wcs

We'll cross that bridge

2012-01-30T08:30:00.011+01:00

...when we come to it. And so we did. The dirt road to the river crosses over this bridge, which is little more than a culvert with a low stone wall on either side. The stream that it crosses is called La Rouère de l'Aulne (The Alder Stream); it runs down through the woods just to the south of our house to join the river.

The thickening fog made it difficult to see more than a hundred meters or so.

Near this point there are several paths that branch off through the woods. They're more than paths, really, but less than roads. It's obvious from the tire tracks that vehicles go through often. I suspect there are some hunters in their vans, some farmers on their tractors, and some kids in cars who frequent these woods. There were a few empty beer and wine bottles strewn about. But on this morning we were quite alone.

Except for the ducks.

We're going in there?

2012-01-29T08:30:00.003+01:00

Callie may look like she's a bit nervous about heading into the woods and toward the river, but in reality she's very excited. She likes to explore, especially when there are new places to sniff around in. There are often deer grazing in this field and I just knew she could smell them.

The fog got thicker as we headed into the woods toward the river.

We actually did see a deer on our way back out and Callie had a good romp chasing after it. She never goes very far and always comes back happy. After all, chasing animals is what she was bred to do. But in her case the wildlife has the advantage. Border collies like to chase in short circles; the long run is not at all interesting to them.

Down by the river

2012-01-28T08:30:00.004+01:00

Callie and I took our morning walk down by the river on Friday. We normally don't go that way because it involves walking down our road and then crossing the main road between Mareuil-sur-Cher and Saint-Aignan. The cars and trucks roll quite fast along that stretch and I worry about Callie. But on Friday we gave it shot. She did very well and we made it without incident.

One tree or three? On the left bank of the foggy Cher River.

Once we crossed the big road, we headed down a dirt path to the water. The sun was just coming up and fog was forming over the river. The woods were silent and a bit eerie, but very pretty. The ground was muddier than we're used to as the river had risen over its banks a couple of weeks ago.

It has since receded into its bed. Callie discovered a few ducks hanging out on the riverbank and got all excited when they took off across the water. For a moment I was afraid she'd dive in after them, but she's not a water dog and I didn't have to worry.

Snowdrops among the molehills

2012-01-27T08:30:00.005+01:00

The perce-neige (snowdrops) are up and, compared to last year, they seem to be several weeks early. The good news is that this particular bunch came back after being uprooted last winter by the moles. I had just planted them after swiping them from the woods on our neighbors' property (shhhh, don't tell) and the moles raised a hill right where I put them.

Snowdrops after an overnight rain shower.

They still sprouted and grew and over time I gently nudged them back underground. And here they are this year blooming! Interestingly, none of the other patches I planted seem to be up yet. I'm hoping they will come up before long. If not, I may make another scavenging run in the woods for more bulbs.

I could always buy some, but there's no fun in that.

Mountains and molehills

2012-01-26T08:30:00.005+01:00

The moles are very active in our back yard this year. I swear I'm going to name the little mountain range out there. It's probably visible from space. A few years ago I tried, in vain, to get rid of the little varmints (you can read about it here if you're interested). But I've since made my peace with the moles. They're good for the soil (if not for the grass) and they eat grubs and other larvae.

The Great Southwestern Mole Range in part of the back yard. A good source of potting soil.

Oddly enough, I thought that Bertie would help us to reduce the mole population or, at the very least, scare the little devils away. But no. In the nearly two years that Bert has been with us, he's brought us exactly two moles. And he didn't eat either of them.

Last week, during Bert's annual visit to the vet, we learned that cats aren't generally interested in moles. The vet didn't really explain why, and the little internet research I did wasn't particularly illuminating. But the evidence is clear: Bertie's presence has not had an impact on our mole population.

It could be because Bert doesn't spend a lot of time in the back yard. I think he sees the yard as the dog's domain. Callie will chase him out or up a tree if she sees him out there. Bert's wanderings generally take him farther afield. Maybe all the moles in our neighborhood see our yard as a safe haven.

Just my luck.

Party food

2012-01-25T08:30:00.006+01:00

Our football evening with friends was much fun. The game was good, and it even went into overtime. The better team won. The food was good, too. We tried to make everything more or less "finger food."

Some of the party food. The black bits are black olives.

In addition to the savory muffins I showed you yesterday, we had egg salad on toast rounds and foie de morue (cod liver) on toast squares. The main course was strips of chicken breast prepared Buffalo wings style with celery and carrot strips and a blue-cheese dressing dip.

The original plan was to make deviled eggs, but the darned eggs didn't peel well. What a mess. So they got turned into egg salad. We opened a bottle of Montaudan champagne to start, then moved to a red Bourgueil (cabernet franc) and a white Saumur (chenin blanc).

The chicken was a little disappointing in that it was kind of dry; that's what you get with breast meat. The supermarket was actually out of wings, but we had already decided that wings (with bones) might be a bit too messy to handle. But they might have been better...

Our friends brought an apple pie with a walnut crumble topping which we served for dessert. Very rich and very tasty!

Pounti mini-muffins

2012-01-24T08:30:00.008+01:00

I'm giving my mini-muffin molds a run for their money. And since they didn't cost very much to begin with, I think I'm ahead of the game. Speaking of games, I made these little muffins for our American football night on Monday. The original recipe is for a savory cake from the Auvergne region called un pounti.

La mise-en-place. All the ingredients assembled for making the cake batter.

The cake is made with chopped prunes (I used raisins), smoked ham, raw cured ham, cantal cheese, and blettes (Swiss chard). These ingredients go into a batter made with flour, baking powder, eggs, milk, oil, and some onion. I had to adapt the recipe for the mini-muffin format, so I chopped all the ingredients very finely.

The muffin batter in the molds. I love the purple color of the molds!

I was lucky to have some Swiss chard in the garden. Since our winter has been so mild, last year's chard has continued to grow and there were enough fresh leaves in our January garden for this recipe. It's nice to be using fresh garden produce this time of year.

Sixty little savory cakes. Perfect bite-sized morsels for watching football. And just in case you counted, there are only 59 visible because one is outside the photo on the bottom right.

I spooned the mixture into the muffin mold and baked it about half the time called for in the recipe for a whole loaf. The muffins cook much quicker than a loaf does. They came out beautifully. The recipe takes a bit of prep work, but if you want bite-sized cakes for a party, it's worth the effort. My recipe made sixty mini-muffins!

Chocolate mini-muffins

2012-01-23T08:30:00.005+01:00

This is a recipe for chocolate cake, made with grated summer squash (grown in the garden, grated, and frozen), that I used to make mini-muffins (or maybe more accurately, mini-cupcakes). The batter went easily into a poche à douille (pastry bag) which I then used to fill the muffin molds.

Chocolate mini-muffins cooling on a rack.

I'll serve them sprinkled with powdered sugar as dessert for tonight's finger-food evening of football watching.

While it's still January

2012-01-22T08:30:00.003+01:00

I thought I'd share the second galette I made for the season. It's probably the last one because, as everybody knows, the beginning of February means crêpes! I did better rolling the dough out evenly this time, and instead of a spiral pattern, I made leaves (I saw someone do that on tv).

Une galette des rois made with pâte feuilletée (flaky pastry) filled with home-made almond paste.

We already got a jump on crêpe season by making some on Friday. Ken got a new crêpe pan (on sale at the supermarket) that's almost twice the diameter of our other one. So we get bigger but fewer crêpes from the recipe we use. That can be good because it doesn't take as long to make a batch.

I'm going to make buckwheat crêpes for our lunch on la chandeleur (February 2) this year. We'll probably fill them with ham and cheese. Yum.

Periodic Puppy Pics

2012-01-21T08:30:00.002+01:00

Again? So soon? Yup. This is one of Callie's favorite routes, a deer path through an empty field between two vineyard parcels. I often won't take her this way when there's tall grass in the summer (lots of ticks) or when there's wet grass in the winter (cold wet jeans are no fun). But sometimes it's ok and we head on through. I can tell when we go that way that she really likes it.

You can see how frosty the grass is.

This time we saw Bruno L.'s burning barrel. It was early enough that Bruno hadn't arrived yet and there was no fire. Callie had a good sniff around; Bruno's dogs hang out with him when he's pruning and burning and I'm sure Callie could smell them.

Another sunrise

2012-01-20T08:30:00.005+01:00

You have to take 'em when you can get 'em. This time of year we have fog and clouds that conspire to hide the sunrise. So when the sky is clear, like it was on Tuesday, it's a treat. And when there are airline contrails streaking across the eastern sky, the effect can be interesting.

Sunrise with contrails.

Tuesday morning was also quite cold at a few degrees below freezing. I know there are colder places and I'm glad I'm not in them. This is just the right amount of cold for me. Enough to know that it's winter, but not enough to seriously mess with our daily life. Except for one thing: the daily fire.

Since we supplement our central heating plant with a wood burning stove, I have the daily chore of cleaning out the stove and building the new fire. I've told you before: it's fun in the fall and early winter. Pretty, nice and cozy, very holiday-like. But by the end of January it starts to get old. Cold ashes to sweep, gather, and dump (and ash dust that covers everything), going out in the cold for kindling and to split a few logs to get the fire going.

I really don't mind it at all. The fire is warm and saves us from burning more fuel oil. Our stove is a newer one that burns very efficiently (you can't see any smoke coming from our chimney) and firewood is a renewable energy source (it's a big business with all the big managed forests around here). But I still look forward to March when it can be warm enough to skip the fire, and not long after when I don't have to think about it again for six months.

Winter color

2012-01-19T08:30:00.001+01:00

The winter vineyard looks brown and drab, but it is actually alive with color. First, the grass between the rows of vines is deep green. It doesn't get cold enough here to turn the grass brown and it stays green as long as there is rain. There is also a good variety of evergreen plants and trees to balance out the browns and grays of the bare deciduous varieties.

An osier on the edge of the vineyard.

Here and there you can also see plants with berries, most common among them are the wild roses with their bright red hips. The plant pictured above is an osier, a variety of willow sometimes used in making wicker baskets and other items. Around us, the growers cut and use it to bundle grapevine trimmings for kindling.

Osier likes water and grows near ponds or small streams. In the fall the stems turn this bright yellow-orange color.

Just a dandy lion

2012-01-18T08:30:00.007+01:00

The past few mornings have brought temperatures below freezing and, as I hinted before, the little flowers that were still blooming out in the vineyard are dying back now. They're almost as beautiful in death as they were in life.

Not a dandelion but a flower from the same family. This one got frozen just as it was about to open.

Susan reminded me (thanks!) that I have a mono-pod (as opposed to a tripod) for the camera, so I took it out with me on Tuesday morning's sunrise walk. It helped me keep steady in the low light and my pictures are better. I'm still having problems with the focus in macro (close up) mode. My camera's manual focus doesn't function all that well. First off, it's electronic and not truly manual and the buttons are a pain to manipulate, especially when I'm wearing gloves in below-freezing temperatures. Second, the range of focus is very limited so I'm often not pleased with the result.

This is the same photo, just cropped differently.

The other issue is that the automatic focus has a handful of options that go from a wide general focus to a point focus, with several in-between settings. Navigating the menus to change that for each image is hard enough to do without gloves. As a result, I often end up with depth-of-field problems: a photo where the background is crisp and clear and my subject is blurry, or a portion of the subject is in focus while another portion is not.

This is one of the reasons I want to upgrade to a reflex camera with lenses I can manipulate manually, like I used to do with my film camera.

Another casualty of wind

2012-01-17T08:30:00.004+01:00

The wind storm we had in mid-December was not as bad as the one we had in 2010. Still, there are lots of branches down all over, including in our yard, but mostly in the woods around the vineyards. Even some small trees went over, like this one.

A small tree blew down onto the vines. Someone will be up there soon with a chainsaw.

I've been picking up branches in our yard and across the street in our neighbors' yard for a while now. I use what I gather as kindling to start the daily fire in the wood stove. A lot of what I pick up is from the many birch trees around, and that stuff burns hot and quick.

I usually have a good collection of the stuff at the start of the season, as I pick it up all during spring and summer, but the stack never lasts me through the whole winter; I'm usually gathering more sticks and twigs in January and February.

It finally froze

2012-01-16T08:30:00.005+01:00

Sunday morning when I got up from bed I did what I usually do: open the shades on the skylight windows in the loft. To my surprise, the windows were frosted over. Real frozen frost. A look at the thermometer showed the outside temperature to be about minus two celsius. Below freezing.

This wild carrot bud will not likely open up now that it's been frozen (it wasn't yet frozen when I took the picture).

Callie and I went out for our walk at sunrise and it was nice. Clear sky, no wind, and cold. The puddles were frozen over, the grass was frosty, and Callie stayed clean. I love it when I don't have to wash her off after a walk. That happens in winter, and only if everything is frozen, and in summer, only if everything is bone dry.

The morning freezes are expected to continue for a few days, so the summer plants, like the wild carrot above, will likely die back. And, we hope, the bug population will be reduced.

Periodic Puppy Pics

2012-01-15T08:30:00.004+01:00

Callie loves her daily walks in the vineyard. This is her fifth winter of vineyard walks, so she knows the routine. She even knows most of the people who work pruning the vines this time of year, although she doesn't treat them all equally.

Callie stops to see which way I'm going to go, left or right (I went left).

For example, the guy who's working in this photo (you can see where he is by the column of smoke rising as he burns the clippings) is someone she knows and likes. His name is Bruno and he has three dogs that are often with him out in the vines. Callie will run up to Bruno and let him pet and hug her.

There are other people who work out there that she'll run up to to say hello, but for some reason she won't let them touch her. I'm not sure how she decides who to get close to and who to stay clear of. These particular people like dogs and don't do anything that I recognize as threatening. It might be that there are three of them, or it might be the orange battery packs they wear to power their pruning shears. Or maybe they smell funny. Who knows?

There are still flowers in the vineyard

2012-01-14T08:30:00.005+01:00

La carotte sauvage (wild carrot or Queen Anne's lace) is a late summer and fall bloomer. Here it is mid-January and the plants are still producing flowers. Normally, by this time of year, freezes have stopped all of that and the flower stalks are dry and brown.

A wild carrot in bloom, in January, in the vineyards behind our house.

This condition mightn't last, however, as we are expecting our first freezes of the season this weekend. The weather people are not predicting hard freezes; the mornings will be at or just below the freezing point. It may not be enough yet to stop the flowering or kill that bugs that are normally gone by now. We'll see.

Moonset

2012-01-13T08:30:00.005+01:00

The full moon occurred on Monday, but with our foggy days and nights we don't get to see much of it. After dark the sky is luminescent, the fog kind of glows in the sky. That's how I know the moon is really there. On Wednesday morning the fog was gone and there was the moon, a couple of days past full, sinking down in the western sky over the vineyards.

The sun had actually just made it up when I took this picture toward the end of my walk.

I was outside before the sun came up, so my pictures from this walk came out a bit fuzzy. I didn't take the tripod with me. I still got a few interesting shots, but was disappointed with most of them. Lugging the tripod around on a dog walk is not all that much fun, but the photos come out better.

The work day begins

2012-01-12T08:30:00.004+01:00

Even with the lengthening days, we still have fewer than eight hours of light between sunrise and sunset. The grape growers have to get up and out before the crack of dawn to get in a full day's work. Remember, between noon and two p.m. they stop and go home for lunch. That makes for about six good hours of pruning.

A grower pruning grape vines at sunrise on Wednesday.

Many of the growers around us are out before the sun comes up and don't leave until well after it has set, making for a decent eight hours in the vines. We see them on our daily walks with the dog, which happen at sunrise and sunset every day.

The guy in this photo works alone or with one other colleague on this parcel out by the end of our dirt road. He uses pruning shears powered by a battery pack (most of them do) and lines up the cuttings in neat rows in the space between the vines. Later in the spring he'll drive his tractor up and down the rows pulling a mulcher to grind up the cuttings.

By the way, this is this blog's 2,000th post!

Mini-muffins with goat cheese

2012-01-11T08:30:00.012+01:00

About a month ago, I saw this recipe for savory mini-muffins on Chez Loulou, a blog written by a fellow American expatriate who, until her recent move to Normandy, lived in the south of France. Loulou's stated goal is to taste "each and every French cheese available in France." She started on that quest in 2007 and I believe she is getting very close to achieving it.

Mini-muffins made with goat cheese and rosemary.

I liked the idea of these muffins that I could serve at apéro time and I wanted to try them, especially because we live at the intersection of three A.O.C. goat cheese producing regions. I got a set of mini-muffin pans last week (a steal from Auchan: a silicon mold for fifteen muffins for three euros. I got two!) and made the recipe over the weekend. As Loulou points out, the recipe is easy, not fussy. And the bite-sized muffins are perfect finger food.

A small snack for two...

My muffins didn't turn out as well-formed as Loulou's, but they were amazingly tasty and I know they will be a hit whenever we host drinks and snacks. I'll work on improving their looks the next time I make them. I also got to thinking about variations on the theme. I'm sure this technique would work well with other savory breads like pounti, not to mention sweet ones like zucchini or pumpkin breads.

...or a tray-full for a crowd.

Meat for dogs

2012-01-10T08:30:00.006+01:00

It should come as no surprise that some people cook for their dogs. Some dogs are picky eaters, others have bad reactions to commercial pet foods, and some are just pampered pooches. Callie is in the unenviable position of living with thrifty humans. I can't see paying the prices for canned or pouched wet food for her. Her main staple is store-bought dry kibble, but that can get boring.

All this dog food for €1.50!

So whenever we have table scraps of meat, cartilage, fat, or cheese rinds, they go into the fridge for Callie. I add a little of the tasty stuff to her kibble and that gets her appetite going. We actually used to cook rice for her, but she started gaining weight, so we cut that out. I don't think she misses it.

Here's the cooked and cubed meat, ready for the freezer.

Just the other day, when I went to feed Callie, I noticed that we were out of meat scraps. No cheese rinds, either. Nothing. I was heading out to the grocery store and Ken suggested I look for viande pour animaux (meat for animals) at the butcher section. Our local Super U grocery frequently has bits of meat they sell for pets, but the cost is not much lower than standard stew beef, so we don't make a habit of buying it.

But on Saturday I checked at our other local market, Intermarché, and they had a big package of viande pour animaux. It must have weighed about a kilo and a half (about three and a third pounds) and they were selling it for €1.50 (about $1.90 US). That works out to about one euro a kilo or 58¢ a pound. And it looked pretty good. I mean, there were whole steaks in there!

Normally our supermarkets will mark down meat items on their sell-by dates. I assume that if they don't sell by then, they will then get repackaged for animals. These cuts, as you can see above, are not at all attractive for human consumption, but Callie isn't as discriminating when it comes to meat. As I said, the package had several whole steaks, some organs (mostly liver), and long strips of trimmed fat and meat. I cooked it all in the oven then cut it up into chunks.

I ended up with four ziploc bags full for the freezer and one container for the fridge. The cooked meat weighed in at about 1.2 kilos (2.6 lbs.). That should keep Callie happy for a while.

The Spo-shirt arrives in France!

2012-01-09T08:30:00.009+01:00

A little background: Ur-Spo is a blogger who lives in Phoenix, Arizona (USA). He writes Spo-Reflections, a blog I've been reading for some years now. He's a psychiatrist. A Jungian, I believe, although I have really no idea what that means. He's originally from Michigan and from a big family. He likes good tea (no rubbish), and enjoys a "jolly good time." He lives with Someone (his partner) and their dog Harper. He spends annual vacations in Palm Springs and Key West. And he makes shirts.

Yours truly posing at Chambord sporting the famous Spo Shirt of Shirts.

Dr. Spo (pour les intimes) likes to sew shirts using unusual tropical-style fabrics. He has made many, both for himself and for his friends. When he blogs about new shirts or new fabrics, his followers (which he lovingly calls Spo-Fans or Friends of Spo) love them. One of the Spo-Fans loved the shirts so much, he suggested that Dr. Spo send one of his shirts on an around-the-world tour. And so he did. Read about it here.

All this could be yours. If you're a French king from the 16th century.

Dr. Spo decided that for every person that wore the shirt and blogged about it, he would donate a certain sum to one of four charities, thus making the Spo Shirt Tour a worthy cause. The charities from which he will choose are: Doctors Without Borders (Médecins sans frontières), the Humane Society, Test Positive Awareness, and the Prostate Cancer Foundation. All worthy, although as a dog lover, I'm partial to the Humane Society.

I give you Chambord!

I got the shirt from Peter in the Netherlands last November. Since then, I've been waiting for a good weather day to make photos of me wearing it at the Château de Chambord, a local historical site and one of the most famous of French castles. We had the holidays, we had the storms, and we had the colds that knocked us out. But last Friday, everything came together and Ken and I drove up to Chambord for a photo session.

"Le Making Of" as they say in France. Ken snapped a picture of me prepping for my shoot. It was damn cold.

I'm happy to have been able to participate in the Shirt of Shirts World Tour. When it was first announced, I hesitated because I didn't know if anyone would want to send the shirt to Europe. But when I found out that someone indeed did, I signed on.

So now I'm sending the shirt on to the United Kingdom. I don't know where it will go from there, but I have heard some rumblings that people in Australia are interested. Wow.

Banner evolution

2012-01-08T08:30:00.002+01:00

I've had four banners on the blog since I started back in 2005. I thought that, since I just changed the banner photo again, I'd do a little retrospective for those of you who may not remember all of them. The first banner was a photo I took long ago of the Paris skyline.

My first banner: Paris. I took this shot from the Eiffel Tower many years ago.

However, I don't live in Paris. I'm three hours south by car. So, when it came time to change the banner, I looked for something more local. One of the most famous of the Loire Valley castles is Chenonceau, so I used one of my photos of the château's gallery spanning the Cher River to make the new banner. The Cher is the river that flows down at the bottom of our road. This castle is a thirty minute drive from our house.

The castle at Chenonceau, my second banner photo. I really liked this one.

The next banner is also a local château, but this one is on the Loire River and it's about thirty-five minutes by car from the house. It's called Chaumont and is a wonderful place to visit. I took the photo from the gardens that you used to be able to wander free of charge. Since a couple of years now you have to pay for this view.

The third banner shot: Chaumont. I liked this one a lot, too.

The current banner photo (at the top of the blog) is the grand-daddy of all the Loire Valley castles: Chambord. This one's a short forty minute drive from our house. It's a must-see on any visitor's list, although the interior is less impressive than the exterior (in my humble opinion). I took this picture just last Friday while I was modeling for tomorrow's post.

So there you have it.

La galette des rois

2012-01-07T08:30:00.010+01:00

I made the puff pastry on Thursday and it stayed in the refrigerator over night. You don't have to do that, but that's the way it worked out for me this time. When you're ready to make the cake, all you have to do is to roll out the dough so that you can cut two identical circles from it.

Roll out the dough to about an eighth of an inch thick, but large enough for two circles.

You need to be careful to keep the dough flat. Remember, it's pâte feuilletée (puff pastry). If you ball it up it won't puff up the way it should. So keep it flat. Once it's rolled out, cut two identical circles using a plate or other guide and a sharp knife. Fold up what's left and put it in plastic wrap for later; you can freeze it with no problem.

Cut out two identical circles. You can use a plate or a tarte pan bottom, like I did here.

Now it's time to fill the pastry. I used store-bought frangipane because the store was out of the ingredient I needed to make my own. That's why it's green (yuck). Normally I mix almond flour, sugar, and eggs to make the filling. That's much better. You can also fill the cake with applesauce or any fruit compote if you like. You also need to add the fève (the prize). This one is a little plate we got in a galette from a local bakery years ago. Yes, I save them.

Fill the bottom layer and don't forget the prize!

Use a little egg wash around the outside to be sure the top layer will stick, then put the top layer on. With a sharp knife, make a nice decoration on top and nick the edges as you see here. Once that's done and the oven is hot, use the remaining egg wash to cover the top of the cake. Be sure not to let the egg drip onto the edges of the cake because that could keep it from rising as it should.

Make some nice designs on top with a knife. This is an easy one, but they can be anything you like.

I baked this one in a hot oven for 30 minutes, turning the heat down to moderate about half-way through. The cake is a little lopsided because I didn't roll my dough completely flat. But who cares? It's still beautiful and it tasted great!

The finished cake! Let it cool then cut into it. Who will get the prize?

Making flaky pastry

2012-01-06T08:30:00.012+01:00

This is the season of the galette des rois. It's the kings' cake, named for the three kings of the epiphany. In France, on the epiphany, it's traditional to eat a cake made from pâte feuilletée (flaky or puff pastry) and filled with frangipane (almond paste). Hidden inside the cake is a little prize, and the one who gets the prize in his slice is king for the day.

Getting ready to make the détrempe.

Since I've lived in France, I've noticed how expensive these little kings' cakes can be. At one point I decided that I could make one and not have to pay the price for the bakery version. And I have succeeded to such a point that I don't even think of buying one in a bakery any more.

The flattened butter goes on the rolled out dough.

Flaky pastry is not at all difficult. It just takes a little time. First, you start off with a détrempe. That's a fancy French name for a mixture of flour, salt, and water. My recipe calls for 250g flour, 120ml water, and a half a teaspoon of salt. Mix that up until you get a dough, then roll it out to about an eighth of an inch thick.

The dough is folded over the butter to make a rectangular "envelope."

At that point you layer some butter on top. Before the dough is made, take 250g of cold unsalted butter (about 2 sticks in the US) and flatten it between two sheets of plastic wrap, roughly in the shape of a rectangle. Stick that in the fridge until the détrempe is ready. Roll the détrempe out so that it's larger than the flattened butter. At that point, put the butter on top of the dough, then wrap the dough around it, being sure it forms a perfect rectangle.

The dough is folded onto itself twice. Make two "dimples" in the dough to remind yourself.

Roll it out again, then fold it on itself in thirds. Roll it out once again, maintaining the rectangular shape, then fold it again. At this point you've done what's called two "turns." Wrap the dough in plastic and stick it in the fridge for an hour to rest.

The first step of a double turn. The next step is to fold the dough on itself once more.

After the hour of rest, take the dough out, roll it again, then fold it in what's called a double turn. That is, fold one end of the rectangle into the middle, do the same on the other end, then fold the whole thing onto itself. Wrap it again and put it back into the fridge for another hour.

Repeat this several times. Every time you do, you are making thinner and thinner layers of butter and flour, and that will make your puff pastry. In my next post, if I'm lucky, I'll show you how to make the kings' cake itself.

Les parapluies du Cher

2012-01-05T08:30:00.006+01:00

You've heard of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg? Well, these are the umbrellas of the Cher. I took this picture at Chenonceau in the winter of 2006. Apparently, we visited the castle in the rain. And that turned out to be a good thing because, contrary to what this photo implies, there was hardly anybody there.

Strolling along the left bank of the Cher at Chenonceau, March 2006. Click to bumbershootenate.

You might see this scene if you went to the castle right now. It's been raining an awful lot. Pretty typical winter weather for us. In fact, snow is not all that common here, even though the past few years have had at least one good snowfall. But this winter season is not over yet; it still could happen.

I remember, back in 2006, being in the gallery that crosses the river and I was the only person there. That's unusual for us tourist types. You can see my picture from that day here.

And yes, in case you're wondering, this was originally a color photo, and not a very good one. I've messed around with it in Photoshop to give it an old-timey look. I like it better this way.

Hey bud!

2012-01-04T08:30:00.002+01:00

I've noticed a lot of the flowering trees and shrubs in the back garden have set their buds. It's making me look forward to spring, even though winter's just started. And it hasn't even been very cold yet. Still, a couple of hours of sunshine and a look at the buds does wonders.

A few buds on the flowering prunus tree. It doesn't bear fruit.

I've also been thinking about what to plant in the vegetable garden this year. I'll certainly do the standard tomatoes, eggplant, and green peppers. I'm also planning a larger winter squash crop and I want to have green beans (which I haven't planted in a few years). I'll probably have some leeks and some chard. There will likely be collard greens and some cucumbers. Turnips are a possibility, too. One thing we discussed is not putting corn in this time. That'll make room for some of the other stuff.

Le château d'Amboise

2012-01-03T08:30:00.005+01:00

Here's a shot from about five years ago. This was before I had my first digital camera; I was using Ken's off and on at the time. This blog was only a few months old then and I don't think I ever posted this picture, although I'm sure I've posted others like it.

Looking at the castle from an island in the Loire.

It's the castle at Amboise on the Loire River, about 32 kilometers (20 miles or so) from where we live. We used to go up to Amboise a lot more frequently than we do now. That said, we did go at least once in 2011, and we even visited the castle.

I'm looking for old photos to post because our weather is not very conducive to photography right now. But that won't last. It never does.

Snow blast from the past

2012-01-02T08:30:00.006+01:00

Back in 1990 (if memory serves), Ken and I went to Yosemite National Park, not for the first time, but it was the first time we spent the night in the park, I think. We went with our friends Cheryl and her husband John, and our friend Sue (Cheryl's cousin) and her kids. We rented three cabins at Yosemite Lodge and planned to spend an early spring weekend (it was March) in the park.

This is me walking through the virgin snow in Yosemite, camera in hand.

It was great getting there, getting settled into our cabins, and partying with food and wine the first night. We all got a little tipsy and retired for the night. We woke up the next morning to the most amazing surprise: well over two feet of snow! Sue and I immediately grabbed our cameras and went out to take pictures before the plows and people could make marks in the snow. It was incredible.

Sue took this photo of me as we wandered around the valley floor that morning. I think it's very cool, and have had it in a frame in the house since then. I don't remember if this path had been cleared or whether there wasn't that much snow under the trees, but I'm obviously not knee-deep in snow in the picture.

I remember that second night (I think) was the night of the Academy Awards broadcast. Cheryl was really looking forward to seeing it. The restaurant at the cabin village had advertised that they were going to show it on their big-screen t.v. But during the storm, the satellite dish had filled with snow and couldn't receive a signal. No Academy Awards.

Still, we had fun wandering around the park in the snow, seeing it like most of us had never seen it and are unlikely to see it again. Since then, those particular cabins have been torn down. I think there's a new lodge/hotel at that site now.

Kitchen collection

2012-01-01T08:30:00.013+01:00

I haven't done a Kitchen Collection post in years. But this weekend we got a new food processor and I thought, why not? Our old processor was made by Braun; we bought it at Macy*s in San Francisco way back in 1988 or so. I was one of those people who used to say, "I don't need a food processor. That's what knives are for." Silly me. One day I wanted to make something that called for a lot of very fine chopping (a vegetable terrine or something similar) and we broke down and bought the Braun.

The old Braun food processor from 1988 with its four slicing and grating blades.

It was a great machine. At one point we got a new bowl for it as the original bowl was getting a bit scratched up. I use it all the time these days. I make pie crust in it. I use the attachments to grate carrots, celeriac, potatoes, and sometimes cheese. We also use it to chop basil for making pesto sauce. But I noticed recently that the central spindle is beginning to crack. That's not good. And just the other day I was grating some cheese and the part that holds the grating disks on the spindle shattered into several pieces when I turned the machine on. I decided it was time to look for a replacement.

The new Moulinex Master Chef. Ooooh, shiny!

This is where the internet comes in very handy. Ken and I did some online shopping and comparisons. I found out that Braun has moved out of large food processors and is favoring the smaller variety that are powered by stick blenders. In France, SEB makes a lot of different style of machines, each with different features and different power levels. We were tempted by several of those. I even looked at Cuisinart. I might be able to afford one if I mortgaged the house. Too big, too fancy, and not for me.

Clockwise from left: citrus juicer, blender bowl, centrifuge juicer, grating/slicing blades, whisk.

But then we saw this Moulinex (an old French company now owned by SEB, which also owns Krups, Tefal, and All-Clad, among other brands). The 3-liter bowl is a liter larger than the Braun bowl. It has two reversible grating and slicing disks, a wire whip attachment, a kneading blade, includes a citrus juicer and a centrifuge juicer (I'm not sure how we'll use that yet), and a 1.5-liter blender bowl attachment. At 1,000 watts, it's more powerful than the 750 watt Braun.

A close-up of the blender bowl. This will be good for making crêpe batters.

The Moulinex was featured on several online shopping sites, but Amazon had a deal that was significantly lower in price than most of the others. The only drawback was that they said it would take four to six weeks before they could ship it. So what, we said. It's worth the wait for that price, and the Braun still works without the grating attachments. So we placed the order.

The very next day we got a message from Amazon saying the processor was shipping and that we'd get it on Friday. And we did! The machine is larger than what we're used to, and I'm a bit tentative with it for the moment (the blade is so sharp that I actually cut my finger handling it), but I have a feeling it won't take us long to get used to it.

I should also mention that the old Braun, being an American model, needed to be plugged into a transformer to get its power. We have a transformer about the size of a small toaster sitting behind the microwave. When we first got it eight years ago, it powered three American appliances. Now it only powers one: the Kitchen Aid stand mixer.

I realized too late that I didn't take a picture of the dough kneading attachment. Oh well.

A little pruning here, a little pruning there

2011-12-31T08:30:00.003+01:00

And pretty soon, it's all done! Well, it won't be done for a few months yet. But I'm seeing the growers and their employees out there getting started. It's not a fun job. They're out there in the cold and rain and fog and snow. Bundled up. Clipping away. All of it is done by hand.

The vines are pruned and the clippings are lined up between the rows. They'll be mulched later on.

But thankfully, they are out there. Without them, we wouldn't have glorious new vine sprouts in the spring. No new little grapes, no wonderful bunches for the fall harvest. Which of course means no wine!

So we celebrate the heroic (for lack of a better word) efforts of the pruners.

Again with the sun

2011-12-30T08:30:00.002+01:00

This is still a view of Monday's sunset. We didn't see the sun again until Wednesday morning. But soon after we were in the fog again. That's because we drove down to Le Grand Pressigny (about an hour south of us) at the invitation of Jean and Nick who have a house there. We spent a wonderful afternoon and evening eating, drinking, and laughing. We even played Monopoly.

The sun setting in the southwest seen from one of the loft windows.

Ken won the game pretty handily. I went bankrupt, and I even owned Park Place for a while. Oh well. We spent the night so that we didn't have to drive home full and tipsy in the dark. On Thursday morning Nick made up a batch of oat cakes served with British bacon and black pudding. We also had cream cheese, bagels, and smoked salmon. A very nice time all around.

We stopped briefly to say hello to Susan and Simon in Preuilly-sur-Claise and got home in the early afternoon. Since we had turned our heat off before we left, the house was quite cold and it took a couple of hours to warm it back up.

A foggy sunset

2011-12-29T08:30:00.002+01:00

The sun managed to poke through the fog and clouds a few times on Monday. Just before sunset, I saw this out one of the back windows and ran for the camera. It was eerie and beautiful; my photo doesn't do it justice.

Looking southwest toward the setting sun. Click to solify.

Our recent mornings have been chilly, but still above freezing. Not that I'm anxious for a freeze, but I know people around here will start complaining if it doesn't get colder soon. They'll say that we need the freezes to kill off the excess bugs and fungi and molds. They'll say that a warm winter will ensure a cold summer. Old wives tales die hard.

The hamlet on Christmas Eve

2011-12-28T08:30:00.003+01:00

I took this photo of our little hamlet on Saturday morning. The vineyard is brown these days and the pruning has begun, albeit tentatively. It'll get under way in earnest come January. The ground is almost spongy owing to all the rain we've had this month. To date we've measured over 145 millimeters, nearly six inches.

Green grass and milky skies. Christmas Eve 2011. Looking northeast toward our house.

For now the rain pattern has stopped and higher pressure has built in. And you know what that means. Fog. The air is still and the fog hangs all around, erasing any views farther than a few hundred meters.

We heard on a recent newscast that 2011 is officially the warmest year on record in France, and they've been keeping records since the late nineteenth century. We certainly haven't had a freeze yet this season, and the couple of frosts we had were very light and scattered.

I wonder what 2012 will bring?

A canal barge in Champagne

2011-12-27T08:30:00.003+01:00

This barge, moored near the center of Mareuil-sur-Aÿ in Champagne's Marne Valley, is actually a gîtes de France rental property. I think it would be interesting to spend a few days on the boat. I'll have to look it up to see what the details are.

Looks like a nice place to stay. The boat's name is "Of Clay and Water."

Yesterday, Monday, Boxing Day (what we Americans call the Day After Christmas), started out with a beautiful sunrise. I tried to take a few pictures of it, but I don't like the way they turned out. Still, I was looking forward to going out in the vineyard with the dog. Just as it got light enough to head out, they came. The trucks and cars. The drove out into the vineyard and parked, spacing themselves along the road.

That can only mean one thing: une battue (an organized hunt). The guys station themselves along the road with rifles in hand waiting for the prey to be driven up from the stream bed in the woods. Callie and I had to modify our walk and stay very close to the house. I could hear the horns and the hunting dogs barking over on the next road. We scurried around the edges of our neighbors' property and headed back into the safety of the house.

I worry about a stray deer jumping out in front of us and Callie chasing it into the hunt. So far we've been lucky.

Trophies

2011-12-26T08:30:00.003+01:00

Back in October, when we were in Champagne for four days, I collected all the corks from our bottles of bubbly and lined them up on top of the refrigerator. I may have missed one or two.

Remember, there were three of us.

There's one cork up there that was from still wine, not bubbly. But there's also another cork up there that's from a bubbly, but not a Champagne. I don't remember how that happened.

The fondue

2011-12-25T08:30:00.005+01:00

This year-end season is one filled with traditions. There are traditions that you inherit and there are traditions that you make. This is one we made. Many years ago we decided it would be fun to have a fondue savoyarde (a cheese fondue) on Christmas Eve. We enjoyed it so much we've been carrying it on as a tradition ever since. It's been at least fifteen years, maybe more.

I don't know why it looks so yellow in this photo. But it was delicious nonetheless!

This year was no different. We did the standard recipe, a mix of comté, gruyère, and emmental cheeses with white wine, a little nutmeg, and some kirsch. I will say that it's probably not the best recipe since we have mixed results with the consitency from year to year. But still, it's always tasty and we enjoy it. This year, along with bread cubes, we also dunked cubes of apple and pear into the melted cheese. It's not the first year we've done that, but it's delicious when we do.

Here's wishing you and yours a very merry holiday season, whatever holiday and tradition you celebrate!

For my friend, m.

2011-12-24T08:30:00.004+01:00

You see, Mark? There's your blog being looked at in France. Merry Christmas. As you can see, the new monitor is here and installed. I needed a new graphics card in the computer to make it work the way it should, and that is now installed and working, too.

The new monitor in its new home.

Interestingly, when I first installed the new card, the computer wouldn't start. I took it out, and the computer started up just fine. So I put the card back in and once again the computer wouldn't start. I was very disappointed, thinking that the new card just wasn't compatible with my seven year old computer. But, according to the specs, it should be.

After I pulled it out the second time, and ate some lunch, I had an idea. I took a little squeeze bulb and blew air into the slot where the card went. I must have dislodged a bit of dust, because after I put the card back in, the computer started up and everything worked just fine. The dust was mucking up the electronic connections. This is an example of why it's very important to open up your computer once a year and vacuum out the dust.

What a relief! I was dreading having to send the card back and thinking about buying a new computer. My "old" machine still has some life in it. And that's a comforting thought.

Typical French signs

2011-12-23T08:30:00.005+01:00

I saw these in Champagne, but I would see these signs anywhere in France. They are on every main street in every town in the country. More than once. And in every Parisian neighborhood. If you've been here, you've seen them.

The sign on top is for the French national lottery. The agency that runs the lottery is called Française des jeux. I think it's short for La Sociéte Française des Jeux (The French Gaming Corporation), but I can't find anything on the internet to confirm that. The next sign is one that means you can buy newspapers and magazines at this shop. La presse.

Below that is a sign for a local newspaper, l'union. It's the newspaper of the Champagne-Ardennes region. I don't think we got a copy while we were there. And I don't think it has anything to do with that satirical newspaper, The Onion. LOL.

On the bottom is the tabac sign, meaning you can buy cigarettes at this shop. I think this sign, ubiquitous in France, might be an endangered species, as smoking regulations get tighter all the time.

There's another sign, just visible behind the presse sign, that tells people that this shop is a branch of the post office. It's not a full-service post office, but the shop contracts with the national Poste to offer some limited services.

So there you have it. Typical signs on every main street in France.

Apples to apples

2011-12-22T08:30:00.004+01:00

Yesterday we had one of my favorite meals: a steak au poivre (pepper steak) with a cream sauce made with calvados (apple brandy) and served with french fries. We followed that with a green salad. Dessert was an apple tart. I started out with these beautiful reinette apples.

Beautiful apples called reinettes.

Lunch was scrumptious as it usually is. Then we had the tarte. Yum! I also got the news that my new monitor will be delivered today (Thursday). Here's the tarte before we cut into it.

An apple tarte made with a custard filling. Yum!

So if the monitor is indeed delivered today, I'm planning to clean out the space where it will go before I hook it up, which means doing some organizing on and around the desk. I also plan to open up the computer to dust it out, a job that should be done every year. It'll be a busy day.

The shortest day

2011-12-21T08:30:00.002+01:00

Here we are on or very near the winter solstice. Yay! It's a great day because from now on the days will start to get longer. It's almost imperceptible, but it happens. This year hasn't (so far) felt as cold and dark as previous years have. Of course, we have all of January and February to go yet, so we'll see.

You can see the fire in the wood stove through the windows behind the lights.

One of my readers asked for a photo of the holiday lights on the house (or was that on Facebook?), so here it is. As you can see, I don't do much. I'm nervous about climbing up two stories on a ladder, so I just string lights along the railing on the deck.

And, since the recent storm and power failure, I've decided we're not doing a tree this year. Maybe next year. We can see the lights from the living room and that's festive enough!

A big bottle

2011-12-20T08:30:00.001+01:00

I remember the first time that I saw one of these roadside wine bottles in France. It was 1989 and Ken and I were driving through Saint-Emilion down near Bordeaux. There they were, these huge bottles advertising the local wine. Of course I just had to take a picture of that!

That bottle might last me a while... but it wouldn't fit in the car.

Now I know they're not rare things, these roadside bottles. The one pictured above is in Champagne just as you enter the town of Cramant. And, of course, we had to stop to take some pictures!

I can't think of any large bottles in our immediate vicinity here in the Cher Valley, but I think there is one in Vouvray up on the Loire, and I have seen giant sculptures of grape bunches here and there along the roads.

And you thought France was all snooty and tasteful.

Only one casualty

2011-12-19T08:30:00.008+01:00

After the storm and power failure, and after the power was restored, we took an inventory of our electronics to be sure everything was working properly. Ken had taken the precaution of unplugging the refrigerator and the chest freezer after the failure, and he had unplugged the modem/router the night before (they can really be sensitive to power failures). All of them came back without a problem once the power was restored.

The oldest monitor that still works. I think I bought it in 1998. It's an antique flat panel.

When I turned on my computer, however, I noticed that the screen didn't come back. No power. We figured out that there must have been a surge when the power failed that managed to blow out the monitor's power supply/transformer. I do remember that when we saw the flash outside and the power went off, it tried to come back on twice in the seconds following. Maybe those surges fried my monitor's power supply.

At any rate, the monitor (which is probably still ok) won't work without a power supply. I went online Sunday morning and found a Dell monitor, state of the art, with better resolution than my more than ten-year-old monitor. It's on sale with free shipping, so I ordered it. Later, Ken found some power supplies online that might work, so he may get one just so we have a backup.

Speaking of backups, I'm using the old ViewSonic monitor (pictured above) that I had in San Francisco for now. It's working fine, even though the resolution leaves a lot to be desired. But I'm glad that we wrapped it up and saved it because it's coming in handy right now.

No power is a pain

2011-12-18T08:30:00.004+01:00

A royal pain. We were lucky, however. Lucky that no tiles blew off our roof. Lucky that no trees blew down onto the house. I slept with earplugs because the sound of the howling wind stressed me out too much. Still, with earplugs the sounds of my beating heart and breathing were amplified and that was weird, but I drifted in and out of sleep just the same.

A feather from a pheasant (I think) in a puddle out on the vineyard road.

One thing made me very angry as Friday evening came and we still had no power: I could see lights on all around us, but our little hamlet was still dark. Not enough customers to warrant emergency service, I suppose.

Then, on Saturday around 11:30 am, five trucks from the electric company pulled up and they spent an hour replacing the transformer that blew out. The power was restored. We checked everything out, plugged the fridge and the freezer back in, and went to a lunch party we were invited to.

We had a wonderful time, all the better for knowing that we wouldn't be returning to a dark house. Thanks for all your supportive comments. They're greatly appreciated.

The vineyard shed

2011-12-16T08:30:00.005+01:00

Little buildings like this one are common sights around the local vineyards. Le cabanon du vigneron (the grape grower's shed). They once served as storage sheds for tools and places to take a little bit of lunch in the days before motorized vehicles made it easy to shuttle between home and the vines. Nowadays, they mostly sit empty or crumbling from neglect.

The grower's shed sits next to the dirt road through the vineyard behind our house.

This one is not far from our house, in fact we can see it from the guest room window. It's locked up tight and there's a small pile of debris blocking the door. Vines are planted against the walls on three sides, and every year the workers prune them back.

You are seeing this post because it was written on Thursday morning, prior to the big storm. We may lose power during the night because of high winds. That will mean no internet and no central heating. We have the wood stove; I'm going out this morning to split a few logs just to be prepared for the morning. And three of the burners on our kitchen stove (cooker) are gas burners, so we can boil water and heat food.

I'm hopeful that we won't lose power, and if we do, that it's not for a week like last year.

Here comes the sun

2011-12-15T08:30:00.005+01:00

Just as visible sunsets have been rare sights recently, so have visible sunrises. I saw this one just a few days ago during my morning walk with Callie.

The sun rises slowly in the southeast. It doesn't get very high in the sky this time of year.

So far this season has been very mild. I haven't had to build a fire every day, and that's good because it means the wood supply will last a little longer. Who knows whether we're in for a mild winter or if the temperatures will suddenly drop? Time will tell.

In the meantime, I'm getting sick of the wind. Where we live, up on the heights above the river, we don't have to worry about flooding. But the southwest wind can really blow up here. I'm hopeful that we won't have a repeat of February 2010 any time soon (although a new storm is coming in off the Atlantic today).

There won't be a sunrise like this one on Friday morning, if the weather prediction holds.

One man's trash...

2011-12-14T08:30:00.003+01:00

...is more often than not just trash. I saw this crumpled cigarette pack by the side of the vineyard road the other day. Someone just lobbed it out of a car window, I suspect. Classy.

"Fumer nuit gravement à votre santé et à celle de votre entourage."
"Smoking is extremely harmful to your heath and to the health of those around you."

Ken and I finished our bagels in record time, they were that good. So I'm going to do another batch very soon. I want to implement my changes and see if they come out as good or better. Bagels freeze very well, so in case we get tired of them before we finish them, into the freezer they'll go.

Making bagels

2011-12-13T08:30:00.011+01:00

I love bagels and we can't find them where we live in the French countryside. I know where to buy them in Paris, but not around here. So I've learned how to make my own. I've been making bagels now for several years, but this weekend I tried a new method that I saw while watching our DVD of Baking with Julia (Child). The guest was Lauren Groveman, and she and Julia made bagels together.

Starting to shape the bagels.

I used my standard bagel dough recipe, but decided to try Groveman's techniques. The only change I made in the dough is that I added about a tablespoon of black treacle (Groveman uses barley malt) to the yeast mixture instead of white sugar or honey. This gave the yeast the sugar that it needs to feed on, but it darkened the dough a little. Otherwise, my recipe was the same as usual.

Shaped bagels to be covered with another towel for a twenty minute rise.

Groveman makes her dough the day before, gives it a quick rise, then refrigerates it overnight for a good slow rise, so I did the same. The dough had doubled in size when I took it out of the refrigerator the next day. I punched it down and formed the bagels by cutting the dough into ten pieces and forming each piece into a perfect ball. I used my thumb to press a hole in the center of each ball and then widened the hole, making a bagel shape. At this point the hole is larger than you think it should be, but it becomes a normal size after the dough rises and cooks.

Bagels simmering in water, two minutes on a side.

After the bagels were shaped and laid out on a towel, I covered them and let them rise again for about twenty minutes. The next step is to pre-cook the bagels in boiling water, about two minutes on each side. I do this in batches because my pan only has room for about three or four bagels at a time, depending on their size. I add a tablespoon of honey to the water go give the bagels a nice sheen.

Boiled bagels on a cooling rack.

Once the bagels are cooked and cooled, the toppings go on. I used sesame and poppy seeds and some course sea salt. The next step is baking. I used to just put the bagels on a cookie sheet lined with a silicone baking mat, but Groveman recommends using a pizza stone and, since I have one, this time I tried it. A little cornmeal or semolina on the peel helps the bagels to slide off onto the stone, and the preheated stone (in a hot oven) really cooks the bagels well. Another of Groveman's techniques is to toss a few ice cubes into the bottom of the oven when the bagels go in, for steam. I did that, too.

Bagels on the peel, topped with seeds and ready for the oven.

The bagels baked for about fifteen or twenty minutes then sat with the oven turned off for about five minutes. I baked two batches of five bagels each. The process worked well and the bagels were delicious, but I'm going to make some further adjustments for the next time. Groveman recommends doing one batch at a time, but I didn't follow her advice. I made and boiled all ten bagels at once before baking. This meant that five bagels stayed on the rack for half an hour while the first five baked and I think they deflated a bit. Next time, I will not boil the second batch until the first batch is in the oven. Lesson learned.

The finished bagels. Yum!

Another thing is that Groveman's recipe uses more flour than mine, so I had less dough and my bagels were a little smaller than I want them. Next time, I will only make eight bagels instead of ten. It's much easier to work with batches of four as opposed to five, and the bagels will be a little larger.

Ken took these photos while I was in baking mode. Wasn't that nice?

Cherry jubilee

2011-12-12T08:30:00.002+01:00

Two years ago, in 2009, we had a good cherry crop. The trees around us were bursting with cherries and they were there for the picking. There are several trees nearby that no one really picks, and if the fruit stays on the trees too long, the birds get it all. That year, Ken picked a bunch of cherries and we ate clafoutis and made preserves.

A little cherry cordial in a tiny glass.

One other thing we did with cherries was to put them in a jar with sugar and alcohol and set them in the pantry. After a few months of maceration, the cherries flavor the alcohol and you have a nice little cordial.

Well, we forgot it and left that jar in the cellar for two years. I opened it last week and drained out the cherries. The fruit was not good to eat any more; the flesh had gotten tough and had no flavor. But the alcohol has a beautiful pink color and a rich cherry flavor. Yum! I put it in a bottle for holiday sipping.

A December sunset

2011-12-11T08:30:00.006+01:00

During the past few weeks, sunsets have been rare. Well, let me rephrase that: visible sunsets have been rare. We've been having a series of weather systems that keep the sky overcast most of the time. Before that, high pressure inversions kept us under a blanket of fog.

The view from our guest room window on December 2, 2011. Click to pinkify.

But once in a while, the fog dissipates or the clouds break and we're treated to a nice show at sunset. And these days, as we approach the winter solstice, the sun is setting earlier and earlier. Tonight, or should I say this afternoon, it will set at 17h04 (5:04 pm).

Gunk

2011-12-10T08:30:00.015+01:00

That's what I call it. There were several inches of it in the bottom of our water heater's tank. And the heating element was caked with it. Before he got to the gunk, however, the plumber had to fix our shower stall. It was really easy (for him) to get the stall unbolted from the wall, disconnected from the drain, and pulled away from the corner where it stands.

The gunk from the bottom of the water heater, some on the ground, most in the bucket.

He disconnected the flexible cold water pipe in minutes. Then he had to drive to the hardware store to get a replacement. I don't know why a plumber doesn't have that stuff on his truck, but there's probably some very good technical reason (like: I can charge more if I have to take the time to go to the hardware store). The shower was back up and ready to go in less than two hours.

A close-up of the gunk. I knew you'd want to see.

Next up was the issue of the water heater. Before he started on the shower stall, the plumber opened the drain on the water tank. It was still draining, very slowly, when he finished upstairs. Since it was close to lunch time, he said he'd just let it finish draining over lunch and come back after.

When he got back, the tank had stopped draining. When he opened it up, however, there was still a good six inches of hot water in the bottom. The drain is about six inches above the floor of the tank. I'm not sure why. So, the plumber got in his truck and went back to the shop to get his wet/dry vac to suck all the water out. That worked pretty well. The rest of what was in the tank was the gunk you see in the pictures. This is the stuff that's been clogging the filters in our faucets, toilet tank, and washing machine intake for the last year and a half.

The new pressure regulator. The white-ish pipe on the right will be replaced Monday.

It's not really gunk and it's actually pretty clean. It feels like sand, but is actually tiny crystals. I suppose it's crystallized calcium from the hard water. The plumber said it had to have been there when we got the tank; that much gunk could not have accumulated since we've had the tank. And, he said, the plumber who installed the tank should have noticed it was full of gunk when he moved it. Oh well.

He got most of it out of the tank and cleaned off the heating element. After doing that he installed a new pressure regulator. The previous one was obviously not working. This new one is adjustable so that we can change the pressure if necessary. It's supposed to protect the water heater from too much pressure and also is supposed to keep the pressure even throughout the house so that opening a faucet or flushing the toilet won't result in a sudden drop in pressure elsewhere (like in the shower). We never had that problem until that other pressure regulator went in about a year and a half ago.

The plumber is coming back on Monday because he wants to replace two short lengths of old cast iron pipe that he says are most certainly clogged with rust and calcium. He'll put in copper pipe, like the rest of the house has.

One of the nice things about having the utility room below the living space is that all of the systems are accessible. Nothing's hidden in a cramped closet or crawlspace or under a stairwell. It makes maintenance and repairs a little easier.

So, did it work? The shower is back in commission, so that's good. And the pressure is good, back to where it was before all this started. Ken opened a faucet while I was showering and I did notice a little change in pressure, but nothing like it was last week. So I think we're in good shape. The plumber said that now that the gunk is gone, the heater should be a little more energy efficient. And he turned the temperature down a bit; it was set too high.

I can't wait to see the bill for all this. Well, maybe I can.

A fungus among us

2011-12-09T08:30:00.002+01:00

I saw these little mushrooms on a path in Champagne. If I've identified them correctly, they are called coprins chevelus (coprinus comatus). This according to my Larousse pocket mushroom guide. They are supposedly edible when young, although I will never know.

Champignons en Champagne.

There are all manner of mushrooms sprouting in our back yard right now. We've had some rain, but even before that the mushrooms have been coming up. They're all different varieties (although I haven't attempted to identify them) depending on where they're growing. Some grow in shady spots, others in less shady spots. Some grow under conifers, others near fruit trees. Some, according to friends and neighbors who know, are even edible. Although, once again, I will never eat them.

I'm just not going to take any chances. I'll buy my mushrooms commercially.

Like the circles that you find

2011-12-08T08:30:00.012+01:00

These may not be the windmills of your mind, but they are becoming a common sight all around France. Between the Loire Valley and Paris there is a wind farm that you can see from the autoroute or the train in the vast flatness of the Beauce region. These éoliennes are in Champagne just east of the Côte des blancs vineyards.

You can get an idea of the scale if you look at the tractor in the center left of the photo.

Today our plumber is coming to fix a mess I made last Sunday. I've been noticing a gradual drop in water pressure in the shower over the last few months. When this happens in the kitchen and bathroom sinks, I remove the aerators from the faucets and clean them in hot vinegar to dissolve the calcium deposits blocking the water flow (we have moderately hard water). I thought maybe the filters on the shower faucet needed to be cleaned, so I removed the faucet control.

I turned the water supply off and removed the faucet connections with a wrench. The hot water connector came off fine, but when I turned the cold water connector, I noticed that the pipe itself was turning. Eventually the nut came off and I was able to clean the filters (they weren't very clogged at all -- I'll get to that later) and re-install the faucet unit. When I turned the water back on, there was only hot water. No cold.

Without going into all the detective work I did, I finally wondered if when the pipe was turning, it was twisting the flexible water hose behind the shower wall. I got a ladder and climbed up to the top of the shower stall and looked back behind it with a flashlight, pressing my face up against the wall so I could peer down into the narrow space between the wall and the shower with one eye. Sure enough, the hose was kinked. No cold water could get through.

I tried, with Ken's help, to twist it back with no success. The only solution is to unbolt the shower stall from the wall and move it away from the wall. Since I had no idea how to deal with the drain connection, we decided to call the plumber who originally installed the shower. He came by on Monday afternoon and we told him what happened. He said it's not a big deal (we shall see) and he would come on Thursday morning (today) to disconnect the drain, move the shower stall, and replace the kinked water hose.

We also talked about the pressure issue and the fact that about once a month when I clean the calcium deposits from the aerators, there is a bunch of what look like sand grains in the faucet filters. He asked me if, when I turn on the water, there is good pressure for a second or two then it dwindles. Bingo! That's exactly what happens. He thinks that the sand grains and the pressure issue means that the water heater needs to be cleaned out, so he's doing that, too. He's familiar with the make of our heater and says it's not a big deal to do.

We didn't get the heater new, it was given to us by friends who remodeled a nearby house. The unit was relatively new, but sat unused for some time before our friends bought the house. The plumber who installed it for us a bit less than two years ago added a pressure regulator right after our water meter, before the heating tank. For some reason, that is supposed to prevent harm to the heater. Our regular plumber said the regulator is an Italian model and it's not adjustable. He wants to put a French model on so that we can adjust the pressure to where we want it. I think he's going to do that today, too, but I'm not sure.

I'll let you know how it all goes. In the meantime, we've been using the small shower stall in the utility room. That's what we call the dog's shower since it's where she gets rinsed off after her daily walks.

Did you say boozy?

2011-12-07T08:30:00.005+01:00

No. I said Bouzy. It's pronounced basically the same,* by the way. But Bouzy is the name of the town where our rental house was located. You can see it below, from up on the slopes of the vineyards. The church steeple you see is the one with all the bells.

The town of Bouzy in Champagne, on the southeastern flank of the Montagne de Reims.

The town felt kind of sleepy, but it wasn't really. Each morning we'd hear trucks and tractors as they made their way from garages to the vineyards, or transporting bottles (probably empty) to winemakers, or even transporting wine to market. The bakery bustled and there was some light traffic in town during the morning and evening commute periods.

The town's only grocery was closed for remodeling, so we had to go to the next town over to buy groceries. That town was a little bigger and it felt like it had a little more going on.

* Except that the stress is on the second syllable: [boo-ZEE].

The house we rented

2011-12-06T08:30:00.012+01:00

The gîte we rented in Champagne was in the middle of the town of Bouzy, but the property was large enough to have a good courtyard and green space. It had a gate that closed us off from the street and Callie could be out in the yard with no worries. We didn't feel cramped at all. I noticed that wherever we were in the house or on the property, we had complete privacy; there were no windows facing us at all.

Our home away from home in Champagne, along with the car we rented for the trip.

The people who own the house live right across the street. They are winemakers and have their own label. Their son, who lives next door to them, was really nice and took Ken and me on a tour of their cellar and property, and gave us a wine tasting. His wine is good and we bought some. He told us that they don't make their own wine any more, so all that we were seeing was actually no longer in service. He delivers their grapes to a cooperative where the wine is made and labelled for them.

The house was nice and comfortable enough. The only weird thing was that the town's church, whose steeple we could see out the windows, was equipped with a carillon. Every quarter hour, from seven in the morning until ten at night, the bells would ring. The tune at the top of the hour sounded like the nursery rhyme "Three Blind Mice." The tune was followed by one chime for each hour (ten at ten p.m.!). After that, a single chime for the quarter, two for the half, and three for the three-quarter hour.

Vineyard views in Champagne

2011-12-05T08:30:00.009+01:00

It was October and the vines still had leaves. The harvesting was done, but I still saw a lot of people working in the vineyards. What were they doing? I'm not sure, but probably some kind of vineyard maintenance. I think it was too early to be pruning.

A pinot noir patchwork. Looking roughly west, toward Paris.

The vineyards in the first photo are pinot noir grapes on the south-facing slopes of the Montagne de Reims, just outside the town where our rental house was.

Looking northward. I like the grass under the vines.

The vines in the second photo are also pinot noir grapes, but this time on the north-facing slopes of the mountain near Verzenay.

Le Pressoir d'Oger, Château Malakoff.

The third photo was taken looking roughly east from the slopes of the Côtes des blancs, where the grapes are chardonnay. That's a cemetery in the foreground and a grape pressing facility at the top.

More chardonnay. These grapes face the morning sun.

And finally, another look at the chardonnay vineyards on the Côtes des blancs, this time looking up the hill toward the forest at the top. I like the way the vines are planted at different angles to optimize drainage.

I started to think about the differences between the Champagne vineyards and those around where we live in the Touraine. The feel is certainly different. Our local vineyards tend to be smaller parcels surrounded by woods. The Champagne vineyards seem to be vast, mostly uninterrupted seas of vines. The Touraine wine industry feels smaller, more individualized, with small growers making their own wine (there are many cooperatives around, too). Champagne felt much more corporate, with outposts of big wine houses (with familiar names) for pressing and fermenting mingled in with the smaller producers.

By the numbers, if my conversions and calculations are correct, Champagne's vines cover nearly 82,000 acres compared with Touraine's more modest 14,000 acres. And Champagne produces about 352 million bottles a year, whereas Touraine's annual production is only about 37 million bottles. While these numbers may not be completely accurate due to my less-than-rigorous research, they do reflect the huge difference in scale between the two wine regions.

Pintade à la broche

2011-12-04T08:30:00.006+01:00

This is une pintade (a guinea hen) that we recently roasted in the oven. One of the features of many French ovens is a built in rotisserie. It's a very nice option to have when roasting, especially a bird, because of the self-basting.

Roasted guinea hen still on the spit.

If I remember correctly, Ken put a dish of peeled potatoes under the bird to roast in the drippings. Nothing is wasted. And it was delicious, to boot!

We're starting to think about what kind of bird we want to roast for Christmas dinner. I think we've narrowed it down to either a turkey, a guinea fowl capon, or a local black-feathered chicken called a géline de Touraine. The géline is an older breed of farm chicken that died out, but it's been "reconstituted" through the crossing of the black Croad Langshan and the Bress Gauloise Noir breeds. The poultry vendor at our local farmers' market has them, but you have to order them in advance. They cost more than a standard chicken or guinea hen, but the gélines are arguably the best chickens I have ever tasted; worth the price for a special occasion.

They've gone too phare

2011-12-03T08:30:00.002+01:00

There is a phare (lighthouse) on the flanks of the Montagne de Reims. The closest serious body of water, the English Channel, is about 225 kilometers (140 miles) away. So what's the deal? From what I read, the lighthouse was built as a publicity stunt back in 1909 by a certain avant-garde champagne merchant named Joseph Goulet.

Le Phare de Verzenay and its museum, with the town down below.

The lighthouse was quite an attraction in its day, but fell into disrepair after the first world war. It was rehabilitated in the late 1990s and is now home to a wine museum. We didn't visit, but we did drive by.

And now, Champagne

2011-12-02T08:30:00.012+01:00

While our friend Cheryl was here in October, we drove up to Champagne for four days just to check it out. We rented a gîte in a small town called Bouzy, on the southeastern flank of the Montagne de Reims, not far from the city of Epernay. Our goal was to see what Champagne felt like and to taste a variety of wines.

Part of the town of Verzenay on the northern slopes of the Montagne de Reims.

All three of us had been to Champagne before, mostly the city of Reims, but also to Epernay. Those visits were quick overnights or drive-throughs over the years. This time we wanted to explore a little more. We arrived on a Monday afternoon and after checking in and doing a little food shopping, we made dinner accompanied by a bottle or two of the local bubbly.

The next day, we planned to drive around the base of the mountain. Well, it's not really a mountain, but a large bulge in the otherwise flat countryside of that part of the Champagne region. It's on the flanks of that mountain that you find many of the pinot noir vineyards.

This windmill was built in 1818 on a promontory above the town of Verzenay.

Pinot noir is one of the three grapes that go into a typical Champagne. The other principal grape is chardonnay, mostly grown on the hillsides south of Epernay which are called les Côtes des Blancs (the slopes of white grapes). The third grape in Champagne is pinot meunier, grown mostly in the Marne River valley west of Epernay.

Unless the label on the bottle says otherwise, Champagne is a blend of these three grapes. Also, typically, a Champagne will be blended with wine from the previous year. Winemakers do this so that the finished wine will be more or less consistent from year to year.

Some wines will be pure chardonnay; they are the blanc de blancs. Others will be made from just the red, or black, grapes; they are the blanc de noirs. Other wines will reflect an exceptional year and not be blended with last year's vintage; these are the vintage wines labelled millésime.

We tried some of each. We also tried the red still wine they make in Bouzy. We left no bottle uncorked. Ok, we did because we brought a bunch home with us. We're working on those.

Space, the final frontier

2011-12-01T08:30:00.009+01:00

These are our voyages to a wine-making enterprise. Our continuing mission: to explore strange new reds. To seek out new whites, new sparkling sensations. To boldly drink where none of us has drunk before.

If you look into Space you can see the stars.

This is Ken and his friend from grad-school days, Bob, entering the tasting room of a local wine cooperative. The tasting room is called l'Espace. Space. The entrance is this rather dramatic opening in the cliff face.

Bob, Norma, Ken, and I had a great time tasting a variety of their wines, including some sparklers. We even took some of them home with us.

Hailing frequencies are open. Beam me up, Scotty!

Spot me

2011-11-30T08:30:00.001+01:00

I suppose the lights have to be installed somewhere. At Chenonceau, they're installed everywhere. I've never been to the castle after dark. It closes at five o'clock in the afternoon between November and February, which is pretty much right when it gets dark. But I have seen photos of it all lit up.

You light up my life.

One way to see the lights is to walk along the river path on the left bank, which is free and doesn't close. I should plan to do that one of these days, or evenings, as it were.

A nice sit-down

2011-11-29T08:30:00.002+01:00

This is the area of outdoor tables at the self-service food place on the castle grounds. It always looks inviting, until it fills up with people. It's not very often that I visit the castle in the height of the tourist season, so I usually see the place empty with all the umbrellas folded up as it's cold and/or raining.

Just a few folks enjoying a break and cold drink.

But this day was nice and people were enjoying sitting out and having a snack. Lunch time was over, but I can imagine that there might have been quite a crowd an hour or two earlier.

I scream, you scream

2011-11-28T08:30:00.004+01:00

There are a couple of places to eat on the grounds of the Château de Chenonceau. One is a nice looking full-service restaurant tucked away behind the out-buildings and the other is more of a self-service place with tables inside and outside closer to the main walkways. Next to that second place is a little stand that sells ice cream cones.

What's the scoop?

The woman working the stand on this day was pretty busy. I noticed that she had a constant line of two or three people while I was wandering around.

I'll cross that bridge...

2011-11-27T08:30:00.002+01:00

I did cross that bridge. Many times. It's one of a couple of spans across the water to get from the "mainland" out to the castle at Chenonceau. The river bank on the castle's entrance side (the right bank of the Cher) is carved into small channels, a stone dock, and a boat launch. On either side, and high above the water level, are the two signature castle gardens.

Visitors crossing a bridge on their way to the castle.

I was down by the docking area watching the fish, which were probably des brochets (pike), swimming around among the river plants when I took this picture.

The Thanksgiving meal

2011-11-26T08:30:00.012+01:00

Many of you know that Ken and I bend tradition a bit at Thanksgiving. For nearly fifteen years now, we've been roasting a leg of lamb rather than a turkey for the day's meal. We've been in France for nine (wow!) Thanksgivings so far and our non-traditional tradition has served us well; turkeys aren't generally available here until the Christmas holiday.

The main course: roasted leg of lamb and gratin dauphinois.

This year, instead of a bone-in leg, we bought a leg that had been de-boned and rolled into a roast. We still have the bone from last year's leg in the freezer, so we knew we wouldn't miss the bone at all. And a rolled roast is much easier to cook and carve than a whole leg.

The raw rolled leg of lamb with it's chopped rosemary rub.

The entrée (in France, the entrée is the first course, what Americans often call the appetizer) was a salad of radis noir (black radish) with mimolette cheese, a hard orange cheese from the north of France. The radish is only black on the outside. I peeled it, sliced it into rounds on the mandolin, and arranged the rounds in what's called a rosace pattern on plates. I used sherry vinegar, olive oil, and salt & pepper to dress the salad along with slices of the cheese and a garnish of cilantro from the garden.

Ingredients for the entrée salad: black radish and mimolette cheese.

I got that recipe from a French cooking show several years ago and we really like it. I realized this year that we hadn't made it in a while, so we decided it would be good to do for Thursday. The original recipe calls for chervil, but we have the cilantro growing out back so we substituted. It was delicious.

This is an example of arranging slices "en rosace." You can see that the radish is white inside.

I made a rub for the lamb with fresh rosemary chopped finely with salt and pepper. Ken put a few whole garlic cloves in the roasting pan and that was it. Along with the lamb, Ken made a gratin dauphinois (what we used to call scalloped potatoes). I used the mandolin again to slice the potatoes thinly. Ken arranged them in a dish with a mixture of milk and cream that had been flavored on the stove with bay leaves, garlic, and nutmeg. That got baked in the oven until it was golden and bubbly.

The finished and dressed salad, ready to serve!

The lamb and potato dish were our main course. The lamb got slightly more done than we like, but it still had a pink center and it tasted great. We drank a bottle of Bourgueuil with the meal. It all went very well together.

Sliced and seasoned potatoes, ready for the milk and cream mixture.

Dessert was a variation on pumpkin pie. I grew the small French pumpkins called potimarrons (red kuri squash) in the garden this year. They have a very chestnut-like flavor and are delicious as a vegetable, but work great in pumpkin bread and pie recipes. I use a standard pumpkin pie recipe, but I cut down on the sugar and the spices. That lets the nutty flavor of the squash come through and we both really like that.

Pumpkin pie for dessert!

With dessert we opened a bottle of still (as opposed to bubbly) red wine from the town called Bouzy (appropriate?) in Champagne. We had brought the bottle back with us from our trip there last month. The wine is made from pinot noir and it's very light. Not excellent, but totally drinkable. The empty bottle bears witness to that.

All in all it was a great meal, and we have leftovers!

The shutters are closed

2011-11-25T08:30:00.006+01:00

This is the only photo I took inside the castle that day. Like I said, I got out of there after about ten minutes. People milling about in enclosed spaces make me nervous. Many of the castle's windows are made this way, and most of them are not shuttered so you can look out through them.

The window is attached to metal rods that are bolted to the casings on either side, providing added stability.

It looks to me like the precisely cut bits of glass are held together by strips of lead, constructed in much the same way that a stained glass window is.

On Wednesday night, we watched one of my favorite television programs. It's called Des racines et des ailes. I call it Roots and Wings. The program is a documentary that celebrates cultural, artistic, and architectural heritage, most often French, but from time to time they go abroad. The last show I saw was dedicated to the recent renovation of the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.

This week's edition profiled artisans involved in other recent restorations that included the Presidential palace, the Crillon Hotel, and Versailles, as well as a story about a man here in the Loire valley who makes wallpaper (by hand) and recreates vintage wallpapers, most recently in the rooms of the Pasteur Institute in Paris, and yet another story about a glass and crystal manufactory in Alsace.

At one point there was a brief fly-over of the Château de Chenonceau and a mention of the stonework restoration that was going on there. I thought that was pretty cool, since I've been talking about it here for past few days.

Stacked stone

2011-11-24T08:30:00.006+01:00

This is a shot looking directly up at one of the corbelled supports under a balcony (I think) on the front of the Chenonceau castle. It looks to me that it's been recently cleaned, if not repaired. A fancy bit of stone work, to be sure.

This is one of a pair, the other is to the right.

This is one of the few photos of the castle that I took on this day. Like I said, I spent most of the time outside looking at the construction work that was going on and at the people coming and going.

At one point, two women who saw me taking pictures asked me to help them with their camera. I don't remember what the problem was, but they had some setting wrong and I was able to fix it. They were very nice and very grateful.

Tote that barge, lift that bale

2011-11-23T08:30:00.004+01:00

And hoist a few of those big stones up here, while you're at it. These are some of the stones that were cut to replace the older crumbling stones in the façade of the Chenonceau castle. You may be able to see that they're slightly curved; they were intended for one of the round corner towers on the building.

Expertly cut blocks of tuffeau stone, numbered and ready to be installed.

I assume that the stone is the local tuffeau, the nearly white limestone that was and is quarried in our region for building many of the châteaux. The stone is soft enough to be easily carved, but it's also quite susceptible to acid rain. I've seen quite a lot of ravaged stonework around the area.

I'm glad they have a life-preserver on hand in case of an accident.

The guys I could see on the scaffolding were busy loading the stones so they could be lifted up and put in place. Keep in mind that they're working on platforms built on scaffolding that's sitting in the river. One false step... The part of the castle that is being worked on is hidden behind a big sheet of some kind of material that is printed with a photo of the castle. It doesn't fool anybody, but it certainly looks a lot nicer to the visitors than the raw scaffolding it's hiding.

The underground quarries in the Loire region, left after the stone was depleted, were often converted into wine caves. One rather large one near us, which I understand provided a lot of stone for the Chambord castle, is used for growing mushrooms on a commercial scale.

Castle construction

2011-11-22T08:30:00.002+01:00

The Château de Chenonceau is undergoing the final stages of a multi-year restoration project. Parts of the building have been covered in scaffolding while repairs are made to the exterior stonework. From what I've read, the work is almost done and the scaffolding should be down soon.

Les échaffaudages dans l'eau (scaffolding in the water).

Since the castle is built over a river, I'll bet that the placement of scaffolding is pretty tricky. But these folks must know what they're doing. I was intrigued by this bunch of scaffolding set directly in the water.

Periodic Puppy Pics

2011-11-21T08:30:00.006+01:00

It's been a long time. I took this picture in the middle of September when I was trimming the hedge. And trimming the hedge this year is what gave me this pain thing that I'm still dealing with. Apparently, I pulled some muscles in my chest the wrong way, and they're pressing on the nerve that goes into my left arm. Ugh. You know all about it.

Callie poses out by the hydrangea. Which reminds me, I have to trim that back.

As is my wont, I took photos of the progress on the hedge trimming. Callie, as is her wont, was out cheering me on. So I took her picture, too.

We're still working on preparing the yard for winter. My shoulder/neck/back thing is much better and I can get out and do light yard work. Using the lawnmower, for example, is not a problem because it's tractée (self-propelled). Tractée is in the feminine form because une tondeuse (a lawnmower) is feminine. Hey! I can cut my grass in two languages!

On the castle grounds

2011-11-20T08:30:00.003+01:00

Back in early September, after I got back from the Paris trip, we enjoyed the company of two of Ken's friends from back in his grad school days. Well, Bob was from grad school, Norma became his wife soon after. Ken participated in their wedding back in the (gasp) 1970s.

A planter on one of the terraces outside the castle, overlooking the Cher River.

One of the things we did during Bob and Norma's fun but all-too-brief stay was to visit the Château de Chenonceau. It's the castle that spans the Cher River and it's all of a twenty minute drive from our house. Ken and I have been to this castle numerous times over the years. It's a must-see on the château circuit. And, as such, is often very, very crowded.

On this day the crowds were not as bad as I've seen them, but I still got antsy inside the smaller rooms of the place. Since I tend to get a bit claustrophobic in enclosed spaces with a lot of people (or even a few), I ditched Ken and Bob and Norma and went outside to wander while they enjoyed the castle's rooms.

The red cat

2011-11-19T08:30:00.010+01:00

Le Beaujolais Nouveau est arrivé !

That's the phrase that's all over the media and in the stores on the third Thursday of November in France (and elsewhere around the world). The release of the new (young) wine from the Beaujolais region was a marketing event invented around sixty years ago when an exception to a decree allowed certain wines to be released prior to the official release date of December 15.

A recently consumed bottle of Beaujolais-Villages Nouveau.

The fad waxes and wanes from year to year, but it's definitely fun to taste the new wines when they come out. It's become one of those traditions that marks the season, and for us Americans it comes along just in time for the Thanksgiving holiday.

We've already tasted some local primeur wines in addition to a couple of Beaujolais. I think the Beaujolais that we've tasted so far is better than our local "new" wine. The Beaujolais region is not too far away from us, and the grape is the same gamay that's grown here. I'm sure we'll try a few more bottles in the next week or so.

On the wine producer's web site, I found this. The Legend of the Red Cat:

Les toits de nos maisons, en France, sont souvent habités par des chats qui sautent de toit en toit et se font entendre la nuit. Après une bonne soirée entre amis, et quelques verres, il se peut que vous les entendiez aussi. Ne soyez pas effrayé s'ils vous apparaissent « rouges », il peut s’agir du reflet de la lune sur leur pelage… ou de quelques verres de vin qui auront mis de la couleur dans votre vie !

The roofs of our houses in France are often inhabited by cats who leap from roof to roof and make themselves heard at night. After an enjoyable evening among friends, and several glasses of wine, you might just hear them, too. Don't be frightened if they appear "red," it could be the reflection of the moon on their coats... or it could be that those several glasses of wine have put color in your life!

Funky Feline Fotos

2011-11-18T08:30:00.005+01:00

Who's that knocking at my door? The other day, Bertie showed up on the deck outside the living room. It's unusual for him to climb up there during the day; he usually prefers the cover of darkness so the dog won't see him. But on this day he was brazen. And he sat out there, looking in, meowing.

Of course I just had to take a photo of Bertie peering through the window.

I went out and played a bit with him and he seemed restless, but nothing was obviously wrong. Then he heard Ken down in the garage below and he headed down there and meowed at Ken. At that moment, Ken noticed that the cat's kibble bowl was empty. So he filled it up and Bert snacked away before heading back outside for more kitty adventures.

Bert's told us before that his bowl has been empty. But this is the first time he came knocking on the door to do it.

On arrive à la fin

2011-11-17T08:30:00.005+01:00

I spent forty-eight hours in Paris at the beginning of September and have been posting the photos I took while there for the past two months. This is the last one. At least for now.

After finishing at the museum we went out for lunch and then I got my train back home.

It's a view of the corridor on the top level of the Pompidou Center that connects the exhibit space on the inside of the building to the escalators that hang off the exterior. I really enjoyed this museum and I appreciate that my cousin Mark and his wife Julie let me tag along with them for a couple of days during their honeymoon. It was great fun.

So, what's next? Well, we still had some visitors in September and October and we got out and about a bit. You'll see.

J'aurais voulu être un artiste

2011-11-16T08:30:00.002+01:00

I saw this rather elaborate bit of graffiti/art while looking out over the rooftops from the Pompidou Center. I'll bet that apartment is pretty cool. I'd love to see inside.

Typical Parisian roof tops.

I suppose that the artist chose this wall because he/she knew it was very visible from the terrace of the modern art museum. I'd rather see that than advertising.

Je suis passé, inaperçu

2011-11-15T08:30:00.003+01:00

As I wandered around in the museum, I passed by the larger of the terraces. This is the one from which I took the skyline photos. The sun shades were pulled down, but I noticed my cousin standing out at the edge with his back to the view. Then I noticed Julie, across the little water feature, taking his picture.

The terrace was moderately crowded, but I got a shot with just the two of them. Lucky!

Because of the sun shade, they couldn't see me inside the building, so I snapped a few shots of them. This one turned out to be my favorite.

Pour mieux nager

2011-11-14T08:30:00.003+01:00

This sculpture is on a terrace on the north end of the building. I don't remember seeing anyone out there, nor did I go out myself. I'm not sure if the door was locked or if I just didn't notice the door, but I didn't go outside.

I didn't make it out onto this terrace.

The sculpture is instantly recognizable as one of Alexander Calder's. It's called "Nageoire" which is the French word for "Fin." As in shark fin. He completed it in 1964.

Vu de la terrasse

2011-11-13T08:30:00.005+01:00

Some familiar sights from up on one of the Pompidou Center's terraces. In the first picture, in addition to the Eiffel Tower, you can see several of the ornate rooftops of the Louvre palace. The Louvre is a fascinating maze of a building, or collection of buildings, as it were.

Looking southwest, toward the Eiffel Tower with the Louvre in the foreground.

In the second picture you can see the big La Défense business development on the horizon. A little to the left of that is the top of the Arc de Triomphe. The pointed dome on the building in the middle of the image is the Bourse de Commerce (the Commodities Exchange). To the right of that is the church of Saint-Eustache with its beautiful Gothic flying buttresses.

Looking northwest toward La Défense.

Un pigeon qui patauge

2011-11-12T08:30:00.005+01:00

There are outdoor terraces on the upper floors of the Pompidou center for taking in the views without having to look through heavily tinted glass or sun shades. Each terrace has a small water feature and some sculpture. Not to mention a pigeon or two.

Just perfect for wading pigeons!

This one was enjoying standing in a shallow pool out of the sun. I did take a few view photos (like yesterday's) that I'll post over the next few days. We're almost at the end of these forty-eight hours in Paris. I started the series on September 11, two months ago.

Monte là-dessus, tu verras Montmartre

2011-11-11T08:30:00.006+01:00

That's an old joke, I think. It means that if you climb up, lean out, and look just the right way, you can see the church of Sacré-Cœur in Montmartre; an expression that pokes fun of people who brag about the view (or lack thereof) from their tiny Parisian apartments.

This is quite a long shot with the zoom lens. See all the tourists? It was a gorgeous day to be outside.

Maybe the joke was on me, because I lived in an apartment in Paris where, if you leaned out the window and looked to the right, you could just see the domes of the church between the buildings next door. And here's the proof, an actual photo that I took leaning out the window of the apartment I shared in 1982.

See what I mean? I also had a view of the Tour Montparnasse.

But the views of the basilica from the Pompidou Center are superb, and you don't have to climb up, lean out, or look just the right way. The church was built in 1873 at the top of the Montmartre hill, the highest point in Paris. The church and the surrounding neighborhood, a famous gathering spot for certain nineteenth century painters such as Pissarro, Toulouse-Lautrec, Van Gogh, Modigliani, and Picasso, is a top tourist destination these days.

The views south across Paris from the terraces of the church are among the best to be had for free in the city. You can tour the church itself, or wander the neighborhood. There's a lot of kitsch around begging for your tourist euros, but that's not unusual.

L'autoportrait

2011-11-10T08:30:00.008+01:00

I just had to take my own photo in the Pompidou Center. I think it's the law. You can also see me in this week's Image of the Week on the right. I'm reflected in a silver ball that sits in the middle of the room, the silver ball being the reason the walls and floors look distorted.

Self portrait at the Pompidou Center.

I don't know what piece of art this is, but I took my picture in it. An improvement? Maybe not. But I'll tell you about a real improvement: my back. I went to see the kiné again on Monday and after my session, my neck was really sore. But then at some point on Tuesday afternoon I noticed that it didn't feel so bad. I think I'm actually healing. There is still some pain, but it's much duller than it has been. I notice it more when I'm sitting at the computer, so I get up and walk around after about ten minutes in front of the screen. That's probably a good thing, anyway.

Chacun à son goût

2011-11-09T08:30:00.011+01:00

Here are a few pieces of art in the Pompidou Center's permanent collection that I thought made for interesting photos. I am not a student of art, and I didn't write down, let alone remember, the titles of these pieces or the names of the artists. Except for the Warhol. So I looked them up on the museum's web site. I found all of them except for the light bulbs.

This was sitting on the floor in one of the dark rooms. I really liked it. It's called Identité (no. 2) by Piotr Kowalski, 1973.

The permanent collection is installed on two of the upper floors of the building. One level is for contemporary works, 1960 to the present. The other level is for pre-1960 modern art. I could even tell the difference.

Eight of the "Ten Lizes" by Andy Warhol, 1963.

The three of us kind of split apart and wandered around. We saw each other here and there, pointed out something that we thought was cool or weird, and continued on our ways. It was a nice way of doing the museum. My cousin is a professional artist and I'm certain that he was looking at things very differently from the way I was.

This one cracked me up. My favorite part is the cord on the floor. Very artistic.

There were several "dark rooms" among the exhibits. They were rooms with video or specially lighted art works in them. In one of these rooms, I noticed that I and a small girl (about nine years old or so) were alone. I quickly made my way out of there. It doesn't look good for a middle aged guy to be alone in a dark room with a little girl. Dang if she didn't follow me right out into the light. I wonder why her parents (or whomever she was with) let her go wandering around alone.

This was a set of 3 video screens showing British schoolkids reacting to Picasso's "Weeping Woman" at the Tate museum in Liverpool, England. The work is by Reneke Dijkstra, 2009.

This week's Image of the Week is also from the museum. It's called "AGAM Aménagement de l'antichambre des appartements privés du Palais de l'Elysée pour le président Georges Pompidou," 1972 (The Redecoration of the Vestibule in the Presidential Palace's Private Apartments for President Georges Pompidou).

I also wandered up to the roof to check out the museum restaurant. They have an outdoor terrace with tables up there and, silly me, I thought it might be a nice place for our lunch. I changed my mind very quickly when I saw the menu. I wasn't sure if they were selling food or works of art, the prices were that high. Other plans would have to be made.

But we were in no hurry and had the time to linger a bit before heading out to find some lunch.

A l'intérieur

2011-11-08T08:30:00.005+01:00

Inside the Pompidou Center. I think this was the first time that I had ever been up in the main galleries of the permanent exhibits. After thirty years, I finally visited the museum of modern art. Well, better late than never. I loved the exhibit space. It is vast, and yet it has many intimate spaces.

The main corridor in the museum. Smaller exhibit spaces branch off on either side. That's an Andy Warhol on the right. Ten Elizabeth Taylors.

The art itself... well, it's modern. And like all art, you like some of it, and you scratch your head at some of it. And make no mistake, the Pompidou is huge. There is a lot to see and absorb. It's not possible to take it all in during a single visit.

I'm going to post some of my photos of some of the art. I'm warning you now. Not too much, but some of the stuff made for good photos. Brace yourselves.

Une montée moderne

2011-11-07T08:30:00.004+01:00

I waited in a very long line to get into the museum. We had arrived about fifteen minutes before the doors opened and there was already a crowd. Mark and Julie had museum passes, so their line was much shorter. We agreed to meet inside in the book shop once I got in.

Riding the "up" escalator. That's Mark on the right.

To my amazement, the line to get in moved very quickly. Too quickly. It turns out that it was just a line to get into the building. A ticket line formed inside the lobby, one of those Disney-type queues with ropes and everything. Fortunately, I noticed a bank of automatic ticket vending machines with no waiting, so I used my bank card and got my ticket pretty quickly.

I found Mark and Julie and we headed up the escalator to the main museum space.

Une maquette trompeuse

2011-11-06T08:30:00.002+01:00

Even though I didn't take any photos of the exterior of the Pompidou Center, I did find this model of the building on display inside. It's a nice model, and very pretty. The problem is that it's only in red and white. The building is loaded with blues and greens too, and is amazingly colorful. This model is like a sterilized version of the actual place. Maybe an idealization? I don't know.

The Paris Modern Art Museum at the Pompidou Center. Click to Pompify.

At any rate, you get the idea if you've not been there before. That snaky tube crawling up the front of the building is a set of escalators. That's the way visitors move from floor to floor. The row of façades from yesterday's post are affixed to the buildings you see on the right hand side of the model. It's an amazing place, even if the model doesn't reflect the total reality.

Des façades sauvées

2011-11-05T08:30:00.007+01:00

It's funny, I went to the Pompidou Center, but I took no photos of the Pompidou Center. This seems to happen to me a lot. I have a bunch of photos from inside, but none of the exterior. Oh well. This is a row of buildings seen from the fifth or sixth floor of the museum.

The renovation was completed thirty years ago. But you can see how new-ish looking all the windows are in these buildings.

I remember this row of buildings from when I lived in Paris in 1981 and 1982. The neighborhood around the relatively new Pompidou Center was undergoing renovation and these buildings were actually gone. But their façades remained, propped up by temporary support structures. New buildings were constructed behind and the preserved façades were tied back into them.

If you're there, and you look closely in certain places, you can see how this worked. I believe that the reconstruction of this block was part of the larger plan for the Quartier de l'Horloge, adjacent to the Pompidou Center on the north (to the right of the buildings you see in this photo). If any of you know more of the details, I'd love to hear from you in the comments.

PS: I hope I didn't give you the wrong idea yesterday. I still have a few more photos from this adventure coming up!

Un dernier aperçu

2011-11-04T08:30:00.005+01:00

I walked up through the quiet residential neighborhood south of the Panthéon and the Lycée Henri IV (one of the bigger and most prestigious of Parisian high schools). It was quiet because it was the last Saturday morning of summer vacation. The huge dome (you've seen it several times already) loomed up above the building tops.

The very top of the Panthéon dome behind the trees.

A couple of quick shots with the camera and I was on my way back to my cousin's hotel. Mark and Julie were kind enough to let me stash my backpack in their room while we went off to the Pompidou Center. After, I'd pick it up and head to the Montparnasse station for my train home.

And I'm amused that I, a 51 year old man, can travel to Paris with only a backpack. Of course, the weather was hot (no heavy clothes) and I only went for two nights, but still. It felt great to travel light, just like a kid again.

Un peu plus cher

2011-11-03T08:30:00.003+01:00

The coffee I had on the Place de la Contrescarpe cost a bit more than the one I had down on the rue Monge. For the extra centimes, I got a nifty glass of water along side. I thought it was weird, but then I drank it (after the coffee) and it was good. Go figure.

I think this coffee was about €2.80 compared to the first one which was an even €2.00.

It was just about time to meet Mark and Julie. I walked a short loop up to the back side of the Panthéon before heading back down to the rue Monge and their hotel.

Un deuxième café

2011-11-02T08:30:00.004+01:00

There's a big café on the Place de la Contrescarpe that faces south and on this sunny Saturday morning it was very inviting. There were a few tables taken, but the place was mostly empty. Three American (I think) men were finishing their coffees at a table close to where I sat. They were obviously planning their day as tourists.

This café wasn't bustling, which was perfect. Click to caffeinate.

Another couple were eating croissants with their coffees. A man in a suit was buried in his newspaper. I ordered a coffee and took out my camera. A delivery truck pulled up in front of the café on the other side of the place and the driver unloaded whatever it was he was delivering.

62, rue Mouffetard

2011-11-01T08:30:00.007+01:00

I walked over to the rue Mouffetard after my first cup of coffee. The street was very quiet. The shops were not open yet. There are a few restaurants and night clubs on this street and I imagine that they are open well into the wee hours.

La Vieille Tour means "The Old Tower." I've never eaten there.

I walked past this place with its neon lights on, so I snapped a photo. Then I arrived at the Place de la Contrescarpe. I felt like having another coffee, so I sat down.

On to more recent happenings: I had my third session with the physical therapist. I've decided to call him that since he's not really a chiropractor, and "massage therapist" sounds a bit strange. This session was different from the first two in that he got more forceful with the massage. I guess the first two sessions were to get me and my muscles used to the therapy. Now it's time for the serious stuff.

He told me that my left shoulder muscles are still very tight and he was working on relaxing them. It seems to be working, although I will say that my worst pain has occurred in the twenty-four hours following the treatments. If I haven't changed this entry by the time it publishes, you'll know that it didn't turn out that way again. In fact, I feel pretty good today (Monday). A bit sore, but not wracked with pain as I have been.

I go back again on Friday morning for session number four. I'm supposed to have ten sessions in all, but the kiné said that he didn't think I'd need all ten. We'll see.

By the way, if you're not a French speaker, kiné is short for kinésithérapeute and is pronounced [kee-NAY]. The big word is pronounced [kee-nay-zee-tay-rah-PUT]. I'm not a linguist, so Ken will correct me if I didn't get it quite right.

Une belle place

2011-10-31T08:30:00.005+01:00

La Place Monge. It's a small square in the Latin Quarter, but it's in the middle of a very residential section of central Paris. The quiet square transforms into a bustling market every Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday. I've shopped and wandered around here many times over the years.

La Place Monge on a quiet Saturday morning. The place is full of action on market days.

I don't know if Mark and Julie made it to see the market. It's hard when you're in a hotel and you really don't have a way to keep food. Everything in Paris markets is so appetizing and I always want to buy more than I need. I don't get the chance to do much shopping in Paris markets these days. But I do remember buying amazing things at the markets and keeping them out on the window sill of our hotel room during our trips, and in our refrigerator when we rented vacation apartments.

Monge, and the nearby rue Mouffetard, are great marketplaces and should be a stop on anyone's visit to Paris. Have you been?

Un premier café

2011-10-30T08:30:00.002+01:00

I had some time to kill before meeting Mark and Julie, so I found a café on the rue Monge near their hotel and sat down. The coffee was rich and good and really hit the spot. After I drank it, I thought to take a photo.

My first coffee of the morning. There would be another.

The morning was calm, being Saturday, and the air was refreshingly cool compared to the heat of Friday. I lingered for a few minutes, enjoying watching the sun hit the top floors of the buildings around where I sat. People were getting up, opening their shades and windows, letting the sun and the cool morning air into their apartments.

The hustle and bustle of the day had yet to begin.

La Tour Zamansky

2011-10-29T08:30:00.006+02:00

It will come as no surprise to you that I like the university campus at Jussieu. Like many bold works of architecture, the campus engendered much controversy. It was never completed as originally planned, but it has been enlarged and renovated since its initial opening in 1971.

The Zamansky Tower seen from the rue de Jussieu.

The centerpiece of the campus is the Zamansky Tower, a twenty-nine floor glass tower that rises elegantly above the grid of the laboratories and classrooms below. Unfortunately, the campus was not very well maintained and it became somewhat of an eyesore; the buildings were covered in ugly graffiti for decades. It was not a particularly inviting place when I lived nearby in 1981.

At the end of the 1990s, the university and the education ministry adopted a plan to rehabilitate and modernize the campus. The tower was totally gutted in the early 2000s to remove asbestos while the grid buildings below were cleaned up and completely renovated. From my limited point of view, looking from the outside, the renovation is a success. I don't have any experience of the place from the inside.

The campus is built on the site of Paris' old central wine market (1666), which itself was built on the site of the medieval Abbey Saint-Victor de Paris (1109). The abbey was a university of sorts in its time, training young men in arts and sciences and letters, until its decline in the Renaissance.

Paris' Fifth Arrondissement, also known as the Latin Quarter. Click to latinate.

You can see the campus in the screenshot (Google Maps) of the Latin Quarter above. The very distinctive grid of the buildings, with the tower inside, is visible in the lower right of the image. On the lower left, you can see the cross-shaped Panthéon and its dome, and at the top, just left of center, you can see the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris.

Le jour d'après

2011-10-28T08:30:00.005+02:00

Our dinner was fantastic. The setting was nice and the restaurant didn't have a "tourist" feel to it. I know that a lot of tourists go there (me, for example), and we were seated next to a table of Germans (I think), but there were plenty of French people around and it was nice. I've been out to eat in Paris on many occasions when I was seated in a sea of fellow American tourists. You might as well eat at Red Lobster.

The campus at Jussieu has been recently renovated. I've always really liked the place and it looks fresh and new again.

Mark and Julie enjoyed the menu as much as I did. They are adventurous eaters and they enjoy wine. My kind of people. We had two wines from the Loire Valley region (bien sûr) and they were good.

The next day we made plans to meet up and go to the modern art museum at the Pompidou Center. I checked out of my hotel and wandered around for a while before meeting them. I walked by the 1960s University of Pierre and Marie Curie campus at Jussieu, next to my hotel, before finding a place to have a cup of coffee.

La dernière du jour

2011-10-27T08:30:00.005+02:00

This is the last photo I took on this particular Friday. My walk across Paris was essentially over. After taking in the views from the Arc de Triomphe, Julie, Mark and I jumped on the subway and zipped back to our hotels on the Left Bank to get ready for dinner. I desperately needed a shower and a change of clothes; it was a very hot day that day.

Julie and Mark give their feet a break at the top of the Arc de Triomphe. That's the Avenue Foch stretching out toward the Bois de Boulogne on the left.

Dinner was at Le Petit Prince de Paris, not far from our hotels. I had reserved a table a couple of weeks prior and was looking forward to the meal. It didn't disappoint. My main course was carré de porcelet (rack of roast suckling pig), which is one of their signature dishes. Oh, yum!

But I didn't take my camera to the restaurant.

Pas très belle, mais quand même

2011-10-26T08:30:00.001+02:00

This is not the greatest photo, but it gives you an idea of what you can see from the Arc de Triomphe. This view is toward the northwest and La Défense, the big business development outside Paris. I'm looking from the Place Charles de Gaulle (l'Etoile) up the Avenue de la Grande Armée.

Looking out past Paris, through Neuilly, to La Défense. Click to arcify.

I've posted better photos from up here before (see them here), and I didn't take many on this day, so you are spared the panorama this time.

Les mariés devant la tour

2011-10-25T08:30:00.008+02:00

And now I present the classic shot of the honeymooners in front of the Eiffel Tower. This is probably one of the most taken photographs in the world. What makes this one exceptional is that it includes Mark and Julie.

Aren't they a handsome couple!

Of course, I took several photos of them together and of each of them separately, but I liked this one of them together the best. After our photo session, we walked across the Trocadero and up the Avenue Kléber to the Place Charles de Gaulle and the Arc de Triomphe. I remember that my feet were feeling sore at this point.

So I went to a kinésithérapeute (similar to a chiropractor) yesterday. We talked a bit about my problem, then he stood me up and started feeling around my neck, chest, and back. He said he didn't think that the problem was with my spine, but with a vertical muscle behind my left pectoral muscle (hey, I've got pecs!) that is tensed and stuck and pinching the nerve that goes into my left arm. He did some massaging and I could feel real relief, albeit temporary.

I go back on Thursday morning for another session. I get the impression that there will be multiple sessions during which he will show me what I can do myself to help. When I told him that I had just recently trimmed my hedges, he said to "look no more" for the cause. That was probably it. Repeated horizontal movements (of my arm) can result in this condition, apparently.

He was a real nice guy, relaxed and friendly. He has a fish tank in his office and some real low key new age type of music playing. He is pretty much my age. In fact, he said we were born in the same year, although he was born in January and I was born in December. Then he told me that his brother was born in December of the same year. I remarked that that was unusual. He said his parents raised them pretty much as twins. Funny, eh?

Les deux dômes

2011-10-24T08:30:00.004+02:00

You've seen both of these before, just not in the same shot. I took this from up on the terrace of the Palais de Chaillot just opposite the Eiffel Tower. In the background is the dome of the Panthéon, in the foreground is the gilded dome of the Invalides church.

Oh give me a dome...

On the left you can see one of the bell towers of the St. Sulpice church, and on the right is one of the four modern towers of the François Mitterand Library.

Les deux tours

2011-10-23T08:30:00.002+02:00

Guess where? When we got over to the Eiffel Tower, the line to go up was incredibly long. You can see the people waiting in line on the right hand side, just above the head of the woman with the plaid backpack. We decided not to wait.

The two tallest structures in Paris: the Eiffel and the Montparnasse towers.

I had warned Mark and Julie to be prepared to be accosted by the dozens of men selling trinkets under the tower. If you've been there, you know what I'm talking about. However, when we arrived, there was not a single guy selling tiny towers to be seen. Then I remembered that I had heard a news story about how the police were cracking down on the illegal souvenir peddlers, many of whom are illegal immigrants selling counterfeit products. The only people we saw were fellow tourists.

Do you notice the two guys on the bottom of the photo? One is sitting and one is standing... they look like they're taking each other's picture.

Les trois ombres

2011-10-22T08:30:00.007+02:00

That's the name of the Rodin sculpture in that's partly visible in this photo. It means "The Three Shadows," although I saw that the English translation on the museum's web site was "The Three Shades." A smaller version of these guys sits atop the Gates of Hell sculpture, which is just behind where I was standing to take this picture.

Three guys, three gals. Thanks to Photoshop, I can take the color out of the photo after the fact.

This is another one of those photos that I like without really knowing why. I like that the Eiffel Tower is in it, and that conical tree. Then there's that high heel shoe on the bottom. I also like the picture better in black and white than in color. So, given all that, I guess that I do know why I like it.

So we left the Rodin museum and walked over toward the Eiffel Tower. Remember, this whole series of Paris photos was taken in less than forty-eight hours. We're only about twenty-four hours in, so there's a lot more to come.