La céremonie des vœux, c'est aujourd'hui

This was the announcement in a recent newsletter from the village mayor's office and on the web site. Les vœux are the mayor's official New Year's greetings and good wishes to her constituents. Attendees will be offered a glass of wine at the end of the event.

Samedi 4 janvier 2014 à 11H

Cérémonie des vœux du Maire à 11h suivie du verre de l'amitié

Vous êtes cordialement invité à cette rencontre amicale. Afin d'organiser au mieux cette réunion, merci de vous inscrire auprès du secrétariat de la Mairie ou par mail.

I tried to RSVP by mail — that means e-mail — but the two messages I sent just bounced back. I picked up the phone and quickly confirmed that Walt and I would attend. It'll be our first time. The town hall is just two miles from our house. The mayor is our neighbor, and she's been in office since 2008. The next municipal elections will be held in March, and I don't know if she intends to be a candidate for a second 6-year term. Maybe she'll talk about her plans at the ceremony this monring.

The village skyline

I thought I'd post a few pictures of village scenes that I took a few years ago.

The village is officially called une commune in France. It consists of the village center — le bourg, or "burg" — and a collection of hameaux or hamlets, little settlements or groups of houses scattered around the commune's 12 sq. miles, or 32 sq. kilometers, of territory. Saint-Aignan is the larger town nearby; it's two miles in the opposite direction from our house. About half of the village's territory is planted in grapevines, I imagine.

La mairie — the village hall

There is a church in the village center. There's a grocery store/bakery, a café-tabac, the municipal library, and the village hall, or mairie [may-REE]. There's also a building called le château but it isn't especially grand or impressive. There are tennis courts, and there's a campground on the banks of the Cher River behind the church.

The village war memorial, or monument aux morts

I don't know how many hamlets (which are sometimes called villages, as opposed to the bourg)  surround the village center. There are quite a few of them, including ours, which is called La Renaudière. Nearby, I'm familiar with La Chotinière, La Besnardière, La Janvrie, Grand-Maison, Les Bas-Bonneaux, and Les Hauts-Bonneaux. On the other end of the village there are Le Vou, Riboy, Le Bas-Guéret, and Le Haut-Guéret. I think there are many more but some are sort of hidden in the woods at the end of little roads that I haven't ever explored.

Driving into the village on the road from Saint-Aignan

The population of the village is about 1,100. The altitude ranges from a low point of 64 meters (210 feet) to a high point of 186 meters (610 feet). I think we live at about the highest point in the commune — at least that's what I've been told by one friend who was born here. The population density is 35 people per sq. kilometer — that would come to about 90 people per sq. mile. (For comparison, Paris has a population density of more than 55,000 people per sq. mile!)

The village church, dedicated to Saint Martin, and a typical house

There's no bridge over the Cher River in the village except the new autoroute (tollway, motorway) bridge and the other end of the village from us. There's no exit or entry ramp in the village, so there's not much traffic. To get on the autoroute you have to drive a few miles in one direction or the other, cross the bridge at Saint-Aignan or Pouillé/Thésée, and then drive a few miles along the other side of the river to get to the only ramp in the area.

The river walk along the banks of the Cher River

The city of Tours is an hour west. Blois is 45 minutes north. Orléans is 90 minutes away, and Paris three or four hours, depending on which road you take. Our village is at the extreme eastern edge of La Touraine, the western edge of Le Berry, and just across the river from La Sologne, which is part of  L'Orléanais — the three historic provinces come together at Saint-Aignan.

The whole world...

...is my oyster, someone said. Really, for me it's been more like this these days: "my whole world is oysters." We bought four dozen nice, big, fresh oysters from the man selling them out of his truck on the market square in Saint-Aignan on Monday. We ate the last of them yesterday — there were 20 left after we ate some on New Year's Eve and left a few with our friends when we drove back home on Wednesday.

It turned that out one of our friends had never eaten oysters before, and the other said he hadn't eaten an oyster in many many years. Because of that, I decided to "cook" them. Well, they really don't cook the way I do them, but they do warm through and the shells are much easier to get open as a result. They don't turn rubbery. They can be a little more appetizing to people who haven't ever eaten oysters than really raw ones are. I know, oyster purists will be scandalized.

An oven-roasted oyster

As I said, I bought large oysters. Normally, Walt and I like them smaller if they are going to be consumed raw. But when you put the oysters in a hot oven for a few minutes to open the shells, the oyster inside does shrink up a little. So starting with bigger oysters makes sense. My method of cooking the oyster comes from coastal North Carolina, where outdoor oyster roasts are an old autumn tradition.

Oysters washed and ready to be eaten... or roasted

In N.C. and the whole U.S. Southeast, I think, the way people roast oysters is this: you build a fire and you stand four concrete blocks upright at its four corners. You lay a big, heavy slab of steel or iron down on the concrete blocks to form a kind of table or plancha over the fire. You dump onto the plancha a basketful of oysters that you have washed well with the garden hose. You wet a few empty burlap bags or old towels and lay them over the top of the oysters. The resulting heat and steam "roasts" the oysters.

Some oysters open faster and wider than others when you roast them in the oven.

In the oven, it turns out, the best way to steam the oysters is to heat up a pan of water in a hot oven until it starts to steam. Arrange the oysters on a wire oven rack, arranging them carefully so that the deeper shell is on the bottom and the flatter shell is on the top. Set the rack over the pan of steaming water in the oven. The oven needs to be hot: 225ºC / 425ºF, or even hotter. The oysters stay in the oven just long enough for the shells to start to open — between 5 and 10 minutes, say. Take them out and let them cool for a couple of minutes.

I made a batch of corn muffins for us to have with the oysters.

Even the oysters that don't appear to be open will be easy to deal with. Hold them in one hand in a couple of thicknesses of paper toweling to protect yourself. All you need to do is get the point of a sharp knife into the edge of the oyster and twist it. The top shell will pop up. Run the knife along the inside surface of the top shell to cut the muscle that hold the oyster in place. Remove the top shell and then cut the muscle on the lower shell. Sprinkle on a few drops of lemon juice, vinegar, or hot pepper sauce. If all the liquid hasn't run out of the shell, drink it along with the oyster. With them, saltine crackers, English water crackers, or cornbread are good — not to mention a cold beer or a glass of cold, dry white wine.

P.S. I know that some people open oysters by putting them in the microwave oven for a couple of minutes. I haven't tried that yet.

First post of 2014

Let me wish all ye faithful a happy, healthy, and prosperous New Year one more time. I haven't sent individual messages, but you know who you are and how much I appreciate your loyalty and your comments. I blog largely for myself because it's important for me from many points of view, and I blog for you too of course. Thanks.

I didn't take any pictures on New Year's Eve or New Year's Day. Sometimes you're either having too much fun, or you're too busy, or you're too tired to pick up the appareil photo. We ate our oysters on New Year's Eve. I did them North Carolina style, which means briefly roasted in a hot oven (makes them easier to open and more appetizing for the slightly squeamish) and served at the table with cocktail sauce (tomato sauce, vinegar, chillies, and horseradish). We also made a French mignonnette sauce, which is wine vinegar flavored with chopped shallots and coarsely ground or crushed black pepper. It was a success, and we have fresh oysters left over for today's lunch.

Oysters for sale at the New Year's market in old Saint-Aignan. Prices were lower in 2005...*

Dinner was pan-roasted magrets de canard — duck breast filets — served rare with an orange sauce, prepared by our hosts. Delicious. With that, there was a gratin dauphinois (potatoes au gratin with cream) and nice fresh green beans. And with all that food, we drank... let's just say... a certain number of good wines — mostly from the Loire Valley, except for some Champagne.

The old (and only) bridge across the Cher River at Saint-Aignan — there used to be a mill here.

We often park the car down by the bridge and then walk up into town when we go to the market.

The weather has been wet and windy for a few days, so we were more or less confined to the house on 12/31 and 1/1. Still, Callie and her canine friend Lulu needed to be walked. I didn't volunteer. I had taken Callie out on her two previous walks, so it wasn't my turn. And then we all actually stayed up until midnight to welcome in the New Year. That's two hours past my normal bedtime, so I was pretty wiped out yesterday (Jan. 1).

The display of wintertime pork treats in a charcuterie stand at the Saint-Aignan market

For our New Year's Day lunch back at home, we put together our traditional cassoulet using confit de canard (duck leg/thigh sections cooked in their own fat and left to cure for three months in that fat in the refrigerator), black-eyed peas (for good luck in 2014), and Toulouse-style pork sausages. Here's a link to an earlier post about it. Incidentally, I heard a cook who has a show on the French Cuisine+ TV network say yesterday that for some people in France, it is traditional to eat lentils on January 1 because that is supposed to bring you health and happiness for the rest of the year. Les grandes traditions se rencontrent.

* I reached back in time eight or nine years to find the photos I'm posting today.

Happy New Year, autrement dit

Je vous souhaite à toutes et à tous

beaucoup de bonheur en 2014.

Tous mes bons vœux sont pour vous,

et bonne santé surtout !

Merci aussi pour toutes vos gentillesses

en 2013.

Ken

A demain, si vous le voulez bien.