Bee Swarm

Bees swarmed on one of the vines across the street yesterday. A neighbor who is a honey producer captured it. He lightly smoked the bees, placed cardboard on the ground under the swarm, placed his open box hive on the cardboard, and then hit the vine. The majority of the bees dropped into the box which he quickly lidded. Those bees that dropped to the cardboard he smoked lightly again and eventually they entered the box through a slit at the bottom. The whole hive was recovered in a matter of minutes. Facinating.

Signs of Progress--Part 2 Interior Work

The electrician has run wires for all the modcons-tv, cable, telephone, more outlets for 22ov, and outlets for 110v because we have many US electronics and appliances. The exterior walls are being insulated and plaster board will cover it all. The beam ceilings are being left as is.

Signs of Progress-Front of House

We have had anywhere between 1 and 5 men working on the house this week. The mason has completed his work until the new front door and window is made. These have to be custom built because nothing in the house is of a size available in the marketplace today. Five weeks are needed to build the door, window, and staircase. Once the door and window are installed, the stones will be worked on, shutters added, and the rest of the porch will be built.

Pissaladiere

Onions--3 kilos for 1 euro. Despite the fact that we get garden fresh onions at the Saturday market, sometimes a bargin is just too hard to resist. We like the Carrefour chain which in the media is often referred to as a Walmart equilivant. Sure. Please let me know the next time you see fresh truffles to buy in your Walmart. We were at Carrefour during a euro special when many nice looking veggies were on special. I went for the onions but they sat in the fridge while we went to Provence. So yesterday I was determined to have a go at them. After a slow and steady cook for 2 hours, there was a wonderful panful of carmalized onions. Lunch was onion soup and dinner was this pissaladiere. We had bought both anchovies and black olives in Nice. RXC tried the dough recipie that was in the NY Times last week. And as luck would have it, just as we were about to construct the pissaladiere, I turned the page of an old Cook's Illustrated I was going through, and there was an article about making the perfect "Provencal Pizza". They suggested putting the thyme, anchovies and olives under the onions so they would not dry out. Zut alors! We had forgotten the thyme so out to the garden to correct that ommission. The flavors were wonderful together and the Cook's suggestions spot on.

Quilting Group

Last fall I joined the local quilting group which meets in a large hall twice a month. They are quite keen and have a morning session and an afternoon one. You can go for the day or just for part of it. A theme (or two) is selected for the year and everyone works on the same style of quilt. This year the theme is minnatures, so folks are working small. There are about 40 women in the group from several nationalities. Interesting how handwork is a great commonality and leveler of people. French is the language spoken. They all stitch by hand and for the most part the work is exquisite. There are several organized activities during the year, one coming up is to host a quilting day with a neighboring quilt group. I have found it difficult to do much work as my textile materials and tools are still packed. But when the renovation work is finished I will have a textile studio.

Mid April in the Vines

The grapes that surround us are facinating to watch, as are the farmers who tend them. The vines need constant attention from wintertime trimming, tying on to fencing, replacing deteriorating post supports, spraying, to mowing the grass between the rows. And this is the point we are at today in mid April. All of the vines around us are trimmed and tied down to their guide wires. The leaves and grape cluster buds are just starting to come out on some varietals while others have yet to leaf out. Those that have leafed have been sprayed for the first of many times during the growing season. Our spring has been magnificient, warm and sunny so the vines are happy and so are we. Hopefully, the good weather will continue and this will be a very good year for wine production.

Saturday Market

The Ste. Foy market still has one vendor who comes each week with live chickens, rabbits, pigeons, ducks, and other fowl to sell. Looking at his stall is like going back 20 years to a time when most French markets had many such vendors. This morning was a perfect image. The vendor's table is set with his bread and wine as this 10 am scene was already mid-day and lunchtime for him. The small boy has a chicken boxed and ready to take home to raise. Ste. Foy will be a poorer place when this man retires and a small boy will not be able to select and buy his first chicken at the market.

Supervisor in Chief

When the demolition began in the house, Dante and Calypso were unnerved by the noise. Zabelle who is now deaf at her age and very laid back anyway could care less. But soon holes began to appear in the walls in various places and windows were left open for the dust. The 2 mauvais chats saw their opportunity to get outside. We discovered this when we looked out the door in the living room to see Dante inspecting the construction rubble in the bed of the truck. I think he wanted to make sure none of his frankies (salamanders) were being hauled away.

Demolition Day 3

Last week we were encouraged by how much got accomplished on the first day of renovation. The hole for the staircase was cut and braced and the support post set into place. Then true to all the tales told by Peter Mayle, we saw no workers for almost a week. Despite the written schedule with who was doing what work on what day, no one showed up for any of the assigned tasks. But we continued to work on our assigned task of moving everything out of the bedroom side of the house in preparation for wall removal. We are making 2 large bedrooms out of the existing 4 small ones and are putting a full bathroom in what will be the guest bedroom.

Our architect holds a weekly site review with all of the workers on Tuesday mornings. Late Monday afternoon (about 4 PM) someone arrived to take down the old fireplace. It will look good for the morning meeting! Yesterday everyone showed up and discussed progress (mostly ours) and set the work schedule for the next week. The demolition specialist stayed on and took down the front wall of the old kitchen, the old porch, and the short concrete walk that led to the tree truck. All the rubble was cleaned up and carted away.

Now to our complete astonishment and delight the demolition specialist returned today. In exactly 36 minutes he took down the two walls that separated the bedrooms. This leaves us ready for the electrician and the plumber, the ones who never showed up last week.

Oranges Amer

The wheelbarrow full of oranges shows a fraction of those that we harvested when we were visiting friends in Bar Sur Loup. They are bitter oranges, what the French call oranges amer and the Brits call Seville oranges. They are throughout the region because they are essential for the perfume industry which thrives in that region. In fact there is a large perfume factory located in Bar sur Loup. They are also the foundation for marmalade and for vin d'orange which is an aperatif wine. Most of the oranges we harvested were donated to the town to decorate for the annual orange festival. We bought back a box for culinery purposes.

We made 2 different recipies of marmalade. The first came from David Lebovitz's website and is delicious. We had a difficult time getting it to the proper consistancy for marmalade. It boiled on the stove for hours. We were not alone, comments on his blog indicated others found they had added too much water initially. The second recipie came from the preserving classic Stocking Up and used honey for the sweetner. Also very good.

The vin d'orange will take a couple of months to make. It uses the peel from bitter and sweet oranges, lemon peel, vanilla, cloves, very high octane alcohol, sugar, and rose wine. We had a taste in Bar sur Loup and enjoyed it very much. So our take from the oranges included about 15 jars of marmalade, a gallon of vin d'orange, and we still had enough oranges to give to friends.

They Came, They Demolished, They Left

House renovations began on Wednesday. The crazy renovation effected by the previous owner left us with a large attic loft but with no way to access it--- except by using a narrow ladder through an old chimney. So we need to have a staircase built because that loft will be my studio. The photo shows what is the old kitchen and the front door to the house that we never used. The workmen cut a large hole in the ceiling to insert a custom built staircase. We are demolishing the front wall of this room, getting a new front door, a new window, and new porch. Should be nice but living here may be a nightmare of dust and noise while they do the work.

Scones 101

Today I spent the morning with a Anglo-French group watching Bernadette make scones (with her Mom looking on). In an attempt to better learn each others' language, about 10-12 ladies meet twice a month to talk, exchange ideas, have morning tea, etc. One of the French members had been trying (unsuccessfully) to make scones. So Bernadette who is Scottish demonstrated her technique for the group. Her recipe was pretty much a standard scone recipe a combination of flour, margarine, bicarbonate of soda, cream of tarter, milk, water, and salt. However, what was unusual to those in the group who regularly make scones, is that she kneaded the dough. The results were wonderful. Shown in the basket are 2 different types of dough. Those with the raisins used a milk and water combination for the liquid, those without raisins used entirely milk. The results were quite different as you can see in the photos, but both were delicious. I will get the whole process posted on http://www.flickr.com/photos/petillant

Aix en Paella

Most markets have prepared foods that you can buy according to the number of portions you need. Simmering pans of choucroute garni and paella are available every week in our market in Ste. Foy. They scent the air on the street and make you feel hungry. Seasonal specialities are also offered. Currently eels are in season so we have lamproie a la bordelais bubbling away too. But in all of the markets we have visited and stared at the delicious looking foods, this paella in the market in Aix en Provence is my favorite. The entire surface is covered by large shrimp and dotted with mussels. Other photos of the market and our trip are at http://www.flickr.com/photos/petillant

Celebrity Chef

Our trip to Provence was wonderful. The weather was great, the food excellent, the markets fabulous, and the one in Nice had a celebrity shopping next to us. Yes, that is Jacques Pepin! RXC and I are huge Jacques fans. We own most of his cookbooks and the few TV shows we watched in the US were his (when cooking with Julia our favorite). I heard 2 men discussing directions in French, looked up and saw one of my food idols. Luckily camera was at hand.

I will be putting up more photos of the trip and update the posting later today. There was a paella at the market in Aix en Provence to die for. Stay tuned.

Roadtrip

Today we planted about 100 small shrubby plants along the edge of our property. We were given the plants by our neighbor who started them from cuttings. They all flower and are meant to attract bees which will help him out as he is a honey producer. Tomorrow we are driving to Provence, somewhere near Aix. Then Saturday we are having lunch with friends from our Paris days at their home near Toulon, and then we go on to Bar sur Loup near Grasse, again to see friends. We plan to take the Guide Hachette and taste and hopefully buy some wine and also bring back some pottery (I need nothing) and some good olive oil. We want to check out marinas for future boat trips. We will be staying near the Med for about 5 days so I will be off line until the middle of next week. When I return I will post photos of the Med and scenes from our other adventures.

Poisson d'Avril Update

That is the French equivalent to April Fool's Day. Children play tricks on each other and will try to tape a paper fish to the back of a friend so that when it is discovered they cry "poisson d'avril".

The chocolate shops will have lovely chocolate fish for sale today. Unfortunately, we are working on replacing the kitchen sink and are not going into town this morning so I don't have a photo to post. Update: Well after work did not go well with the sink, we went to M. Chevalier this afternoon for a poisson. Here is a dark chocolate one but without any surprises inside (watching the weight). We will wait until after dinner to taste it.

My other "poisson d'avril" will have to be Dante ready to go for a spin.