Chapeau !

When we hired the plumbing/heating contractor to work on the new shower stall, we included a few other items in the job. One was replacing a radiator with a towel warmer, another was to install a second outdoor spigot because the original one ended up inside the greenhouse. Also included was the installation of a cap on the chimney that comes up from the ventilation hood over the kitchen stove.

A chimney cap is called "un chapeau" (a hat) in French.

There are three chimneys on this, the south end of the house. One was for the central heating oil-fired boiler. That one is no longer in service with the new condensation boiler that vents through a new "hole" in the side of the house. The second is a twin to the stove hood chimney. I'm not sure why there are two in the kitchen; we think there may have been a coal burning heater in there next to the stove, but the second chimney is not in use. The third is the one connected to the current stove hood. Our wood-burning stove has its own capped chimney on the north end of the house.

We noticed last year, after a particularly hard rain event, that water seeped through the kitchen flue to the dry-wall where the stairs go up to the loft (close to the roof). We think that water got into the chimney, since they are open to the weather. So, the contractor sealed the two unused chimneys and added this cap to the third.

Magic mushrooms

These are not they. These are called coprin chevelu (coprinus comatus), known in English as "shaggy ink cap" and, while edible when they are young and totally white in color, they are not to be ingested if they show any pink or black at all. I never collect my own mushrooms, except from the market. Not having grown up learning about them, I would never trust myself to harvest wild mushrooms. As they say:  "All mushrooms are edible. Once."

I found these shaggy ink caps pushing up through the leaves near the artsy organized neighbor's piles of stuff.

This morning is our first dip below zero this season. The sky is clear and the stars are shining brightly, and the temperature is just below freezing. It won't stay there for long, but it's not expected to get much warmer, either. This will be our pattern through the week. The constellation Orion is in full view out the western windows in the hours before sunrise.

And through the woods

Well, we didn't go over the river first. But we did go through the woods. Callie enjoys the paths that wind around the clumps of trees. There is a lot to sniff in there. She normally leads the way and sometimes she'll get way out in front of me. But never too far.

Callie notices when I stop to take a picture and waits to be sure I follow along.

Patches of the woods around us get cleared periodically for firewood, but the trees quickly grow back. There are older trees around, especially on the steeper slopes, but many of France's forests are meticulously maintained. It's not unusual to see huge conifer forests where the trees are planted in long, regularly spaced lines.

World's end

Saturday was foggy. It looked as though the world ended just beyond our back gate. Happily, it was all still there when Callie and I walked on through. While the fog was thick at ground level, it wasn't very deep (if deep is the right word). When I looked up at the sky, I saw blue.

Heading out for our Saturday morning walk. Callie takes a little detour to sniff something.

The fog stuck around into the afternoon, but then it cleared off and we had some sun before nightfall. Temperatures are cooling and we're expecting some light freezing in the next few mornings.

Pumpkin pie

This is the season for pumpkin pie. Given that we grew three good-sized pumpkins and nearly a dozen large sucrine squash (like butternut), we're looking for ways to use them. I made this pie for our Thanksgiving day with part of the rouge vif d'Etampes (Etampes bright red) pumpkin. We had one of those plants in the garden this year and it produced one pumpkin.

I forgot to take a photo after taking the pie out of the pan. Oh well!

I cut the pumpkin in half, scooped out the seeds, and roasted one of the halves in the oven. Ken's planning to use part of the other half for a tajine dish this weekend with leftover lamb. The recipe I use calls for two cups of the roasted pumpkin. I don't puree it, but rather mash it a little with a fork. I like little bits of pumpkin in the pie. Then I add some sugar, spices (cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, cardamom, ginger), eggs, and cream before pouring the mixture into the blind-baked pie shell. The resulting pie is rich and tastes of pumpkin. I usually reduce the amount of sugar and spices that the recipe calls for so that the taste of the pumpkin is not totally masked. We often just eat it as-is, but it's also good with a dollop of crème fraiche or whipped cream.

A little bubbly

I like sparkling wine. And the king of sparklers is Champagne. But Champagne is often quite pricey, given its reputation and some masterful marketing. So I've come to enjoy other, more affordable versions of bubbly wines. In California, many producers (whose parent companies are French) made excellent sparkling wines. Here in the Loire Valley region we have Vouvray and Saumur. And right around us, most local winemakers offer what they used to call vin pétillant (sparkling wine) or méthode (named for the Champagne "method" but not allowed anymore because the Champagne people are protective of what they consider to be their proprietary vocabulary). Local sparklers are now called Fines Bulles de Touraine (Tiny Bubbles of Touraine).

A little Champagne to get the holiday meal off to a sparkling start.

Still, once in a while, especially as the end-of-the-year holidays approach, someone will have a sale on actual Champagne, so I stock up. And on Thursday, the US's Thanksgiving holiday, I opened one as our apéritif. It's a brut, or dry, variety, made with the traditional three grapes of Champagne: pinot noir, pinot meunier, and chardonnay. I also drank it with our first course of foie gras and preserved figs.

The glass is one I got in California when we lived in the Silicon Valley city of Sunnyvale. It was 1994 and the twentieth edition of the city's annual Art and Wine Festival. We had two of these, but one of them broke along the way. I'm still using this one twenty-two years later.

Turkey day

Or not. Many of you know that Ken and I don't usually eat turkey on Thanksgiving Day (a big American holiday). Our tradition for many, many years has been to roast a leg of lamb. We started doing this long before we moved to France where whole turkeys are not generally available until much closer to the Christmas holiday. This year, our leg of lamb has been boned, rolled, and tied into a roast, ready for the oven.

These ingredients have nothing to do with turkey, lamb, or wings. They're from last weekend's pizza. But I'm out of new photos for the moment. Gasp!

Yesterday, however, by chance, we may have stumbled onto a new tradition: turkey wings on the day before Thanksgiving. In recent years we've found chicken and turkey wings available in the supermarkets and we've learned how to make all kinds of wings recipes from the well-known Buffalo hot wings to Asian-style variations. Yesterday, it was turkey wings in the Buffalo Anchor Bar style, served with fries and a green salad. Delicious!