It's Beaujolais Time

I had planned on writing an article on French etiquette this week, but when I realized that it was already the third week of November, I decided to put off etiquette to a later date, in favor of writing about Beaujolais wines. Those of you who have come to my home for wine tasting parties, or to France with me for dégustations, visits to vineyards and caves coopératives will not be surprised by my choice.

For some years now, the third Thursday of November marks the appearance on the market of the much touted Beaujolais Nouveau. I’m all for the celebrations the event brings about worldwide. For you Seattle readers, check out Voilà Bistro or Le Pichet for a lively evening.

That said, I’m in no way a fan of the Beaujolais Nouveau wine itself. It’s not bad (well, sometimes, yes, it is bad) -- the problem is more that it’s just not very good. Its success isn’t connected to its taste, but rather to the clever marketing skills of Georges Dubœuf, et al. If you’re bent on trying the Beaujolais Nouveau (and you should at least once), be sure to chill it well and to serve it with anything but elegant dishes: French fries and sausages, for example, are a perfect match, kind of like beer and nachos. For that matter, Beaujolais Nouveau would probably work well with nachos, too. For something a bit more delicate, you might try a spinach salad dressed with walnuts, Roquefort, and a light balsamic vinaigrette. In this wine drinker’s opinion, though, that $10-20 you’re paying in the States for a bottle of the Nouveau could be better spent on a bottle of non-nouveau Beaujolais. Some of them are truly wonderful and almost always lower priced than a decent bottle of Burgundy or Bordeaux.

The densely planted Beaujolais fields are located in eastern central France, just a tad bit northwest of Lyon. Beaujolais wines are produced through an apparently unique method of vintification. I say “apparently” because I’m a wine lover, not an expert. My wine knowledge, as opposed to my wine experience, is limited: I’m familiar with numerous excellent small vineyards here in the south of France, as well as some from the Loire valley, Bordeaux, Alsace, and the Nantes region, some Italian, Californian, a smattering of South American and African wines. An expert, though, I’m not. When I take folks on wine tours here, I leave the technical explanations to the real experts: those who make the wine. What I can tell you about Beaujolais comes from some deliberate recent research for this article and from an American pianist, a real lover of Burgundies and Beaujolais, to whom I gave French lessons for five years. Hats off and merci, Monsieur C.

There are four classifications of Beaujolais: Beaujolais Nouveau, Beaujolais (a step up), Beaujolais Village (getting better), and ten Crus du Beaujolais (miam-miam): Brouilly, Chénas, Chiroubles, Côte de Brouilly, Fleurie, Juliénas, Morgon, Moulin à Vent, Régnié, Saint-amour. Specifics on these different Beaujolais are given towards the end of this article. First let’s take a look at what makes Beaujolais Beaujolais.

Of initial importance is the wine grower's choice of Gamay grapes for the encépagement (the ensemble of vine types in the field). Next is the very dense planting of the vines and the hand harvesting of the grapes. Some 35,000 harvesters are used during the ten to twenty-day harvesting period (vendange) in mid-September. Finally, Beaujolais is defined by a vintification process that uses the entire cluster of grapes -- as opposed to removing the grapes from the clusters, I would imagine. This technique encourages the best expression of Gamay fragrances and flavors.

At harvest time, the grape clusters are carefully loaded into vats made of cement or stainless steel, varying in size from forty to three hundred hectoliters. The juice that’s initially released fills between 10 to 30 percent of the volume of the vat. This quantity increases during maceration, to reach between 40 and 70 percent with the draining of the lie. Two fermenting processes take place at the same time in the vat: classic fermentation in the liquid portion and an intracellular maceration within the whole clusters of grapes. If I understand correctly, it’s this combination of methods that marks Beaujolais vintification as unique.

While the use of whole grape clusters is a constant in the Beaujolais wine-making process, variances in other elements create the spectrum of Beaujolais wines. Some are designed to be drunk immediately; some can be put down for short periods, and others for up to five years or longer. Beaujolais Nouveau, for instance, is drunk within several months of the grape harvest. Beaujolais and Beaujolais Villages have a longer life, while Beaujolais crus can and sometimes should be cellared for several years.

After fermentation, the grapes are pressed; the juice from the vats is mixed with the juice that has been pressed out. A second fermentation then takes place. Once completed, the wine can be filtered and bottled. The Beaujolais Nouveau is immediately bottled, since it’s put on the market the third Thursday of November. The other Beaujolais aren’t bottled for several more months.

The specifics that follow include suggestions for pairing the different Beaujolais with food. I personally don’t follow them too closely, since taste is very subjective. A “best” rule is to match wines and foods according to your own tastes; if you like the marriage, it’s a good match for you. What could be more obvious? You'll notice that Beaujolais is typically served between 50-57 degrees, the colder temperature being best for the Nouveaux. That, too, should be subject to your own tastes.

Brouilly
Acreage: 1200 hectares
Soil : granite and alluvial sand
Full-bodied, with a deep ruby color, nuances of red fruits, plums, peaches and mineral notes
Serve at 53°, with wild fowl and red meats

Chénas
Acreage: 260 hectares
Soil : granite sand
Well-bodied, with a ruby-tinted garnet color, floral and woodsy nuances
Serve at 57°, with lamb, sauced meats and strong cheeses

Chiroubles
Acreage: 350 hectares
Soil: granite and porphyry
Elegant, delicate body, vivid red color, very fruity with a floral nose (peonies, violets, lilies)
Serve at 53°, with charcuterie, poultry, pork

Côte de Brouilly
Acreage: 290 hectares
Soil : granite and schist
A Beaujolais thoroughbred, purple in color, with nuances of fresh grapes and iris. Ages well; should not be drunk too young
Serve at 55°, with charcuterie, rabbit stew or similar dishes

Fleurie
Acreage: 800 hectares
Soil: granitic sand
Smooth and elegant, carmine colored, with floral and fruity notes: iris, violets, roses, peaches, cassis, red fruits
Serve at 55°, with lamb, poultry, pork

Juliénas: one of my favorites
Acreage: 580 hectares
Soil : schist and granite, some clay
I read that this is a bit of a nervous wine (whatever that means) that can be drunk both young and aged for several years; strong red color, with a nose of peaches, red fruits, floral notes
Serve at 55°, with coq au vin, wild fowl, sauced poultry dishes

Morgon: another favorite of mine
Acreage: 1100 hectares
Soil : granitic schist, broken rocks
Rich and full, with a garnet color and aromas of cherry, peach, apricot, plums
Best aged
Serve at 55°, with sauced meats and game

Moulin à Vent: the Beaujolais of Beaujolais, one of my favorite wines (hmm, I have a lot of favorites...)
Acreage: 650 hectares
Soil: manganese-rich granite
Deep ruby red in color, big taste, with floral, spice, and ripe fruit nuances
Ages exceptionally well
Serve at 57°, with red meats, game, full-bodied cheeses

Régnié
Acreage: 650 hectares
Soil: sandy granite
The most recent Beaujolais, classed in 1988
Supple, well-structured wine, cherry color with a touch of violet, fruity nuances of currant, blackberry, and raspberry
Serve at 53°, with terrines, white meats, and dishes with cream

Saint-amour
Acreage: 280 hectares
Soil : siliceous clay
A lively, well-balanced wine, ruby colored with aromas of kirsch, spice and reseda
Serve at 54°, with organ meats, poultry and wild fowl

Beaujolais-Villages
Acreage: 5850 hectares
Soil : crystalline
39 towns can use this appellation
Cherry-red color, smooth in the mouth with nuances of red fruits (most notably cassis and strawberry)
Serve at 51-53°, with charcuterie, poultry, and a wide variety of dishes

Beaujolais
Acreage: 9700 hectares
Soil : chalky clay and granite
This is the porte-drapeau (standard-bearer) of Beaujolais; they tend to be floral and fruity, a good go-with-everything wine
Serve at 51°

Beaujolais Nouveau and Beaujolais-Villages Nouveaux
2/3 of these come from Beaujolais acreage, 1/3 from Beaujolais Villages acreage
They are brightly red, currant or cherry colored, are typically fruity and floral
Serve at 50°

OK, now that you know a bit about what you’re in for, go have some fun at your local Beaujolais Nouveau party. My village isn't celebrating, though -- yup, that happens in some French villages --, so I'll have to wait till a later date to try out this year's production. If you're testing it out this evening, please raise a glass for me, hopefully to the tune of Chevaliers de la Table ronde. Then go hunt down a bottle of good Beaujolais.

Peyre

Just 7 kilometers southwest of Millau is the troglodyte village of Peyre. Typically you won’t find it listed in the Michelin Atlas France, whose index does however list a Peyre that’s located near Pau, not far from the Pyrenees. The troglodyte Peyre is in the Aveyron, a stone’s throw from the Parc Naturel Régional des Grands Causses. While it may not appear in the Michelin index, it does appear on the Atlas’ map, so before you mistakenly head off towards the Spanish border, locate Millau in your Michelin, then look a bit to the left to find Peyre just off the D-41.

The name means “stone” in Occitan, also known as and langue-d'oc and provençal; it was the language of the medieval troubadours of southern France, and bears an obvious similarity to the French word for stone, pierre. Like Breton and Catalan, Occitan is still alive and kicking, having survived 19th and 20th century government measures to standardize French, to the detriment of anything other language spoken in the country. Classes, music, and literature of all sorts are available in Occitan; there are festivals that spin around its culture, and local bilingual publications where articles appear in both standard French and Occitan. Its melodious sounds are distinctly Mediterranean and carry with them the historical French-Italian-Spanish influences of southern France.

It’s not particularly easy to pronounce “Peyre” correctly if you’re an Anglophone: try saying “PAY” followed by “re.” You’ll notice a bit of a stop in your throat and a dramatic change of lip position between the two syllables if you’re on the right track. Stretch and tighten your lips for the first syllable, then purse them to pronounce the clipped “-re.” Correctly pronouncing the village’s name will help you immensely when you stop to ask for directions, because, once you’ve located Peyre in your atlas and are en route, you may discover that it’s just as difficult to find the village in the actual countryside as it was in the Michelin. It’s an easy matter for French and foreigners alike to miss the one and only, poorly positioned road sign. If you’re hesitant to ask for directions, just wander around the Millau viaduct area and you may eventually bump into Peyre on your own.

Rupestral Peyre is principally known for its troglodytic church and the spectacular view it offers of the Millau viaduct. The unusual juxtaposition of ultra-modern and medieval will instantly prompt you to reach for your camera, like many other visitors to the region. Beware: I’ve read that since the viaduct’s inauguration in 2004 by none other than former French President Jacques Chirac, car accidents in the area have increased sharply, with motorists hopping out of their cars along the départementale to snap pictures of the panoramic oxymoron. This surely has nothing to do with Chirac…

It’s best to leave your car in one of the parking lots near the new church at the base of the hill leading into Peyre, then hike the short distance up to the medieval St. Cristofol. It's not a long hike, nor a particularly steep hill either, whereas it is difficult if not impossible to find parking in the village proper. If you try, you're likely to annoy those who live there – to whom the handful of parking spots rightly belong – and, if (when) you discover that the spots are all taken, you'll have to maneuver a tricky about face, drive back down the hill and park your car where you should have left it in the first place.

You’ll notice that the narrow, winding streets of Peyre, called calades, are made of stone, and that the houses are made of limestone. Some have maintained their troglodytic aspects, with doors leading into compartments carved into the cliffs. As I wandered through the small village specifically looking for photo ops of such compartments, I found myself uncharacteristically wanting to knock on private doors for some personal insights into cave dwelling. I really wanted to see the interior of one of these troglodyte homes. My only experience with troglodytes up to that point had been literary: via an 18th century Montesquieu text, an interesting social commentary from Les Lettres persanes. You can read about this book and those letters specifically concerning the Troglodytes on one of the Wikipedia sites indicated below. I resisted my impulse, but learned to my great dismay that some visitors, usually photographers, do indeed intrude on the private life of Peyre's small population.

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troglodyte_(peuple)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_Letters

Once you reach St. Cristofol, position yourself at the low wall just in front of the church -- vertigo sufferers, breathe deeply --, with your back to the limestone cliff (tuffa) into which the church is etched. As you gaze out over the Tarn River, you’ll see before you British architect Norman Foster’s 2460 meters long, 343 meters high miracle of modern technology, the Millau Viaduct. This is a safer point from which to take a photo than on D-41. FYI: the viaduct photo attached to this article was taken halfway up the hill between Peyre’s two churches.

St. Cristofol was named for its patron saint, whose relic, apparently brought from Spain in the tenth century by Crusaders returning home to the Aveyron, was re-located to the newer church when the troglodyte church was recently restored for non-religious use by the Communes de Millau Grands Causses. The tombs whose stones can still be seen in the floor of St.Cristofol were also re-located to the newer church. The town council auctioned off the cave-church in 1872 in order to fund the newer place of worship. Today St-Cristofol plays host to local art exhibits. During my visit, Line Bonfils' acrylics were on display. Her magical paintings open onto quite another world; they can be seen online at: http://www.line-bonfils.com/

The Romanesque-style church’s location was well chosen; it’s elevation and situation allowed approaching potential attackers to be spotted long before they arrived at the village’s base. Those who constructed the edifice in the 11th century took advantage of the overhanging, corbeled cliff to reduce construction needs and also to take advantage of the security the cave could provide. To what already existed naturally, they added a projecting bell tower and a small perpendicular wall for entrance into the church. All was fortified in the seventeenth century to provide for better defense of the site and the village’s inhabitants, who took shelter there during menacing times. Before going inside, take a moment to stroll off to the left of the church’s present entrance to see the wonderful inscriptions around the older, no longer used door. They are witness to the blending of paganism and Christianity in the region many centuries ago.

Inside Saint Cristofol, you’ll find some beautiful stained glass windows. They’re a very recent addition to the church, designed by master glass maker Emmanuel Chauche, and installed in 2001. In reading about Chauche’s design, I learned that the artist drew his inspiration from the site’s natural surroundings: the rain gently passing through rock fissures, the different levels of the cave-church’s interior, the staircases leading nowhere. The windows associate drops of richly colored, heavy leaded crystal with granite to create sculptures of light that are perfectly in sync with their surroundings.

A trek to Peyre will leave you time for other activities, so if you’d like to visit additional sites in the vicinity, try the (very) tiny truffle museum in Comprégnac (La Maison de la truffe), where you can learn about everything truffle and purchase a wide variety of truffle products. I'd avoid the truffled chocolate drops, although the truffled hazelnut butter, also chocolate, is exquisite; idem for the truffle oil. You may also enjoy a visit to the Roquefort caves, where you will discover some very practical uses of the region's limestone caves. Check out the following website, available in both English and French, for more information: http://www.roquefort.fr/

A New Skill to Add to My CV?

It’s been a long while since my last entry on this site. Contrary to what one might think – that I’d have time on my hands living in a lost-in-the-middle-of-nowhere village –, this back to basics life can be quite time consuming. On the other hand, both the setting and pace are relaxing, at least in the warmer months: I’m writing this on my laptop, seated on a sun-drenched stone terrace next to my tomato garden.

That sounds better than it actually is. The wind is starting to whip up and there are only three tomato and four basil plants in the garden, bordered by drooping sunflowers and lots of dahlias and zinnias, all unfortunately orange. I dramatically limited the size of my garden because seeds are pricey here and mostly because I don’t have any water faucets for outdoor purposes. At least, that’s what I thought in the spring when I dug up all the weeds and ivy next to the terrace to make a small garden spot edged in large stone slabs. I managed to carry those heavy (heavy!) slabs from the front yard, down the steps to the terrace by constantly visualizing how lovely they would look there. This mentality exasperates some folks and is absolutely incomprehensible to others. Happily none of those people belong to my inner circle and everyone found my insanity quite normal. Hmm…

Back to why the garden is so small, albeit prolific. I didn’t realize that in France, the outdoor water faucets are often located in the garage, and only mid-way through the summer did my upstairs neighbor fill me in on that important detail. I’ve spent quite a bit of time living in France, but I’d never bothered with gardens here till now. The water faucet-in-the-garage is apparently a given for the French; my neighbors and partner alike found it odd that I didn’t know. I found it odd that they had all seen me going back and forth between my kitchen and garden with large plastic bottles of tap water, for months, yet no one had mentioned the faucet in the garage before now. Feeling unjustly criticized, I countered with the obvious question: “So, where are the water faucets in the United States?” Blank looks all around, I tried to suppress a smug smile. I didn’t try all that hard.

Like any intelligent soul, I walked all around the premises to locate the water faucets when I first moved into my little apartment. Seeing none, I assumed that the garden plants had to be watered the very old fashioned way: with watering cans filled at the river or the kitchen sink. I never considered catching rainfall in barrels. I’m patient about many things and ecologically minded, too, but catching rainfall in barrels would be way too much trouble for a few tomatoes. For a brief moment, though, I considered buying a really long length of hose to siphon water from the river into my garden. I know how to do that from all those years on a farm way back in another life. But I abandoned the idea as folly because the distance to cover was uphill, too long, crossed someone else’s garden, and the hose cost too much anyway. I resigned myself to a garden small enough to water by hand, with water from my kitchen. Besides, I reasoned that Jean-Paul and I had a large garden spot at his house – and I thought it would be relaxing at day’s end to make a "few" trips back and forth from kitchen to garden. Maybe village life is deteriorating my brain cells.

The short of it is that I put in a few tomatoes, some herbs and flowers at my place, and we put lots of tomatoes, basil, and other big, sprawling stuff at Jean-Paul’s, where there is no garage, and where the faucets are indeed outside – so why all those surprised looks when I expected faucets at my place to be outside? (Va comprendre ces Français, même ceux que l’on aime. Go figure, those French, even those we love.) And I’ve been filling containers with water at the kitchen sink to keep my plants happy and growing. What seemed an easy chore has become an annoyance and I find that, even though I am melancholic to see summer’s end, I’m not dismayed to see the leaves on my tomato plants starting to die off. Just to be clear, it’s not from lack of water.

These past months have brought me other new experiences as well. The most out of the ordinary was working in a small honey extraction facility. I hesitate to call it a “factory” because that would conjure up something much larger and more organized than the actual place. I remember my first thoughts upon stepping inside and seeing the machinery and equipment, some of which could definitely be termed hazardous: “Ah, no phone lines, no cell phone reception, no emergency gear, hornets and bees flying about menacingly, you’ll be here alone much of the time – fais gaffe! Watch out!"

The bees, boxes and combs belong to a friend of ours whose back is shot from years as a beekeeper. He couldn’t do the extracting himself this year, so he asked us if we would help out. Even with our very limited experience, we can empathize: we’re both in dire need of a visit to the local kiné. Thankfully the extracting is in hiatus at the moment.

There are numerous apiculteurs and apicultrices in the south of France and all kinds of honey produced. Chris’ honey comes mostly from chestnut trees, although all his jar labels say otherwise. Here’s his very practical explanation: he sells most of his honey in bulk, in large vats, and only a small quantity currently goes into jars for sale to individuals. When he first started out years ago, that wasn’t the case. Back then, he sold his honey in different sized jars, mainly to individuals, so ordered a large number of labels for the kind of honey he was then producing: a blend coming from different flowers. Even though his production and marketing have changed, he hasn’t used up all the labels he bought years ago, so sticks those on his limited jar production, noting the correct year. He reasons that anyone who knows honey will know that it’s chestnut honey and will be intelligent enough to understand that the label means nothing; it’s just a bearer of his name and the year. On top of that, most of the folks who buy jars of honey from him are from the area anyway, so know him as well as his honey. He told us that occasionally someone driving by will come into the extracting facility out of curiosity and will purchase a jar or two. Out of these customers, a handful come back to complain that the honey in the jar is not what’s indicated on the label. Chris just shrugs. He figures they just want to act like experts. Who in their right mind, he asks, would drive all the way back up into the mountains to make such a dumb complaint?

He also talked to us about the honey market, saying that although it’s fairly good these days, to actually make a living beekeeping, you have to have many, many hives (ruches) and take dramatic and often costly measures against diseases. Entire hives can be wiped out nearly instantly. Eco-friendly measures are in general expensive and time-consuming. He and his wife practice ecologically sound beekeeping, just barely eking out a living from their 500 hives. Other local beekeepers tell us that that’s a respectable number and that you can’t live on fewer unless you have a second job or also sell your honey on the village market circuits, and for that you have to get up at 5 every morning, load your goods into your van, travel to that day’s market (there’s a market to be found somewhere every day in the region), then spend long hours pitching your product. Chris refuses that life-style, even though it might increase his income. He prefers having some free time for other pursuits. He composes incredible jazz and blues numbers on his guitar, just for pleasure – being timid about such things, he’s never played in public. His wife shares his perspective about the market circuit. She suffers from lumbago and no longer works in the miellerie, although she still goes out into the fields with Chris when she’s able. She supplements their income by working as the village librarian for our closet-sized stash of books.

We learned that the bee scene requires a certain steady nerve. Decked out from head to toe to fingertips in white beekeeping garb, Chris and Dom, along with a Dutch friend of theirs, go out into the fields to collect the hives when it’s extracting time. They load the hives onto their truck and cart them off to the miellerie, which Chris financed and built with help from the local government and the European Union. Other apiculteurs use the miellerie as well, but it’s not a co-op. It’s Chris’ project and his equipment for the most part, too. The others book time to use the space and equipment, then come in with their hausses (bee boxes filled with honey-laden frames, and a few still very buzzing bees) to process.

One Sunday morning while I was working in the miellerie, expecting to be entirely alone, Nadou the apicultrice showed up with her hausses. Ready to retire in just a few years, she’s owned and run her own small honey business most of her life, with a few sideline gigs teaching French to foreigners. She sells her honey and pollen in small, hand-labeled jars, mostly to individual buyers at the local markets and in a couple of village shops. Her hands, gnarled by arthritis, betrayed her hard beekeeper’s life. Her attire did not. She was dressed in a lovely skirt and snazzy sandals, whereas I was dressed in an old pair of roller-blading shorts, a tank top, and a pair of plastic tongs. It was hot and humid and the work messy, hence my choice of clothing. Nadou donned an apron and went to work. I doubt that an apron would have covered me sufficiently for the tasks with which Chris had charged me. There was honey dripping everywhere, off of everything, including every one of my fingers. There’s no way to extract the honey without getting some of it on you – a lot of it in the beginning, when you’re just learning how. Nadou was mostly tapping her honey into jars that she then labeled. I like to think that it's easier to be elegant pasting a label than scraping honeycombs with a big hand rake to knock off the seals the bees have made (they’re very efficient little creatures). That’s what I was doing when Nadou arrived, prepping the honey boards for the centrifuge machine that would spin the honey out of the combs.

If you’re working on a small scale, you can do all the scraping by hand, then put the honey frames into a small spinner. If you’ve got a lot of honey to extract, though, like we did, a large spinner and a cutting machine are more practical. The cutting/scraping machine we used could hold 50 honey frames; the centrifuge machine could hold 30 at a time.

Here’s the process, with my apologies to anyone reading who knows the correct vocabulary in English. I’m writing with the handicap of having experienced honey extraction in French only. You lift what can be a heavy-with-honey frame from a bee box, to place it into the scraping machine. Carefully. There are blades at the bottom that can take your fingers off. And the metal rods that hold the frames in place can easily crush your hands. I quickly figured out that it was easier to stick my fingers directly into the honey combs in order to correctly position the frame between the (moving) rods instead of trying to do it by holding the outside edges of the frames. The machine moved the frame down between the blades that scraped most of the seals, then was pushed along into a holding bin. Occasionally the machine got out of whack, sending a frame down a bit sideways. If you were quick enough, you could send the frame back up by setting the reverse button, enabling you to re-position the frame. Sometimes, though, the frame broke, its pieces caught between the rods. That was not fun to fix.

In fact, the first time it happened to me, I didn’t have the slightest idea of how to fix it. I thought I’d broken the machine. I was the only one in the miellerie, no one was around, I had no cell phone (which wouldn’t have worked anyway since you couldn’t get any reception in the place), and was therefore very, very wary of putting my hands into the machine to dislodge the broken pieces of wood. I knew that Chris was skeptical about having a woman working there, too; he’s a great guy but a tad bit sexist. That factored into my determination to fix things on my own, even though I was nervous about just how to do it.

I turned everything off, unplugged everything, too, then studied the machine. It seemed to me that it was out of balance on the right side, causing the frame to drop more on the left side rather than uniformly. Figuring that out would help me repair the machine to make it run more smoothly IF I could get the stuck and now broken frame out. Nothing was plugged in, so it was unreasonable for me to be afraid of the machine suddenly lurching into motion. However, that’s exactly what had me frozen. I could almost feel my hands being squished between the rods. “Ouch” does not express what I was imagining. This is not the kind of work you’re trained for if you have a PhD in literature…

BUT I took a deep breath, told myself that there really wasn’t any danger – which was true, since the machine was both off and unplugged – and with the help of a metal spatula and a hammer was able to pull out all the broken pieces of wood. I then re-set things, plugged the machine back in, ran alternately the reverse and forward motions until the machine was unjammed and running smoothly again. That was a good moment. It was a better moment when I positioned a new frame of honey and it dropped down evenly between the scraping blades, allowing me to continue the job. I remember asking myself aloud what I was doing there in that miellerie anyway. Good question.

Next step in the process: once you’ve run enough scraped frames into the holding bin, you lift them one by one to check that the seals have all been adequately scraped. If some remain, you scrape them by hand with a pronged metal tool – very sharp, by the way, very slippery, too, since it’s covered with honey. If a frame is substantially laden with pollen, you set it aside, to be placed in the spinner in a particular fashion. Once you have the frames all prepped, you load them into the spinner, ten per arm of the spinner. Then comes the hard part that requires some muscle power. You have to lift up the full and very heavy arm in order to position it in the spinner. It's a backache in the making. Once all three arms are full and a few other details taken care of, you can (finally) turn on the spinner, first at a slow speed to make sure all’s well, then kicking up the speed little by little to full blast. The honey flows and flows, running through several filters and finally into a huge vat. It's lovely to see, especially when you've done it all yourself without too much mishap.

The post-centrifuge process involves removing the spun frames from the spinner, placing them back in the bee boxes, then stacking the boxes. Not so interesting. Once you’ve emptied all the frames and are down to the metal catch-tray that protects the floor from being covered with dripping honey, you head outdoors to deposit the tray on the ground. Hoards of bees descend on it to eat up the remaining honey. Everything is recycled, nothing wasted.

I’ve never been a honey lover, but found myself licking my fingers and liking the gooey stuff. I’ve not touched a drop since my last day of extracting, even though we have several jars of it in the kitchen cupboard. It’s not the same. My guess is I won’t eat anymore honey till next season, and then only what drips its way directly from the combs onto my fingers.

For those more constant honey lovers, I’ve included below two honey bread recipes, one in French and one in English. Bon appétit.


PAIN D’EPICES AU MIEL
Ingrédients :
* 125 g de beurre
* 250 g de miel
* 75 g de sucre roux
* 2 oeufs
* 225 g de farine de blé complet
* 2 pincée de sel
* 1 cuil. à café de levure chimique
* 1 cuil. à café bombée de cinq-épices (ou d’épices spécial pain d’épices)

Préparation :
1. Faites chauffer le miel, le sucre et le beurre, en remuant, jusqu’à ce que le sucre ait fondu.
2. Dans ce mélange légèrement refroidi, ajoutez les oeufs battus en omelette.
3. Incorporez, enfin, la farine tamisée avec la levure, le sel et les épices.
4. Versez la pâte dans moule carré de 18 cm de côté et faites cuire, à 170° C, pendant 1 h 30 environ : votre pain d’épices est cuit quand ses bords se détachent du moule.
5. Démoulez et laissez refroidir.


HONEY SPICE BREAD
Ingredients for 2 loaves (10 slices each)
* 2-3 tbsp. unsalted butter, at room temperature
* 315 ml (1 1/4 cups) whole milk
* 250 ml (1 cup) packed brown sugar
* 375 ml (1 1/2 cups) buckwheat honey
* 1 liter (4 cups) unbleached flour
* 2 tsp. baking powder
* 1 tsp. fennel seed
* 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
* 1/2 tsp. salt
* 1/4 tsp. ground cloves
* 1/4 tsp. ground ginger
* A pinch of ground black pepper
* 2 tbsp. candied ginger, finely chopped
* 1 large egg + 1 yolk, at room temperature


Method
1. Preheat the oven to 125° C (250° F). Butter two large (9 1/4 x 5 1/4 X 2 1/2) loaf pans, line the bottom with parchment paper and butter the parchment. Everything must be well-buttered or it will stick. Set aside.
2. Heat the milk, sugar and honey in a small saucepan over medium heat, stirring until the sugar is dissolved. Remove from the heat and set aside until slightly cooled.
3. In the bowl of a heavy duty mixer fitted with the paddle attachment combine flour, baking soda, fennel seed, salt, cinnamon, cloves, ground ginger and pepper. In two batches, add the tepid honey mixture and candied ginger. Scrape down the sides as needed, and blend on low speed until just combined. Add the egg and egg yolk and beat on medium speed until well blended.
4. Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pans, dividing the batter evenly and not filling the pans more than half full. Transfer to the heated oven and bake until a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean, 2 to 2 1/2 hours. (Watch the last 30 to 45 minutes, and cover with aluminum foil if the bread starts to become too dark).
5. Remove the loaves to a rack to cool slightly. Turn the loaves out of the pans and remove the parchment paper. Slice each loaf into 10 slices. The bread keeps well very tightly wrapped in plastic wrap for up to 1 week.

Elections

I missed posting during the entire month of May, having bottomed out at the end of the first week when France elected right-winger Nicolas Sarkozy as its next president.

Even though statistics published during the two weeks between the first and second rounds of voting pointed to a probable victory for “Sarko,” May 6 saw most of us in this village still hoping that he would be defeated by his opponent, Ségolène Royal, who had, in our opinion, won hands down the final hours’ Presidential debate. Both candidates had finally shown their true colors, but ALAS, too late. To paraphrase what my sister wrote in a recent email: you would think that, given what’s transpired in the United States over the past several years, people everywhere would open their eyes and think seriously about the direction the world is taking for its (our) future… and not support another version of Bush. No comment.

The evening of May 6, my partner and I joined several members of his family to watch the returns after the polls had closed. Everyone was glued to the TV screen as the French flag began to unfurl, disclosing the image of the nation’s newest president. Even the little kids in the room were on pins and needles, their faces buried in their hands, chanting, “not Sarkozy, not Sarkozy.” One of them, stoically optimistic, remarked, “Tiens, au moins ce n’est pas LePen.” An évidence? I can only say peut-être, since Sarkozy stands to the right of even LePen on some issues. He cleverly succeeded in leading a campaign that seduced LePen supporters into voting for him. Let me nudge your interpretation of that observation along by noting that in no way am I applauding Sarkozy’s intelligence.

Everyone around me continues to lament the path upon which France has set itself. Well, not quite everyone. The couple that runs the local bakery and one of my neighbors are notable exceptions. They didn’t divulge their political leanings until I’d already put both feet in my mouth: while waiting in line one day just after the big debate and before the final election, I voiced my opinion about the candidates, giving high marks to Royal's intelligence and poise. I don’t generally allow myself that kind of freedom of expression because this is a very small community across which the smallest morsel of information travels quickly.

On the heels of what I thought was an open and innocuous conversation (because the town is so liberal), the normally warm and chatty baker’s wife stopped speaking to me. It was thankfully a short-lived cold-shoulder; after all, France is a country where arguing different viewpoints is a past-time as popular as boules. I couldn’t figure out what gaff I’d made, so chalked it up to some bee-in-a-bonnet that had nothing to do with me. Not until after Sarkozy’s victory did I learn that the bakers were two of the few folks in this village who had voted for Sarkozy. One of the others is my neighbor, who was in the bakery the day of the “foot-in-mouth” incident. She and her husband canceled each other’s votes, which they've apparently been doing since they were married 30+ years ago. Since every conversation we'd ever had pointed to more liberal tendencies, I was surprised by her support for Sarkozy.

She’s not the only quasi-liberal in France to have made such a choice. The explanation for this may lie in the rather centrist position of the Socialist Party, which has become more and more conservative over the years. The shock of yet another Socialist defeat (remember how Jean-Marie LePen trounced Jospin last time around) may finally move the PS towards some serious re-evaluations. In the meantime, however, France has five-5-cinq years under the Sarkozy regime.

And regime it will be: he’s not known for discussing ideas; a recent cartoon image in the Canard Enchaîné depicts him as Napoleon wearing tennis shoes. There’s already a buzz about that measures will be drastic. For instance, the talk last week was that the policy allowing free entry into museums once a month may already be on the cutting board. The reasoning is that it may not be a “good idea” to let people have something for free. OK, sure, no problem – after all, the arts are for the elite, n’est-ce pas? The rest of us more humble folks could never understand them anyway. I don’t think this is the reasoning behind the proposed cut, however; I think it has more to do with the government’s posture on the workweek. This is a complicated idea to explain in a short blog. Suffice it to say that, apparently, those who are “financially challenged” have been promised the opportunity of working more hours. On the surface, this seems like a logical solution. It’s an illusion, however, since there’s no talk of raising the minimum wage and there isn’t any more work out there that would allow one to earn more money. One gentleman, the owner and director of his own company, told me that he’s already hard pressed to find enough for his employees to do during the current 35-hour workweek (which Sarkozy will do away with). He doesn’t have enough business to offer supplemental hours. And his employees have no desire to work longer hours. They’d rather stick with the 35-hour week and a lower income in the interest of going home early to be with their families. Curiously, many of these same folks voted for Sarkozy. His promise to provide them with more buying power lured them in. He never explained how he’d realize the goal of providing more work; this sticking point either went unnoticed or didn’t bother a considerable number of French voters.

My comments end here in favor of sharing an email that's been circulating this week in liberal circles. I’ve translated it into English, but if you scroll down, you can read the original French version. It’s a conversation between an American banker and a Mexican fisherman, but it takes little to imagine the same conversation between two people of other nationalities, or even between two people sharing the same nationality…
-------------
A little village on the Mexican coastline. The sun is shining and there’s a slight breeze. A boat comes back into the harbor with several freshly caught tunas. An American compliments the Mexican fisherman on the quality of his fish and asks him how long it took him to catch them.

“A few hours,” replies the Mexican.

“So why didn’t you stay longer in order to catch more fish?” asks the American.

The Mexican explains that his family only needs a few fish.

The American then asks: “But what do you do with the rest of your time?”

“I sleep late, I fish a bit, I play with my kids, I take naps with my wife. At night I go into the village to see my friends. We drink wine and play guitar. I have quite a busy life.”

The American interrupts him to say, “I have an MBA from Harvard and can help you. First, you should start fishing longer hours. With the money that will bring in, you’ll be able to buy a bigger boat. And with the money the bigger boat will help you bring in, you’ll be able to buy a second boat, and so forth and so on… until you own a whole flotilla of trawlers. Instead of selling your fish through an intermediary, you could negotiate directly with the factory. In fact, you could open your own factory. Then you could leave your tiny village for Mexico City or Los Angeles, then maybe New York, where you yourself would lead all your own business dealings.

The Mexican then asks: “How much time would this take me?”

“Fifteen to twenty years,” replies the banker.

“And then?” asks the Mexican.

“Then things get interesting,” says the banker, laughing. “When the moment arrives, you’ll be able to introduce your company into the stock market and you’ll earn millions.”

“Millions? But what then?”

“Then you’ll have a well-deserved retirement, you’ll come back here to live in your little seaside village to sleep late, play with your grandchildren, fish a bit, take naps with your wife, and spend your evenings drinking and playing guitar with your friends!”


“….????”
-------------
Au bord de la mer, dans un petit village de la côte mexicaine. Il y a du soleil et une petite brise. Un bateau rentre au port avec quelques thons fraîchement pêchés. Un Américain complimente le pêcheur mexicain sur la qualité de ses poissons et lui demande combien de temps il lui a fallu pour les capturer.

« Quelques heures », répond le Mexicain.

« Mais alors, pourquoi n'êtes-vous pas resté en mer plus longtemps pour en attraper plus ? » demande l'Américain.

Le Mexicain répond que ces quelques poissons suffiront à subvenir aux besoins de sa famille.

L'Américain demande alors : « Mais que faites-vous le reste du temps ? »

« Je fais la grasse matinée, je pêche un peu, je joue avec mes enfants, je fais la sieste avec ma femme. Le soir je vais au village voir mes amis. Nous buvons du vin et jouons de la guitare. J'ai une vie bien remplie ».

L'Américain l'interrompt : « J'ai un MBA de l'université de Harvard et je peux vous aider. Vous devriez commencer par pêcher plus longtemps. Avec les bénéfices dégagés, vous pourriez acheter un plus gros bateau. Avec l'argent que vous rapporterait ce bateau, vous pourriez en acheter un deuxième et ainsi de suite, jusqu'à ce que vous possédiez une flotte de chalutiers. Au lieu de vendre vos poissons a un intermédiaire, vous pourriez négocier directement avec l'usine, et même ouvrir votre propre usine. Vous pourriez alors quitter votre petit village pour Mexico City, Los Angeles, puis peut être New York, d'où vous dirigeriez toutes vos affaires ».

Le Mexicain demande alors : « Combien de temps cela me prendrait-il ? »

« 15 a 20 ans », répond le banquier.

« Et après ? »

« Après, c'est là que ça devient intéressant, répond l'américain en riant. Quand le moment sera venu, vous pourrez introduire votre Société en bourse et vous gagnerez des millions ».

« Des millions ? Mais après ? »

« Après, vous pourrez prendre une retraite bien méritée, revenir habiter votre petit village en bord de mer pour y faire la grasse matinée, jouer avec vos petits-enfants, pêcher un peu, faire la sieste avec votre femme, et passer vos soirées à boire et à jouer de la guitare avec vos amis !!! »

« .....???? »

[H. Thomas, Genève]

The Annual Village Community Newsletter

Our local newsletter, le bulletin municipal, is an annual publication that showed up in my mailbox at some point between December and January. Given that it’s marked Numéro 12, Année 2006, it’s apparently only been around this centuries-old village for the past twelve years.

In this latest edition -- which I’ve only recently opened -- the Mayor and the Conseil municipal present an administrative account of their activities on behalf of the village and surrounding hamlets during the year 2006 and send their meilleurs vœux for 2007. Some of the featured articles communicate information on the annual budget, expenditures, taxes, improvements made to local roads and community properties, social activities and volunteer work done by the inhabitants of the village and outlying areas.

There’s a page dedicated to entrepreneurs new to the community. The village’s one and only café changed hands this past year. A photo of the new owners, a young couple from Paris, headlines the short article announcing the changing of the guard. There seems to be some kind of buzz surrounding the former owners and their decision to sell. Now and then I hear, “The X’s don’t really belong here.” Whether or not that’s true, the X’s are still here. Since selling the café and the home attached to it, they’ve been living in a rental house just next door, while looking for another café they can afford elsewhere in France. Every once in awhile I hear one of the elderly women in the village declare in a lowered voice that “Their” rental contract is nearly up and that “They” will have to leave by the end of May because the property owner will be coming to spend the summer months in the house. The outgoing owners are ostensibly named a such, but that’s all -- no farewells, no well wishing for future ventures. The “best of luck” expressed is for the newcomers only. The three-line article is great reading, with an exquisite tension between what’s expressed and what’s omitted. The caption “Jeunesse et enthusiasme” above the new owners’ photo just begs to be interpreted.

Being an outsider myself, I can’t help but think of Dr. Seuss’ Star Bellied Sneetches, and a star on my belly I surely have not. This shortcoming doesn’t keep me awake at night, though; in fact, I feel that I’ve been warmly welcomed here. I was surprised when the conseiller fiscal at the Post Office, who’s French but not native to these parts, asked me a couple of months ago if I didn’t feel that the people here were cold and closed off. That hasn’t been my experience. However, when I mentioned the conversation to my partner, whose family has lived in this mountainous region for centuries, I learned then that the people who had so easily befriended me had come here themselves from other regions of France. According to him, the banker, who has since left, was right on the money. JP attributes the somewhat suspicious nature of the people here to the region’s history of religious conflict between Catholics and Protestants. I’d say it’s pretty common in small communities of all types and nationalities. We human beings seem to have a need to delineate “us” from “them” and to assure ourselves that “they” just don’t measure up to our standards. Montesquieu wrote a great little book in the 18th century called Les Lettres persanes that takes a serious yet tongue-in-cheek look at our perception of others and their cultures. From the viewpoint of Persians visiting France for the first time, Montesquieu criticizes French society and showcases just how relative one’s norms are – anyone who’s spent time in another country (with an open mind) knows that it’s a great way to clarify our vision of ourselves and our own culture. I highly recommend the Montesquieu book: even if you’re not into philosophy, it’s a fun read. Back to the bulletin…

...which tells us that the second 2006 arrival to the world of village commerce was our new electrician and handyman, a local fellow returning home after being certified in plumbing, heating, and apparently all things electrical and solar as well. His business card showcases a long list of qualifications and skills. This same kind of touché-à-tout may still exist in the USA, but my guess is that the American tendency to specialize has whittled the numbers down considerably. Here in this isolated mountain village, even the do-it-yourselfers were happy to see Joachim take up residence. The rest of us were ecstatic.

Next to the photo of Joachim on the job is a box marked “Quoi de neuf?" Inside the box are the following village statistics for 2006: 5 marriages, 3 deaths, 4 births.

The page that really caught my eye, however, is the one exclaiming Comité des Fêtes en peril! The Party Committee is charged with a serious mission: to keep alive the social life of the village. Last year one of the headlines congratulated the new Committee and wished its new President all the best. This year, with incredible understatement, the article announces that 2007 is looking dismal for the Committee… since the entire board has resigned. The French are discrete: there is no explanation. This is a very small community where nothing goes unnoticed or unknown, so there’s no need for an explanation anyway. There’s a call to fill the vacant seats, all six of them. In justifiably dramatic language -- there’s not much to do here without the activities organized by the Committee --, the stakes are laid out: the death of the Committee will entail the end of the chorale, the Nature Festival, Story Nights, the Folk Dance, the Belotes Competition, the fall Mushroom Feast. The Easter Egg Hunt will disappear and Father Christmas will no longer visit the children of the village. Two pages of photos of smiling villagers happily participating in these events during 2006 illustrate what we are on the verge of losing.

The village rallied and filled the seats, with the baker and his wife at the helm. They just pulled off a very successful and altogether fun Easter get together that included a terrific chocolate egg hunt. Religious rites and pagan tradition mix easily in this village: after church services, villagers and visitors alike took advantage of the occasion to mingle and catch up after a long winter, as the children scurried around the park looking for the chocolate eggs that had been hidden earlier that morning. Beverages of all kinds were sold for the modest price of 1€, after which dozen after dozen of eggs were cracked to make omelets for all present. This part of the festivities had been billed as a giant omelet, but when it came right down to the practical aspects of making an omelet for a sizable crowd, the giant omelet was transformed into many smaller ones. We all laughed about it and no one had a negative comment about the change in plans. I can’t remember ever having enjoyed myself more over a plate of eggs.

French Mini-Lesson

March 23, 2007
French Language Mini-Lesson: the verb aller

The French verb aller (“to go”) is used for talking about moving from one place to another: On va à la boulangerie chaque matin. = “We go to the bakery every morning.”

But it’s also used in numerous and sundry other ways. If you’ve read my story about mushroom hunting, then you know that aller aux champignons is a way to say “to go mushroom hunting.” Literally the expression means “to go to the mushrooms,” which is what you’re hoping will happen when you head out into the forest. You can also say, aller chercher des champignons. On sad days of abject failure to find more than a few scraggly specimens, this latter expression more accurately describes the frustrating quest – at least once last fall, when the too-brief cèpes season was drawing to a close, the only mushrooms I found were poisonous and even those were few and far between. Je suis allée aux champignons, je cherchais, cherchais, sans rien trouver.[I went mushroom hunting, I looked and looked, without finding a thing.]

Aller is used in numerous expressions in French. It’s used to talk about the near future, just like we use “to go” coupled with an infinitive in English: Bientôt, je vais écrire une histoire sur mon rendez-vous avec un conseiller fiscal à la Poste. = Soon I’m going to write a story about my appointment with a bank counselor at the Post Office… et vous allez en rigoler (peut-être)! And you’re going to laugh about it!

Put aller in the imparfait to talk about what you were going to do: J’allais ouvrir un compte à la Poste, mais le conseiller fiscal a été tellement bizarre que j’ai change d’avis. = I was going to open a (bank) account at the Post Office, but the personal banker was so strange that I changed my mind.

Of course you can also use the simple future form of the verb that follows aller, just like in English you can either say, “I’ll tell you the story later” or “I’m going to tell you the story later.” There’s a slight nuance between the two expressions, but they mean basically the same thing. Ditto in French: Je te raconterai l’histoire plus tard is more or less the same thing as Je vais te raconter l’histoire plus tard.

Aller has an irregular conjugation in the present tense; here’s a quick review:
je vais
tu vas
il va
elle va
on va
nous allons
vous allez
ils vont
elles vont

If you want to say that you’re not / you’re never / you’re no longer going to do something, position the negation ne pas / ne jamais / ne plus around the conjugated verb aller: Je ne vais pas ouvrir de compte à la Poste. Je ne vais jamais revoir ce conseiller fiscal. Je ne vais plus lui demander de conseils. = “I’m not going to open an account at the P.O. I’m never again going to see that personal banker. I’m no longer going to ask him for advice.” Basta!

Moving on… aller is also used in the following useful expressions (and many others not listed):

aller droit au but = to get straight to the point (no beating around the bush)
un aller simple = a one way ticket
un aller-retour = a round trip ticket
des va-et-vient = comings and goings
Ça va, ça vient. = Win some, lose some.
Qu’est-ce qui ne va pas?= What’s wrong?
Cette couleur ne te va pas. = That color doesn’t suit you.
On y va? = Shall we go? / Let’s go?
Je m’en vais. = I’m leaving.
Allez-vous-en! = Go away! / Get out of here!
Va-t’en! = Go away! / Get out of here!
Il en va de meme pour les autres.= Ditto for the others.
Plus ça va, moins ça va. = Things are going from bad to worse.
Ça va de soi. = That’s obvious.
Il va fort. = He’s exaggerating.
Il se laisse aller. = He’s letting himself go. / He’s getting lax.

Any questions? Any interesting aller expressions to share? You can email me via my web site – the address is on the top left column of this page.

Allez, ciao, à la prochaine.

Moving to France

Making the decision to move to France is much easier than making your way through all the official paperwork necessary to live there legally. That requires patience, tenacity and a pretty good sense of humor, so adapt a flexible and creative frame of mind before embarking on your visa adventure. If you cling to linear thinking and appealing to logic as necessarily effective communication tools, you’re going to run into more than one difficult-to-circumvent roadblock and probably provoke a few migraines, not to mention a few French civil servants.

Why? Because the usually overworked, under-experienced, few in number and often very young French Consulate personnel treating your visa request will more likely than not discard anything you have to say before it even leaves your lips. Never mind that you are older (even much older), more experienced and possibly wiser.

I was lucky enough to deal with a delightful and very knowledgeable woman when I applied for my visa. She was the Visa Section’s supervisor. The young woman working with her, however, fit the stereotype for a young, attractive French fonctionnaire (civil servant). Haughty and self-important, she made no effort to hide her disdain for those seeking visas. She seemed to consider us all guilty of some crime and our very presence in the Visa Section as an inexcusable, offensive intrusion into her own personal space.

West Coast Americans are generally far too polite and too easily intimidated when faced with this kind of behavior. That’s probably true of Americans in general, who tend towards excessive politeness, at times even to the detriment of realizing their goals. North-Easterners, who can be aggressive in their interactions, would be an exception to this generalization. This is an observation I allow myself as a native New Englander who lived many years in the Northwest and several in the South.

At any rate, the interaction between a “typical” French fonctionnaire and a “typical” American can be a tricky dynamic to negotiate. If you overreact, you’ll never get anywhere, but if you present yourself as willing to be walked all over, you won’t get anywhere either because you won’t be respected. In France, it’s your job to elicit [read: impose] respect. This is a generality, of course. Know that the French person with whom you’re interacting is not necessarily going to treat you with respect simply because you yourself are well mannered and respectful. Unless you’re already familiar and comfortable with this dynamic and/or are an older, charming and well-dressed man, I suggest that you just take a deep breath and keep your comments to yourself, while inwardly chanting your mantra of vouloir c’est pouvoir, “where there’s a will, there’s a way.” If you have the required documents, there is no reason for your file to be refused and therefore you can consider the visa process as a series of hoops through which to jump, gracefully or not. Some hurdles are directly linked to French culture, but most are simply the result of typical administrative exigencies. Bureaucracy is bureaucracy; the visa process for non-Americans asking to stay in the States is just as unclear and bumpy a road to travel. Chapeau to all who make it through the ordeal intact, in their country of choice.

Some important details about a visa for France
Americans are allowed to remain in France for up to three months with just a passport. Anything beyond that requires a long-stay visa and a carte de séjour (a green card). Make your life easier by following this inviolable rule of order: first comes the visa, then the carte de séjour. In the past, if you were tenacious enough and knew the right people, you could sometimes score a green card without a visa, and even do it while in France. Nowadays, though, you absolutely must have a visa first and your visa request must be made while you’re in the United States. The subsequent request for a carte de séjour must be made within eight days after your arrival in France, visa in hand. Be sure to open your passport to the page where your visa is affixed so the French authorities see it and stamp it when you go through customs.

Both the visa and the carte de séjour require almost identical paperwork. You’re perhaps tempted to think that this goes towards efficiency, the assumption being that the branch of the French government that treats your visa request forwards your file to the authorities that will process your carte de séjour request. Erreur! Yes, that seems logical; nonetheless that’s apparently not what happens.

You submit your paperwork twice: first, in the United States to the French Consulate, who sends your file off to France for a yea or a nay. The files are only expedited to France every two weeks, not systematically as requests are made, and not electronically as you might think would be the case, given all the technology at our disposal nowadays capable of dramatically facilitating bureaucratic procedures.

In the eventuality of a yea from France, you’ll then submit pretty much the same documents to your local Préfecture when you arrive in France. If you live in a small village like I do, you can leave your file with the Mayor’s Office. They’ll either send it off to the Préfecture by mail or the mayor himself will deliver it in person. This is one of the many real advantages of living in a small convivial French community. I lived a long time in a fairly cosmopolitan American city and am amazed and delighted by the mayor’s genuine availability to his constituents here in the village. He even stopped by late one night after a long day of work and meetings to counsel Jean-Paul and me about the paperwork with which we were faced. Perhaps there are still towns in the USA where that happens, but I’ve never experienced it.

If you live on the West Coast of the US, you have to travel to San Francisco to file your visa request in person. This can be costly if you’re out of state, so be sure your file is complete. The Consulate usually won’t accept incomplete files, although they’ll sometimes allow you to fax supplemental information post-visit. Check the web site for a list of documents required and take at least 3 photocopies of everything. You’ll need several visa request forms – not photocopies -- each filled out identically; you can download the forms from the web site. The San Francisco Consulate requires four, if I remember correctly. Contrary to logic, not all the French Consulates require the same number of forms; information you find on their individual web sites does not always match… Va comprendre.

If your original documents are in English, translate them into French and make 3 copies of the English translations. It doesn’t seem to matter if the translations are perfect. Two of my students planning a long ski vacation in the French Alps did all their translations themselves. They contained errors of grammar and syntax, but were quite understandable and were accepted by the Consulate. Be aware, however, that some French agencies demand professionally translated, officially notarized documents. It all depends on the type of request and file being made.

Three passport-size photos are required for the visa application, then four for the carte de séjour. It’s practical to have the copies made all at once, but if you forget, as I did, you can easily have more photos made in France. Don’t waste your money on a photographer – just look for a Photomaton at a local supermarket, shopping mall or train station. It’s quick and cheap: six color ID photos for about four euros. Be sure to press the right button, though: the machines take several kinds of photos and the Préfecture requires photos specifically formatted for legal documents. Click on the photo d’identité button or you’ll find yourself back there popping more coins into the Photomaton.

As of September 2006, you need an appointment in order to file a visa request with the San Francisco Consulate. This is an easy step if the Consulate’s web site is up and the links are all working. Access the English page for visa info and you’ll see a link to click on to make an appointment on line, the one and only way to make a visa appointment, at least with the San Francisco Consulate. Be sure to print the information once you’ve set a date, and then take that paper with you to San Francisco; you won’t get past the guard without it. Don’t count on the Consulate’s having a copy in case you forget yours. They probably do have a record of your appointment, but since their site instructs you to print the appointment document and take it with you, showing up without it will be clearly perceived by the Consulate as your error – never a strong negotiating position from which to begin, especially not for dealing with fonctionnaires.

Try to wrap your mind around this irritating reality: despite the fact that the phone number and email address for the Consulate and Visa Section appear on the Consulate’s web site, the Visa Section in San Francisco does not answer the phone, nor does it respond to emails. Once you’ve filed your request, however, you may be given the direct desk number of someone working in Visas. This won’t necessarily allow you to speak with anyone, but at least you’ll be able to leave a message and may receive a return call. You can also fax the Visa Section, although you’re unlikely to receive any acknowledgment of your fax.

In case you forget to buy the catastrophic health insurance required for your visa (and carte de séjour) or in case you don’t have all the photocopies you need of your documents, there’s a travel agency next door to the Visa Section where you can purchase insurance and/or have photocopies made for $1/page. They probably have to frequently replace their copier, judging from all the visa applicants I saw heading over there for additional copies of essential documents.

Once your file is accepted, you’re fingerprinted then asked to pay for your visa -- you pay before the visa is granted, not after. Hmm… You’ll be given a receipt that you’ll be asked to reproduce later on when you go to pick up your visa (no appointment necessary for this step). That caught me off guard, although as I hopped on the BART and headed for the Consulate the day before I was planning to leave for France, I had a sinking feeling that I should have grabbed the receipt out of the file I’d left on my hotel room bed. It didn’t make any sense since I’d already paid, wasn’t returning anything, had submitted numerous pieces of identification, had been summoned by the Consulate…

Nonetheless, when I presented myself at the Visa Section, the haughty young woman I’d met during my first visit told me in a condescending voice to present my passport, my plane ticket … and the receipt for the visa. It was the one thing I didn’t have with me. The Visa Section was not open that afternoon, I wouldn’t have time to go back to my hotel room for the receipt and was supposed to fly out the next morning. I stated these facts in a polite yet assertive fashion and was met with a steely regard and a repeated demand for the receipt. I certainly was not going to re-schedule my departure to France because of this absurd detail. Of course the Visa Section had a record of the transaction. On top of that, I had been told in a phone conversation with the Section Supervisor two weeks earlier that the only documents I would need to present to pick up my visa were my passport and a travel itinerary (plane ticket). This was the next information I politely yet assertively gave to the younger fonctionnaire. She wouldn’t budge, so I calmly reiterated that I had been told by her supervisor to bring my passport and itinerary, that indeed I had the receipt but not with me, adding in a surprised tone, “Vous n’en avez pas de copie ici au Consulat?” [“You don’t have a copy of it here at the Consulate?”] She didn’t respond, merely shrugged her shoulders and told me not to bother about the receipt. I understood that she indeed had a copy and that I had trumped her by invoking her supervisor’s name and instructions.

Off to the right stood the supervisor,smiling.

"Aller aux champignons"

Colorful expression, aller aux champignons. More on that in an upcoming French mini lesson. Today the topic at hand is mushrooms, specifically the glorious September-October hunt for cèpes in the Cévennes mountains.

When I was a little kid in New England, I thought mushrooms only came in one form -- canned. I'd certainly never heard of a cèpe. Although I must have known a priori that mushrooms existed in some pre-canned world, my limited childhood experiences told me that mushrooms were tiny white buttons purchased in cans and sometimes jars at the local A&P grocery store, to be subsequently served on my parents' rare steaks. Understand "rare" as "infrequent." Like many Americans and to the horror of most French, my parents ate their steak any way but rare.

Moving into the high school years, I learned from a Dr. Kildare episode (or was it Ben Casey) that one could die, and painfully so, from eating home-canned mushrooms. Kildare inspired more than a few teenage fantasies of a romantic bent on my part. My long-term paranoia over botulism was directly linked to that specific episode.

As a young adult, I had another vicarious mushroom experience. Not the drug-induced sort, although mildly illegal activity was indeed involved. My new husband and I, poor students sorely in need of a Saturday night out, sneaked over the back fence of a drive-in movie theater. From a cold damp seat on the ground, way in the back and huddled under blankets we had smuggled in with us, our senses heightened by the rush of our daring act, we thoroughly enjoyed Clint Eastwood's The Beguiled. It's one of his under-appreciated films, in which he's taken down not by flying bullets, but by mushrooms ... deadly poisonous mushrooms.

Years later, I had my first experience eating mushrooms of the non-commercial kind. I was on a day trip with friends in Bretagne visiting the countryside home of their elderly parents. The weather was unseasonably warm and so we decided to take a walk after lunch. On our way back to the house, my friends' parents declared that it was exactly the type of fall weather that produced an abundance of mushrooms -- in their yard. And indeed there were many that had apparently sprung up overnight. The four of them set to gathering them up with what seemed to me an exaggerated excitement. That night at the supper table, my skepticism matched their enthusiasm as we prepared to feast on the first of the season's wild mushroom omelets, accompanied by dandelion greens also gleaned from the yard. I admit that my appreciation of the repast did not manifest itself until the following morning when I awoke, with relief, in a perfectly normal state of health.

Since that Sunday in Bretagne so long ago, I've met many wild mushroom aficionados from around the world. Their stories and the relish with which they told them certainly piqued my curiosity. Nonetheless, when Henri invited us to go mushroom hunting with him this past fall, I didn't exactly react with a carpe diem.

It wasn't the prospect of having to get up before sunrise that deterred me, nor the possible botulism that might grow in our future jars of mushrooms. Neither was it a fear of eating the mushrooms we would find; I trusted Jean-Paul's and Henri's knowledge of which were edible and which provoked Clint Eastwood contortions. What gave me pause was something entirely different. In addition to Kildare and Eastwood, my younger years had been sprinkled with Walt Disney movies. Remember those wild boars in Old Yeller? They're called sangliers in French. They live in the Cévennes (among other places), where those folks not out mushroom hunting in the fall are out hunting sangliers. Occasionally the two worlds collide.

I studied the pros and cons of the impending adventure. When we climbed into bed the night before the big day, I still hadn't made up my mind, although I was definitely leaning towards sleeping in. However when the alarm went off the next morning, I knew I'd regret not going, so got up, dressed warmly, then gulped down some coffee by way of breakfast. Pushing a knife into the front pocket of my jeans, I grabbed the basket Jean-Paul had set out for me "just in case," then joined him where he was waiting out front with a very dapper-looking Henri. In contrast to the jeans, windbreakers and boots Jean-Paul and I had donned, Henri was sporting a pair of wide-wale corduroy trousers, an old tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows, and dark brown oxfords. Lisa, Henri's wife, waved from an upstairs window as we backed out of the yard in Henri's old beater car, headed for a prime cèpe hunting spot.

Ten minutes later we were in the mountains. It was still dark when we parked at the end of a narrow road, not far from a river. Together we headed uphill into the chestnut trees, crossing the river along the way. Jean-Paul and Henri immediately spotted several large, juicy cèpes, real beauties that suggested the morning would be a rewarding one. They showed me what to look for and also pointed out a few types of mushrooms that were poisonous even to the touch. Nature is a tricky witch: the most beautiful mushrooms can also be the most deadly; some of them look just like those big red spotted ones in Disney's Snow White. They practically beg you to caress them. Don't. They may not kill you, but their poison will enter through your skin and make you darn sick.

There are also mushrooms that do a great impression of the edible cèpe, except for the underbelly: theirs is ribbed, the cèpes is smooth. For a good hour or so at least, my mushroom hunting talents seemed to be limited to finding nothing but these ostensibly omnipresent frauds.

For awhile we all stayed in a group, soon however each ventured off on our own personal quest. Henri amazed me: at 80 years old, cane in one hand, basket in the other, he was having the time of his life. The cane, by the way, was not for support, but rather for checking the underside of the mushrooms he came across. He had grown up here and knew every inch of the terrain by heart. Later on when we met up again at the top of the peak, he told us stories about gathering chestnuts as a child with his father, then about the French resistance fighters who had hid out in these hills from the Nazi soldiers during World War II.

We moved back down the slope in another direction to the family's cled, a tile-roofed hut used for centuries to prepare the gathered chestnuts for future sundry and creative uses. It's in ruins now, the roof and walls caving in. Jean-Paul set his basket down and began to explore the area. He has a PhD in plant biology, so I wasn't surprised when he stooped down to gently stroke the moss covering the ground next to the cled. Suddenly he laughed gleefully and called to Henri and me to come quickly. He had found the most beautiful cèpes of the morning, so young that their firm heads had not yet peeked through the moss. Henri and I began to pat the ground, too, hoping to share the luck. Disappointingly, I didn't find a single one and meandered off to search other promising spots.

About an hour later, Henri announced that Lisa was expecting him for lunch, so he was going to head back to the car where he'd wait for us. He explained the trail that would lead us to where we could safely cross the river, cautioning us that the ground was covered thickly with fallen leaves hiding potentially dangerous rocks and crevices. Nonetheless Jean-Paul was bounding about like a gazelle, occasionally losing his footing in his enthusiasm to gather as many cèpes as possible in the little time remaining. I was wearing old boots with slippery soles, so moved down the hill less sure-footedly. (This may not be the only reason.)

Following Henri's trail, or so we thought, we continued our descent towards the river. When it was finally in sight, however, it was clear that mushroom fever had led us astray. Were we to cross the river at that point, our baskets of precious mushrooms would be lost in the churning current, with us not far behind. We decided to climb up to a crest to get our bearings and happily found a different trail that led us -- more or less safely -- back to where Henri was waiting. We heard him calling out to us long before we saw him. His concerned look quickly vanished when he saw our smiling faces. On our way home, I noticed that Jean-Paul and Henri were grilling the roadside for any mushrooms they could add to our already bulging baskets.

After a much-savored lunch of garlic-laced sauteed mushrooms, red wine, bread and cheese, we spent the rest of the day sorting, weighing, cleaning, cutting, cooking, and bottling until the wee hours of the morning. There were mushrooms everywhere: in already processed jars, in jars waiting for the canner; there were mushrooms drying on wire mesh pallets lining the floors of the living room, office, and hallway; they were on the front steps and covered the picnic tables in the back garden. When we fell into bed entirely spent, the whole house and its perimeter were saturated with the heavenly, earthy perfume of cèpes... as were we.

Post scriptum: Hunting for mushrooms is a delight in itself; consuming your finds is equally satisfying. Here's one of my favorite recipes for a mushroom sauce to be served over steaming hot polenta. [Polenta with sausage is a traditional dish of the Cévennes -- the following recipe is delicious with a bit of sausage tossed in at the end.]

Wild Mushroom Sauce
1 1/2 ounces dried mushrooms
1 cup very hot water
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 cup chopped or thinly sliced onion
1/2 cup dry Marsala (sweet is good, too)
1/2 cup dry white wine (or chicken broth, as you prefer)
1 teaspoon fresh, chopped rosemary
1 cups chicken stock
1 cup beef stock
1 tablespoon butter (room temperature)
1 tablespoon flour

Rinse the mushrooms, then soak in hot water to reconstitute (30-60 minutes). Remove them from the liquid, squeezing excess moisture back into the bowl. Set both mushrooms and liquid aside in separate bowls.

Heat the oil, add the onion and garlic and cook over medium heat till tender and slightly brown (10-15 minutes). Stir frequently. Add Marsala and white wine, increase heat. Boil till nearly all the liquid evaporates (5-8 minutes). Add the mushrooms, mushroom liquid (strained), and the two stocks (you can use chicken stock only, omitting the beef; the flavor of the sauce will be different, but still good). Boil until the liquid is reduced to 2 cups.

Meanwhile, if you want to add sausage to the sauce: brown either whole sausages or slices in a bit of olive oil or butter. Deglaze the pan with a small amount of wine. You'll add this to the sauce just before serving. [I use low-fat, low-salt chicken-basil sausages.]

Whisk the flour and butter together, then mix it into the sauce, stirring constantly over lowered heat until sauce thickens. Add the sausage if you're using it, then serve over hot polenta (coarse is the best for this dish).
Bon appétit!

French Language Lesson: "-ing"

Before the story about hunting for mushrooms, here's a mini French language lesson. It attacks a point that's often a stumbling block for native English speakers of French: how to express "-ing." Nota bene: I rarely use English to teach French grammar, so take advantage. Pour yourself a nice glass of wine and read on.

1. Some English "-ing" verb forms are expressed by the present or the imperfect tenses in French: Tu parles trop fort. = "You're speaking too loudly." You can also use the expression être en train de + an infinitive: Je suis en train d'expliquer quelque chose. = "I'm explaining something."

OK, that's probably easy enough to digest; on to point #2, the gerund. Remember that term from your high school English classes? If you never quite figured out what it meant (way) back then, here's a second chance. You've been waiting for this day, right?

2. A gerund is an "-ing" verb used as a noun; it can be a subject or an object. Ugh, so what does that mean? Take a look at these examples: "I like knitting." "Knitting" is the object of the verb./ "Swimming relaxes me." "Swimming" is the subject of the verb. To express these ideas in French, you would use the infinitive form of the verb: J'aime tricoter. / Nager me détend.

So, how would you express -- correctly -- the following in French?
a. "Eating too many chestnuts can make you sick."
b. "Reading the news sometimes aggravates me."
c. "We love eating dinner in the garden."
d. "Instead of working, I read this blog."
[The answers are at the end of this blog entry.]

One last point and you're on your way to becoming a master of -ing. There's more to it than I'm letting on here, but you'd need at least one more glass of wine to swallow the rest in one sitting.

3. Take a look at these sentences:
"I read this blog while listening to NPR." = J'ai lu ce blog en écoutant NPR. The two actions took place at the same time.
"My neighbor hums while working in his garden." = Mon voisin fredonne en travaillant dans son jardin. Again, the two actions take place at the same time.
"We can relax by doing yoga." = On peut se détendre en faisant du yoga. This sentence is different: one action leads to another. First comes yoga, then the relaxing.

To practice, go back and read all the French examples aloud several times, then make up your own sentences by following my examples as models (...en suivant...).

If you have questions, open my web site and send me an email -- the address is to the left, towards the top of this page. Be brave and ask your question(s) in French.

Answers to above translations:
a. Manger trop de châtaignes peut te rendre malade.
b. Lire les actualités m'agace parfois.
c. On adore dîner dans le jardin./ On adore souper* dans le jardin.
d. Au lieu de travailler, j'ai lu ce blog.

*souper is often used instead of dîner in the south of France, especially in the Cévennes.

Willingly displaced to a tiny mountain village

February 23, 2007

Hands down, the first question people ask me when they learn that I've left west coast American city life to settle into a tiny mountain village in France is: "Aren't you bored?" The second is a spinoff of the first: "What do you do all day?" The unspoken sentiment behind both queries is that I can't possibly be happy on the heels of such an obviously destabilizing change. However, life here -- busy -- fits me well. I am very, very happy.

I live just above a river, surrounded by trees, many of them chestnut trees. In the fall when the mushroom hunting is no longer enticing us out of bed early in the morning, we can gather up chestnuts. Unlike the cèpes, they're everywhere; the hillsides are carpeted with them. Last year, while during my first visit to this village, my partner proposed that we make chestnut butter. We are both displaced PhD city dwellers who feel curiously at home here in the mountains. To us, this chestnut gig was a small adventure we definitely did not want to miss. I should probably mention that my partner is French and I am American, in case you were picturing two starry-eyed Americans romantically bumbling around the woods of southern France. What we were, and remain, are two people tired of the pressures of too-fast city life. That being said, back to the chestnuts.

I hadn't packed anything into my traveling bag that even remotely resembled appropriate chestnut gathering garb. Italian leather heels and black silk skirts don't quite allow for the bending that would be required. I ended up wearing a pair of worn men's shoes, many many sizes too large, an equally large sweater with a few holes in it, and, of course, a scarf. Jean-Paul is a charming soul and, as we wandered off up the mountainside, he smiled at me and told that me I was beautiful. It was a good moment.

We spent a couple of hours gathering our precious chestnuts, then headed back home, cold and wet from the rain storm that had caught us off guard. A good dose of pastis and we felt much better. The next day, we dumped all our bags of nuts onto the kitchen table. The first step to making chestnut butter, as it turns out, is long and arduous, a process that weeds out the less devoted among us. I suggested that it would be more practical to buy the butter in a market... We continued on: we peeled, peeled, and peeled until my thumbs ached. The next step required cooking, followed by another peeling session. Chestnuts, as you may know, have two layers of skin that must be removed before the real butter making part comes in.

We had decided to take a few days to complete the entire process and so set the partially prepped nuts in a box high up on top of the armoir in the hallway. When we took them down the following day, we noticed tiny white objects squirming around in the bottom of the box. Then we noticed that more of those same tiny white objects were squirming all over the floor all around the armoir. They were everywhere; some had even made it all the way into the living room. Apparently we had gathered up every worm-infested chestnut in the forest. At least it looked that way to us.

We couldn't decide what to do. We'd put a lot of work into this project. Not to be defeated by these little white creatures, we decided to carefully inspect every one of the hundreds of nuts, turning each over carefully. Not all were unusable, or so we thought. We continued the peeling process until finally we had to concede. Even the chestnuts without any holes -- and therefore, in theory, without worms -- were being eaten from the inside out. There was a worm in even the most seemingly perfect of them. Exasperated and not a little disappointed, we piled the nuts and their squiggling companions into plastic bags, hiked back up into the mountains and dumped them all out. Then we drove into town to buy some chestnut butter. I thought it tasted just fine.

Next entry: mushroom hunting. Now that's a good time! And I do not say this tongue in cheek -- if there were a healing clinic for those around here addicted to mushroom hunting, it would be full... and I'd be one of the patients.