The first thunderstorm of 2011

Late Saturday afternoon, while I was out walking with Callie, the sky darkened from the northwest as a thunderstorm rolled over our town. The lightning was brilliant and the thunder was loud. Callie and I turned tail and headed home as the front overtook us. We made it into the house seconds before a shower of small hail started to fall.

A near-by birch wood still lit by the sun as the storm approaches from the northwest. Click to ennebulate.

The front went through rather quickly and the hail turned into a hard rain for a while then gently tapered off over the next hour or so. By then the sun was setting and it was staying dark outside. Just as the sun dipped below the horizon, the western sky opened up and lit the last of the storm clouds from below.

Looking westward as the sun sets after the storm.

It was a year ago today that we were dealing with the aftermath of the storm Xynthia. Hurricane force winds blew over us all through that night. We shuttered ourselves in the house and tried to sleep through it. The storm took a number of roof tiles off our house and we were without power to run the heat and lights for four days after. This little storm was like a day at the beach compared to that.

When the bread lady's away...

...the bread eaters will play. And by "play," I mean try other bakeries. On Friday, Ken and I took a ride over to Valençay (about a half-hour away) to get some wine at their local cooperative. We got ten liters each of red, white, and rosé. We also did some grocery shopping.

Whole grain on the left, sesame seed on the right. Click to englutenate.

On the way back, we stopped at the bakery in the little town of Meusnes on the Cher River. In addition to the traditional baguettes they had several specialty breads, like most bakeries do. We chose a pain complet (whole grain) and another loaf encrusted with sesame seeds. They were both very tasty and a nice change from our regular bread.

The bread lady resumes her rounds this coming Tuesday.

Snowdrops on a mole hill

I mentioned a week or so ago that the moles in our back yard had dug up some of the snowdrops that I planted last fall. Well, the moles may have dug the snowdrops up, but they didn't dig them out. Does that make sense? At any rate, the bulbs are blooming on top of the mole hills. Amazing!

Snowdrops blooming on the slopes of Mole Mountain.

Once they stop blooming I will get out there and re-insert them below ground. Spring is when I level the mole hills so that I can cut the grass. It will be an opportune time to get the bulbs back below ground where they can continue to live and be ready for next year.

A pair of twins.

The snowdrops are nice to see in the late winter. They are a harbinger of spring. I was disappointed when the moles dug them up, but now that they've bloomed in spite of being transplanted and disturbed, I'm feeling much better.

More snowdrops. They're called perce-neige in French.

Moles are carnivores. They eat larvae and worms and don't have any appetite for roots or bulbs. They also aerate the soil, so they're good for the garden. They just have this nasty habit of throwing up big dirt piles all around.

The San Francisco treat

I lived in San Francisco for over seventeen years. I never noticed anyone there who had any more interest in Rice-A-Roni than anyone else I'd encountered before. After doing a little internet research, I discovered that the famous boxed rice and pasta dish was developed by a family-owned pasta company located in San Francisco's Mission District. In the late 1950's, they adapted their family's favorite pilaf recipe and marketed it with the slogan and jingle that became so familiar to people across the entire United States. That's all there is to the San Francisco connection.

The ingredients, clockwise from top left: vermicelles, chicken broth, round rice, minced onion, dried herbs.

Now, I've eaten Rice-A-Roni before. It's not bad. But it's not particularly good for you given that it's an industrial product full of sodium, sugar, MSG, and other things that I don't necessarily want to eat in my rice and pasta dish (salt and sugar are the fourth and fifth most plentiful of a long list of ingredients* on a box of Chicken Rice-A-Roni).

The finished rice and 'roni dish. I like a lot of 'roni so I added more than the recipe called for.

So I decided, after finding a package of vermicelli pasta in the supermarket for 37 cents a pound, to make my own rice and 'roni dish at home. I used the internet again (it's hard to imagine that we once did not have the internet) to find some recipes. They are legion. I picked one from Martha Stewart's web site that seemed simple enough.

The ingredients are rice, vermicelli (or cut up spaghetti in a pinch), olive oil, onion, salt and pepper, chicken broth, and parsley. You make the dish as if you're making a risotto by sauteing the rice and pasta and chopped onions in oil, then adding the broth to finish cooking the rice. Home-made chicken broth is best, but you can use a canned broth or a bullion cube (but watch those ingredients and make adjustments for salt content!). You can also use a vegetable broth if you want a vegetarian version.

I used dried herbs (mostly oregano) and a bay leaf (from our back yard tree) since we're not in the season for fresh garden herbs. The finished rice was delicious and was the perfect accompaniment to our main dish, which was a spicy turkey stir-fry.

*Information from the company's web site: http://www.ricearoni.com

Clouds, rain, clouds, rain, etc.

This is one of those weeks. Successive weather systems are keeping us mostly gray and wet. The weather is not severe, just alternating rain and drizzle. Oh well. This, too, shall pass. I'm anxious to get the lettuces and radishes planted but will have to wait for the ground to dry out a little.

The rolling slopes of the vineyard provide the drainage that is important to vine health.

Here's another picture from the vineyard. That yellow shrub in the middle is an osier. It's a variety of willow that has many uses. The withies, or canes, are harvested and used in the vineyard to tie up bundles of vine prunings. Osier is more commonly used in basket weaving (think wicker), but there are other varieties of the plant and I don't know if the one in the picture is one that would be used for that purpose.

So, while the weather sorts itself out, it's housework, cooking, and trudging through the mud with Callie. On Wednesday we made a delicious dish of fish and chips for lunch. We didn't batter the fish, but coated it lightly with flour, egg, and cornmeal. Ken made a tarter sauce that was very good. He took some pictures that may or may not show up on his blog.

Sardines for lunch

I really like sardines. They are a recent discovery for me. And French supermarkets have almost as many varieties of canned fish (mainly sardines and mackerel) as they do yogurt. They're good right out of the can on a slice of bread. On Monday we ate canned sardines for lunch with boiled potatoes and steamed broccoli.

Three varieties of canned sardine fillets from the supermarket.

I opened two tins, one with sardines packed in olive oil and the other flavored with lemon and basil. Both were good. I added a little tabasco sauce to the plainer ones for a little additional kick. Very tasty. These were sardine fillets, but you can also get them canned whole (without heads or tails). They're just as good, but you have to take out the back bone. I'm sure there are people that just eat the bone since it's pretty soft, but I like to remove it.

When I was in Madrid in 2006, I ate one of the most memorable sandwiches I've ever had. The sandwich was simply sardines on a thick, crusty piece of bread; it was dripping with delicious olive oil and the fish was fresh and good. I tried cooking fresh sardines at home once but was not happy with the result. Canned sardines are very good and much easier.

France has a big sardine canning industry based mostly in Brittany. From what I've read, the French perfected the method of preserving sardines in cans very soon after the process for metal canning was invented. The method spread around the world and is practiced in many countries in Europe and North Africa. Unfortunately, the US sardine industry has declined, like much of US industry, with the last canning factory closing last year.

That information comes from Wikipedia, so I cannot guarantee total accuracy. To wit: Reason #159 for not relying on Wikipedia for your serious research: "Sardines were named after the Mediterranean island of Sardinia, where they once lived in abundance." Yeah, until the humans showed up and forced them into the Mediterranean Sea.

This dog's birthday

Today is Callie's birthday. She's four years old today. Hard to believe. And to celebrate, she's having a lie-in on one of her three beds. She's the only dog I know that has the luxury of a king size, a full, and a twin bed. And that doesn't even include the couch.

Mademoiselle Chose (Miss Thing) enjoying a rest on one of her beds.

My plan was to get her professionally groomed for her birthday. I didn't get the appointment arranged in time, but it will still happen in the next week or so.

Happy birthday, Callie!