Daylight

At this date the sun comes up in Saint-Aignan at 8:32 a.m. and doesn't go down again until 5:32 p.m. That's nine full hours of sunlight — or low, gray clouds, most days. We actually had a visible sunrise yesterday, but it lasted only five minutes. Then clouds moved it and blotted it out.

Yesterday's sunrise (15 January 2010) at La Renaudière

The hamlet called La Renaudière in the pink light of dawn

About endives, they are called just that in French: des endives. In America, the term endive used without modification means what is called scarole (escarole) or salade frisée (curly endive) in France. Americans call endives Belgian endive. In England, as Autolycus said, endives are called chicory and chicorée is called endive. It's all as clear as the mud all these plants grow in.

Endives — 2 kg pour 2,75 €

Belgian endive (a.k.a. chicon or witlof) leaves are also good raw in salads. They are slightly bitter so they are good combined with foods that are sweet, such as beets (beetroot, betteraves), green apples (pommes vertes), or walnuts (noix). They're good with Roquefort and other cheeses too. La salade d'endives et de betteraves is a traditional French combination, with vinaigrette.

Endives: treats of the season

Belgian endives are a wintertime staple over here. Have they become any more widely available, and reasonably priced, in the U.S. these days? Do people eat them in England?

Maybe its that bitterness thing. There's something about the anglophone palate that doesn't enjoy such foods. They have to be cooked right. Is it because we have lost sight of the seasons when it comes to cooking?

Belgian endives braised in butter and lemon juice, with garlic

Winter grinds on. Good food is the only consolation. Fondue savoyarde, tartiflette, endives au gratin — stick-to-your-ribs stuff. And Walt and I were talking about it yesterday: it won't be long before asparagus season arrives. And then strawberries. And then fruit from all the trees in the neighborhood. It's all something to look forward to.

Wrap each cooked endive in a slice of ham,
or chicken or turkey breast.

For now, everybody is hunkered down. Two of our neighbors just decamped to the Paris area, where they keep an apartment. They'll be back when the weather breaks. The other neighbors — the ones whose winter residence is in Blois — hardly come down here at all this time of year. And the neighbors who are here seem only rarely to stick their noses outdoors.

Cook the wrapped endives in the oven in a cheese sauce.
Don't forget to put some nutmeg in the sauce.

Life feels very routine right now. And because there are seasonal patterns, it's hard to find anything of interest to blog about that hasn't already been blogged. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. Les jours se suivent et se ressemblent. All that. Cabin fever has set in. But there's plenty of good food to eat.

I've posted before about cooking Belgian endives, here and here.

The birds called “tits”

In French, tit birds are called « mésanges ». They are probably the most common birds we see around our yard and bird feeders. They eat both seeds and insects, so they enjoy the suet balls — boules de graisse — that we hang on the railing around the terrace in winter.

The particular bird in most of these pictures is, I'm told, called a "blue tit" in English. But it isn't that easy to tell a blue tit — une mésange bleue in French — from the bird called a "great tit" — une mésange charbonnière — unless you see them in full sun. I'm certainly not a specialist, and have no real ambition to be one.

The great tit is larger and has a black "bib" that extends all the way down its yellow breast, according to what I've read. The blue tit is slightly bluer, though the great tit is sort of blue-green on the back and wings. There's also a very similar-looking bird called the "coal tit" — la mésange noire. For such little birds, there is great variety. Now I feel like I'm writing an encyclopedia article...

These might be a great tit (above) and a blue tit (below),
judging from the birds' markings and colors.

The name "great tit" is an oxymoron, from what I've read, because the term "tit" originally meant "small". The great tit is therefore a "big little" bird. And in French, the -ange in mésange doesn't seem to have anything to do with the word "angel" — mésange derives from a hypothetical Frankish (Germanic) word, meisinga, according to the dictionary. In North America, related birds are called "titmice" (in the singular, "titmouse") but the "mouse" in the name has nothing to do with rodents. It's related to the German name for the tit bird, which is Meise. Isn't language a wonderful thing?

One summer we found a tit bird's nest. Usually they nest in holes in trees, but this one had taken up residence inside a concrete block on the ground out under the cherry tree. A heavy square tile was sitting on top of the concrete block, leaving just enough space at one corner for the bird to squeeze in. We moved the tile because we were cleaning up, and there was the mésange sitting in its nest.

We put the tile back and hoped the bird would return. I don't know for sure if it ever did.

Januaries past

Januaries past were milder. And that kind of weather was what we had come to expect. Now that I say that, I have to admit that yesterday afternoon it really felt like springtime. The temperature hit 40ºF. And it's above freezing this morning.

The road up to La Renaudière on January 15, 2004.

Susan and Simon of Days on the Claise drove up to visit yesterday. We had lunch at home — Walt and I cooked. Then we took a nice afternoon drive up to Blois to do some shopping at the Asian supermarket. The sun shone brightly, though in shady places — mostly through forests — there was still snow on the road.

The Renaudière sunset seen from our bedroom window
on January 15, 2005.

I feel lucky this morning to be living in Saint-Aignan and not Port-au-Prince in Haiti. My experience of earthquakes in California really scarred my psyche. When the earth starts shaking, it gives you a strong feeling of hopelessness.

January 14, 2006: workers trimming the vines and
burning the clippings out in the Renaudière vineyard.

Rain is coming back in this afternoon, but what the heck. At least the house is standing and we have a roof over our heads.