Breaking the fast

It's 12ºC and raining this morning. That's 54ºF. Brrrr. Yesterday's high was 15.5ºC, or 60ºF. Re-brrrrr. Feels a lot like fall. The tomatoes will never finish ripening at such temperatures.

Rainclouds over the hamlet

Yesterday was the day when I could enjoy breaking the fast that began last Saturday evening. That's when I started eating a lot of chicken soup and not much else. By the way, there is no such thing as Jello here, so that's not part of the pre-colonoscopy diet.

(It's interesting that the French word for the procedure is côloscopie, one syllable shorter than in English. The French dictionary shows the first O of the word with a circumflex accent on it but the documents the hospital and doctors gave me didn't include that accent mark. It is true that colon in French is côlon, which distinguishes it from colon = colonist.)

Hauling a load of hay out through the vineyard in the rain

The pre-colonocopy diet I was told to follow lasted 48 hours, not the 24 hours some of you have told me you were required to do in the U.S. I had the procedure done in San Francisco when I turned 50 years old, but I don't remember any details about it.

So what was the French pre-test diet? The doctor gave me a list of foods that he said I was "authorized" to eat during those 48 hours. This was called the régime sans résidu:

• Viandes grillées, rôties, jambon — Grilled or roasted meats, ham
  
• Poisson grillés, au court-bouillon — Grilled or poached fish
  
• Oeufs non frits — Eggs (not fried)
  
• Riz, pâtes, semoule, purée de pommes de terre — Rice, pasta, semolina, pureed potatoes
  
• Bouillons clairs —Clear broth
  
• Sirops de fruits, jus de fruits sans pulpe — Fruit syrups, fruit juices without pulp
  
• Gelée de fruits — Fruit jellies
  
• Pain blanc frais et biscottes — French white bread or melba toast
  

The foods I was asked to avoid eating were:

• Légumes crus ou cuits — Raw or cooked vegetables
  
• Fruits crus ou cuits — Raw or cooked fruit
  
• Lait, laitages, fromages, beurre — Milk, cheese, butter, dairy products in general
  
• Pain complet — Whole-wheat bread
  

I ate mostly chicken broth with either rice or potatoes cooked in it, along with some of the chicken meat shredded and chopped into the soup. The chicken was poached so I figured it was okay. Thank goodness we DON'T have Jello here!

And yes, I had the procedure done under general anesthesia. That wasn't my choice, but theirs. And I was in the hospital for 7 hours, not two. They brought me a lunch of vegetables and fish at about 1:00. When I got home, I had one more bowl of my chicken soup, this time with some diced cooked carrots and celery added to the broth to make it a little more interesting.

Blanched slices of yellow summer squash

Yesterday, it rained and we couldn't do anything outside. So we cooked. We had a few more yellow summer squash that Walt had picked the day before, so we cooked those as follows.

Layers of squash and herbed breadcrumbs

Cut thin slices of zucchini or yellow squash. Blanch them in boiling salted water for a few minutes. Arrange a layer of the slices in the bottom of a baking dish. Mix breadcrumbs with a little olive oil to slightly moisten them. Mix in some chopped fresh sage and some salt and pepper. Spread a layer of crumbs over the squash slices. Spread a layer of grated parmesan cheese over the crumbs.

The squash gratin, topped with
parmesan cheese, browned in a hot oven

Repeat this procedure twice more, making three such layers in the pan. Bake in a hot oven to heat the dish through, melt the cheese, and brown the top surface. This is very good eaten hot, warm, or cold. It's a variation on a recipe I saw in the Joy of Cooking.

To accompany the squash gratin, I cooked a pork roast. I put a rolled boneless pork shoulder in a very hot oven, on a rack, until it was nicely browned all over. Meanwhile, I cooked some chopped onions, carrots, and garlic in olive oil in a frying pan, with salt and pepper of course. I deglazed that pan with some white wine and some chicken broth (the broth I had eaten so much of over the weekend) so that I had about a cup or a cup-and-a-half of liquid.

Breaking the fast in a big way...

When it was well browned, I put the pork roast into a deep baking dish and I poured the liquid over it. I put at least two dozen, maybe more, fresh sage leaves in the dish with it. And then I baked it, covered with foil with a few holes poked in it for ventilation, for about two hours in a medium oven. Let the roast rest for 30 minutes when it comes out of the oven. (Cook the squash in the oven during that time.) Then slice the roast and enjoy it all.

The big sleep

I can't seem to wake up. I guess I shouldn't complain. It's especially hard to wake up this morning because it is a gray, chilly day, with rain falling steadily.

Night before last I didn't sleep much, actually. I stayed up later than usual because I had to do a lot of preparation for the tests I was going to have done yesterday at the clinic in Blois. I went to bed late and I didn't sleep deeply. That's usually the way it is when you set an alarm for an ungodly hour. You just lie there waiting for the alarm to go off.

At 5:00 I was up and moving. A few years ago, when I was still working in California, that would have been a normal hour, or even a little late. I used to get up at 4:00 most mornings so that I could get ready and hit the road by 6:00 to avoid the worst of the commuter traffic. I'd be at work by 7:00 or 7:30. Nowadays, I get up at that late hour. Having shutters on the windows is great for sleeping a little longer in the morning. The room stays dark. I've always been somebody who got up with the sun — unless I set an alarm for an earlier hour.

Walt and I were on the road by 6:45 yesterday morning. It takes 45 minutes to an hour to drive up to Blois, and I didn't want to be late. The Polyclinique de Blois, which is not the same as the hospital, is north of town, just at the autoroute entrance. That makes it tempting to drive right by, get on the autoroute, and head for Paris. But we didn't give in to temptation.

We arrived at the Polyclinique well before 8:00. It was open, and the woman at the front desk sent us upstairs to the Service Ambulatoire. I was to be a day patient. Only one other man was waiting, and the receptionist checked me in immediately. She made some comment about my insurance status, but I didn't understand it. Then I waited to be called. Walt left to drive back to Saint-Aignan.

After a few minutes I was shown to my room for the day. The woman who called me in had trouble with my name, which has far too many consonants in it compared to a typical French word. Monsieur Bro-ahd-shoo... she called out. I've been called that many times since 1970, my first stay in France.

The receptionist laughed and told the nurse: "You have really mangled the gentleman's name!" The nurse looked sheepish and apologized. I told her not to worry, that there really wasn't a good French pronunciation for Broadhurst. I told her that when I had arrived a the Polyclinique a few days earlier for a preliminary appointment, I had asked to see an anesthétiste [sic] — and the woman at the front desk had simply repeated the correct pronunciation, anesthésiste. I was saying the English word in French, even though I knew better. I guess I was nervous.

Once in my room, which was not private, I was told to undress completely and put on the hospital gown and get into bed. So I did. I had to wait for about two hours before being taken into the examination room. Meanwhile, I had an electrocardiogram and was given what I assume was a mild sedative. I started dozing at that point, about 24 hours ago.

After I was wheeled down to what they called, I believe, the operating room — le bloc opératoire — several nurses came and chatted with me. In fact, at least four different people asked me how I planned to get home after the procedure was done and I was released later in the day. I kept telling them I had a ride. Only one asked if the person driving me needed to be called. No, I said, he'll be here, I assured her. Il est gentil alors..., she answered.

A couple of nurses asked me what the origin of my name was. I said it is English, but I'm American. When I said American, a couple of different nurses said, oh, yes, I can sort of hear your accent.

One asked where in America I came from and I said Caroline du Nord. She knew something about it, because she started to ask whether that was where the big cotton plantations had been, but then stopped herself and said no, that must have been further south, in South Carolina. I told her that was right, that in North Carolina we used to have endless fields of tobacco. Now that is rapidly changing.

Still another nurse asked me what I did for a living when I was over in England. No, I said, I'm American. Oh, well what are you doing over here in France? I'm retired, I said, and decided to come live here. Why France, and not America? she asked. I like it here, I answered. So you came over here, tried the food, and decided to stay... she said. She's not far wrong, of course. I also like the mentalité of the French people, I told her. It's not the same as in America. "I can believe that!" she said. I don't know what she meant, really.

I was under general anesthesia for the test so I have no memory of that part. It's the test that starts with a C...

I woke up later in the Salle de réveil, the wake-up or recovery room. A new nurse came over and chatted with me for a while. We talked about life here in the Loire Valley. She had never heard of my village, and she asked me what big town it was near. Saint-Aignan, I said, but you can't really call that a big town.

She said she had lived in Paris earlier in life, and I said I had too. She was there for a couple of years starting in 1980, and I told her I was there at the same time. It's too crowded, we agreed. Parisians are packed in like sardines. Spending a week or two there in an apartment is one thing, but actually living there full-time, in a small apartment, dealing with the weather because you need to walk everywhere, riding the metro in the crush of the crowds... well, it's just so different from life out here in the country.

I was wheeled back to my room, which had a big plate-glass window overlooking the parking lot and the woods on the other side of the road. I dozed for a couple of hours. Then they brought my lunch: red beets, tomatoes, and grated carrots in vinaigrette. A salad of macaroni and tuna. Some kind of white fish flaked over the salad. All served on a china plate with real flatware, not plastic. It wasn't bad.

At one point I looked out and I saw Walt drive in. That kind of woke me up. I had to get ready to go. He came upstairs. The lunch dishes were still on the rolling cart. Lunch had come with a carafe of water. "Did you have wine with lunch?" Walt asked when he came to the room. No, just water, I said. "Well, they gave you a wine glass for the water," he pointed out, amused. It's nice to be in France. It's just the little things.

It took another half-hour for me to be cleared for release. Nobody asked me to pay anything. I was surprised. I had paid 28 euros for my first consultation with the gastroenterologist in his office in Saint-Aignan, and I had paid 28 euros for a consultation with an anesthesiologist, which was required. That was it. I think most of that 56-euro charge will be reimbursed by the national health plan.

We drove home without incident. I fully intended to resume my usual activities, but I found myself dozing on the couch all afternoon. Around 6:00 p.m., I got up and had a big bowl of soup. By 8:00 I was sleeping on the couch again. At 9:30, I got up and went to bed, thinking there was no way I would get any sleep overnight. I've slept enough, I was thinking. The next thing I knew it was 7:00 a.m. How nice.

Now I've had some tea and I'm feeling a little more alert, despite the gray, rainy skies outside. I need to go to SuperU and get some Comté cheese — that's what we would call Swiss cheese, but it's actually made in France and is excellent. SuperU has Comté on sale for a very good price, and it's the AOC, or best-quality, variety. I need to pick up a couple of other things, too, and then I need to go pay the man for the wood we had delivered over the weekend.

It's nice to be back to a normal routine — and eating a normal diet. Oh, and the test results were very good.

The grape harvest, among other things

I have to be in Blois at 8:00 a.m. today for a medical exam. So I'm writing this on Monday afternoon and scheduling it to post on the blog tomorrow morning.

Callie waiting for me by the back gate, stick in mouth

I took Callie out for a short walk a few minutes ago, but I'm fasting and feeling a little lightheaded. Luckily, Callie didn't seem to want to go on a long walk today either. She has developed a pattern that goes like this: after a few minutes out in the vines, she finds a stick. She picks it up and takes it home. And then she waits for me by the back gate. I follow her home.

Raisin blanc

I'm usually out taking pictures. These days I'm taking pictures of the grapes, which are getting pretty ripe. Still, according to Bruno at the Domaine de la Renaudie winery, the harvest won't start until the third or even fourth week of September this year.

Raisin noir

Bruno says that that's traditionally when the harvest started until about 10 years ago. Then the schedule began moving up because weather patterns changed. The most unusual year was 2003, when we had the Great Heat Wave. That year, I remember, the harvest started on August 25.

Sunday sunrise
31 August 2008

There used to be a big harvest festival in Saint-Aignan in late October, Bruno says. Back then, grapes were picked by hand and all the local growers had teams of workers come in to help. Often the pickers were racing to finish their work in October so that they could enjoy the festival. A lot of that has gone by the boards now, since the grapes are harvested mechanically.

How much wood...

...can we deal with? We will find out. We got 14.5 stères — cubic meters — delivered yesterday. That's four cords. Even if you don't know a stère from a cord, I can tell you that that's a lot of wood. The two men who delivered it also stacked it as you see it. Last time we got wood they delivery guys just dumped it on the ground and it was up to us to stack it.

The woodpile is bigger than our car.

We think this is enough wood to last three winters or more. However, it all depends on how cold the winters are. The last few have been pretty mild. Whatever wood we don't cut for burning this winter, we'll cover with tarps and cut it next year or the year after. Tarps will protect the wood from our winter rains.

Tractor and trailer for wood delivery

The big job is now ahead of us. Each log is one meter, or 39 inches long. Our wood-burning stove will only take logs that are 15 inches long. That means that each log needs to be cut into three pieces.

A Renault tractor

So there is much work to be done. Not all of the wood needs to be cut this fall, but we do need to cut enough of it to get through the winter. Our chainsaw is electric, so going out in the rain to cut wood is not a good idea. And the real rains begin in late October or early November.

The wood-delivery "crew" on their way out
to pick up the next load

On Saturday, I went down to the winery to talk to Bruno, whose family arranged the firewood purchase and delivery for us. He asked me if we were equipped to do the job of cutting the wood into sections of the right length for our stove. I said we were.

We went on talking, and he said that we should be very careful with the chainsaw. It seems that a neighbor in the village injured himself very badly last week as he was cutting wood with his saw. He somehow dropped the saw and sliced his calf open, and might have cut a tendon. If so, he may never recover full use of the leg.

It turned out that this injured man is the one with the red 2CV who dropped by to see me one day a few months ago because he'd been reading the blog and was curious to see who I was. I haven't seen him again but I did see his car parked in front of his house a few weeks ago, so I know that that house is the one he and his wife live in.

Cutting wood is dangerous labor, that's for sure. But it has to be done.