For several days last week, the weather reports said we were having our last warm days of the year. The weather, they said, would turn rainy and chilly on Sunday. Then Sunday came, and it was still dry and almost hot. I think the rains passed to the north, falling not on northern France but on England. Typical, no? (We did get 3 mm of rain — 0.12 inches. On appelle ça du pipi de chat.)
Yesterday was again warm, and then it got windy in the afternoon. The wind was warm and dry, and it didn't really seem all that strong. It was just a little gusty and breezy. I was upstairs watching TV after lunch, and Walt was downstairs sitting out on the front terrace.
Suddenly there was a loud cracking sound. And then another. What was that? I called down to Walt. He had of course heard it too. I think a tree fell, he yelled back up the stairs. He said he'd go out and see if that was what had happened. When he came back, he told me about it and said I should go see it when I took Tasha out for our afternoon walk.
So there it is. A very big tree just broke off and crashed to the ground out on the edge of the vineyard parcel closest to our house. Maybe trees are fragile because of our long dry spell. It's amazing that it didn't really fall on anything. The top of the tree missed the closest row of vines by about 10 feet. This happened just a few dozen steps from our house.
It's hard to take photos of the wind, but you can sort of see it in the ones just above and below. Well, you can see its effects. How many more of these trees might just come crashing down one day?
I've seen trees being uprooted, but that was when winds were at hurricane force, back in North Carolina. I've seen trees uprooted here in Saint-Aignan by hurricane-force winds— we lost two plum trees in a storm in 2010, and several big trees fell out around the edges of the vineyard. And I've heard of trees just coming down for no obvious reason. That's what seems to have happened here yesterday.
I remember the first time I ever ate polenta. It was in 1975 and I was living in Paris. An American woman that I knew from the university where I had been a student in North Carolina was also living in Paris then. She had a French friend named Jean-Louis.
Linda was living in a tiny fourth-floor walk-up apartment in the 9e arrondissement just off the rue des Martyrs, up behind the église Notre-Dame de Laurette. I think she had invited me and Jean-Louis over for lunch. I was living out in Asnières-sur-Seine that year.
Jean-Louis (I can't remember his last name, but I think it sounded Italian) said he was going to make polenta for lunch. I asked him what that was. I had never heard of it before. He said it was something he learned to cook in Provence, where he had family. It was more or less Italian, but also southern French.
When he cooked the polenta, I realized it was a form of grits, a southern U.S. food staple. Only it was yellow, not white. And J-L was cooking it with sausages and tomato sauce as an accompaniment. In the North Carolina, we ate grits only at breakfast, with butter, salt, and sometimes some grated cheese stirred in to melt, for flavor.
I was happy to find out I could get grits in France. And of course good sausages cooked in tomato sauce was something anybody would like. J-L cooked the polenta in a pot on the stove, poured it into a baking pan, and laid cooked sausages over the top. The polenta was thick, not runny. Then he poured tomato sauce over the top and popped the dish into the oven to heat through and brown.
I loved the taste and the simplicity of it. I thought of it a few days ago, because we had polenta, fresh tomatoes, onions, mushrooms, and plenty of tomato sauce, as well as some little veal meatballs that I had stored in the freezer. We'd been eating rice, potatoes, and pasta for a few days, so polenta would be a nice change. I browned the meatballs with sliced onions, mushrooms, and tomatoes, and then poured tomato sauce over all that and let it finish cooking. The sauce would be spread over the cooked polenta and the dish then browned in the oven. (You could make it without meat...)
I cooked the polenta (1 part polenta and 3 parts water), with some grated cheese stirred in, for five minutes in the microwave. Then we enjoyed the gratin with parmesan cheese grated over it at the table, and a drizzle of olive oil. On the internet, I see recipes for something similar called polenta con salciccia. Bon appétit ! And thanks to CHM for the frying pan and the baking dish.
It's Sunday and it's my morning to go out for a walk with Natasha. These Sundays in October are difficult, because hunters arrive in the vineyard at 9 a.m. and start shooting at game birds or hares. The sun doesn't come up until 8:12 a.m. today, and if it's cloudy outside it doesn't really get light until 8:30 or so. So timing the walk is tricky.
Here are some recent photos of Tasha. I took them on a sunny afternoon four or five days ago. As you can see, she keeps her nose to the ground when we go out into the vineyard.
Walt will take Tasha to the groomer's (le salon de toilettage) on Tuesday for her semi-annual brushing-out. The dog's coat looks pretty good right now but, even so, there's just too much of it. She doesn't really enjoy getting brushed, so we don't do it as much as we ought to.
We went to our late neighbor Daniel's burial (enterrement) yesterday morning. It was well-attended; I'd say there were 40 or 50 people there. There was no service at the church, just as his wife's funeral was a simple burial ceremony at the cemetery in 2015. We learned that Daniel had lung cancer but didn't know it. He wasn't somebody who went to see a doctor on a regular basis. He had some kind of malaise a week ago today and his daughter had him hospitalized. That's when the cancer was diagnosed. He passed away 48 hours later.
Daniel's daughter plans to sell her parents' house, I understand. And the other house in our hamlet that is for sale is already under contract. The new owners are supposed to close on it at the end of the month. I don't know who they are, or if they plan to live in the house or rent it out as a gîte rural — a holiday rental, as the British say. It will need some renovating, I'm sure.
And I learned something else yesterday. The people who are selling the little house had the equivalent of a "garage sale" or "estate sale." Maybe it will continue today. It's the first time in all these years of living and traveling in France that I've ever seen that kind of sale. I thought they weren't allowed, but it turns out they are if the organizers get the permission of the mayor and follow rules that specify that only used items may be sold, and the sale can only last for a specified number of days. It's called a vide-maison or a vide-grenier à domicile. Those terms mean "empty out the house" or "empty out the attic" to clear out. I don't know where it was advertised, but there were quite a few cars up and down the road during the day yesterday.
We've been getting a lot of work done around the yard and garden. Finding I now have the energy and inclination to prepare our property for winter makes me realize how lethargic I was over the long hot summer we lived through this year. I felt lousy, and a lot of it was because of the seemingly endless stretch of hot days and nights we had to endure. Sitting still was easy during that time, but sleeping well was difficult, and doing physical work outside was no fun at all.
So many plants out there needed trimming. Tall, tough grasses were growing up along the gravel path that runs through the middle of the yard, as well as up into the wire fencing we had put up back in 2004 to keep the dog in and the deer and hares out. The four patches of irises we have around the yard had brown, sunburned leaves and were full of weeds. I've cut a lot of that stuff down.
Walt mowed the lawn, mostly to take down the spiky, deep-rooted weeds that had grown up. The grass itself, or what passes for grass in our prairie-like yard, hadn't grown much because of the drought. I continued clipping branches off the overgrown rosemary bush that we wanted to save, and we cut the unwanted rosemary plant off at ground level. I think both of them will come back quickly once the rains return.
The biggest task was getting the plants pulled out of the garden, including 30 tomato plants, a lot of bush and pole beans, and a few out-of-control zucchini and winter squash (potimarron) plants. Walt did most of that. I still haven't tilled up the vegetable garden plot, but I'll try to get that done this coming week. I'm sure our clay and limestone soil is like concrete — we desperately need more rain, and we may get some tomorrow. It hope it's not too much, because it's hard to work in mud with the rototiller.
The new back gate is a big improvement. Not only is the metal gate much sturdier and better-looking than the old falling-down wooden gate was, but it is also more securely attached to the concrete gate posts than the rickety old gate was. Now we're just waiting for a local gardening service to set a date for this year's trimming of the tall, wide laurel hedge that wraps around three sides of our yard. It's more than 100 meters (375 ft.) long and 8 or 9 feet high in places.
Another neighbor of ours has died. He's the seventh or eighth neighbor who has left this world since we came to live here a little more than 15 years ago. Four of those neighbors were people who lived to be 90 years old or older. The others were about my age. Remember, our neighborhood or "hamlet" consists of just nine houses. I learned yesterday that one of the nine is on the market. Now another will be sold.
Daniel and his wife Andrée, who lived two doors down the road from us, bought an old ruin of a house here in this hamlet back in about 1970. They spent many summers restoring the place. They showed us pictures. They told me that when they bought the house, it consisted on one big room and a rudimentary kitchen. Nine people lived in that room! Daniel and Andrée transformed it into a beautiful place. I happened to take a photo of it a few days ago. Here it is:
Andrée (I guess the English version of her name would be Andrea) passed away in 2015. She had stomach cancer, and she lived for just two or three months after the cancer was diagnosed. She once said that as a young woman, she had been a factory worker. Then she got a job in the offices at the Galeries Lafayette department store in Paris. I wrote about her and her funeral here.
Daniel was a baker, but not the kind who runs his own shop. He worked in an "industrial" bakery in the Paris area. After years of working in and breathing down tons of flour dust, he refused to even consider ever eating bread again. He and Andrée lived in an apartment in the suburbs northwest of Paris, and they had this house here in the Saint-Aignan area as their lifetime project. They moved here more or less permanently about 10 years ago, but they never got around to selling their apartment in the Paris region. One daughter survives them. She lives nearby. She intends to sell the house here, I'm told.
Daniel was a couple of years younger than I am, I believe. After Andrée died at age 68, his health seemed to decline steadily. He walked with a cane. He still drove his car, and I ran into him at the supermarket fairly frequently. He always had a smile and a handshake to offer, though I don't think he knew my name. He seemed to know Walt and me only as « les Américains ». One day a few months ago I saw him at SuperU and he looked terrible. He had a big bruise on his face and he was obviously not steady on his feet. He told me he had fallen and hurt himself, at home.
He talked more with the other neighbors than with us. This past summer, he told at least two of our neighbors, who had noticed he'd lost weight, that he had stopped eating. He had no appetite and no ambition. His only wish was to « rejoindre sa femme » — to be with his wife again. So I guess he believed in the afterlife. He got his wish. He died at the hospital. A neighbor who knew them well told Daniel and Andrée's daughter that she can console herself with the thought of her parents being reunited.
In a book about Moroccan tajines (spicy stews) that I've had for a few years now, I recently noticed a recipe for eggplant (aubergines) that tempted me. I read it and thought about it for a couple of days, and it dawned on me that it didn't have any Moroccan spices in it. Those were easy to add and they really livened the tomatoes up.
Thinking about how tajines are often sweet and spicy at the same time, and how there's a recipe in the book for chicken with tomatoes and honey — I've made that before — I decided to add a big spoonful or two of honey to the spicy tomato sauce I was making for this gratin. It worked really well. And since I had some ground veal in the freezer, I thought: why not make this a meat sauce and turn it into a full meal? There's no cheese in it, but we ended up grating some parmesan over it at the table.
Instead of frying or even baking eggplant slices, Walt browned and partially cooked them on the barbecue grill out on the terrace. That added really good flavor to the dish. The recipe turns out to be a kind of Moroccan-spiced lasagna with layers of sliced, pre-cooked potato in the place of pasta.
Moroccan eggplant and potatoes au gratin 2 large eggplants (aubergines) 2 or more large potatoes 5 tomatoes 3 onions 3 cloves of garlic 1 or 2 Tbsp. honey (to taste) 3 parsley stalks 1 bay leaf 1 tsp. dried thyme 4 Tbsp. olive oil optional: oil for frying salt and pepper to taste cayenne pepper to taste ras-el-hanout spices to taste
Cut the eggplants into slices and brush the slices with olive oil. Cook them on the barbecue grill or on a baking sheet in the oven. It’s messier, but you can also fry them in a non-stick pan on the stove.
Wash the potatoes and boil or steam them until they are mostly done but still firm. When they’ve cooled down, peel them and cut them into slices.
Peel and onions and the garlic cloves. Cut the onions into slices. Dice, mash, or slice the garlic cloves. Optionally, peel the tomatoes by dropping them for a few seconds into boiling water, putting them into cold water to cool down, and then slipping the skins off.
Make tomato sauce: sweat the onions and tomatoes together in olive oil in a frying pan, and then add the garlic and parsley. Add salt and pepper, thyme, and bay leaf. Season the mixture with ras-el-hanout spices and some cayenne pepper (don't overdo it) and let it cook for 30 minutes.
Pre-heat the oven to 200ºC (400ºF). When the tomato sauce is cooked, put a layer of it in the bottom of a baking dish. Over it put alternating layers of potatoes, eggplant, and sauce, finishing with a layer of tomato sauce. If all the ingredients are hot, slide the dish into the oven and let it cook for 5 minutes. If the ingredients are cold, slide the dish into the hot oven, and gradually turn the heat down so that the ingredients heat through without burning on the bottom or top.
P.S. My store-bought, imported ras-el-hanout
spice blend contains:
• curry (curry)
• coriander seeds (coriandre)
• cumin (cumin)
• salt (sel)
• carraway (carvi)
• turmeric (curcuma)
• corn starch (farine de mais)
• piment fort (hot red pepper)
• cayenne (cayenne pepper)
All France is divided into 35,357 « communes ». The commune is the smallest administrative unit of the country. Each commune has its town or village hall, called the « mairie » [may-REE] because it's where the « maire » [mehr], the mayor, has his or her office. (Mairie does not rhyme with Marie [mah-REE].) In the past, maire was a masculine word grammatically, but nowadays the word maire can be used as a feminine noun as well. La maire de Paris is a woman. Still, fewer than 20 percent of the 35,000+ maires in France are women. Maire and mère ("mother") are homophones — in other words, the two words are pronounced exactly the same way. I know, it can get confusing...
About 90 per cent of the 35,000+ communes in France have fewer than 2,000 inhabitants. That's true of this one, the commune called Mareuil-sur-Cher. The mayor is a woman. Some call her madame le maire and others call her madame la maire. Others call her la mairesse. Anyway, the name Mareuil [mah-RUH-yuh] derives from an old Celtic term meaning a clearing in a forest. In other words, the village existed before the Romans invaded Gaul, and long before the Franks moved in and turned the country into France. Mareuil-sur-Cher (pop. 1,150) covers 32 km² (12 mi²) of territory and is located on the on the northwest side of the bigger town of Saint-Aignan.
The commune of Mareuil is made up of a built-up area commonly referred to as le bourg ("the burg") and the land surrounding it. It's bordered to the northeast by the Cher river. The mairie, which you see in these three photos, is in the middle of the "burg" which you might call the village in my dialect of English. And I'd call the commune "the township." Communes are located in départements, and there are 272 communes in the Loir-et-Cher "department" (pop. 330,000 or so), which is where Mareuil-sur-Cher is located. (There are many other communes in France called Mareuil. Wikipedia lists a dozen or so of them, but there is only one Mareuil-sur-Cher.)
Besides the bourg or "village" called Mareuil-sur-Cher, or just Mareuil locally, the commune is further divided up into named "hamlets" (des hameaux — the rural equivalent of neighborhoods) that are called, confusingly, « les villages » by the local people. And its divided up into vineyards and wineries as well. There are 11 or 12 wineries scattered around the territory of the commune. That means there's a winery for about every square mile. I think the Mairie de Mareuil is a handsome building.
This is the building called La Grange des Protestants on the grounds of the Château du Châtelier. Nobody is sure when it was built. There's evidence that a smaller structure stood on the site before the Renaissance era (1500s). The walls of the building are two meters (6½ ft.) thick, which makes some people think it must have been built during medieval times, when châteaux in the region were highly fortified so that they could be defended from attackers.
It might be, however, that the thickness of the walls of the "protestants' barn" were needed simply to support the weight of the timber frame roof structure, which resembles a ship's hull turned upside down. (Unfortunately, the barn was closed to the public when we visited, so I have no photos of the interior.) The windows and the door in the photo above seem to have been added in the mid-1600s. By then, the barn had been used for more than a century as place where local protestants could hold religious services.
Here's a longer view of the massive medieval tower. It's 25 meters (82 ft.) high and nine meters (29½ ft.) in diameter, with walls two meters thick at the base. It was probably gutted during the wars of religion in the late 1500s, and is known to have been in its current state as early as 1750. Efforts to demolish the tower completely during the Revolution in the late 1700s were unsuccessful. The tower was too solidly built of very hard sand and stone.
The residential building at Le Châtelier was originally built in the late 1400s and much modified and enlarged in the 1500s. The owner of the property in the mid-1600s undertook further "remodeling" work and most likely bankrupted himself in the process. The whole property was sold at auction in 1688 and was basically abandoned for a century before finally being converted into a farm. The current owners began restorations in 1966.
There used to be a drawbridge on the east side of the Château du Châtelier, according to the notice historique I found on the web. It was replaced by a pont incliné around 1770. The property was operated as a farm from about that time until 1966. There is still a drawbridge — a footbridge — on the west side.
Le Châtelier's moat has survived over the centuries. Most of the stone used to build the old walls and the donjon in the late 1100s were mined when the moat was dug. Two canals linked the moat to the nearby Brignon river — one still exists — so river water could be diverted and flow through the moat.
The hamlet called Le Châtelier is small and very pretty. It is known that at least 80 people lived in the hamlet in the 16th century, but I haven't found anything that says how many people live there today. The whole commune (township) of Paulmy (10 sq. mi.) is home to fewer than 250 souls now.
Le Châtelier was more or less abandoned for a time in the 20th century, and then in 1966 it was acquired by a couple named Lemaistre, who set out to restore and revive it. Their son took over from them in 1981. So it is today. There's a gîte rural nearby that accommodates six (three bedrooms) and rents for 500 euros a week. The occupants enjoy a nice view of the château.
We drove over to Paulmy, about 30 minutes south of the bigger town of Loches, on Thursday afternoon. Along the way, we stopped at Le Châtelier, and château and hamlet just west of Paulmy, a village where friends of ours live.
We drove into Paulmy from the west, passing through the village called Neuilly-le-Brignon (aerial view here). Above is the view as you drive into Le Châtelier. The building is the 15th century residence, and on the left you have a partial view of the big, partially dismantled donjon (fortified stone tower). Below is an aerial view of Le Châtelier that I grabbed off the French Géoportail site. You can see that the château complex is completely surrounded by a moat. There's a high-quality, more detailed aerial photo on this site (Survol de France).
The buildings on the right side of the courtyard are the red-roofed stables, the tower to the north, and a building called La Grange des Protestants (grange = barn) to the south. The long building on the left is the residence. Visitors are allowed to enter into the courtyard and take in the views as well as take pictures. A document I found on-line says: "This castle is a private property. You can have a look from the middle of the courtyard and to the old barn (on the left), but the inside of the castle cannot be visited. The underground tunnels are prohibited as well as climbing on the walls."
Here's the residence at Le Châtelier (with Walt and Tasha in the courtyard). The central part of the building was built, apparently, in the late 1400s, and it was much modified in the 1500s and afterward. Le Châtelier was a Protestant stronghold beginning in the late 1500s, during the French wars of religion. The building called La Grange des Protestants was probably built as a temple where religious services could be held. It's not clear if it was built earlier than the 1500s, but its walls are two meters thick.
When you drive into the little hamlet called Le Châtelier on the west side of the commune de Paulmy, between Loches and Le Grand-Pressigny in Touraine, here's the landmark that dominates the landscape. It's a 12th century castle keep (un donjon in French), and according to documentation on the Château du Châtelier's history, it's one of the oldest fortified places in the area.
I was surprised to learn of its existence. We have friends who live a few miles away, and I've driven through Paulmy many times. I just never turned off the main road and drove 2 or 3 miles west, where the château stands. France is full of surprises.
The other thing that surprised me was what we saw when we walked, boldly, into the courtyard of the château with the dog. I looked over my shoulder and saws the other side of the donjon (photo above). Nobody seemed to notice us, and we didn't stay long. A man was getting a horse out of the stables on the right of this photo and loading the animal into a trailer. He paid us no mind.
We enjoyed a fairly rare excursion yesterday afternoon. We drove to a village about an hour southwest of Saint-Aignan to see some friends we hadn't seen in more than a year. It was a gorgeous day — bright and sunny with blue skies and a gentle breeze.
Along the way we saw this sign at least 10 or 12 times. It doesn't mean that your head is spinning, but that you're approaching a roundabout, also known in the U.S. as a traffic circle or, in Boston, a rotary. In France it's un carrefour giratoire. Negotiating traffic circles is second nature to us now, after living here for 15 years. There are fewer and fewer intersections with STOP signs in France, and more and more roundabouts.
The village we were driving to, Paulmy, is one that we've driven through two dozen times over the years. But we had never before turned off the main-south road through town to see the village center. It's much prettier than I knew before yesterday. We discovered a nice old church and a big château that we didn't know existed. More later...
We enjoyed seeing our friends again. They're English and are getting ready to go back to the U.K. for the winter. We left their house at about 5:30 to drive the 40 miles back to Saint-Aignan along winding roads with the sun behind us. We passed through several other villages, including Montrésor, above. And we drove the last mile on the dirt road that runs through the vineyard out behind our house.
When I was about 15 years old, like many people back then I was a member of the Columbia Record Club in the U.S. If I remember correctly, through the record club I bought one 33 rpm record album every month for several years. I was learning French in school in those days. In the small town where I lived, there weren't any big record stores where I could find albums from exotic places like France. From the mail-order record club, I could.
I remember three record albums featuring French songs that I bought through the club. One was an album by Diane Warwick, who had performed at the Olympia music hall in Paris with the French singer Sasha Distel. She sang La Vie en Rose and C'est si bon, among other songs (most of them American). Another was an album recorded by The Singing Nun, known also as Sœur Sourire, who was Belgian and sang in French. Her biggest hit was the song called Dominique ('nique, 'nique). The third album I remember was a collection of songs written and performed by Charles Aznavour.
I don't know how I had heard of Charles Aznavour. You might be aware that he died earlier this week, at the age of 94. He did have some fame in the U.S., but I can't imagine anybody in my little North Carolina town listened to his songs or even knew about him. Maybe he appeared on the Ed Sullivan variety show on TV at some point. Anyway, I loved that Aznavour album and and started to get a sense of what French really sounded like by listening to Aznavour's songs and working to understand the words. I'd never been to France at that point.
In 2003, when Walt and I moved from San Francisco to Saint-Aignan, I decided to get rid of all my old LPs. They were heavy and had been played so many times that they sounded kind of scratchy. I hated to throw them into the trash. I had several hundred albums and I still had a turntable, but I'd been buying music on CDs for years by then. For most of my favorite vinyl LPs, I ended up buying new copies on CD. In January 2003, we had a big "garage sale" and I sold (basically gave away) a few of my albums, but most people weren't interested.
That spring, I loaded all the LPs into the trunk of my car and drove to used record stores all around the city to see if anybody would want them. I found out that the records I owned had been were not considered rare or unusual. Anybody who was a vinyl album enthusiast already had them. The record stores weren't interested. I didn't want to sell the albums, necessarily — I just didn't want to throw them into the garbage can. To tell you the truth, I don't remember what I finally did with them. I do remember that I sold the turntable to a kid who was thrilled to have it.
Here's an example of Aznavour's singing from YouTube
One of the albums I was never able to find on CD was Charles Aznavour's. Ever since I let go of his record, I've regretted it. I don't exactly remember, but I might have thought that I'd surely be able to find it on CD once I got to France. For years, I bought Charles Aznavour CDs that had included some or even most of the songs I remembered. The problem was, the songs were always different arrangements of the old songs. They didn't sound right. By the way, I never managed to see a live performance by Aznavour.
Aznavour recorded dozens and dozens of albums over the course of his long career. He was not immediately successful in France back when he started performing and recording in the 1950s and '60s, so I suppose he re-did songs to try to make them more appealing. They weren't more appealing to me, however. I liked the arrangements, the tempo, the sound of Aznavour's voice, and the phrasings on the songs I had listened to since about 1964. I didn't want "new and improved" versions. I finally gave up hope of ever finding them again.
And then when his death was announced on Monday, I had one more look at Amazon's French web site to see what albums of his were available. And there it was! At least I felt sure it was the same album, even though I didn't recognize the cover art. All the old songs — I could listen to them on the Amazon site — sounded right. I could download them all — the whole album — for the princely sum of 2.59 euros. Wow. I of course downloaded it immediately. In five minutes' time, I had all songs on my hard disk and I quickly integrated them into our iTunes music database. And I listened to them. You can do the same here: Et Voici.......Aznavour.
