Monday, July 30

bread and cheese to come

I'm not done writing up all of my French experiences, but in the spirit of keeping this blog at least somewhat up-to-date, I'll leave this as a placeholder, and promise to come back and fill it in. In the meantime, it's time to go on to Spain and Israel...

chers francophones

Chers tous mes amis français (ou francophones). D’abord, je suis désole de prendre si beaucoup de temps à vous écrire quelques choses. J’était avec ma famille toujours—j’était leur guide et traducteur. Alors, en addition d’avoir la (bonne) stresse d’être avec eux toujours, c’était moi qui avait les responsabilités de chercher les restaurants (naturellement), naviguer tous les petits chemins (pour voir un peu plus de la campagne et pour éviter les grands péages), et trouver des hôtels agréables. Evidemment, on n’avais pas de chance à faire des petites siestes, mais on à manger (sauf un ou deux repos) très très bien.

Je suis arrivé à Barcelone en retard (chacun de mes trois trains sont devenus plus en retard), et très fatigué d’avoir trainer mes 60kg de  bagages partout les gares qui je suis visité. Il restaient quelques petits morceaux de jambon et de chèvre, de melon et des fraises du frère de Papi. Ma sœur à commenté qu’ils étaient les meilleurs fraises qu’elle a déjà gouté. Normalement, il ne restaient plus de fraises.

On a mangé en plusieurs bons restaurants, et assez des bars de tapas (pintxos, comment ils s’appellent au pays Basque). Normalement, les meilleurs repos étaient aux restaurants plus simples et moins chers, mais il y avaient quelques hauts restaurants qui étaient aussi hyper bons que chers. En tout cas, les Basques ont de la vachement bonne cuisine. De plus, il est une région super belle : des belles plages, des bois, des jolies villes isolées. Est-ce que j’ai mentionné qu’on a mangé bien ? Quand quelqu’un est prêt à voyager là-bas, je serai très content de donner des noms et adresses des restaurants, etcetera. Dans les prochaines jours et semaines, je vais écrire quelques critiques dans mon blog.

Israël est vachement chaud, 35-40°, mais même très humide, alors, je deviens moelleux immédiatement quand je vais à l’extérieur. Je me suis bien amusé, et demain une copine va me rencontrer avant qu’on départ en Jordanie à plonger sur mer et explorer un peu. Et bien sûr que je mange (et mangerai) très bien. Ma famille a gouté et a aimé les fromages et viandes de Crozefond—particulièrement la pâté de ragondin (merci Vincent !).

Bon, il y a plusieurs des photos dans mon album et je vous invite a continuer de lire mon blog en anglais (vous savez qu’il faut pratiquer !), parce qu’il serais trop difficile de traduire tout en anglais… Vous me manquez trop. J’espère à vous visiter très bientôt. Passez mes saluts à Mami et Papi, les enfants, Vicky et Spot, et tous les autres qui je manque. Pensez de moi de temps en temps, comme je pense de vous, et m’envoyer des nouvelles quand vous avez des fois.

Sunday, July 22

going to market

The weekly markets are butter to Crozefond’s bread. No fewer than three weekly markets are attended during the warmer months. The markets begin at Villeneuve-sur-lot on Wednesday morning. The marathon continues Thursday morning at Bordeaux before climaxing at an evening market on the way back to the farm Thursday night. Each market has its distinct dynamics.

Thirty minutes away from the farm, at Villeneuve, Mami and Regine lend a feminine sensibility together with a couple of the granddaughters. The market (what few minutes I experienced) has an altogether laid-back feel, though it has a fair number of producers. Papi’s brother, along with several other produce stands, sell fruit and vegetables. There’s a guy who makes great chevre (goat cheese), a fishmonger (if I remember correctly), and the occasional staples-peddler (salts, vinegars, etc).

Bordeaux is a much larger town, and is three hours away (meaning  getting up at 3:45 to load up the cold goods and get the camion rolling). This market, at least when stagiares are around, has a different, more intense feel, even with fewer vendors. Bordeaux is where Vincent tends to take the stagiares, and is the market I became most familiar with. It’s full of characters. Before we’ve even arrived, groupies are gathered at our parking spot. Sweet arthritic women and flamboyant old men know the stand’s workings better than do the stagiares, and get down and dirty helping us set up. They do this for nothing tangible in return. Julie, a psychology student at Bordeaux, works weekly to earn some extra euros. She’s quick on her toes: she seems comfortable dancing around the occasional harmless chauvinistic banter.

Then there’s her occasional patient-to-be, like Chella, who announced her distaste for Americans upon meeting me. When she learned my ethnic background she tried to redeem herself, but ultimately seemed confused that I consider myself an Israeli despite Arab roots. The next week, before any greetings or pleasantries, she chastised me for improperly returning her bicycle after borrowing the previous week. It turns out I left the seat lowered (my fault, yes, though the quick-release fastener should have rendered the adjustment easy as riding a bike) and for breaking her brakes (this one an unfounded accusation). Alas, some people, one learns, are best just left alone.

At 10:30am, our halfway point, we join forces with the winemakers to our side and set up a snack table behind the scenes. Wine glasses fill up, bread sliced, cheese and ham brought out. A couple of bicycle-mounted policemen and -women are regulars, but mostly older men show up, talk trash (in French the expression literally translates to “make the mayonnaise”), and get their morning buzz on. It’s very convivial, and poles apart from anything we’ll ever see at the Union Square market. Around two o’clock, we eat again, picking at leftover pizzas and quiches, rinsing with more wine (or coffee). Then we pack up and head to the second market of the day—an evening market complete with entertainment, booze, and lots more to eat.

Having spent the last twelve hours on the road and at the market earns one the privilege of relaxing a bit—walking around and sampling the fare. Mami introduced me to her cousins and various townsfolk. I chatted a fair bit with Serge, the mayor of Savignac who, along with the Pozzers, is entertaining and entertained by the possibility of me someday settling down in the area (have I mentioned I love it here?). There’s altogether too much food to go around. Working with one of the vendors has its privileges, such as grilled skewers of foie gras-studded duck breast, and pretty much all the wine one can drink. The British invasion in the area makes for a number of people with whom to practice my native tongue. And there’s the evening show—sometimes rock, sometimes rather awful folky stuff. Turnout reaches 1000 on busy weeks, creating another amazing scene that brings out my American’s jealousy. All of this is picturesquely set on the Lot river, and brings one to dream of living on its bank (Mami’s keeping her eyes out for a suitable piece of land for me).

At midnight commences a communal drunken chair-stacking, table-dragging orgy. We finally make it to sleep, a full twenty two hours after waking for the long day.

Tuesday, July 10

fires and booze

Since arriving, by my count (even counting sometimes gets fuzzy) I’ve attended four outings, for lack of a better term. Two were for St Jean’s day, two were festivals local to southwest France, called Bodegas.

St Jean’s day technically falls on June 24th, but is celebrated whenever the local towns decide to celebrate it. I’m hopefully not stepping on too many Catholic toes by calling it a pretty pagan celebration. I compare it to Sweden’s similar bonfire holiday in late June. St Jean’s has the obvious religious connotation; Sweden’s is pretty outwardly-traditional/pagan. In any case, as it goes, it involves food (whether as simple as Savignac’s sausage grillade or as elaborate as St Aubin’s more intricate plate including pâté, grilled pork, veggie sides, and dessert), followed by a bonfire at nightfall (a late 23:30 at this time of year). St Aubin’s was rather tame while Savignac’s (Vincent’s) left me with a headache the next morning. Vincent corralled us up for the walk to his house, where he broke out his own pear eau-de-vie, prunes soaked in armagnac, along with a medley of beers and cognac. A cool bit of slang I learned for the post-drinking phenomenon (it sounds cooler in French than in English) literally translates into a “hair ache,” or “my hair is growing inward.”

Bodegas are an altogether different beast. The term is Spanish, but it refers to a township’s summer block party, if you will. Like the bonfires, they range from a smallish couple-hundred people dancing to bad ‘90s remixes and eating mediocre food (as we did outside of Monflanquin, to the much larger summer spectacular we at Issigeac (Bendicte’s hometown). Here, we started off with a hearty white bean soup slowly stewed with lots of pork skin, moved on to crepes stuffed with sautéed onions, crème fraiche, and ham, followed by a grilled brochette of duck breast. There’s no shortage of beer on tap and very drinkable box wine sold for less than a coke (1 euro). Throughout, we grooved to various bands playing throughout the picturesque village, from French marching band to contemporary French fare to a good blues cover band.

In any case, small or large, elaborate or simple, I can only think of one event I’ve attended (alas, I wanted to USA-bash with an honest zero) in the States that would begin to match the experience: Danny Meyer’s Madison Square Park BBQ spectacular (the queues are ridonculous (sic), but the food is outstanding). Seems it’s time for me to hit up some real southern BBQ fairs…

a bit of the bayou

We went crayfishing the other day. Armed with traps that reminded me more of hanging fruit baskets for the kitchen, we’d strategically (read: right side up, in the water) set them down in the muddy stream, wait a few minutes, and then pull them back onto land. The  traps being little more than glorified nets, it was key to get it out of the water and onto land before the big bugs would crawl through the net and back to safety. We baited with some old sardines Claudette had in the freezer along with special crayfish (écrevisse) snacks (read: not-so-slim dry blood sausage slim jims). The little buggers preferred what probably more natural to them: the sardines (or maybe it had something to do with the snackies not being organic).

We were worried at first that it’d go the way of my flopped turkey  hunt last fall (no turkeys in sight, thanks), but after a few empty nets we caught onto their game, and ended up with something like 80 of the American guys (turns out they’re not native: they’re a pest that somehow got transplanted at some point—the better, I’m told, native crustaceans of bigger rivers are only allowed to be hunted one day each year). Cleaning them meant carefully grabbing the body with one hand (careful not to lose a finger in their pinching claws), and pulling out their middle tail-fin, vein (and digestive waste) included. Cooking them was deliciously straightforward: a hard sear, ample garlic and parsley, and a flambé of Vincent’s prune (plum) eau de vie (literally: water of life, really: fire water). They yield even less than Maryland blue crabs, so you need to be prepared with a patient appetite and to make use of the guts, not just the tails. There were lots of mosquitoes and thorns about, but a hyper- (as they say around here) fun time.

Thursday, July 5

life is good when...

...you wake up to birds chirping and cows mooing

...lunch has traveled less than 50 yards to make it into your stomach

...a hot day warrants an evening dip in the salt- (not chlorine-) treated pool

...drinking an ’83 Bordeaux during lunch is nothing out of the ordinary

...(surrogate or otherwise) Grandma doesn’t quit trying to force dessert upon you

Perhaps I’m showing off a bit, and I’m surely presenting the idealistically wonderful side of working on a farm, but none of the above is embellished. How about chiming in on a few of your favorite things?

Sunday, July 1

prunes

Like raisin, prune refers to the fresh fruit in French, not the dried names we use in English. Crozefond is studded with 8m tall hedges. Trees really, but all in nice, straight lines, dividing their property into 3-4 hectare (7-9 acre) plots. At least a third of these trees are wild plum trees, called mirabels. Late June and into July the trees come into their prime, yielding bucketfuls of fruit. Unlike the  homogenous fruit population we’ve become used to in big cities, each and every one of these trees are different. They ripen at different times, weeks apart. Some ripen to yield a yellow fruit, others are nearly black when sweet, and of course all the fiery shades of orange and red between. Not only do the colors differ, but each tree yields fruit with a unique flavor. It is all so beautifully variable.

I made a few tarts using the fruit a couple of weeks ago, and the idea has caught on to start using them in the farm’s pastries. So, this week, Sarah and I, along with three of the grandkids who live on the farm, went hunting, along with two five gallon buckets (and a host of smaller ones), a large sheet, and a rake (the best tool we could find to use as a hook). Blanket stretched out at four corners, the rake wielder would literally shake the fruit off the trees. About half of it landed in the sheet, the rest would fertilize the surrounding soil. The fallen fruit seems of little matter considering we snagged at least 30kg of fruit within a couple of hours.

Over Sunday lunch, with Papi, we cut open about ten of the fruit to test them using his sugar refractometer to get a gauge of the percentage of sugar in the various colors and ripeness levels (In case you’re curious, it turns out the yellows (even the ripe ones) harbor the least sugar, whereas the deep reds are the sweetest). At the end, we scooped the mangled fruit into the compost heap. Now, I’ll be the first to complain about wasting perfectly good fruit, but the stuff is literally falling off the trees. I love this place.