Work has started

The plumber came yesterday and started the work of installing the new bathroom (WC, or half-bath) that we are having built in our attic loft space. It's hard to describe how it will work, and I'm not much of a graphic artist. I'll try to show with words on a photo how it might be configured:

If you've spent much time in France, you know how small such bathroom spaces can be. I think this one will be about five feet by five feet — 25 sq. ft. That's all. It'll be just enough room for a small sink and a toilet. WC means "water closet" and this will be a closet — a convenience, not a luxury.

We had the attic of our house finished as new living space nine years ago. It's one big room, which is our bedroom, a family room with sofa and TV, and my desk and computer. We like the size of the space (about 650 square feet). As you can see in the photos above, there are closets under the eaves of the house, on two sides, that run the length of the room (behind the radiators). In the first photo here, you can see that we've taken the doors off the closet so the plumber can crawl around in there. I took the second photo before I took the doors off.

The closets are where the pipes go (for both the radiators and the new WC). You can see them here. The big drain pipe from the toilet is what the plumber put in yesterday. It runs about half the length of the room, in the back of the long closet. There will also be a smaller pipe to bring water up from downstairs, and a small water heater for the new sink so we won't have to wait so long for hot water to flow upstairs from the bigger water heater two stories down.

The new drain pipe drops down into the big bathroom downstairs, as you can see here. We don't know yet whether we'll have it boxed in using what we call "sheetrock" (plaster wall board) or whether we'll just paint the PVC pipe white. Either way, it will blend in to the decor, I think, and not be too noticeable. The fact that the new bathroom is not directly above the old one has complicated things, but that's just the way it is.

On the main level of the house, the WC is also separate from the bathroom. It's adjacent though. From the bathroom, the big drain pipe runs through the wall into the WC and will be connected to the existing pipe that runs from the existing toilet down to ground level and connects to the sewer mains. So the plumber had to drill big holes in the ceiling and the wall yesterday. He managed to make surprisingly little dust in the process.

I'm not sure any of that is clear, but I'm doing my best. I'll keep posting photos as the work progresses.

Le pounti auvergnat

Changing regions and focus, from Normandy to Auvergne and from drink to food. You won't believe this, but I harvested some more Swiss chard this week. It was the last of it. After I cut down three of the plants, they re-sprouted a profusion of tender green leaves. I dug those three up a few days ago and picked off the new growth.

One idea I had for using those tender leaves was to make a savory cake called a pounti, which is an Auvergne specialty. I also see it called simply a gâteau de blettes (a chard cake) on some recipe sites on the web.

We first learned about and tasted pounti cake when we spent a view days in the Cantal (Auvergne) 10 years ago. I posted about it, including a recipe, back then.

The flavor ingredients are prunes, cheese, onions, and ham or other meat. Making pounti is a way to use up leftover meat like cooked pork or poultry. It's more a concept than a strict recipe, as are so many regional French dishes.

As usual, there are now a lot of recipes for pounti cakes on the internet, including quite a few in English. First you make a cake batter with flour, eggs, oil, and warm milk. Then you mix in grated cheese, sliced chard leaves, and pitted prunes. Walt says we should make a pounti-style cake with diced smoked chicken and dried cranberries, and that sounds like a good idea to me.

In this pounti, I used Emmental cheese and smoked pork lardons. If I'd had any Cantal cheese on hand, I would have used that, and I almost decided to make it with goat cheese. That will be for another day. You can also substitute fresh spinach leaves, tender kale leaves, or even lettuce for the chard.

M. Breton, bouilleur

When I took those pictures of Normandy cows grazing in an apple orchard, the ones I posted yesterday, we were driving around on the east side of La Ferté-Macé looking for Monsieur Breton's house, where he sold calvados apple brandy to retail customers. We had driven right past it, it turned out. Breton is or was a bouilleur — a distiller or "boiler" of cider. We had seen him featured on a TV show about French regional products called Carte Postale Gourmande.

Breton's sign was almost hidden by vegetation. It looks like there were two other producers partnering with Monsieur Breton to make calvados and pommeau. Calvados can be single-distilled to about 60 proof (30% alcohol) or double distilled to 140 proof (70% alcohol) — it resembles cognac but is made with apples rather than grapes. Pommeau is a less powerful brew: it's an apéritif wine made by fortifying cider with calvados to about 30 proof (15% alcohol). Both calva and pommeau are to be consumed avec modération, bien sûr.

After finding the sign, we drove through the gate and parked in front of the house inside. There were no cars or people to be seen. I snapped the photos above and below, and we were getting ready to leave when Monsieur Breton drove in. He was friendly and didn't seem to be bothered to find us there.

In the photo above, you can see his still, with his name spray-painted on it in blue. This is obviously a working establishment, not a tourist site. If you want to read more about calvados, here's a link to a site written in English by a blogger in Normandy. I just read on Wikipédia that 50% of the region's production of calva is exported.

Above is a photo of the Bretons' house. He invited us in and pour us little snifters of the calvados he was selling. He told us his wife was off in the Loire Valley (if I remember correctly) spending a few weeks with her sister, so he had the place to himself. He was talkative and interesting, and was interested to meet two Americans who could speak French with him.

I believe Monsieur Breton's first name was or is Marcel. I've tried to find web sites that give more information about him, but without much luck. I did find this photo on one site, and i believe this is him. I wonder if he is still living. He told us the orchard where the cows were grazing belonged to his son, and maybe the son is now running the calvados business. Here's a site where you can buy a bottle or two, if you want. Some are more than 50 years old and sell for two or three hundred euros.

Vaches et pommiers

I took these photos of cows grazing in an apple orchard in the Perche area of Lower Normandy in May 2005. We were trying to find the farm of an apple brandy producer near the town of La Ferté-Macé.

Cows and apples are two of the greatest symbols of the province of Normandy in France.

The cows produce milk, which is turned into cream, butter, and cheeses including Camembert, Livarot, and Pont-l'Éveque.

The apples are baked into pies, of course, but they are also turned into hard cider and the apple brandy called calvados.