“Waiting for my heavens to change”

I'm still trying to get used to the idea that it's winter again. Maybe we need a pretty snowfall to put me in the mood. At the same time, no Siberian blasts of cold like last February's, please.

Looking down the hill and out across the river valley, I see somebody has a fire going,

almost certainly burning yard and garden debris. We need to do that one day.

I keep reminding myself that we are less than three weeks away from the winter solstice — already. It won't be long before the hours of daylight start increasing again. It's funny how the short days sneak up on you.

A later view of the sunset, after the sun was well below the horizon

And yes, Walt and I were both taking pictures at sunset on Sunday. That airplane might have been the same one in both our pictures, but we see a lot of airplanes flying over all the time. Sunday afternoon, Walt took his picture from a bedroom window. I was out walking the dog around the vineyard, trying to avoid the hunters.

The sunset in all its glory, just a few minutes earlier

Yesterday, I must have "ripped" 75 CDs from our French collection. Some of them are old favorites, but seeing some of them again made me wonder why I ever bought them. When we lived in California and traveled to France every year through the 1990s, I used to return home with a pile of new CDs after every trip. We got our first CD player in 1989, and already such appliances are pretty much obsolete.

By the way, the title of this post comes from the Kate & Anna McGarrigle song “Move over moon”:

My horoscope warns me don't talk to strangers
Talk dark and handsome or short bald and plain
My soothsayer says to sit tight
And wait for my stars to get rearranged
So don't talk to me
Don't bother me
I'm just waiting for my heavens to change...

Where to?

We had a cold weekend and we're having a rainy Monday. The sun came out yesterday afternoon, though, and it was even bright enough for me to take a few photos between five and six p.m.

A jet zooming over vineyards and woods...

...headed where, I wonder. Would I want to go there?

I'm spending a few hours every day digitizing our collection of music CDs. There must be 500 or 600 over them, which we've acquired over the past 30 years. Half are American, and half French. It's a good way to stay busy on these winter days, which are either too gray or too cold for doing anything outdoors. It's funny, though, because I listen to a lot less music than I used to.

Hachis parmentier piémontais

The dish called hachis parmentier in France is named after the man who, 200 years ago, popularized the potato here as food for people — and not just as feed for farm animals. Hachis parmentier is what we call shepherd's pie (made with mutton or lamb) or cottage pie (made with beef) in English. It's a layer of meat hash covered with a layer of mashed potato and then baked in the oven.

A layer of lamb hash in the bottom of a baking dish, with polenta
spread over the top before it gets baked in the oven

So what I made yesterday for lunch can't be named after Mr. Parmentier. I made it with cooked polenta instead of mashed potato. Polenta is what we would call "yellow grits" in the U.S. South, and you could also make this with white hominy grits. Since polenta comes from northern Italy, I'll call this hachis piémontais. (I made up that name.) I made this with lamb.

A hash of chopped up leftover lamb, onions, chard ribs, lardons,
mushrooms, dried tomatoes, herbs, and spices

Hachis parmentier or piémontais is definitely comfort food for cold winter days, and it's at least in part an example of what in France is called l'art d'accommoder les restes — making the best possible use of leftovers. Recipes for hachis parmentier often call for using leftover roast beef or pot roast to make the hash, along with onions, garlic, herbs, and other flavor ingredients. In fact, you can use any meat: leftover roast chicken, confit de canard, lamb of course, or turkey. I can imagine a very nice hachis with vegetables only — carrots, celery, turnips, rutabagas, etc. — and no meat at all.

I had more than a pound of diced up lamb, and I cooked 1½ cups of polenta in 6 cups of water. Most all the polenta or grits you can find these days is of the quick-cooking variety and takes only five or six minutes to make. Pour the polenta slowly into boiling salted water (or stock), stirring constantly. Turn the heat down, cover the pot, and let it bubble a low temperature until you like the texture. You can enrich the polenta by beating in a couple of tablespoons of butter or olive oil at the end of the cooking time.

The hash is all cooked, and so is the polenta. Just set the dish in a hot oven if the ingredients are still hot, and let it brown a little on top. If you've let the ingredients cool down before baking, put it in the oven at a lower temperature so that the dish can have time to heat through before the top gets too brown. Let it cool a little after it comes out of the oven, and spoon it out of the dish.

All you need with the hachis piémontais is a green salad — or a salad of lettuce and beets, as above.

Saint-Aignan in summer

It's cold here now. The temperature is right at freezing this morning. Yesterday's high temperature was in the 30s F — just over 4ºC. Brrr. There's talk of snow en plaine in France next week, not just en montagne. Already, up near the headwaters of the Loire River in the central mountains of France, 40 centimeters of snow fell the other day. That's 15 inches or so.

Summer 2006 in Saint-Aignan

Click the picture to open it at a larger size

I thought looking at some summertime pictures of Saint-Aignan might make me feel better about all this, so that's what I've been doing this morning. The one above shows the church and the château.