and I brought it home for hemming. That's stacked up along with a guide book for Corsica.

You see, to bring in a bit more funding to supplement our fall cooking tour of Provence, we've listed our house on Vacation Rental by Owner http://www.vrbo.com/222704 and managed to rent the house right out from under us just shortly after we arrive. So, what were two cooks with wanderlust going to do but wander?

Last year, we'd checked into going to Corsica, the birthplace of Napoleon and a favorite vacation get away for many of our French friends. But, with the euro being exceedingly strong and our income heading the other way, we gave the island a pass.

Having maneuvered ourselves right out of our own door, we decided to use the rental money to explore this rugged piece of France that, in truth, is positioned far closer to Italy in the Mediterranean. Make money on this deal? I don't think so but we'll have fun and I'll have lots to pass on in my blog.

Right now I'm at the what needs to be dealt with before leaving stage of the trip--taxes most urgently but then bills, writing assignments, and scheduling details not far behind on the to-do list. It makes getting on the plane something to look forward to, even with the increasing inconvenience and discomfort of airline travel. Settled in my economy seat, I begin leaving the accelerated pace of US life behind and head towards the tranquility of my Mollans.