11 August 2012

Heureusement...

...qu'il y a le mois d'août. Thank goodness for August, in other words. See the map below for today's weather forecast in France. The weather has been beautiful for a while now. Fairly hot afternoons and pleasant evenings. Cool in the morning, so that our natural air-conditioning is working. The natural AC involves opening all the windows and doors early in the day to let the cool air into the house.

The French weather map for Saturday, 11 August 2012

We said good-bye to the porteuse de pain — the bread lady — a couple of minutes ago. It was the "see you later" kind of au revoir. She's going on vacation for two weeks starting today. Her parting words, when we wished her a good vacation, were: Et bon courage à vous ! We aren't quite sure how to interpret that. We will have to scramble to keep ourselves in bread for the next 15 jours.

Today's temperatures. 30ºC = 86ºF.

At seven a.m. Callie went crazy barking. It was a montgolfière — a hot-air ballon. When they fly over, dogs all around the area bark wildly. And the dogs get advance warning of the approach — they can hear the whoosh of the gas burner heating the air in the balloon long before we hear it. It always takes us a minute or two to figure out what the panic is about, especially if we are lying in bed half-awake.

Au gré des vents = drifting in the wind

Yesterday morning I got some more gardening done. I tilled up a little plot of loose soil where we will plant carrots and long white radishes this weekend. It was my final tilling chore until late autumn, when we'll clean up the vegetable garden and get it ready to over-winter.

6 comments:

  1. Ken, We have lots of bakeries to choose from, but the really good one is a whole 15 minute hike away and Paul doesn't like to have to go every day on this half hour round trip. (I could go, right?) In fact, he's taken to going once a week and buying enough "tradition" or "bel arôme" loaves for the week and we freeze them. They thaw just fine and remain crispy on the outside and fresh on the inside. Just don't put them in the microwave.

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  2. Weather report? Check.
    Bread lady update? Check.
    Hot air balloons? Check.
    Gardening? Check.

    You cover quite the range with your posts. It kind of encourages me to broaden my observations.

    Keep up the great work.

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  3. Ellen

    I do the same thing in winter, here in the burbs of Montréal. I'll let them thaw between 30-45 mins.

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  4. We freeze baguettes all the time. In fact, we probably have enough in the freezer to last most of the coming week. I also made bread last week, and I have frozen pain complet and pain brioché. We thaw the bread at room temperature for 30 minutes to 3 hours, and then warm it up in the oven.

    I sometimes put frozen baguette pieces in the microwave for 30 to 60 seconds in the morning, but only if I am planning to toast them for my breakfast. It works fine.

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  5. Now you've got me missing tartines- love toasted baguettes with jam and butter.

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  6. My dog loves frozen baguette pieces when the temps are 30+ here. Thank goodness all of our bakeries don't go on vacation at the same time.

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