Lettres de mon Mollans

Visions of Plums Dancing in my Head

2009-09-10T03:02:00.000-07:00

Recently, Jo and Steve invited me to join them for a lovely Sunday supper. After a slow roasted leg of lamb, crispy potatoes and lots of local wine, we sat back and filled the night with conversation.

One topic was plum picking. Jo and Steve had gotten plums a couple of years back for free from a local farmer. He had a small grove but not enough time to pick them himself as they ripen at about the same time as the grapes for wine. The field wasn't big enough to warrant paying for pickers and so most just went back into the soil after falling from the trees.

Feeling badly about this and being year-round residents who want to give back to the local community, Jo and Stever volunteered to pick the plums this year in exchange for several flats for jam making.

Feeling perhaps a bit too expansive after the dinner and wine, I chimed in that I'd come and help too and challenged Steve's sister, visiting from England, to come along as well--not something she'd been planning on doing. The local wine must have had the same affect on her reason and so she agreed to join the "fun." Ian, the other dinner guest and another year-round resident, had already been pressed into service and so we all agreed to head out the next afternoon.

Despite my comments about the end of summer, it's seems to be making a comeback, at least during the day, and so I slathered on sun screen before we headed out in the bright, mid-80s heat of the day.

Two and half hours later, sweaty, tired, and very dirty, we'd picked about 500 kilos of plums. That's 2.2 pounds to every kilo, totaling over half a ton of plums. All of which needed to be graded by size. We'd told the owners that we'd pick and that they should grade as they knew what we were doing. With five of us picking, they couldn't keep up so helped them sort before leaving the field and heading back for aperatifs. We sampled several home-made variations of hooch--one elderflower, one slighly fizzy, and one that reminded us all of Christmas with a taste of cinnamon and orange.

The best part was that they were so grinning with gratitude at the end of the day. With just three people and a small farm, there was obviously more work than time and not a great deal of money for all the labor. The husband had spent all afternoon repairing his grape pickning machine for the imminent wine harvest, while his wife and son worked in the field with us. The plum crop would go to a wholesaler and now they had the prospect of more euros in their pockets than budgeted. We walked away with four heaping flats of plums and some new friends. England and America walked away with a better image in this part of the world and everybody came out the better for an afternoon of work.

Roberto came the dinner rescue again that night with his pizza van and I fell into bed early on to dream of plums, sunshine, and beaming French faces.

So Long Summer

2009-09-05T10:34:00.000-07:00

First it was August that dissappeared and then summer followed.

The door to summer blew shut on Thursday, pushed by a breeze that cleared out the muggy heat from the prior two days and carried in dry, cool air.

It's evidently been a scorcher here, recently pushing 100 degrees F. When I arrived last Monday, temps were still hovering around 90 or more. Tuesday night we had a boomer of a thunderstorm but Wednesday still stayed humid and hot. I skipped my village walk that day and dealt with laundry instead. We'd had folks staying here shortly before I arrived and it takes a while for a miniscule washer to deal with an accumulation of sheets and towels.

By Thursday, though, everything shifted. I'd just got into the rythm of opening windows in the evening to let in the cooler air, then shutting them by 9:30 or 10 am to keep out the heat. Now I'll be doing the reverse. As I type, the sun is sinking and the windows are closed, keeping in the heat from earlier in the day. Nevertheless, it's lovely and warm when the sun is overhead and I had a pleasant lunch en pleine aire on the bakery terrace in nearby Faucon.

Now I'm getting ready to heat up my paella, purchased earlier this morning from the stand on the corner of the bridge. The paella man, in fact, sets up in exactly the same place as the pizza truck on Monday. Must be good take-out karma there. In the summer, you can buy your paella just before dinner all nice and hot from the same guy at our village evening market. The market's much smaller now with the rentree--the return from vacation--and so mornings it is for paella purchase from now on.
By the way, there's a good paella recipe in my book Bistro Chicken, if I've made you hungry vicariously. Here it is:

PAELLA

Paella is a common item in small restaurants close to the Spanish border but it is also available in almost any French market. Lined up with all the meat, cheese, and produce vendors is the paella seller. He takes his scoop and parcels out quantities of piping hot rice, chicken, and seafood into a plastic container from his giant paella pan. If your timing is right, you can take it home after shopping and enjoy it for lunch with a nice tossed salad made with market greens. Making it from scratch always produces the best results. Invite company to share some; it’s almost impossible to make a small quantity. Pour your guests a glass of wine and have everyone join in the preparation.

6 servings

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped (about ¾ cup)
4 boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut in thirds
½ pound chorizo sausage links, cut in 2-inch pieces
1 medium red bell pepper, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 medium tomatoes, chopped
1 ½ cups Bomba, Arborio, or medium grain rice
¾ teaspoon saffron, crumbled
½ teaspoon salt
¾ pound shelled and de-veined, uncooked medium shrimp
6 mussels, scrubbed and de-bearded
1 cup sugar snap peas

Heat a paella pan or large skillet over medium-high heat; add the olive oil. When hot, add the onion; cook until beginning to soften, stirring frequently, about 2 to 3 minutes. Add the chicken and sausage; cook until lightly browned, about 4 to 5 minutes.

Add the bell pepper and garlic; stir to combine. Add the tomatoes; cook until they release their juices, about 4 to 5 minutes. Stir in the rice.

Meanwhile, bring 4 cups (3 cups if using medium-grain rice) of water to a boil in a saucepan. Add the saffron to ½ cup of the boiling water; stir to dissolve. Add the remaining water to the rice mixture along with the dissolved saffron. Sprinkle with the salt; stir to combine. Boil 5 minutes. Reduce heat to low; cook an additional 15 minutes. Add the shrimp, mussels, and peas; cook until the rice is tender and the seafood is cooked through, about 8 to 10 minutes. Add additional water if all the liquid is evaporated before the rice is cooked through.

Truc: If you can find it, buy Bomba rice from Spain to make this dish. Similar to Arborio, the risotto rice, Bomba rice swells with moisture but doesn’t produce the same creaminess, making it a better choice for paella. However, even medium grain regular rice will work. Different types of rice require different amounts of liquid so it will be necessary to adjust the amount used. Add any additional water while cooking in small amounts; paella should not be soupy.

If It's September, This Must Be France

2009-09-01T10:16:00.000-07:00

August dissapeared at 12 am and with it, my life in Minneapolis. Mollans, France took its place. Now, I'll get Minneapolis back but August 2009 is gone for good. Another reminder to spend some time each day, reflecting on the moment, the surroundings and, most importantly, the friends that surround us.

The week before I left for France was packed with events. My bookgroup of 30 plus years met on Tuesday. Glen, my husband, turned 63 on Wednesday and I, in characteristic fashion, wasn't home to cebebrate--teaching instead. We saw a play to celebrate said birthday on Thursday, and I turned in 13 recipes for two different projects by the end of the week. Saturday, I squeezed in Julie and Julia, which I'll return to in a later blog, went to a neighbors to celebrate her 66 birthday, and took off for France on Sunday evening, after finally packing my suticase that morning.

Along with packing, there was the usual blizzard of e-mails, bill paying and bill collecting--yet another subject for a later blog--and, of course, the cleaning of the refrigetator and the harvesting of basil. It's been cold in Minnesota and I knew my basil wouldn't make it until I returned so I also harvested and froze that crop on Sunday between packing and closing up the kitchen. Glen doesn't cook so there's no point in leaving anything for him in the fridge. It's just there waiting for me, fuzzy as a fleece, when I get back.

And then I was at the airport.

I've had excellent plane karma lately. I checked in, walked away from the counter, and looked down at my boarding pass to find out my gate number. Then I noticed my seat--4E. How did that happen? I certainly don't have the budget to fly to France first class. I wasn't asking question but did a little celebration skip and headed for the plane. Once at my gate, I found out what the deal was. Evidently, the flight was overbooked and so, at least I'm assuming, because I'm an elite flyer, I got bumped into first class to make room for someone else in steerage. Bliss.

Eight hours of flying time later, I arrived at CDG--Paris's international airport--and headed for the train station in an adjacent terminal. I got on the high speed TGV and sped my way to Avignon where my good friends, Steve and Jo, picked me up, took me to my car and, voila, by 4:30 French time, I was home again.

Last night I headed for pizza Monday, a verre or two of wine at the Bar du Pont, and a reunion with lots of friends. Perfection. The weather and turnout were grand, I met folks visiting from England, and had a fine, bi-lingual time before turning in to bed.

When I woke up it was September and my fall stay in Mollans had officially begun.

Summer Gold

2009-08-08T11:23:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I wonder why I'm here in Minneapolis during August. Europeans from almost everywhere in the EU are flocking to Provence in droves for their month-long vacation. It's good to stop and think from time to time why you're doing one thing and not another. The reflection either blasts you out of a worthless rut or affirms and reminds you of the worth of what you're doing.

On a superficial level, the answer to why Minneapolis instead of Provence is easy. In some parts of southern France, it's hard to turn around for all the crowds. But, while Mollans is certainly hopping with Germans, Dutch, British and Belgians right now, it's not such a hot spot as to ever be over-run and not the reason why I'm not there. Rather, the answer to why here is because I love Minnesota in the summer.

Last night, climbing into bed, a cricket's one-note serenade lulled me on towards sleep. Soon he'll be joined by his buddies and a slightly plaintive, softly scratchy chorale will fill each night's air with a hymn to fleeting summer and fall's imminent arrival. Before I'd nodded off, the song changed and the cricket hushed,taken over by tympani crashes of thunder and then the loud plinks of rain against the roof and glass panes. Too tired to shut the windows, I hoped for the best and let the now steady and slightly blurred raindrop rustle pull me into oblivion.

This morning's still dark skies have now transitioned to summer gold as I look out my office window. The play of light on tree limbs laden with happy-to-see-a-little-water-leaves is as spectacular as a painting. Soon, I'll head downstairs and cook up some Minnesota sweet corn, the real gold of the season, both in looks and worth. Slathered with sweet butter from a local creamery once barely cooked, then liberally salted and dripping, there's nothing better. The steady crunch, crunch, crunch of teeth biting into rows on rows of kernels mimics like a base-note refrain the higher-pitched cricket rhythm of the night before.

We're going to have a patch of real summer this week, lots of heat mixed with the thunderstorms and the humidity they leave behind. It will make my other August love grow even better--the tomato. I'm waiting for my coeur de boeuf plant, grown from a French seed, to ripen its fat, heart-shaped fruit. It will be interesting to see if, grown in Minneapolis soil and climate, the tomatoes from this plant will taste the same as those in Mollans. We're already eating the American tomatoes called Big Girls that will come faster and faster with the warmth until I won't be able to keep up. Right now, the round, red globes are just enough to slice and sprinkle with garden basil. I drizzle them with olive oil from Mollans' mill, and dust with a bit of fleur de sel, both brought home in my suitcase for just this occasion. Before I know it, I'll be making gazpacho, we'll be eating BLTs with a side of corn--about the best summer meal in creation--and then I'll need to put the rest up by roasting and freezing for the cold winter months.

A spot of air conditioning helps enormously to break up all the moist heat that's going to be thrown at us and that's one thing--the air conditioning that is--still fairly scarce in our part of France. Provence is no stranger to scorching days and the solution for most is to rely on thick-walled homes and closed shutters during the day. That, unfortunately, creates a bit of a cave-like atmosphere in many homes and seals out the gleamingly glorious light that Van-Gogh and Cezanne loved so well.

By the end of the month, as the vines surrounding our village start drooping from the weight of dusky purple grapes, the weather will lighten and the vacationers will leave. That's when I'll be back to delight in warm days and cooler evenings, windows open and un-shuttered to let in the harvest light followed by the rich dark of rural nights.

In the meantime, I'll listen to my cricket as his night song swells towards autumn and enjoy the golden Minnesota summer while I can.

On being slightly past prime

2009-06-17T12:24:00.000-07:00

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 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

2009-06-02T07:25:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-28T07:46:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-22T07:01:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-18T06:41:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-21T09:56:00.001-07:00

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.

2009-04-08T13:46:00.000-07:00

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.

New Seasons-New Year

2009-01-19T12:14:00.000-08:00

That last week in Mollans passed far too quickly, with friends coming and us going to say good bye. There's almost a ritual aspect to the leave-taking at this point and we follow the drinks, dinner and phone-call routine assiduously, leaving nothing out lest we somehow break the supportive social fabric that cloaks our life in France.

Intertwined with that, we worked on some new friendships via Minnesota neighbors, Gloria and Michael, who were visiting in the area. They've introduced us to some of their other American friends living not too far away from us and we'll follow up this coming spring to cement these budding relationships into something more than the acquaintance level. In the meantime, betwixt all the leave-taking events in our own village, we sandwiched in a few events with these new folks and still managed to shut the house and head on home with a minimum of fuss.

Of course, M. Monge, our local artist in masonry, came to shore up the lower level wall and eliminate the unsightly and growing spot where the previous plaster had separated from its moorings. Another project for the spring--a bit of painting to blend in the repair work. There will be no need to get too obsessively "house beautiful" with our paint selection. Eggshell white will do just fine. Our color comes from the landscape surrounding us and the Provencal fabrics that dot our home.

From the US, that final morning where we readied the house for winter, draining the water and turning off the electricity, seems so far away. But, soon, we'll be flicking switches and turning knobs to open our house and our lives to Mollans again.

A trip within a trip

2008-09-17T05:36:00.000-07:00

Last week, summer made a brief comeback and we decided to take full advantage. While we're doing our best to marshall our car trips, conserving on gas and thus on euros, the call of a mini-trip while the forecast called for lovely weather just proved too strong.

We decided to only venture out on an overnight as the little suns on the Internet weather map were only promising clear skies for a day or two and then small clouds, like little sheep, started gamboling into the picture. The Gorges de Verdon seemed a very reasonable destination, even if we made several stops along the way.

As it turned out, we really only detoured once, to the Abbaye de Senanque, a Cistercian monastery dating back to the 12th century. It shows up in every guide book, surrounded by fields of lavender and I've always wanted to see it. While September is way past lavender season, I'm not typically here when the little purple buds are in full bloom. That happens mid-summer and I'm in Minneapolis, enjoying our gorgeous lakes instead.

The abbey didn't disappoint. Since we decided to leave and promptly headed out the door Tuesday about 10 a.m. based on those above mentioned little suns, we didn't get to the abbey until about noon. Walking into the dark coolness, we found the monks mid-mass and decided to stay until the service finished.

What a difference from the abbey at le Barroux. The music was even more beautiful and the few monks singing--less than 10--filled the church with a rich polyphony that seemed to be coming from a full choir. Here the gate between them and the rest of the worshippers was open, the altar faced the congregation and the mass was in the vernacular--French--for all to participate. The celebrant came forward to shake hands with the rest of us, extending the feeling of welcome. It was lovely and inspiring. Afterwards,we walked the grounds, found their potager (vegetable garden) full of squash and picked up some lavender honey, collected on site, as a souvenir. Then it was back in our tiny Peugeot to see what other wonders were in store.

Checking my watch en route, I realized the luncheon window of opportunity had just about shut tight. It was 1:45, and, at that time, eating in France becomes slim pickings, at best. So, as we passed a restaurant routier, or truck stop, we pulled in and were grateful for the adequate, if not fabulous, meal they offered. For 14euros, the bill of fare included pates and salads from a salad bar style cooler, beef stew, a cheese plate, dessert which we skipped and quarter liter each of wine. Fortified, we continued into the rising landscape towards Moustiers St. Marie, a small town known for its pottery just before the gorges.

Arriving late afternoon, we decided the tiny town made as good a place as any to spend the night and managed to snag the last room in a simple but spotlessly clean hotel. When we checked in, the clerk said she had only one room left and we thought, "Yea, right," assuming it was ploy to offset bargaining on the price. But, soon afterwards, the complet, or full, sign went up and later we heard one man wistfully complaining in the lobby about the dearth of rooms available in town for that evening.

We strolled through the small stores full of either tourist tchotchkes or real, artisan creations, tucked into a lovely dinner, and spent a peaceful night.

The next morning, after avoiding the eight euro price our hotel wanted for breakfast by going across the street to a cafe for the same croissants and coffee at half the price, we headed up and up along switch-back roads for a breathtaking drive. The sun came out after a night of showers and the stream far below, responsible eons ago for the spectacularly craggy landscape, sparkled with an almost turquoise intensity. We drove about half way through the area, gasping at teach turn and then back-tracked to point ourselves in the general direction of home.

But, before getting serious about the route towards Mollans, we spent some time descending toward the azure lake we'd spotted from above, Lac St. Croix. We poked in and out of small, dirt side roads, finding isolated or small, organized camp grounds plus canoe and kayak launching areas. No motorized boats, no glut of resorts, and generally just pristine wilderness for all to enjoy. Sheer loveliness.

Once back, our warm weather turned rainy as predicted and we settled back into puttering in the house. The next few days and nights went ice-box chilly. On Friday, our mason, M Monge, came to rebuild a crumbling inner wall, patch a few cracks and give us answering advice to as many questions as we could think to ask about home maintenance. He's a talented man whose renovated homes always have a whimsical quality to them. His henna tinted black hair matches his twinkling smile and he writes books on the side as well--a multi-talented artist with a trowel.

Then it was the weekend again. We organized for a substantial Sunday lunch with some of my neighbors from Minneapolis, here in Provence for a week before heading to Paris. It was a typical, leisurely affair, lasting about five hours over sparkling wine to greet them, a first course of meze, and then Chicken with Preserved Lemon and Olives, a recipe from my Bistro Chicken book.

As we moved into our last full week at the house, our social calendar filled quickly, a sure sign of pending good-byes.

Next: The turning of the seasons.

Summer to Fall

2008-09-08T06:40:00.000-07:00

We moved from summer to fall last week with crashing storms, a bit of sun and then a day of steady rain. Now, the breezes that brush us while standing in the shade hint of the crisp, cool nights that follow. Pears and apples are ripening along with the figs and it's clear the quinces will follow soon. Our friends with vineyards wait patiently for the grapes to reach their peak. Because the summer's heat was spotty this year, the vendage, or harvest, is weeks later than the past few years. With the storms blowing in cooler air, the vintners will wait a bit longer yet.

These booming tempests put our Mont Ventoux plans on hold as well. Both Thursday and again on Friday, we'd set our alarms for 5 am in anticipation of heading up the mountain to catch the sunrise. Skies need to be clear, not covered with clouds, to see the sun's first rays but that wasn't happening so we headed back to bed each time and decided to give the plan and ourselves a rest.

We discovered Friday morning that thunder wasn't the only thing that crashed during the night; our electricity did too and we were in a state when we discovered our fuse box was the cause, not the power lines.

Now, I don't know from fuses. We had them when I was a child but, at home in Minneapolis, we have circuit breakers instead. Here we have a combo plate of switches that look like breakers but that contain fuses inside.

Our main switch/fuse was tripped and kept tripping every time we tried to right it. We headed to our friends at the hotel for a small electricity lesson on how to sort things out. Bernard kindly explained that we needed to flip all the switches to off, turn the main one to on and then flip the others on--one by one--until one of them triggered the main switch to fail. Then we'd have our culprit narrowed down. So we did and soon had power everywhere but the second floor. Better.

Yes, the whole second floor. The bathroom, WC, hallway, and my bedroom--plus the upper terrace too--are all wired on the same fuse. So, I scratched my head for a while and then realized that my wall electric heater had probably sent the whole mess toppling like dominoes. It had rained in my open window the night before and the heater is hard-wired right below. Why it's there and not in a different spot is any bodies guess and only something the former owners of our house could answer. (Along with why the whole second floor and terrace were on just a single fuse.) But, we let the heater dry out while we went to lunch and all was well when we returned.

And what an excellent lunch! In Malaucene, a nearby village, there's a lovely little spot with a pleasant terrace that serves a tasty, three course lunch for 15 euros. Sometimes the food is better than others but this day everything was spot on. The lobster bisque studded with baby scallops, salmon with Bearnaise sauce and figs poached in red wine took the edge off of two 5 am false starts and our power failure very nicely. Once I added the cost of my share of our pitcher of local rose, my total bill came to 16 euros. Since the sun chose to shine that afternoon before hiding later behind newly arriving clouds, we had a perfect interlude.

Saturday was stinky. There's no other way to put it. It poured steadily most of the day, canceling one of last of the village's evening markets and drenching us as we made our way to friends for dinner. While not the barbecue they'd planned, we had a pleasant evening that made up for the lost day and wandered home under the beginning of clearing skies.

This time of year seems to bring out a rash of vide greniers, loosely translated as attic emptiers. They're flea markets and a village called Sahune had been leafleting our area liberally to let us know their event was happening the first weekend of September. On Sunday,we hopped in the car under spotlessly scrubbed blue skies to see what the town had to offer in the way of junk.

Junk they had, spread on table after table up and down the main street and across the bridge to the display of antique tractors--all six of them. They also had a helicopter buzzing overhead plus a man with a mike hawking tickets for their upcoming town bean feed. No junk for us and we passed on the food as well. We've discovered French group dinners are often like our own in the States--edible but not wows by any means.

Back home in time for a late Sunday lunch, I whipped up a batch of fish soup using bits of leftover mussels with their cooking broth, fresh tomatoes we'd purchased at a roadside market earlier that day, plus some baby shrimp tucked in our freezer. A half hour later, I splashed in a jot of Pastis for extra flavor and we sat and marveled how much difference a shiny day can make in one's general attitude towards life.

Next: The to-do list.

Back again

2008-09-01T03:34:00.000-07:00

Lovely and lush, Mollans welcomed us back with a sunny smile last week and we couldn't help but respond in kind. Despite the travails of modern travel, once we came down the home stretch towards our village and looked out over the vineyards and mountains that surround our little hamlet, we knew the journey had been worth it once again.

Hallie and I met up at the Charles de Gaulle airport, she flying in from LAX via Chicago and I from Minneapolis via Cleveland, of all places. The train was comfortable and speedy as always, making us wonder, as we do each time, just why America can't seem to offer a high-speed version of the TGV, especially now that energy is such a concern. We got off in Avignon with our bags full of bits and pieces, to be met by our good friend Steve for that last leg homeward.

My bag was laden with its usual assortment of oddities. I'd picked up a stack of soft car rags at Costco that we use here for chasing cob webs, wiping up wine spills and just about anything else that comes to mind. I'd also grabbed an industrial sized pepper grinder while passing through the Costco isles that will serve us--the two cooks--well in the weeks ahead. Of course, the suitcase contained more books to help pass the TV-less evenings and seasons one and two on DVD of Northern Exposure to watch on our computer.

We spent the first few days getting settled, making a run to the grocery store, going to the bank for money and to the Public Treasury to pay our water bill, all the ordinary details of opening a home and nesting that could be considered chores but are instead pleasures. After doing our errands, we rewarded ourselves with a stop at the best bakery in our area--right in Buis les Barronies. Walking into the baker's small space, there's something primal and timeless about the experience. Loaves in different shapes, crusty and grainy, wait to be consumed and savored, as did yesterday's breads and as will tomorrow's. Small, yeasty miracles send out tendrils of aroma in invitation and customers line up out the door in response. Deciding is the problem. There's any number of possibilities--part of a large loaf of multi-seeded bread that you purchase by the chunk found its way into our shopping basket, as did the ginger bread. What a marvelous concoction--rye studded with crystallized ginger, candied orange peel and spiced with cloves--and a heady breakfast treat that proved to be just right with our morning cafe au lait.

The next evening, one of our British neighbors, Ian, invited us for a curry, accompanied by homemade chapatis, nicely spicy and the proper antidote to jet lag. He fussed, it showed, and we felt welcomed.

As we did when we stopped for tea at Jo and Steve's. They have walnut trees in their yard and the slices of cake served alongside came studded with nuggets of hand harvested walnut kernels.

We greeted our town back by strolling the summer Saturday evening market, picking up crisp green beans from the elderly women in a puffy hat and other edible treasures along the way. In the evening sunshine, tomatoes glistened, eggplants and figs held a contest for the deepest purple, and zucchinis were as rampant as ever. From there, we drifted to our favorite table at the Bar du Pont to sip a verre (glass) and watch the rest of the villagers saunter by before heading home.

On Sunday, we caught the last of this year's village tours. We have an unofficial historian who, every Sunday in the summer, peppers his attentive audience with enough facts and figure to last two and a half hours. Perhaps because it was the last chance until next year, our tour was particularly well attended, with about 20 of us stopping at various landmarks along the way to listen and learn.

Later that day, we tried to go to a flute concert up in the mountains, held where rock climbers begin exploring one of the many precipices available for their enjoyment. The premise sounded great and the poster advised there would be a ten minute walk. Well, one person's walk is another person's steep climb. Hallie and I took one look at the rock "path" that led seemingly straight upward and decided that perhaps we liked our limbs too much to take a chance. Along with a few other reluctant souls, we watched as a fairly sizable collection of attendees--including dogs, women in flip flops, and a senior citizen or two--scrambled or adroitly sprang up the rocks and out of sight. We finally left and drove around instead for a few minutes enjoying the rugged landscape from the security of our car. The air smelled just as sweetly of pine for us as for them, sans flute it is true, but sometimes it is sound to know one's limitations. I could have managed the up portion but have enormous difficulty getting down even the smallest of inclines and Hallie basically does neither up nor down so we were entirely comfortable with our decision to skip the event.

Now we're one week in, with a pizza Monday and a visit to the Vaison market behind us once again. It's time to let the days lead us where they will along with ticking items off the perpetual to-do list every home owner has. Tonight, Mohammad is coming to get the dimensions for the last, unfinished bit of tiling in Hallie's bedroom (a project started over a year ago so what's the rush) and there's lots more for later musings.

Next: Mount Ventoux at dawn.

A Very Chic but not Tra-La-La Birthday Lunch

2008-08-11T09:19:00.000-07:00

We often stay a day or two in Paris before heading home, blessed with a good friend, Frederique, who puts us up in her lovely apartment on the "skirts" of Paris proper. We take the commuter train into town, catch the metro to whatever destination we want and spend the day, walking and talking and spending as little money as we can. It's almost a game to see just how much fun we can have on as few euros as possible.

Except this past June. Shortly before we headed home, my husband, Glen, suggested that Hallie and I pick any restaurant we wanted and go out for a blow-out meal to celebrate my upcoming birthday--one of the ones that end in "0." That was all the excuse we needed. But, where to go?

My first thought was the Jules Verne, one of Alain Ducasse's restaurants located on the second floor of the Eiffel tower. While it's not a three star--only a one, in fact--the ambiance seemed to guarantee an auspicious beginning to a new life decade.

So, I went on-line and tried to reserve. Full, it said but I could be put on a waiting list. Just give us your cell number. Now, I don't have a cell phone in France. Hallie does but it's one of those pay as you go ones and it had no "pay' on it. You see, cell phones don't work well, in fact hardly work at all, in our little village so what's the point. The Ducasse site didn't seem to want our land-line number and so I was stumped. Picking up our regular phone, I gave them a call, worked my way through the options and finally reached a live person. A not terribly friendly for the cost of the restaurant live person, but a person. I gave it a go, in French. Sometimes contacting a site directly yields different results than on the web so I thought I'd just start from scratch and said I wanted to reserve. "No can do" was the essence of the reply. Reservations were only taken via the internet--no exceptions. By then, I wouldn't have eaten there if they'd paid me, hardly a likely possibility, so I hung up and started again.

Here's where the search got fun. We hauled out the Michelin guide book and decided to go for three stars. Since Glen hasn't made millionaire status yet, I opted for lunch to keep him (and me) from bankruptcy. We asked our French friend, Annette, if she had any suggestions and she enthusiastically provided about six names. From there, we went back to the net and looked at menus, prices and anything else interesting the restaurants might have posted. Pierre Gagnaire looked mighty tasty and we liked watching the clip of 24 hours in the restaurant on our computer screen. Once again, I filled out the e-mail registration. Warned by Annette that these restaurants fill up way in advance, we wondered if we'd strike out once more. But no, an extremely polite e-mail note showed up in my inbox, advising that we would be welcome on the day requested but could they call us that day and let us know exactly when?

Odd, we thought. But, as with so many things in life, said "Whatever." We gave them Hallie's cell number, deciding we could juice the thing up with a few euros for the occasion. By then we'd be in Paris and it would actually get some reception.

Once in Paris, Monday--aka lunch day--arrived and we turned on the phone. Nothing. We waited, strolling Fred's neighborhood--nothing. Finally, we called them. Oh yes, they said, they'd been trying to call us and couldn't reach us. We'd given them the wrong number it turns out. Hallie uses the phone so little she'd made a mistake remembering it. They asked what time would we like to come. I said 12:30 and off we went on the commuter line from Fred's towards the Champs Elysee. Why they didn't just ask us initially when we wanted to come is still a mystery but, again, whatever.

Fresh from our train and metro ride, we strolled in like we owned the world, dressed in the finest duds we could scrounge from our Mollans' closets. Black duds, of course, the mark of the true sophisticate, n'est-ce pas? Mollans is not exactly the hot spot of the fashion world nor is Project Runway going to come there any time soon so we don't tend to keep anything too dressy. Fred looked at us on the way out her door and promptly handed Hallie a pair of her shoes, a mere half size off. Hallie, to her credit, kept her world-owning stroll intact despite her borrowed shoes and we were soon seated at our table.

My it was lovely! Annette's husband, Jean-Claude, has coined the expression "tres chic but not tra-la-la" to describe various events. This event will be the gold standard for all to follow in that category. Everything at the restaurant was tastefully arranged, the staff attentive without hovering and, oh, the food.

We picked the menu du dejeuner for June. Each month, the restaurant plays with seasonal food and presents the best available in a stunning way. M. Gagnaire, along with Herve This, is one of the major players in molecular gastronomy or using science to come up with unique and complimentary food pairings in unusual ways.

Our pre-first course service or "amuse bouches" was incredibly playful. Our waiter brought five small tastings, each served in an individual, cleverly shaped dish, and arranged them in front of us in a specific order. He explained, in a measured voice, just what each appetizer, for want of a better description, contained. We nibbled on each one, oohing and aahing as we went over things like an ever so thin chlorophyll wafer on baby sprouts, puree of chorizo with an anchovy tandoori, beef tartare topped with salmon eggs, gelee of clams in a tilted cup, parsley mousseline with eggplant and snails, teriyaki shitake with a pain d'epice wafer and a sorbet of Lucques olives with a squid pasta.

Our slightly stiff waiter returned to clear the pre-lunch debris and accidently dropped one of the plates. This is just not done in a three star restaurant and he was mortified. We didn't mind as it just made the whole experience more human but the interesting thing was that he was never seen again, not at our table or anyone else's while we were there.

His replacement arrived with our "first" course, a small cup of velvety porcini mushroom soup swirled with an arugula puree and topped with a tiny plate of the smallest chanterelle mushrooms I've ever seen, perfectly sauteed. On the side, more arugula accompanied by tender, miniscule turnips.

While spooning up every morsel, we took the opportunity to look around. The restaurant was now full and the assembled guests could have come straight from an Agatha Christie mystery--a truly eclectic assortment of diners. Behind us was an American couple, he'd arrived early and started right in. She floated in later sporting bright floral, form-fitting pants and accompanied by a standard poodle. The poodle found his way under the table and she announced in a drawl that dripped oil money that she had many food issues but would have a bite or two and a glass or two of wine.

Then there were the two Japanese girl-women giggling through their meal across the room, looking like they were spending Daddy's money plus the older French gentleman with his much younger female friend and a classically-turned out French couple. Rounding out the crowd was an American family with children dressed to the nines, an Asian couple with the wife in a badly fitting knit pant suit and a man with a buzz cut who ordered a substantial steak and looked like a military big shot in civvies.

Getting slightly full, we nevertheless had no problem demolishing the main course when it arrived: monkfish wrapped and crisped in Spanish ham and accompanied by cabbage, fennel marmalade spiked with star anise and the best grain dish of spelt (aka epeautre in French and farro in Italian) ever.

Okay. We were totally satisfied and yet able to deal with the final course, until the waiter set the plate in front of us and said "this is your first dessert." Oh dear. From then on it was a blur, as plates arrived with such temptations as cassis sorbet in an almond paste ravioli, a poached pear with wasabi ice cream and a frozen bonbon with toasted hazelnuts topped with a smoky chocolate sauce. Oh, and then there were the little mignardises--the tiny treats fancy restaurants like to throw into the mix including meringue wafers with buttercream, dark chocolate with an apple jelly and strawberry marshmallow strings. With our coffee and tea, in case we weren't done in quite yet, they passed two kinds of chocolate.

By now, it was 3:15 and time to pay the piper. We'd washed all the goodness down with a bottle of white Loire valley wine, forgoing the carafe of champagne and so kept the bill to a mere $416.00 once converted from euros. Worth every penny.

On the way out, our replacement waiter said good-bye and stopped to chat briefly. We mentioned we were cooks and he asked if we'd like to see the kitchen. Of course. And so, as a final birthday treat, off I went with Hallie to their small, very zen-calm and spotless kitchen. Unlike the Gordon Ramsey atmosphere we all see on TV, the quiet was remarkable, as was the sense that everyone, indeed, had the food down to a science.

Which reinforces a theory of mine that food, if it's not produced with a positive emotion, never tastes quite right. No wonder everything at Pierre Gagnaire was so remarkable.

Next: Back to France.

The Last Eight Days

2008-07-05T09:37:00.000-07:00

Life zoomed by our last full week in Mollans and hasn't broken pace since then. I look back at that final week in our little house from the perspective of life back in the States and a few, fleeting treasures come to mind.

We managed to catch a baptism at our local church. It was sweet, unpretentious and the exact opposite of our experience at le Barroux that I wrote about earlier. When we first bought the house in Mollans,there were enough priests that our church could host one mass each week, on Saturday. Then a priest retired and the village went to one mass every other week. From there it deteriorated to once a month and now, in the five weeks I spent in the village, no mass at all. We used to go from time to time to be part of the community; the priest was friendly and the people watching great. We'd walk along up the cobbled streets just minutes before the service, passing the old folks slowly heading the same way and slip into one of the wooden pews. Our local "church lady" who seems to hold the whole show together,always sang the hymns during the service. She still does but the service is a prayer service--normally held elsewhere--that she organizes and conducts. Makes you think the church just might be missing the boat on the whole women and ordination thing.

In any event, the prayer service this particular Saturday was listed for the church and we thought "Why not?" As one of the village matrons said as we passed her on the hill, "It's a shame to have a church empty." Once inside, we discovered we were also in for a baptism. Since there's no font, they bring out a jam pot--one of the traditional large copper basins used to preserve all the local fruit--polished to brilliance for the occasion. The parents and grandparents were proud and the dad kept gently planting kisses on his small son's head. The baby's name--Valentine.

Sunday was the exploding wine episode I wrote about last. The next day, I finally made it to pizza Monday. While the weather was not much better than the Mondays before, this was my last chance until fall. All the crowd gathered anyway, British and French alike, with the conversation meandering in and out of both languages in a friendly, casual melange that matched the setting--our local Bar du Pont.

Tuesday I made a last trip to the Vaison market, more for nostalgia than need and was delighted to discover that something about the overcast, humid day intensified all the fabulous food aromas. The scent of richness and spice from the the sausages danced a tango in the stiff breeze from the oncoming storm, followed by the sweet smell of ripening fruits. Apricots glowed yellow-orange instead of the sun and it was a sensory treat just to stroll along.

Wednesday we took one last trip to Buis to drop more money into our French bank account and got caught on the way home by two gendarmes standing under an eave in the small village of Pierrelongue. One had a speed gun, one a camera. Supposedly a ticket for miscreants follows in the mail but our good friend Steve has been checking and so far nothing. Perhaps it was too much trouble since I drive on a Minnesota license. One can only hope.

Thursday we invited our French friends from Montelimar for lunch and had a pull-out-all the stops (and the bits and pieces in the fridge) salad plus little souffles for dessert, put together in the lovely pottery cups that yogurt comes in at the supermarket. Then it was washeteria time, running our tiny washing machine in multiple loads and hanging laundry here there and everywhere in an attempt to get it all dry.

Friday, we cooked and cleaned in a glorious fit of domesticity before Gary and Marilyn came for one last meal of lamb stew with market artichokes and olives plus a bottle of lovely Rhone wine from Gary's stash that we cellar for him in between their visits. Marilyn was mostly recovered from her bout with peritonitis--a whole chapter of a story in and of itself. The following morning the two of them were heading to Paris to, as they put it, "eat out a lot" now that Marilyn was free of the diet restrictions imposed by her near-death experience with a burst appendix.

Saturday we packed,cleaning and emptying the refrigerators in anticipation of turning off the electricity the following day and then we headed to Steve and Jo's, our kind British friends, for a good bye dinner served on Jo's lovely Polish stoneware--a relaxed evening of good friends, food and conversation. Then, tucked in our beds one last time, we spent the last night before heading to Avignon on Sunday morning, catching the train for a final treat in Paris prior to flying Stateside.

Next: A birthday bash.

Wine Flows like the Ouveze

2008-06-09T07:44:00.000-07:00

If this were the beginning of a Garrison Keillor monologue, it would go something like "It's been a winey week in my hometown." That sums up our next to last week nicely as the we sipped our way through meals, tasting, festivals and a party chez nous, where wine literally flowed like our Ouveze river.

We started with an excellent luncheon last Tuesday with our friends Gary and Marilyn at a charming wine bar, la Tourne au Verre, in nearby Cairanne. The sun came out especially for us and we sat outside,sipping whites, roses, and reds by the glass. We loved the name of one of the whites--La Vie On Y Est--a fun play on words for the varietal it contained, viognier. After working our way though a great house terrine, duck stew and pineapple tart, we decided to pay a visit to our friends, Francoise and John (yes, French and American), who are winemakers at the Girasol vinyard. Of course, we had to get caught up on their wines as well as their lives and more than a few bottles found their way into Gary's trunk.

Wednesday, after lunch, the trend continued with a visit to Chateau Unang close to Venasque, once more with Gary and Marilyn, who like to call themselves the Rhone Rangers. More sipping, swirling and slurping to get the full effect of more luscious wines and, again, more wines in Gary's trunk.

Thursday, we simply had some visiting friends of Hallie's in for drinks--meaning wine of course, and Friday, we took a small turn toward temperance in preparation for Saturday. We only stopped at one winery in Chateau Neuf du Pape and picked up some of Roger Sabon's lovely Lirac and a couple of bottles of his Rhone by Roger Sabon for our cellar. In fact, we didn't even go to Chateau Neuf du Pape for wine, but rather to see M. Sabon, who is a healer. (That's another whole story in itself for a later time.)

Saturday, at about 11 a.m., we set out for the women-run vinyard, Gros Pata, that makes the wine we serve all the time to guests. They hold a festival each year, complete with regional dancers, tasting of other winemakers from Alsace, Burgundy and Bergerac, plus a chanteuse to amuse the substantial crowd during lunch, served up buffet-style. The whole meal kicks off with anchoiade, then moves along to slices of terrine, caillettes and salad, followed by grilled ham and potatoes. About the time the food is served, casks of wine--both rose and red--show up so everyone can pour glasses for themselves. This procedure seems to work for them, as it has hardly changed in all the years we've attended. Despite the fact that everyone wore jackets this year instead of their usual short sleeved tops, a most excellent time was had by all. As we finally left, around 3 p.m., we picked up a gi-normous 10 liter bag-in-box for our party on Sunday afteroon. Hauling it away, we passed the horse drawn carriage giving rides down the main road and eased our way home.

We had decided to introduce our British and French friends to the concept of an open-house and so invited quite a crew to come by on Sunday afternoon, about the only way we could accomodate that many people in our small village house. We baked and chopped during the week, putting things together ahead of time and storing what we could in our tiny freezer that gets a mighty workout during our stays. We also have a second refrigerator, one of the best buys two cooks could have made, and so beer, rose and sparkling water went in there. That afternoon, before our company arrived, we organized the table and put out our various offerings. The food choices ranged from French--salmon cake and quiche--to American--guacamole and brownies. It was quite a nibbler's spread. Just before going upstairs to change, Hallie decided to open up the 10 liter bag-in-box so that we could fill pitchers with wine. Now, we are not virgins at this activity and it's pretty simple. You pull out the spigot, unwrap the piece of plastic seal that keeps the wine from dribbling out while it's stored, tip the box on end and you're ready to go. Hallie worked on this while I went upstairs to put on my party duds.

All of a sudden, I heard her yelling, "Help! Come now!" And so, sporting only my bra and tugging my pants up from half-mast, I flung myself down the stairs.

There she stood, flooded with red wine. Our bag-in-box, taking inspiration from the Ouveze, decided to flow like a river from its broken spigot. Faulty, the whole spout just fell out, spurting out wine that engulfed Hallie, her white top and jeans, plus the plaster wall and tile floor below it. It now smelled like a winery in our house, displacing all the enticing aromas we'd generated earlier. We waded through the rivulets of wine, mopped it all up, dabbed at the badly stained wall, and threw out Hallie's top. Hallie, while righting the box, to stanch the wine's flow, had torn the now soggy cardboard and it was, as our British friends would say, a right mess. I got out packing tape and bandaged the box back together, gave the spigot a mighty shove back in place, and got it in far enough so that we could still, gingerly, dispense adult beverages for our party. Hallie showered, we opened the window to dispel the fumes, and our guests started knocking on the door. They flowed in gently, unlike our wine, in manageable waves and, as we nibbled and noshed, we had a chance to chat, sip a bit of our badly behaved bag-in-box, and appreciate the richness of life in Mollans.

Two Weeks and Counting

2008-06-06T02:40:00.000-07:00

At the start of this past week, I realized, unbelievably, that I only had two weeks left of my time here in Provence. When you get up each day and have to concentrate to remember the day of the week, time is a tentative thing and life just flows by. Unfortunately, this past week and the next find this flow, like our local Ouveze river, moving at a torrent's pace, with a to-do list of chores falling from the sky like the rains of last week.

Luckily, the weather eased for a while. Monday brought more power outages and thunderstorms but Tuesday brought the sun, just in time for market day in Vaison and our planned lunch with Gary and Marilyn, friends from Minnesota staying nearby. Wednesday, both a market and errand morning in Buis les Baronnies, got the chore list front and center.

While getting dressed, I heard our neighbor in the field below our house revving up his power saw. We call him the hippie because that's the way he looks--in a stoner, Keith Richards kind of way. The prior week, between rain showers, I'd discussed having him trim some trees that were growing so rapidly that we feared for our view. He'd agreed but never showed at the agreed upon time to negotiate a price. Then nothing continued to happen even when the skies occasionally cleared. When we passed him in the village, he ignored us, and we thought he'd changed his mind. From the looks of the back of his property, he's clearly not suffering from the Protestant work ethic so we thought perhaps it was just too much effort. But, on Wednesday, with the sound of his saw drifting ever so sweetly upward,I came running down the stairs yelling "hippie" to Hallie. Scuttering along in my bedroom slippers and with my hair still plastered, wet to my head, post shower, I zoomed past Hallie and picked my way down the rickety stairs that lead to what we call our secret garden. I wanted to catch him before the inclination toward work had passed. We quickly negotiated a fee and he started in right before our very eyes. "Hooray, hooray for our side," we said and left him whacking away with his saw at our unwanted tree growth.

We had a task list of our own and hopped in the car and headed towards Buis. First stop--the bank. Our French bank account is great because we use it to automaticly pay almost everything--electricity, phone, taxes, car and house insurance, etc., etc., etc. Unfortunately, it needs replenishing from time to time and so we needed to deposit some funds. The process is amusing. First we go to the ATM and get cash in euros drawn from our American accounts using cash cards. Then we make out a deposit slip and put the same money back in the bank only in our French account. That accomplished, we were off to our next stop, the tresorie--sort of like a tax or public works office--to pay our garbage bill, which we can't pay automatically, for some reason. This is a once a year thing, as is the water bill, and we had high hopes to pay both. They hadn't managed to do the water bill yet in the brief month and a half since they'd read the meter so that went back on the to-do list for our fall trip to France and we hit the market. On the way home, we made a hardware store stop and did our usual pantomime and sketching routine to get the U-shaped runner thingies we wanted to put outside the door. More on the reason why in a later blog. As you can tell, I don't even know the right term in English for what I wanted so it's no wonder I don't know the name in French either.

Next the e-mails started. All the folks I work for back in the States seemed to want something from me. Some things could be dealt with here and others will need prompt attention as soon as I land in Minneapolis mid-June. So, another to-do list for post-Mollans begins.

It made the week fly by when added to enjoying the good food, wine, and friends that pass through our life, sometimes slowly and sometimes quickly. Floating through life, like rafting on a river, works until the rapids come along and the current pushes you onward and sometimes overboard. A certain amount of zooming is unavoidable and the trick is to keep the flow balanced between trickle and torrent.

Next up: Wine starts flowing like our local Ouveze.

Music Soothes the Savage Beast

2008-06-01T03:56:00.000-07:00

We're showing our resourcefulness in sussing out activities to keep the grump gorilla in his place. Everyone we talk to has had it with the weather, harder to take than perhaps in a climate like Seattle, beecause it's so unexpected here. To keep, as the old song says "On the Sunny Side of Life," our diversions the last few days have spread to music.

Friday evening, raincoat and umbrella in tow, I jumped into Steve and Jo's little white car and set off to Avignon with them to hear our friend Jean-Claude sing Verdi's Te Deum with his choir in the Avignon Opera House. Since everyone's on a budget these days, we chose the cheap tickets up in the nose-bleed section. Dangling over the edge but protected by a metal railing, our bleacher-style seating far above the velvet seats and boxes below, still allowed a fairly clear view of the orchestra but, unfortunately, obscured all but the feet of the male portion of the choir. An amalgamation of two amateur groups, they'd all been rehearsing mightily for a month and did an admirable job. After a brief intermission, the orchestra returned and launched themselves into Mahler's 1st Symphony--thank goodness more lyrical and less morose than his 8th. Back in the car, we motored home through the rain and fog, spirits more than soothed by the evening.

Saturday, we snuck in a walk and a visit to our local candle producer friends down the road before the thunderstorms rolled in. Business is slow for them and the price of parafin is rising steadily. After mutual grumbling, we consoled ourselves with the fact that we still had each other as friends, exchanged the three air kisses of affection and said "A bientot," or I'll see you soon. Later, we took ourselves out for a decent if not fabulous dinner as a small treat and snuggled under the covers in our rooms with good books for an early evening.

I'm reading Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love, an appropriate book for what I do and who I am and just finished the second section about the author's trip to India. She talks about meditation and chanting in that section--the Pray of the title. In turn, that reminded me of the monks in nearby Le Barroux who go through their prayer offices each day in Gregorian chant. At our dinner party on Thursday, the mass they say--unusually,in Latin--came up and that was omen and suggestion enough for me. I mentioned to Hallie that I wanted to go and she said she'd come too. When there's a mass in our village church we go for the social aspect as much as anything and I explain what's going on in small whispers to Hallie. We've got a nice Catholic-Jewish vibe going on between us and now my conversation is studded with Yiddish and she knows a fair amount about the Catholic mass.

Anyway, we drove up to le Barroux, passing the most spectacular poppy field along the way--pulsing with red-orange life against the well-watered green hills behind it. We pulled into the monastery parking lot shortly before the service and found ourselves a pew. The main portion of their austere stone church is the altar and choir stall section for the monks, sectioned off limits to the public by a traditional railing. French of all ages, including a fair amount of families with small childred, filed in, genuflecting and crossing themselves in a way I remember from my Catholic childhood but haven't seen much of since. They were the most consistently well-turned out crowd I've come across in our area ever. Dressed in the French preppie style, with only the occasional working class version of dresses and suit coats present, I again thought of my mother and I dressing in our Sunday best for a trip to church. The only thing not dredged from the past were head coverings for women and one older lady did have her hair wrapped in a shawl.

At home, I attend an extemely liberal Catholic church, about as far to the other end of the same faith as you can get without becoming Unitarian. Going to a Latin mass is quite a departure from my current life. But, as I said, I've always loved Gregorian chant and expected the ritual and beautiful voices to be a truly spiritual experience.

I was fine through the Alleluia of the mass. Four monks with gorgeous voices stepped forward and praised God as He/She should be praised. Then things fell apart. The further into the mass we got, the less I felt a part of the process. It was a mass for the monks, not for those of us inferiour beings from the world outside, and we just bobbed and knelt at appropriate times, saying nothing except for the "I am not worthy" bit before communion. The Latin mass is, by it's very nature, exclusionary, with the congregation looking at the priest's back throughout while he intones in a very dead language. But, even in my childhood, we, the laity, chimed back with a few responses. Here at the monastery, we all stayed mute while the monks hoarded their gorgeous song for themselves and their God. The music seemed to stop at the railing instead of spilling forth to fill all our souls. We, barred from their gated community, were like voyeurs to their experience. And communion! I haven't knelt at a communion railing and stuck out my tongue to receive the host for over 40 years. Talk about not worthy. At the very end, as the dark robed, tonsured group filed out, they avoided eye contact at all cost and I felt as though my presence was a minor disturbance rather than an additional testament to our supposedly community of faith. The monks themselves were like sad automatons,with only a few showing any signs of peace that a life of prayer should bring.

I left thinking that it was no wonder so many of my friends had left the church when we were all young.

So the two musical experiences were quite a contrast. At the concert on Friday night, while I was also a spectator, I felt envelloped by the experience, a welcome and necessary participant in the performance event. As the conductor mentioned in a short speech, we were the cher public,the dear public, in other words appreciated and welcome. The music itself took all of us, performer and audience alike, out of ourselves and to a higher level, like a true prayer. There was nothing "dear" about my experience at the monastery, but rather a glum example of a miserly, pinched faith that I was perhaps better off for not sharing.

Next: Time grows shorter.

Mixed Blessings

2008-05-30T02:47:00.000-07:00

Like life everywhere, mine has had its share of pluses and minuses over the last few days. Our weather, the most atypical I've seen here in Provence, remains overcast, cool, and rainy. We've had thunderstorms and wind that threatened to blow us off to Oz. Tempests bring fits of temper and, for awhile, we almost succumbed to the tone set by the black cloud covering the hills out our window.

The same dark cloud seems to be everywhere these days and, while the climate is chilly, the workers here in France are heating up to another series of strikes and manifestations. Perhaps inspired by the 40th anniversary of the Evenements du Mai--the huge semi-revolution that swept France and particularly Paris in 1968 while I was a student at the Sorbonne--the fisherman, farmers, truckers, and train folks are all having conniptions and then some over the price of gas, the lengthening of their work week and work years before retirement, plus about anything else that comes to mind. Our local fish monger at the Buis market said he'd probably not be there next week because he can't get his fish and June 10 promises to be a big bust out around the country on lots of fronts. And so it goes.

The greve--or strike--gremlins, came to our house yesterday when the internet sort of worked but I couldn't get my e-mails to come up. We've had problems all week with power outages and subsequent phone and computer glitches but yesterday was a pip. The worst though was the wild cat strike our water heater decided to throw after we hosted a dinner party for seven last night. Plates from three courses, water and wine glasses, giant earthenware stew pots, and silverware littered every counter in the kitchen. (We have no dishwasher, by the way.) As we said "bonne nuit" to all and handed them their umbrellas, we went to deal with the detritus. Earlier in the evening the water was cold but we figured we'd just used all the warm stuff up. Several hours later, unfortunately, we still couldn't conjure any hot water from the tap.

I took out my trusty fuse map we'd inherited from the former owner and checked everything I could figure out. Now, at 11 p.m. after aperatifs and a glass or two of red with the meal, I wasn't feeling particularly "handy." Nothing seemed amiss that I could tell so we shrugged our shoulders and went to bed, visions of electricians or plumbers dancing in our heads.

This morning, all was better. The hot water strike was over and the net was up and running. We tackled the dishes, checked e-mail, and returned to the fact that we'd had a great time the night before.

Our new acquaintances, the French/American couple came to dinner with a visiting brother in tow along with our British friends, Steve and Jo. Starting with an aperatif viognier from the women-run vinters at Gros Pata, we nibbled on a tapenade with tomatoes and mozzarella--the recipe from Hallie's book by the same name. Once "a table," we feasted on one of Hallie's fabulous salads featuring--what else--more of the fat, white asparagus spears that will dissappear next week for another year. Next up I--the chicken queen-- pulled off a frugal, silk purse out of a sow's ear kind of dish, chicken stew with artichokes, local olives, and red wine that melded into a luscious, simmered concoction. Hallie did her magic with the local epautre, a kind of farro or spelt, turning it to into something far above a hearty grain, using home-made stock, a hint of herbs and a crown of last minute cheese. I'd made our current house special, the cherry and olive oil cake, earlier in the day giving the house a bit of warm, caramel perfume, and brought it out graced with a dollop of vanilla bean ice cream as a closer. Everyone laughed like crazy through the evening as we talked about such things as living in foreign lands, ex-spouses, and even politics-a volatile but permitted topic here in France. Fun, fun, fun.

The wicked witch melted in all the rain and, so far, the plus column tallies up better than the minus--all a person really can ask from life, even when all it does is pour.

Little Surprises

2008-05-25T06:15:00.000-07:00

Life unfolded yesterday as it is fond of doing in Provence, bringing the unexpected in two small and sometimes moving surprises.

We were warned that parking would be difficult here in Mollans due to an influx of Sapeurs-Pompiers for a conference. Sapeurs-Pompiers, or pompous saviors as Hallie's friend Carl nicknamed them, are firemen and they descended on our little village complete with trucks and uniforms, gobbling up the public parking spots and gumming up traffic pretty thoroughly. We don't have a garage and parking is not normally a concern, except if the summer Saturday market is happening or if it's the annual, village-wide tag sale in September. However, we took the warning to heart and settled in to a day in the village. After lunch, we went for one of our multiple mini-walks and, en route, heard band music coming from the other side of the village. Hoofing it over towards the mairie, or city hall, we found firemen and women arranged in formation, dressed both in working duds and dress uniforms with a twenty piece marching band doing its best with the Marseillaise. They, like the fire trucks and rescue vehicles parked in the main lot, came in all shapes and sizes. Our favorite was the four and half foot saxaphone player who may have been born just shortly before Jesus Christ and the tall, lanky fire fighter in dress blues with a Charles de Gaulle nose.

After the Marseillaise, a speaker came forward and introduced various dignitaries from villages and towns throughout our region of the Drome. One by one, as each name was announced, he or she stepped up with a bouquet to be escorted to the war memorial that lists the dead from our village. With each bouquet gently left behind, the moment became increasingly touching. Afterwards, the first of the fire trucks fired up its engine, topped with a gleamingly metal helmeted fireman waving a flag, and started slowly out the village, followed by all the other trucks, each representing towns in the Drome. The other firefighters assumed a raggedy formation and marched off, mostly in step, led by the band, mostly in tune. Quite the display for our tiny community.

Later that afternoon, heading out for walk two, a couple stopped us to ask where were the Americans with the cooking school. We introduced ourselves as the very thing and they broke into English. She turned out to be from Louisianna while he was clearly French. They've lived in the village for three years and this is the first time we've met each other. How in a town of around 900 inhabitants could we have missed each other?

Tallying things up, two surprises for one day. That's what letting things unfold brings to our life. More is sure to come.

Springtime Comes Slowly

2008-05-22T03:30:00.000-07:00

As my first week passed, spring arrived slowly here in Mollans. Most mornings started with the promise of sun but by noon, the clouds rolled in and my sweater came on. All our French friends wished and hoped right along with us for warmer days and today, just about 10 days into my trip, our wishes seem to be granted. Cloudless and squintingly blue skies continue into this afternoon, blessing us and the still pale green growth all around with a promise of Provencal heat.

As a bonus, the coolish weather means that the asparagus is lasting a bit later into May than normal. The cherries are bit tarter than typical, lacking the extra fructose they make when sun-kissed. Perfect for clafouti, though, so, on Saturday, when we had thunder and lightening for company in the afternoon, I stirred together creme fraiche, some eggs, sugar, and cornstarch instead of flour for a weekend treat to go with our take-out paella. Perfect. Around 10 a.m., I'd walked across our lovely bridge towards the clock tower and past the Bar du Pont to see if our paella man was still setting up shop on Saturday mornings. He was there and my timing was good. If you get there too early, the paella isn't ready but arrive too late and it's all gone or looking the worse for wear. I snarfed up two portions for dinner and he scooped the saffron-tinted rice, chunks of chicken, mussels and shrimp into his plastic container, packed it down a bit and filled it once more with another bit of rice.

The local vendors set up a produce stand alongside each Saturday and the butcher does a brisk business. Mollans is out in force, with the villagers strolling along, baguettes tucked in the crook of an elbow, and pausing to give the southern French three-intstead-of-two kiss greeting to friends and acquaintences as they eased into the weekend.

Because we'd been given a bag heaped with cherries by a friend, on Sunday I looked up the olive-oil and cherry cake recipe we love and pitted and puttered my way towards another delicious dessert. Ruby cherry juice squirted around the kitchen as I smacked the fruit with the flat of my chef's knife, getting out the hard seeds and filling a cup with the plumply gorgeous flesh. It happened that Sunday was a passable day for sun so we grilled little lamb chops on the terrace and opened up a bottle of Girasol's cote du Rhone wine to accompany them. Bliss.

On Monday, Roberto jilted me. Monday is better known as Pizza Monday and, around 6 or 6:30 p.m., Roberto sets up his pizza truck next to the Bar du Pont. Our British and French friends from the village snake tables together on the terrace, order beer and wine from the bar, and pizzas from Roberto. This Monday--no Roberto. We had leftovers at home and pouted. Turns out the poor man had a minor accident so all is forgiven. Same time, next Monday, we'll make up over my favorite--eggplant pizza.

Tuesdays are market days in Vaison la Romaine, our nearby shopping hotspot, and I love going at this time of year before the pathways are packed with European and American tourists. I went a bit earlier than usual and took my time, strolling along past the heaped tables, full of the colors of Provence, golds, reds, and greens in fabrics and food alike, interspersed with the rich midnight-tinted olives in stands scattered here and there like punctuation points. I don't buy all that much, just some produce and, this time, a jar of my favorite apricot and lavendar jam for my morning toast. I always park at Jean-Claude and Annette's house, some of our first local French friends, saving the hassle of finding parking on the street. It was good to see them well and fit after their Provencal winter.

Wednesday I cleaned and did some laundry, worked on tidying cupboards, and stuffed some chicken breasts with goat cheese and pesto for dinner. Simple stuff and quiet, the kind of thing that give a rhythm of belonging to my stays. And so, we settle into sunshine and another week of village life. More British friends just arrived and the spring social whirl will start up soon. American friends from Minneapolis are dropping in for a late lunch today and all is right with the world.

Next time: Whatever life offers.

2008-05-17T09:38:00.000-07:00

The trip to Mollans gets both harder and easier with each visit--kind of a best of times, worst of times sort of thing. Finding tickets that won't leave me totally broke gets to be more and more of challenge and, as my friends and family, will attest, I'm quite good at finding the best deals for travel. It's just that the deals aren't really deals anymore and, when the price is slightly cheaper, the journey itself gets longer.

This May was no exception. I started several months ago, checking web sites that had worked before. Orbitz dealt out some deals last year, especially a one way ticket to get me home after arriving in France by ship, but it just wasn't working for me in 2008. A couple of years ago, airgorilla coughed up a decent fare or two but hasn't delivered since. I'm okay with flying into Paris and taking the TGV but prefer, if Hallie, my fellow homeowner and friend, is around, to fly into Marseille. That way the airline deals with my baggage until Hallie pulls up in our faithful Peugeot and we head back to Mollans on the autoroute. Checking prices, flying into Marseille was not going to be an option.

Finally I found an airfare, using Booking Buddy's multiple referral sites, for just under $1000.00. It's scary to think that constitutes a bargain. Of course, I had to leave on a 7 a.m. flight for Atlanta, sit around in Atlanta for four hours waiting for my connextion, fly for eight plus hours, and then go through the customs zoo at Charles de Gaulle airport. No lines but rather a giant crowd jockeying for position in a badly marked area before freedom and luggage. Of course, the luggage arrived on the carrousel posted as Orlando but with Atlanta in tiny letters beneath it, just the kind of thing your brain is going to process really well after being en route for seemingly forever. But, what do you expect for $1000.00?

From there, things went smoothly, the easier rather than harder part of the journey. The first time you try to sort out the train terminal at the airport, it's all very confusing but, after you've done it a few times, the whole thing is very simple. The track for each train is posted about 20 minutes before departure and, once alongside the track, there's a helpful sign indicating the appoximate area where your car will stop. All lovely and easy. On the train, you just need to stay alert enough to get off at your stop. This trip. I was fine with staying awake as my seat companion, a widow traveling from Britanny to a rest home vacation along the Mediterranean, insisted on carriying on a one-sided conversation for most of the way. Kind of like listening to a French Miss Marple with Alzheimers . About three hours later, I manhandled my luggage off the train at Avignon and searched out Hallie. From there, it takes about an hour through the vineyards and into the hills that surround Mollans. Mount Ventoux, with its white, bald top that always reminds me of a bald eagle, sparkled in the Tuesday sun and, right around 24 hours from leaving home, I was home again.

It's all worth it.

Next: The first week

Stack and Pack

2008-04-03T12:45:00.000-07:00

On my bureau, the France stack is forming. It's the pile of things that will go in my luggage to our home in Mollans. Unlike most travelers, I tend to be light on the clothing and heavy--literally--on things. For example, plates.

Yes, plates. Last year, when I still had elite status with Northwest and got to bring extra poundage, I loaded up my suitcases well over the normal weight allowance. I brought over lots and lots--small salad plates, shallow soup plates and several dinner plates, all matching the ones already stacked at Maison Mollans in our kitchen. They were the cute IKEA plates, cups and bowls with the cream background, pink roses and green trim that Hallie--my most excellent friend and fellow Maison Mollans owner--and I picked up on a trip to the IKEA store outside of Marseille. Unfortunately, the pattern--perfect with the Provencal tablecloth and critical focal point to our decor--was unavailable on our next stop in Marseille. My local Minneapolis IKEA still had a few boxes of our dishes and so, the reverse importation process began. Our not-so-fine china set began its life in Portugal, according to the stamp on the back of each piece, and was shipped by the Swedish store to their outlet by the Mall of America. Wrapped in clothing and micro-fiber dustcloths from Costco, the tableware made its journey back across the ocean smoothly, chip and breakage free, via two hefty loads last year. Thank goodness most of them went then. With all the restrictons the airlines are posting this year, I'd be in big trouble. Now, I'm down to just three dinner plates. With what's already at the house, we'll be able to practically feed the village, all matchy-matchy.

Just as well to plan on eating in, we've already resolved not to go anywhere much this spring once we get to Maison Mollans, what with the euro and the price of gas. If you think we have it bad here, you haven't seen anything until you pay for a tank of gas in France. Each year, I have a tiny stroke as fill up our pint-sized Peugeot, do the math, converting liters to gallons and euros to dollars. And then I get over it. The roads are well maintained, even our gloriously scenic but twisty roads that spiral through the lavender and vineyards get repaved regularly. No pot holes or falling down bridges. A good portion of the hefty gas bill is tax, both to keep consumption down and to pay for the infrastructure that supports transportation. Since the folks buying the gas are the ones using the services, it seems to me a fair trade-off.

But, I digress. The pile is still small but it should accumulate at a rapid rate because May 12 is D for departure day. Books are going-I wouldn't want to bring anything too light. Since we don't have TV and I don't read in French anywhere as fast as I do in English, books from the States are important. Speaking of television, the pile also has the annual TV form from the local tax office. You see, in France they tax you if you have a set and so, each year, we have to fill out and mail in the form saying, "no, we still have no TV." They--the French version of the feds--can't seem to believe that someone would not want a TV that they could then tax and so, each year, they spend someone else's tax euros to mail us a form all the way to the US asking if, maybe, we've broken down and acquired one. That would be a no. I'll mail the form back when I get to France and save a few cents postage.

Doing nothing in the sunshine and walking to buy great, crusty loaves of bread from the Bio (short for biologique or organic) shop, gorgeous meat and chicken from the butcher down the street, and maybe taking a tiny drive to our neighboring vintner the Tyrands sounds fabulous right about now. Mollans is the perfect place to ride the euro's ascent and hardly notice.

Next up:

Some new finds in web sites for getting to Europe a bit more cheaply.