Looking for signs of spring

Since spring doesn't seem to want to come to us, I'm going back to find it. These are photos I took in March 2008 in our back yard, using a Panasonic Lumix TZ3 digital camera. I gave it to a my niece in North Carolina a long time ago. I don't know if she still has it, but it was a great one. Nowadays I just use my mobile phone's built-in camera. It seems to be a great one too.

March skies out in the vineyard

Believe it or not, we're having calm, clear weather right now. It's time for me to go out walking with the dog. It's chilly outdoors, but that's okay. It's not raining.

These are some pictures I took on a walk with a different dog in March 2008. March weather in northern France is famous for sudden, icy rainshowers called giboulées. I wouldn't want to have to walk through any of those.

Turning a flower into a pie

How do you turn this ....

...into this? (It's called un gratin in French.)

First you have to cut a cauliflower up into what are called florets. Put the florets (fleurettes in French) in a steamer pot and steam them over boiling water until they are just starting to get tender.

Arrange the florets in a baking pan. Add some meat if you want — pre-cooked chicken or pork lardons.

Make a sauce béchamel and turn it into a sauce mornay by melting some grated cheese in it. Pour the sauce over the florets and bake them in the oven until the top starts to brown (see above).

Blois on March 1, 2006

I'm still poking around in my photo archives. This is a photo I took in the biggest town (pop. 50,000) in our départment here in central France back in 2006. It's Blois, and it was a royal town for several centuries. The river is the Loire and the church in the middle of the photo is the town's Renaissance-style Saint-Louis cathedral. The bridge at Blois was built in the early 18th century — an older stone bridge there had collapsed in 1716.

On the home front, I bought a beautiful cauliflower yesterday and my morning today will be spent preparing and cooking it. I don't know if you like cauliflower (chou-fleur in French), but I know I do. I'll make a cheese sauce for it.