Roussillon

The view of Roussillon from, you guessed it, the parking lot.

One of the hill towns in the Luberon area has a very particular characteristic. It's built on land that is rich in ochre. The mineral colors the dirt in the surrounding hills a deep orange/red. The pigment has been mined and used throughout the ages and is apparent in the wall color of nearly every building in town.

Roussillon's main place.

Naturally the town is now a prime stop on the tourist circuit, and it shows. Your first clue is the giant modern parking lot just outside of the town center and the ice cream and crêpe stands parked there. And the tour buses.

Much of the charm of Roussillon is in details like this door.

Still, I think we were lucky and hit a slow moment. We didn't feel like part of a crowd and we enjoyed our stroll through this little town of fewer than 1,200 Roussillonnais.

Just another courtyard.

I Was Tagged...

... with this meme by Loulou from Chez Loulou.

The last time I did a meme was just about a year ago. Then, I tried to describe what a meme is before I answered it. You can read that here if you're interested.

So, here goes. The questions are in French but I tried to translate them for my anglophone pals.

Quelle est votre situation de famille – What’s your family situation?
I live with my partner of 24 years and our (second) dog.

Quelle est votre date d'anniversaire – What’s your birth date?
21 December, the winter solstice. Shortest day of the year.

Vivez vous en ville ou à la campagne – Do you live in the city or in the country?
I live in the country in the Touraine region of France. Before that I was a city boy.

Quels métiers exercez vous ou avez vous exercés – What jobs do you have or have you had?
I was an executive manager at a large urban transit system in California. I’m a transportation planner by profession. I was also a congressional staffer in Washington, DC, for a short time. And I was a Broadway star... oh wait, that was a dream.

Avez vous des allergies – Do you suffer from allergies?
Not really. But I do get symptoms every now and then. And I get nervous in large crowds. Riding in airplanes makes me sick these days.

Quelle est votre odeur préférée – What’s your favorite smell?
Onions being sautéed in olive oil.

Aimez vous les sucreries – Do you like sweets?
Not particularly.

Si oui, quelles sont vos préférées – If yes, what are your favorites?
--

Quels sont vos goûts culinaires – What’s your taste in food?
I love French, Italian, Aisian, Indian, and North African cuisines. And Greek. Oh, and Mexican. And a good hamburger every once in a while. And those great fried shrimp in North Carolina.
And don’t forget NC style pork barbecue. And I consider wine a food.

I guess there’s not much I don’t like, except for over-processed industrial food. And I really resent waiting in line for food, and that includes those trendy, over-priced, fancy-pants restaurants where the food is mediocre but everybody pretends it's great because they're embarrassed to admit they paid too much for it. Call me a geezer.

Quel genre de musique aimez vous – What kind of music do you like?
I like 70s American pop/rock, some country, and French pop from the 70s and 80s. And this will surprise no one... Barbra Streisand. And, yes, I like show tunes, especially when they’re sung by Barbra Streisand. Don’t rain on my parade.

My ticket to see Barbra.

Quelle est votre couleur préférée – What’s your favorite color?
Green. But it’s not easy. Ask Kermit.

Quelle est votre saison préférée – What’s your favorite season?
Clay court season. And hard court season. Most of the indoor and grass court seasons, too.

Collectionnez vous un objet quelconque – Do you collect anything in particular?
I have a small collection of little Eiffel Towers. I also collect dust from time to time.

Quel magazines lisez vous – What magazines do you read?
I read online these days. No more magazines. Before moving to France I had subscriptions to the Advocate and National Geographic Traveler. The only magazines I read now are at the barber shop, or the dentist’s or doctor’s office. And “read” is not really the right word. Let's say "peruse," just because it's fun to say.

Quel est votre style vestimentaire – What’s your clothing style?
Extremely casual, shorts or jeans and t-shirts or casual shirts with collars. I haven’t worn a tie in over four years and if I had to wear one again I’d need to look up how to tie it on the internet.

Pratiquez vous une activité manuelle – Do you do any handiwork/crafts?
Do mowing the lawn and gardening count ? I do operate power tools once in a while. Otherwise, I’m neither very handy nor crafty.

Quel est votre animal préféré – What’s your favorite animal?
Dogs, I guess. But I also like cows, pigs, chickens, and many fish, but in a different way. Like when they're called beef, pork, poultry, and seafood.

Quels sont vos loisirs – What are your hobbies?
I like to take pictures and watch tennis (see the question about seasons above). Cooking is fun, too, as is eating. I used to go camping, but haven’t done that (officially) since I moved to France. I say "officially" because we kind of camped in our house for a while when we moved here, waiting for the furniture to arrive. Oh yeah, and I blog a bit.

Comment décorez vous votre intérieur – How is your home decorated?
Very plainly. Simple things on the walls.

Avez vous une liste de cadeaux en ligne – Do you have an online wish list?
No. Just send cash.

Puppy Pic Of The Week

You might think I'm sleeping, but I can still hear you.

Callie takes a few naps every day. And let me tell you : we look forward to those naps. There's usually a short nap after the morning walk and breakfast, but we can't count on it. A long nap happens just around lunch time when we're working in the kitchen and eating. Then there's often a short nap after the afternoon walk and just before we settle in for evening TV.

In between, it's full speed, jump, chew, run, chew, dig, chew, bark, and chew. She's especially rambunctious in the evening. Or maybe we just notice it more because we're winding down.

And she's slowly destroying all her favorite chew toys. A trip to the pet store will soon be in order.

I know I'll get no sympathy from those of you who've had or have toddlers. I'm thinking of Amy H. right now. But I'm not really looking for sympathy anyway. I take comfort in the fact that I don't have to deal with diapers.

At any rate, Callie doesn't know it yet but she has an appointment in early September to be spayed. On va la faire opérer in French, which is a euphemism for on va la stériliser. Either way you slice it (pun intended), she's going under the knife again.

Sorta Sushi

Well, it's not really sushi, it's California Roll. There's no raw fish ; we used cooked shrimp. But still, it was my first attempt at making sushi and they were delicious.

On one of our trips to Paris we went shopping in the thirteenth for Asian food supplies. Among them : sushi rice, nori (seaweed sheets), wasabi, pickled ginger, and a sushi mat. I used this year's first garden cucumber, some avocado, and cooked shrimp to make the rolls.

I read that it takes practice to get the rolls right, and it's true. I know now to use a little less rice. We ate these up as a first course and followed it with a cold soba noodle salad with toasted sesame seeds and bean sprouts.

And, just for fun, here's one of the geraniums blooming in our kitchen window box :

Word Of The Week

relevé

I started learning French in the sixth grade. The year was 1970. That was 37 years ago. I stopped typing right there and stared at those numbers on the screen for a few minutes. In fact, numbers were the first things, along with the alphabet, that I learned.

My sixth grade class at P.S. #16 in Albany, NY. I'm the handsome devil in the bottom row, extreme left, sitting with all the other short guys. Can you just guess who my French tutor was ? He's the guy in the dark glasses with the pocket protector (second row, second from right). He is probably now the CEO of a huge computer or aerospace company.

I remember that I was placed in a class that had begun its French instruction the year earlier, so I needed to catch up. The teacher assigned one of my classmates to meet me each day before school started and teach me the alphabet and how to count up to one hundred. I have memories of sitting on the steps of the school reciting ah, bay, say, day, euh, eff, zhay, and the rest, along with un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq, etc., while the other kids played four-square or hit balls up against the side of the building waiting for the first bell to ring.

Over 37 years you learn a lot of words and in most cases you forget when or why you learned a particular one. You hear it, you use it, you know it. But if you start to think about it, you don't know how or why you know it. You don't remember ever learning it. Today's word is one of those for me.

This morning I got an e-mail from the electric company reminding me that it's time to send them my relevé de compteur. Electricité de France (EDF) lets me read my meter and give them the numbers each billing period over the internet. They send a meter reader out twice a year to physically read the meter, but in the meantime they take my word for it. It's a good service in that it saves them the cost of reading the meter every month or two and, since our meter is inside the house, saves us the trouble needed to let the reader in.

Used as a noun, un relevé is a written representation of something, in this case the numbers on my electric meter. It also refers to my bank statement, un relevé de compte, or to any document that transmits information about account identity (un relevé d'identité bancaire ou postale).

But relevé(e) can also used as an adjective. It's the past participle of the verb relever, which means to stand up again, to upright, to pick up, to redress, or to turn up. The brim of a hat or a shirt collar can be relevé. So can a curve (as in a banked curve), un virage relevé.

Of course, there is also culinary use of relevé(e). It means to spice something up, to bring up the flavor of something, like une sauce relevée. I hear that usage all the time on the French food channel, Cuisine TV.

To understand what a difference an accent mark can make, be sure not to confuse relevé with relève. The latter, while still coming from the verb relever, has a different meaning altogether. It's a noun that means replacement or relief, like a relief pitcher in baseball. Prendre la relève means to take over for someone performing a task or job so that it continues without interruption, like runners in a relay race.

Kitchen Collection [34]

This is a Special Edition of Kitchen Collection. The electricians completed the work on the kitchen yesterday. They were here from about 08:15h to 16:00h. Four guys in the morning and two in the afternoon, with about an hour and a half for lunch.

Above, the triple grounded outlets. Below, the double unit.

The result is that we no longer have extension cords and power strips strung around the kitchen to run our appliances. Instead, we have spiffy new grounded outlets actually built into the walls ! They also put an exhaust fan unit in the stove hood and re-wired that with an additional outlet.

They installed a dimmer switch in the dining room, and an outside light above the back door (photo below). They needed to add two new circuit breakers to the electrical box and run new wires through the utility room and garage which required a lot of drilling through concrete walls. Noisy, but well worth it. It's funny how little things like this can make such a difference in how you feel about a place. Whenever we make improvements, no matter how small or even invisible, we feel like we own the place just that much more, that we're doing something positive and adding value to the house.

The new configuration under the stove hood. Both the stove and the dishwasher fit under this hood which is why the exhaust fan is on the left-hand side. We decided to keep the florescent light for additional brightness.

So far we're very pleased with the result, although we really haven't yet had the chance to test out the exhaust fan to see how efficient it is. It's pretty powerful and has five speeds, so it should be ok. Oh, and while they were running wires they added a new grounded outlet to our entry room which is where Ken has his desk and computer, so that's a bonus improvement.

The only problem we've encountered is that the dimmer switch is so over-engineered that we're not sure how to work it properly. The instructions are seriously lacking in details. Ken even went online to see if there were additional instructions on the manufacturer's website, but they were the same cryptic notes we have on paper.

We may need the head electrician to come over and 'splain it to us.

Views Of Bonnieux

Bonnieux is one of the Luberon's famous villages perchés, or hilltop towns, that dot the flanks of the mountain. These picturesque places offer great views of the mountains and the valleys in the region and make for nice postcards.

I think this a view of Bonnieux from its neighboring town, Lacoste.

I'm sure that Bonnieux has been photographed almost as much as the Eiffel Tower, and here's my share.

On the main street through town, at the bend of a sharp turn, there is a little general store/café. When we passed by on foot they had their stereo on blasting a U2 song (now I've forgotten which one) and it made me think of our friend Sue. I think U2 is her favorite band.

Approaching Bonnieux from the south, coming down from the Luberon itself.

Little things like that always serve to remind me that France is not Disneyland. The places we visit and ooh and ah about are real, filled (or not so filled) with real people living real lives. They put their garbage cans out on the street, drive modern cars, and listen to rock and roll. Cool, eh ?

A closer view of Bonnieux's historic hilltop.