Dental woes and joys (part 1)

For a while now, I've had in mind doing a post about dentists, or the shortage of dentists, here in the French countryside. The problem is that writing about our dental adventures requires a lot of typing, and with my finger brace that's not so easy.

Two or three years ago, the dentist we had been going to since we moved here in 2003 went into retirement. He was very good, and we were sorry to lose him. For me and Walt both, he repaired a couple of broken fillings. Those are the only tooth problems we've had, but Dr. Christian Bigot (his real name; Christian is a common first name in France, and Bigot is a common last name here in the Saint-Aignan area) was also great when it came to regular checkups and cleanings (a cleaning is called a détartrage in French).

There are two other dentists in Saint-Aignan at this point. One is a man who doesn't gladly take new patients, and if you can get an appointment with him it's six months out. The other is a woman, Dr. G, who has a bad reputation, as I've since learned. She is gruff and brusque in both manner and practice. I went to see her at least twice, but it wasn't a pleasant experience either time. Walt felt the same way about her. He said the détartrage she did for him was pretty painful.

I went to see her about a year ago because one of my teeth had become very sensitive, and I periodically felt a tingling sensation coming from that area. It's a tooth with a crown on it. I went to see the fearsome Dr. G. about it. She asked me which tooth was bothering me. I told her I wasn't sure because the tingling and the sensitivity seemed to be happening between two teeth, and I couldn't tell which one was causing it.

"Well if you can't tell which tooth it is," she barked at me, "how do you expect me to know what to do about it?" I looked at her, a little stunned. "I guess I can do an x-ray," she said, exasperated. I told her (this is all in French, of course) that I was kind of hoping she might suggest that. I guess I could have just asked for an x-ray to begin with, but I figured it was the dentist's job to tell me what needed to be done.

I didn't want a small dental problem to turn into a major toothache. I'm happy to have pretty good dental health, but I owe that to several good dentists I've been lucky to find over the past 35 years. I also had a very bad experience with a dentist in Paris back in the early 1980s, and I don't want to go through that again.

Read part 2 here.

Mysterious forces of nature

Our long string of fine days just won't quit. We hoped for dry and sunny late-season weather and we sure are getting it. After a mediocre July and the wettest August we've had since we moved to Saint-Aignan in 2003, we've now had the driest September. October has come in like a lamb.

It will be nice to look back on these beautiful days when the dark and gloom close in on us during the short days and long nights of November and December. Yesterday we went to spend the afternoon with friends at their new place, and we whiled away several hours sitting around a table outdoors under big umbrellas, soaking up the warmth — and a certain quantity of food and wine too. Moules et frites were the main course. How much nicer could October ever be?

The weather is a mysterious thing. So are certain animals — especially cats. Our friends have a new kitten, just three months old. She is being trained as an outdoor animal and mouser. She's called Daisy, and she's as cute as can be. She lives in a barn and can easily take shelter there to escape from pesky dogs like Callie.

Throwback Thursday — 1988

The photo here was taken on March 21 in, I think, 1988. Walt and I had moved to California 18 months earlier. We were living in San Francisco, at Gough and Sutter streets near Japantown, but we had driven down to east San José that day to see old friends who lived there. At the time, I was working in SF as managing editor of a computer magazine. I think I had already started teaching evening French classes at SF City College. Walt was an architecture student at UC-Berkeley.

The little girl I'm holding in the photo is the daughter of one of our best friends. At some time in the past, I wrote on the back of the picture that she was 8 years old. She will turn 35 next spring — not quite as old as I was in 1988. How do you like that rainbow? In my memory, rainbows were a rare occurrence in northern California.

Blueberry almond yogurt cake

I just scanned through this nine-year-old blog, which includes a lot of recipes of all kinds, and I didn't find a single recipe for a gâteau au yaourt, or yogurt cake. I'm surprised, because I make such cakes frequently. The gâteau au yaourt is one of the very few French dessert recipes in which all the ingredients are measured out by volume and not by weight.

Making this yogurt cake is child's play, and in France a lot of children learn to make yogurt cakes at a young age. They are taught that they can use the yogurt pot as a measuring cup — the standard pot of plain yogurt here contains half a cup. Since we Americans use measuring cups in our kitchens (rather than kitchen scales), I've translated the yogurt pot measures into 8 fl. oz. cups and 4 fl. oz. half-cups. Use the half-cup pot your yogurt comes in if you prefer.

Gâteau au yaourt
with blueberries and almond powder

½ cup plain yogurt

½ cup vegetable oil

1 cup sugar

1½ cups flour

½ cup almond powder

3 eggs

1 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1 pinch salt

1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries

Preheat the oven to 400ºF (200ºC). In a big mixing bowl, cream together the yogurt, sugar, flour, almond powder, and vegetable oil. Add the eggs, baking powder, and vanilla and mix well to make a smooth batter. Fold in the blueberries.

Pour the batter into a buttered cake, loaf, or pie pan. Put the pan in the oven for 30 minutes. Test the cake for doneness starting after about 25 minutes by poking it with the point of a knife or skewer. When the point comes out clean and dry, the cake is done.

This bowl that CHM gave us makes a great cake cover.

You can make this cake without the blueberries, or you can substitute other fruit. You can also make it using two cups of flour and omitting the almond powder (but it won't be quite as tender or delicious). I haven't tried it, but I bet the batter would make good blueberry muffins or cupcakes.