Catching Up!

Hi all! It's been a long time since I've updated this blog, but now that life has settled down a bit I'm going to do a bit of catching up. First, here's photos of friends who visited with us last September. One of the places we visited was the town of Sarlat. Here's a photo of one of the pedestrian streets in this lovely old town.

And here's a photo of some gorgeous window boxes on the front of the mairie.
We also went to one of the local towns, Lalinde, that has a lovely old covered market that serves as a good place to sit and enjoy a cool drink. Here's my artist friend Leslie:

And here's John with Leslie's husband Tony.

Resurrection!

No, not that one. I'm resurrecting this blog, and celebrating the resurrection of the outside, natural world as well.A fitting day to do it, after these years of it lying fallow.

I love Easter, but for me, Easter is not a religious holiday. We atheists don't do religion, after all. For me, it's a celebration of spring, of everything coming alive once more. The grass is green. The primroses are blooming, the daffodils, which started timidly a few weeks ago, are now in full bloom. The peach trees are putting out buds, testing the air, getting ready for the warmer days ahead. 

In the surrounding farms, fields of colza are showing islands of yellow and soon there will be huge swathes of yellow fields of it, patchworked into the green of the surrounding fields. The fields of colza, or rapeseed, were one of the first sights that made me fall in love with France. It's a stunning vista, huge fields of brilliant, intense cool yellow, that seems to make the landscape come to life, wake up from its winter sleep, wake up with a splash of sheer joy.

A resurrection indeed! 

Tulips and Grape Hyacinths

Pansies

View from the Porch this Morning

Unlike my experience in Massachusetts, I've never seen snow here on Easter Sunday. Today is no exception. The sun is shining, the porch I'm sitting on is so warm it's hot. The flowers on the terrace, under the bird feeders, are resplendent with pansies, tulips, grape hyacinths. The tulips are the star of the show right now, ruffled parrot tulips pale pink and yellow. There was a third thing planted with them, but there's no sign of whatever it might have been, and I can't remember at all. The joy of being seventy - I have an excuse for being forgetful, a trait that has actually plagued me throughout my life.

In many of the local farms, fields of colza are showing patches of yellow and soon there will be huge swathes of yellow colza flowers, patchworked into the green of the surrounding fields. These expanses of colza, or rapeseed, were one of the first sights that made me fall in love with France. It's a stunning vista, huge fields of brilliant, intense but cool yellow, a color that makes the landscape come to life, wakes it up from its winter sleep, with a splash of sheer joy.

Yes, a resurrection indeed!

Easter Dinner

Here in France, the traditional Easter dinner is lamb. We prefer ham, but here hams are mostly country ham, which is delicious but not what I want for Easter dinner. I want soft cured ham, glazed with honey and mustard and adorned with cloves. This year we cam across what we thought might be just the thing in a local supermarket. It's a jambonneau,and is actually a ham hock, with the bone still in, and looks for all the world like a tiny, tiny ham.

We bought one, John put on a glaze and warmed it in the oven along with the roasting potatoes, as it was already cooked. Here's photos of the little wonder. Admittedly, it looked more like a ham before it went into the oven, where it came apart a bit. But it was delicious! A perfect two-person 'ham' even though it's a bit ragged looking. Next time, we'll try tying it up before cooking it.

 

Happy Easter

Easter - a celebration of spring! Back in the US, we'd usually celebrate with a dinner of ham, but here the only sort of ham available is what we think of as country ham, delicious in its own way, but quite different from the juicy, slightly sweet ham we'd have for dinner. On Friday, we went to the LeClerc in Bergerac to do our grocery shopping and came across something else that's seldom if ever seen here - chicken breasts with the bone and skin not removed. I was so excited to see these that they became my choice for Easter dinner. Since John doesn't eat chicken - or any other sort of birds, he opted for a roulade de porc Provencal, from the butcher counter. Both were wonderful. With them, we had a potato gratin and some fresh asparagus - and wine of course.

Dessert came from one of the local patisseries. These are called framboisiers and consist of layers of cream, sponge cake and raspberries. They, like absolutely all French pastries, are delicious. Amazingly enough, though, in the years we've been here, I've grown a bit bored with French pastries, and don't eat them all that often. Instead I yearn for apple pie, pecan pie and ordinary gold cake with white butter cream frosting - in other words, standard birthday cake! And I secretly long for powdered sugar doughnuts....

Before dinner, I picked this bouquet of flowers from the yard and garden. There's one of the last blooms from a lilac, a rose from the bush climbing up the trellis in front of the house, pansies and snapdragons that have been blooming all winter, and with them some wild flowers: dandelions, daisies, a couple of others whose names I don't know, and even some sprigs of grass. Nothing like flowers to celebrate spring.

Farm Country

The hay was cut two days ago, sat drying in the sun for a day, and then today it's swooped up by an impressive piece of machinery, and then sprayed into a truck running beside the giant machine.

Spring!

This is the view looking from our veggie garden towards the treed area - which I call the forest - and to the field behind. This is the first time we've seen these tulips. Last year this time, we were finishing up packing for the move, so we missed most of the spring flowers. Right now the air is perfumed with lilacs, apple blossoms, mock orange and wisteria. It's delightful. I plan to add to this by planting a honeysuckle under the bedroom window.

On Friday, we were in the nearby town of Beaumont and saw preparations for some event - maybe the brocante (antiques and used furniture and whatnots) that we forgot to go to yesterday. The local butcher had added a huge donkey statue in front of his shop. It's soft, covered in black cloth - a cloth mother? (Reminded of this by seeing a BBC show on TV about Harry Harlow and his monkey experiments) The donkey is carrying a shopping bag bearing the butcher's name, and stands beside a display of photos of people sporting these bags. I suppose anyone who is anyone must have one - or so the butcher wishes anyway!

A Different Sort of Lunch

A belated St. Patrick's Day lunch. I love corned beef and cabbage, or New England Boiled Dinner if you prefer. But here in France corned beef is not available, so you have to make your own. I got started late, and the corned beef wasn't ready until this week. We cooked it up today and served it with the traditional potatoes, cabbage, carrots, turnip and parsnip - with a bit of horseradish on the side. John said it was the best corned beef he ever had, so I must have done it right! (I almost forgot to take the photo - I had already started eating when I remembered - thus the already partially eaten potato) We'll follow this up with soup made from the broth and leftover veggies, corned beef hash, Reuben sandwiches, who knows what else. Hmmm. Can't get pumpernickel bread here either. I'll have to search up a recipe.

Spring!!!

This past Monday, the first day of spring, we had lunch in the town of Cadouin, a lovely World Heritage site, where we met our friend Liz at a local restaurant. Liz is a terrific artist and is painting murals in a private house in the town. They're gorgeous! Didn't take any photos since it's someone's private house. Anyway, here it is, the first day of spring and it was warm enough to eat outside. John celebrates by relaxing in the sun.