L'été de la Saint-Martin

We are having Indian Summer. In French, that used to be called l'été de la Saint-Martin, and you still hear the expression but not so much. Nowadays, in the media it's called l'été indien. North American influence, I guess.

I think the reason people started calling these spells of warm weather in late autumn « l'été indien » is that there was a very popular song 35 years ago with that very title. You still hear it on the radio now and then. It was sung by Joe Dassin, who was born in New York but educated in France. French people considered him to be American. Never mind — he was quintessentially French and had a long singing career in France, but no career in America.

November in the Loire Valley vineyards

Today is Saint Martin's "feast day" as well as Armistice Day or Veteran's Day — le onze novembre. It's a public holiday in France, and a long weekend this year, since it falls on a Friday. This morning we have thick fog hugging the ground here in Saint-Aignan. It will burn off by noontime if we are lucky and we'll have a mild sunny afternoon. These days remind me of weather (year-round) in San Francisco.

Indian summer sunrise near Saint-Aignan in the Loire Valley

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Out at the end of the vineyard road on a November morning

I just came back from the morning walk with Callie. The fog is much thicker than on recent mornings. By the time I got back home — one mile (1.5 km) out, one mile back — my glasses were all misted up, which made the fog seem even thicker. I needed windshield wipers.

Our house and car a couple of days ago

Plans for the day: yesterday I drove down to Loches to buy some duck legs. The Centre Leclerc hypermarket down there had them on sale for 3.90 €/kg — that's less than $2.50 US per pound. Not only were the leg-thigh sections inexpensive, but they are also not that easy to come by. They're a seasonal product, coming from ducks that have been fattened (canards gras) for their foie gras (livers). Foie gras season in France is the end-of-year holidays, so now is when the livers are "harvested."

Here's Walt outside taking advantage of good weather by
cleaning off the fence with the Kärcher power-washer.

This morning I'll be making confit de canard. I posted about the method years ago, here. The first step is to marinate the duck legs in salt, onion, garlic, herbs, and spices. That's what I'll be doing this morning. Then tomorrow or Sunday morning I'll be able to cook the duck legs in duck fat. After that, they get put away in the fat down in the cold pantry for a couple of months before they will be ready to eat.

Callie the Collie out for a fall morning walk in the vineyard

The Leclerc sale on canards gras — whole fattened ducks, or just leg-thigh sections, or wings, or hearts, or gizzards — started on Wednesday. When I got there on Thursday morning, the store was pretty crowded. It was the day before a holiday, after all, and before a long weekend. When I looked for the duck legs, I couldn't find any. I picked up some wings instead, but that's really not what I wanted for making confit.

The last of the 2011 grapes out in the Renaudière vineyard

I did some shopping in other sections of the store (picking up a beautiful escarole that will give us salads for days, including today's lunch), and then I decided to check back to see if there was any hope at all of finding duck legs and thighs. I noticed a man in a long white smock, obviously a butcher, refilling a refrigerated case where I hadn't looked a few minutes earlier.

L'été de la Saint-Martin dans la vallée du Cher

And there I found the legs and thighs. In fact there were only six of them, lost in a sea of duck wings (manchons), breasts (magrets), gizzards (gésiers), and hearts (cœurs). All were in sous-vide packages — shrink-wrapped, vacuum-packed, in plastic. I grabbed up the six duck legs and headed for the checkout line, happy to have succeeded in my mission.

The Touraine countryside during Indian summer

As as result, the two-hour excursion was not a waste of time. Besides, the countryside all the way there and back (40 km each way) was just gorgeous, all bright greens and autumn reds and golds. I didn't have time to stop and take photos.