Thanksgiving

Today in my shopping basket: Roquefort, Comte (cheese), Lindt dark mint chocolate, and a hyacinth bulb.

Woman in front of me: A Bordeaux, a single sausage, some mozarella.

Maybe we should get together and have a potluck.

Still on the subject of food, this past weekend, like a good American, I celebrated Thanksgiving  not once but twice...back to back. I just unbuttoned my pants. It assure you it was worth pushing through that uncomfortably stuffed sensation  to show those frogs what we're made of - As though they don't already have an awfully skewed view of the correlation between "American" and "obese" and that one of the first things we are acredited with when presented as "American" is he who bequeathed fast food to the developed, and undeveloped world. ANYWAY. I had to show them that we can stuff our faces and get obesce with more than just "McDo" but also turkey, and stuffing, and mashed potatoes, and pies...

Friday we celebrated with a kind of French/American collaboration at an obliging friend's parents house. We were 25 and for the diversity in the kitchen had a surprisingly spot-on rendition including 2 turkeys and all the appropriate sides. Greatest surprise: Stuffing with sausage, celery, mushrooms and dried cranberries. Biggest disappointment: an attempt at pecan pie - it's just not the same without corn syrup.

I unfortunately was unable to procure a turkey for the dinner I hosted chez nous on Saturday. When I went to the poultry woman at the market in St. Cyprien and asked about ordering a turkey she looked at me as though I had 2 heads assuring me that it was impossible in all of France to find a turkey before Christmas, the only sensible time anyone would want one. I badly wanted to prove her wrong but instead she proposed 2 lovely farm raised chickens that I took her up on. My friend Helen whose teaching a few hours outside the city came for the weekend and helped me cook for Saturday. We did the produce markets in the morning and that afternoon prepared, ahem: these excellent balsamic braised brussel sprouts with bacon bits and breadcrumbs, a one hit wonder cauliflower gratin, a pumpkin pie that I made from the single can of pumpkin I trafficked from the US, astutely remembering the battle of Lindsay v. Raw Pumpkin from Thanksgiving 2010, and a French silk chocolate pie topped with homemade whipped crean, late raspberries, and hazelnuts. Where are my stretch pants?

My friends brought stuffing, mashed potatoes, creamed sinach and we roasted the chickens with rosemary and thyme.I always thought it was about the sides anyway, n'est pas?

I bought these tiny pumpkins to decorate the table that I'm going to try to cook tonight and stuff with roquefort and leftover bread crumbs. I refuse to be squashed-out just yet!

A bientôt!

Une Sale Histoire...

Hello all. So as some of you may have heard, my house in Toulouse was robbed last Friday  night. Everyone is fine and no one was home. I went out at 9:30 to meet my friend Alberto in town, and at 10:00 my roomate Ofelia called me in a panic saying she had just gotten home and the lights were on and things missing from the house.  I called Gisele and told her what I knew and Alberto and I took my bike back home right away. We all arrived home at about the same time - Gisele and her friend Christine whose house she had been at, Alberto and I, and the police. Ofelia was of course already there with a friend also. As soon as I saw the lights on in my room I knew they had been in there, something I had been fighting off assuming on the ride home. I looked though the window and saw the room I had left clean and organized just half an hour earlier in total disorder.  My clothes were all over, suitcases, toiletry bags, and the likes that I had stored under my bed were open and strewn everywhere, etc. Basically the place was a mess.

For the next hour we were in a kind of terrible stupor. The police were less than unhelpful, I couldn't believe it. I'm sure they see a lot worse than a nonviolent breaking and entering, but they didn't even pretend to be concerned . They looked around, took our information, and essentially said that the doors they had forced weren't very difficult to break and that someone would be by the next day for fingerprints. They then smoked a cigarette in the driveway, spoke breifly to the nieghbors and left. That night I slept at my friend Alberto' s place. The next day the forensic expert was even less cordial. Connards. Excuse my French.

The same day the 3 of us went to the police station to make a declaration of what was taken: computers, cameras, iPods, cash, jewelery, handbags, etc. 

After the initial shock, it's a terrible feeling to know someone has been in your space and touched your things and to imagine your property in someone elses house. It is more that than the fact they took from me what they did that is difficult to get over.  I didnt sleep well the first few nights and for the moment am sleeping in a guest room in the house. We have all been working on cleaning the house and reinstalling a good ambiance there. We had a dinner where we invited everyone who was there that night (except the police of course) which helped. I'm thinking about rearranging the furniture in my room after I clean and do what I need to there. I want to move back in there but know that I can't force myself.

My colleagues and friends have been nothing short of wonderful. Monday night I ate at a Spanish colleague's house. We talked all night and I ended up sleeping there. Sunday I went to my favorite market, St Aubin with all my assistant friends from last year. It was gorgeous out and there were lots of musicians per usual - a harpist, guitars, couple belting out Edith Piaf, and an ecclectic symphonie on the steps of the cathedral. I appreciated the music with new ears no longer having an iPod or computer to play music on! I saw a Brazilian man who made me a pair of beautiful earrings last year. We chatted for a bit and he ended up giving me another pair to rebuild my collection. I've never doubted the kindness of people here, but after a destabilizing and unpleasant experience I was just overwhelmed with how beautiful people can be.

This past weekend I escaped to the farm with Dominique and Cyril. The Norweigan couple, Jacob and Kathrine from Halloween were there too. It was great to get away from the city and the house. I slept and ate wonderfuly. We cooked a ton (as usual!), jarred apple jelly from the rest of the apples not used in the juice, I went to the market with Domi Saturday morning and Jacob and Cyril killed and skinned 2 sheep. Sunday the 5 of us butchered the meat for them to freeze. I'm becoming more and more of a farmer, n'est pas?

On the whole things are going well and I'm focusing on future projects: next up, Thanksgiving that I'm hosting here, my first ever!

That's all for now, I promise a much shorter post next time.

Bisous.

La Paix

Pour moi, la paix était toujours quelque chose qui venait de l’intérieur. C'est clair qu'elle peut être déstabiliser pars les éléments qui viennent de l’extérieur. Mais quand ça m'arrive, je ne m’inquiète pas, car je sais qu'elle reviendra. Il y a des choses qu'on ne peut pas me voler: les sources d’où viennent ma paix:

Le marché St Aubin les dimanches matins avec mes amis qui m'aiment, qui me soutiennent quand j'en ai besoin, qui me comprennent. Avec le bijoutier du Brésil qui m'a fait une paire de boucles d'oreilles car ils me les ont toutes volées. Avec les musique variées, les sons des instruments qui se mélangent pendant que je marche parmi les étals -  une harpe, une seule guitare, un couple qui chante Édith Piaf à pleins poumons, et au finale: une symphonie panachée sur les escaliers de la cathédral. Et maintenant, qu'est ce que j'apprécie la musique au moment ou je ne peux plus en écouter. Avec la joie des gens qui sont venus se promener pour passer une dimanche ensemble, je me sens caressée.

Le goût d'une vraie fraise chez mes amis les agriculteurs Dominique et Cyril.

Le plaisir de déguster la vie avec les gens que j'aime.

          Les gens, ma famille, mes amis.

Mon voyage dans le sud de l'Espagne avec mon ancien amour. 

          L'amour.

Cette maison avec tous les bons moments que j'ai vécus, et ces souvenirs heureux que je garde à moi toujours.

Le souvenir de tous mes amis réunis dans un salon au grenier d'un hôtel dans un Istambul sous la neige. 

Le rire de mon ami James, qui peut me faire rire même si un océan nous sépare.

Les yeux de mon petit chien guadeloupéen qui disent: Aimez-moi.

 C'est peut être romantique. C'est peut être idéaliste même.

Mais pour moi, c'est vrai, il y a des choses qu'on ne peut pas me voler.
  
         Ma paix.

Business as Usual

One of my no-longer-so-secret favorite things to do is spy on what people in the grocery line with me are buying. It's like an amped up version of people watching. At smaller (read: more expensive) local grocery stores it is even better, as people really boil it down to the essentials. I love to imagine (read: judge) what kind of life that person might have. Recently I've seen:

A single shallot, one steak, creme fraîche, and chocolate pudding. A bachelor feeling especially inspired?

Toilet paper and a bottle of red wine. Girl after my own heart.

Whisky and a candy bar. Typical Thursday night.

And 3 different kinds of cat food. I'd rather not to know.

Tomorrow I'm heading back to the Prefecture to figure out this visa business. Sometimes I hate France. Good thing the wine is cheap.

A Paperwork Inferno

Sometimes my life is a carefree rendition of Beauty and the Beast, where I ride my antique bike around Toulouse amongst the townspeople who wish me "Bonjour!" by name, filling my basket with fresh produce along streets that run with wine. OK, maybe not that last bit, but the rest.

And sometimes my life is a paperwork/immigration/bureaucratic inferno, like today. It all really started before the vacation, when I realized that the problem that I had never received my social security card last year had not resolved itself in my summer absence. Then, over the vacation I got a call from my cell phone company that they were missing a signature on some form asking me if I couldn't just breeze back over (for a third time) s'il vous plait and merci. Then, upon returning from farming, I found a letter waiting for me from my friends at the Office of Immigration. Inside there was all the paperwork I had carefully filled out, photocopied, and sent by registered mail to ensure it arrived weeks ago, along with a letter saying they regretted to inform me that my request to validate my visa had been denied. Something to do with the fact that I had already done that the previous year, and they "invited" me to please take a "rendez-vous" at the Prefecture. Finally my friend Helen left her computer charger when she came to visit and needed it overnighted, so the post office was tacked onto my list too.

So, that is how, this afternoon, I found myself with a daunting to-do list incuding: the post office, the Prefecture, the MGEN office of social security, the bank, and the cell phone store. Now, to any American this might seem like a busy afternoon of errands and "running around." However here, in France, it is much more than that, and it's not because I don't have a car, or an unlimited cell phone plan to call these places ahead, or that this isn't my first language. Ça fait rien. No, it's that the French foncionnaires, or civil servants, are among the most miserables ever sit behind a desk. Ask anyone. I promise.

So, me: experienced enough to know the nightmare of what I was in for, yet not experienced enough to have left it all for the same day. Merde.

I started at the Prefecture, which is basically a place where general administration for the region is directed, because it was sure to be the most hellacious. I arrived at 2:45 and saw on the door that they closed at 3:00. (In fact I have a theory that there is a direct correlation between how miserable the workers are and short the hours are.) Immediately upon entering the room I felt my impending bad mood intensify. I could feel the crushed dreams, the wasted hours, days, years people had spent there as I looked at dispirited souls half-heartedly knitting, pawing old newspapers, and trying to keep restless kids in check. I edged my way up to the information desk and began explaining why I found myself there, in the dregs of French bureaucracy. I lasted about 3 seconds before I was cut off  by the woman facing me, "What is your question?" I pushed the letter I had received forward. the woman didn't even lower her eyes but pointed ominously further down the hallway to a sole ticket machine amongst a crowd of poor souls slumped in folding chairs or leaning against the wall for support.  She added, "Since there's not too many people there, you still have time to go ahead and take a ticket." Not too many people??? I didn't want to see the other waiting areas. Maybe they included the bodies that had perished there in their count too.

I walked over, pushed the button and received my ticket: Number 547. Hour: 2:47. People in front of you: 55.

I looked up, saw the 110 eyes staring at me, sizing up what I was made of. I laughed out loud. Then left.

Maybe tomorrow.

a TON of apples

Just got back to the big city after 10 days in the country working on the farm of Dominique and Cyril. The same farm about an hour southeast of Toulouse where, if you will remember, I worked at last spring with my friend Lauren.


I found Cyril and Dominique as I left them, whimsical, teasing, thirsty for cultural exchange and hungry to cook good food together, although slightly more tired following the intensive summer/fall harvest than the previous spring. I also found a full house: there was an Irish couple and a German girl also working there, plus a Norwegian couple who joined us later in the week.

The extra hands were needed as they were preparing to make, pasteurise and bottle the organic apple cider they sell at the market. All in all we harvested 1,700 kilos of apples from 11 different apple trees, that's almost 2 tons!!



On Monday, Halloween, we rented a press from an association and began the long process. I only stayed for 3 presses and left just as they were firing up the large metal heating tank to pasteurize the juice. They were expecting to do at least 10 presses and yield about 1000 liters of juice.


It was wonderful to be back at their old farmhouse which is surrounded by the Pyrenees mountains. The leaves were just changing colors that week and in the hilly countryside we had outstanding views of the surrounding woods. I had one of those holy-smokes-is-this-really-my-life moments when I was sitting on the hill looking at the mountains with one of their dogs next to me, eating an apple I had just picked off the tree next to me.



The second night when Dominique pulled out a scrap piece of paper to scribe our "menu" for the week, complete with a homemade dessert for everyday, I knew I was among my kin. We ate just as well as I remembered last time: meat raised on their farm, fresh seasonal vegetables, and inventive dishes prepared with care. For them, taking at least an hour to prepare lunch and closer to two hours to prepare dinner is completely normal. Being down one or two people midday to cook is simply worked into their routine as enjoying eating and eating well is valued and it considered natural to spend time and energy on meals.

Unfortunatley the rabbits were very sick with a fatal illness. We took care of them for a few days but eventually they died. In happier news, they have a new piglet named Valentine who is absolutely adorable. She has taken up with Edmund, their massive male pig. Apparently the had originally put them in separate pens separated by an electric fence, but she "fell in love" and jumped the wire two times to be in the same pen as him, so now they are together, sharing the same little pig-house. Never one to miss a meal, she wiggles over his massive sleeping body blocking the doorframe to eek herself out to be the first to eat. Too cute.

In addition to going to the Saturday market in Muret, Dominique and Cyril have also started a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), or an AMAP (Association pour le Maintien d'une Agriculture Paysanne) in French. It is a "contract" between community members who would like to receive fresh produce on a regular basis and their local farmers. The community members are responsible for organizing the AMAP, and typically buy a "share" or "half-share" yearly and receive a basket of a constant weight each week containing different produce or products made from produce harvested that week. When I was there our baskets contained: potatoes, a little bundle of parsley, a few last summer peppers, carrots, chard, heads of fresh lettuce, fresh onions, beets, cabbage, and a bottle of their homemade apple cider. The agreement is based on the responsibility of the consumer pays the totality of the order up front, and the farmer, who provides the goods weekly. This system permits the small scale farmers to have a weekly income which they can count on, as it is more dependable than going to sell at a market. The community members come to pick up their baskets on a fixed evening.

This idea started in Japan in the 1960's when urban housewives and mothers feared the quality of the industrial produce they could find in the cities and organized the first teikis with smaller-scale local famers who did not cultivate using chemicals. This idea later spread to the US around 1985, and then to Canada. To find a CSA and support local farmers near you, try any one of these websites: Local Harvest, Farm Locator, or Eat Well Guide.

Back to work tomorrow. I'm starting to give more private lessons which is taking time. That's all for now.

For more photos from my farming check my Flickr account: http://flic.kr/ps/24jdkf 

À très vite!