10 January 2017

Pantouflards

Your pantoufles are your bedroom slippers. If you are pantouflard, you are somebody who wears pantoufles more hours every day than any other kind of footwear. Another, less "familiar" (informal) adjective meaning the same thing is casanier (describing a person qui aime à rester au logis, according to the dictionary). In American English, we might call such a person a "homebody." (Or maybe a hermit!)

Iciness

That describes me and Walt, I guess, especially in the wintertime. If it's not freezing cold outside, the landscape is probably enveloped in thick fog. Or it's raining. (Actually, snow showers are predicted for the coming weekend.) Our sorties dehors are limited to walks with the dog or quick trips to the supermarket. It's just enough to keep us from suffering too much from "cabin fever."

Confit de canard : Duck legs cooked and packed in duck fat, taken out of a can and browned in a hot oven

Cooking and doing wintertime jobs like converting all my movies on DVDs into MP4s occupy a lot of my time right now. In past years, I've converted our thousands of recipes from an obsolete format into either HTML files or PDFs, to make sure we can continue to view them when we want to. Another year, I did our whole music collection, "ripping" some 500 CDs to tranform the tracks into MP3s. It keeps me busy, and feeling productive.

Black-eyed peas with smoked duck lardons, leeks, and a couple of Toulouse sausages

Vivement le printemps ! as we say — I can't wait for springtime to get here. I know, winter just started... Right now it's time for me to go out walking with the dog. It rained overnight, but I think it has stopped raining now. Or I hope so, anyway.

28 comments:

  1. The pantouflards are one of the things I found most endearing in my village when I moved here. The older residents would go to the bakery or the little grocery store wearing their plaid flannel bedroom slippers.

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    1. I think those plaid flannel numbers are called charentaises You have to be a special kind of guy to wear them out and around the town.

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  2. If winter were completely discontinued, I'd be a very happy man!

    In the next few days, I'll be cooking mini red kidney beans. I've never seen them before. They're no more than twice as big as a lentil.

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    1. Have you ever cooked black-eyed peas? You should try them if you haven't.

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    2. Growing up in North Carolina was fabulous for a little kid ... except for the part where they tried to make me eat black- eyed peas lol

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    3. No, I never tried black-eyed peas since I didn't grow up in North Carolina, nor in any South for that matter. I'll think of it next time.

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    4. CHM, black-eyed peas are a favorite food in Portugal and Brazil too, not to mention Africa. Horizons are made to be widened.

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    5. NFA, it's hard to believe a Southern Vegetarian (and a North Carolinian to boot) doesn't eat black-eyes. Have you tried them since childhood? I know Brazilians enjoy them — not Argentinians? Maybe you like other beans...

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    6. It has been so long since I have tried them again, but the thing is, not just the taste which I can't even remember but the texture .. the way they make my teeth feel lol ... But I might give them a try, one last time ... my mom was not a good cook .. so I will keep that in mind :)

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    7. CHM, are those "mini red kidney beans" what we call "field peas" in the U.S. South? Do they look like the beans in this post of mine?

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    8. No, they look exactly like red kidney beans, but they are a tiny version. Tomorrow I'll take some photos next to lentils so you can see the size. They're called small red kidney beans. J'en ai quelques-uns qui sont en train de tremper pour demain.

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    9. I found this site on the web about small red kidney beans, but they don't look like what you describe. They must be something different. I wish the site gave a scientific name so we could know if they are a variety of Phasolus (beans) or of Vigna (like black-eyed peas).

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  3. The replay of Campagne TV worked for me! Thanks for that!
    I love this new word, pantouflards (what a great word)! Ha!

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  4. In greek slippers are called particles...now I know where the word comes from. They use a lot of French, Italian and.....Turkish...words

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  5. Amaaaaan...I didn't check before posting. Slippers are called PANTOFLES not *"#% particles

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    1. When my favorite slippers finally give up, falling into little pieces, they become particles :)

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  6. wish i could get out & walk.....this is day 4 of being stuck up a snowy,icy hill......

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  7. I am a pantouflard too. Big, thick pantoffels as the Dutch calls it, made of sheep skin adorn my feet at home, almost all year around. (I even bring them when I Tavel too)

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    1. Your feet are amply and comfortably adorned. Nice.

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  8. Fabulous, I am becoming a pantouflard ... mine at the moment are pink fleece. Yes, they have pink sheep in Florida.

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  9. I am definitely a "Pantouflard" in the Winter...
    an indoor/outdoor sort of one. I have a pair of Croc-alikes for outdoors and a pair of Hafflingers for indoors.... plus a pair of rather more formal leather "mules" for dehors-dedans.
    It isn't because I am a "homebody"... it is more a way of quickly changing footwear in and out to avoid transporting too much mud into the house!!
    The only time I am in something more solid is for driving, digging and using the powertools... then it is solid shoes.. or for the latter, steel-toecap boots!
    But being a Pantouflard Homebody in Winter is much, much nicer than trekking through the drear to work!!

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    1. Outdoor "gardening" shoes are indispensable, but for 6 months out of the year they don't get a fraction of the use that pantoufles have to withstand. And the rest of the year, sandals of one type or another offer them stiff competition.

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  10. I have become such a pantouflard that I wear through my pantoufles rather quickly these days. Such is life.

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    1. Walt and I both have had trouble finding pantoufles that are durable. They often wear out pretty fast. I guess we should get a clue... count their lifespan in hours of use rather than months or years.

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  11. First time i heard about black-eyed peas was in the sixties, listening Bobbie Gentry in "Ode to Billy Joe"... Never tasted since
    Sometimes, i will try
    Probably...

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    1. The best beans, I think, are black-eyed peas (including the related "field peas" that you get in the South) and the white beans that cassoulet is made with in SW France. They have the best flavor and the best texture, with tender skins.

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