Callie's morning walk

After we go out the back gate, Callie the collie has her own special view of the vineyard. Here it is, in more or less a dog's-eye view. Yesterday, in fact. They say dogs are color-blind. C'est dommage.

Dog's aren't really supposed to eat grapes, but Callie often nibbles on a few along the way. I don't know how to keep her from doing it — she's pretty sneaky about it. The grapes in the photo below are stragglers. They got left behind when the other grapes were harvested in October.

Callie often brings home a vine trunk that she finds lying on the ground in the vineyard. Here she is with yesterday's. We don't know why she started bringing pieces of wood home. We didn't teach her to do it. Maybe she thinks she's performing a valuable service — earning her keep.

After we go out to the end of the gravel road, which is a mile from our house, Callie's ready to come back home. The dog's territory seems to be fairly well defined. She's not interested in going any farther.

Here's home — chez nous. Ours is the more modern house in the center of the picture, with the big cedar tree in the yard and the garden shed with its old shutters. Nearly 11 years have passed since we first laid eyes on the hamlet called La Renaudière and the house we ended up retiring to.

Views from la Renaudière

The hamlet we live in, just three kilometers (two miles) from the main square in Saint-Aignan (pop. 4,000), is called La Renaudière. I assume the name of the family who used to own the land and had their farmhouse here was named Renaud, but nobody seems to know. There's nobody named Renaud around here now, to my knowledge. We're on the high ground, which is planted in vines nowadays, on the south side of the Cher River, up above the valley.

Because we're up high, we get strong winds, sure, but we also get some nice views. We're about to lose one of them, however. Yesterday, the electric company crews hooked us up to the new underground medium-tension wires that will from now on bring current to the nine houses at La Renaudière. The old poles and wires will be taken down very soon, one worker told us.

After these poles and wires come down, the electric company will stop cutting the trees that grow up under the existing wires. This is one of the walks I take with Callie every day. We go down to the bottom of the vineyard, turn right, and then circle back toward the house. Soon the gap will fill in and we won't be able to see out over the river from then on. The woman we bought the house from nearly 11 years ago told us that in the 1980s, when she came to live here, none of the trees you see in the photo above was so tall, so she had panoramic views out over the river and the valley.

Yesterday morning, our power was cut for about three hours when something went wrong with the new ground-level transformer out back. A crew had to come and replace it before they could turn the power on again. Because I have a battery-powered tablet and a little wireless, battery-powered Bluetooth speaker, I could listen to music while I did household chores during the outage. I have the tablet sitting in a bracket mounted on the kitchen wall for when I want to watch television on it while I cook and clean.

One of the nice things about living on the edge of the vineyard is that there are no utility poles or wires of any kind for a mile or two out behind our house. That makes for good views. The last two poles that mar the view out over the vines from our house will be taken down soon. So we will lose one view, but we'll gain a better one in the bargain.

Autumn scenes

When I start seeing scenes like this:

Grape leaves

I realize that autumn really has arrived and I start thinking of things like this:

Cured meats: demi-sel hamhock, saucisses (Morteau, Montbéliard, Strasbourg), and smoked pork belly

Yesterday we had to go to Montrichard for a meeting at our bank, which is over there 10 miles west of Saint-Aignan. We took advantage of the trip to do some shopping at the Netto grocery store. I like to go there every few weeks just for a change of pace in my shopping habits.

Feuilles mortes

We ended up buying all the meat we need to make a choucroute garnie, which is sauerkraut cooked in white wine and served with potatoes and salt-cured and smoked meats, including sausages. I already had the sauerkraut. I'll cook it in a couple of days and we'll eat sauerkraut for several days next week. It's good for you if you can keep yourself from eating too much meat at a sitting.

Apples and black pudding baked in a pie

Okay, how about this as a lunchtime treat: tarte aux pommes et au boudin noir. An apple tart with black pudding, which is the English translation of boudin noir. In America, I think we would call it blood sausage. (Pudding is a funny word, with completely different meanings in some dialects of English compared to what it means in others.)

We made this very French specialty (look at all these recipes) for lunch on Sunday. You might think we are trying too hard to find recipes to use up all our surplus apples. But actually, it was really delicious. Walt and I both enjoy boudin noir — we're going to have it for lunch another day later this week. Across the Channel, black pudding is often part of what they call a full English breakfast, but in France it a lunch- or dinnertime food.

Tarte aux pommes et au boudin noir, a savory pie for lunch or dinner

This is a savory, unsweetened apple tart. It has a little cinnamon and nutmeg in it, but no added sugar. The apples are sweet enough the way they are. What you do is core, peel, and finely dice up an apple or two, depending on the size of the tart you are making. Cook the diced apple for a few minutes in butter in a frying pan, adding a pinch or two of cinnamon (to taste). You want the apple pre-cooked, but not necessarily made into apple sauce. (Of course, you could also use apple sauce for this, if you wanted to.)

Sausage pieces being arranged on a bed of diced apple (or apple sauce).

Meanwhile, pre-bake a pie crust in a medium oven. Also, cut a piece of black pudding into slices 1 or 2 cm (½ inch or so) thick. Quickly brown the sausage slices on both sides in a little butter — I did them in the pan that the diced apple cooked in after it was done. Be careful, because the slices of sausage are fairly delicate and might start to melt or fall apart as they heat up. It doesn't much matter. And don't worry about the degree of doneness — the blood sausage you buy at the charcuterie or supermarket is sold already cooked. It just needs to be heated up.

Boudin noir is cooked when you buy it.

Separately, mix together two or three eggs with 20 to 30 cl of cream — the quantity of cream and number of eggs depends entirely on the size of the tart you are making. Grate in a little pinch of nutmeg if you want, and season the cream mixture with salt and pepper.

The tart is in the oven.

Spread the cooked diced apple in the bottom of the pre-baked pie crust. Arrange slices of sausage over the top. Core, peel, and slice another apple or two. Arrange the apple slices on top of the sausage. Carefully pour the cream and egg mixture over all, so that it fairly covers the sausage but not necessarily all the slices of apple.

Bake the tart in a 180ºC / 350ºF oven for 30 minutes or longer until the liquid has set and the apple slices are starting to brown. Brush the apple slices with a little bit of melted butter if you want.

Have a slice...

Black pudding is made with pork blood and fat, and you know that apples go well with pork. I've also seen recipes for this kind of tart using boudin blanc, and I'm going to try that soon. Serve the tart as an appetizer or, with a green salad, as a light lunch.