Longer days, shorter nights

I don’t know about you, but it always takes me several weeks  to register the fact that the daylight we receive is changing. As the days get shorter each autumn, I keep thinking that we’re still in summer, and it shouldn’t get dark until almost bedtime. (In Toronto, it could seem almost pitch-black by 5 p.m. in late December.) Conversely, as days get longer in the spring, I’m always somewhat surprised — although pleasantly so.

But now there’s no way of missing the fact — here in the GDA (Greater Daglan Area), we’ve moved solidly into spring and the days are definitely longer.

To give you an idea of what it looks like here as night falls, I took this photo last night (Saturday, May 12) of the bell tower on the nearby church, as seen from the front steps of our house:

The bell tower near our home, seen from our front steps.

The time? Just past 9:30 p.m. And as you can see, the sky is still nice and bright. It’s a lovely time of year — and now we can see more of it, longer.

Cue the barbecue

I ended yesterday’s posting by mentioning our new barbecue, which has been sitting in the garage waiting for an appropriately sunny day. (I can’t get into the spirit of grilling meat when it’s cool and rainy outside.) Today was sunny and, sure enough, our new Weber got its first test.

I should explain why it’s taken us so long to buy a barbecue in France in the first place (since we’ve had our house in Daglan since 2004, originally as a holiday home). The answer lies in the price of barbecues here.

Many things in France strike us as inexpensive or at least reasonable (food, wine), while other items seem relatively costly (tools, many cosmetic items). But for some reason, barbecues are at the stupidly-high end of the costly range. The larger gas-fired barbecue units (like the ones we had in Toronto for the past several years) seem to cost about twice the price that we’d pay in Canada.

Eventually we gave in, and bought a small charcoal-burning unit, made by Weber, for just under 100 euros. Here it is:

Our little charcoal-burning beauty.

Now, what to cook? Yesterday I ended my post with this: “I am thinking of some nice fat hamburgers cooked over charcoal; my wife Jan is thinking of grilling some sardines. We shall see.” As it turned out, we wound up grilling hamburgers, but not because I won the toss of a coin. I would have gladly gone along with Jan’s grilled-fish plan, but the fish market this morning didn’t have any of the cleaned large sardines that we wanted.

For the meat itself, we bought fresh ground beef, already shaped into patties by the supermarket butchers, but with no additives. I just added salt and pepper and olive oil (so they wouldn’t stick), and they were ready to go:

Salted, peppered and ready for some grill action.

Of course it’s important to have vegetables as part of your meals, so Jan decided to cut a couple of potatoes into matchsticks. Then she would fry them in duck fat until they were just cooked, drain them, and then give them a final browning in the duck fat. Here they are, halfway through the process:

Just emerging from the hot duck fat.

Once the charcoal was hot, I cooked the hamburgers while Jan finished the fries, and we were all set to plate. I admit that we went a little crazy with extra vegetables (in addition to the potatoes), as we had also sliced up a tomato. In addition, I used (tomato-based) ketchup on my burgers and Jan sautéed some large mushrooms to have with her burgers.  Are we vegetable-savvy, or what? Here was my plate, ready for the table:

A plate of grilled (and fried) goodness.

But to stay healthy, you need more than just a few servings of vegetables each day. Fruit is important too.

That’s why I chose to end my lunch with a slice of (leftover) apricot, pear and custard tart. We had been out to a friend’s house for dinner on Friday night, and one of the other guests brought the tart for dessert. Since we couldn’t eat it all, I was given this slice to take home:

A whopping serving of fruit just has to be healthful, right?

Ever mindful of calories (and also because we had recently run out of whipping cream), I put a bit of crème fraîche on top. Dairy products are important too.

‘Tis the season, and other tidbits

To every thing, as they say, there is a season. We are now officially in Aperol Spritz season, with the temperature (as recorded in my car this afternoon) sailing past the 30-degree barrier. In Fahrenheit terms, that’s into the mid-90s.

Here’s a brief refresher on our seasonal drink, plus a couple of other weather-related tidbits.

The impact of heat. The hot, sunny weather means that an Aperol Spritz is now perfectly suited as an apéritif before meals, replacing the vaunted kir. Aperol is made in Italy by the same company that makes Campari, and it’s a similar drink, although less bitter. So an Aperol cocktail is wonderfully refreshing.

Now you probably won’t find the drink available in any restaurant here in French Wine Country, where the idea of stocking a drink made in Italy would be just too bizarre. We order ours specially from the Julien de Savignac wine shop in Sarlat, and eventually a bottle or two shows up.

I wrote about Aperol in my posting “The place for Italian food — in Prague,” on May 11, 2011. To refresh your memory, you make an Aperol Spritz by placing a few ice cubes in a glass; adding a slice of orange; and then pouring in one part of Aperol and three parts of sparkling wine like Prosecco. The original recipe says you should add some club soda, but — hello? Extra water?

In any case, here’s what the bottle looks like if you’d like to track it down in a store near you:

What a bottle of Aperol looks like, when at rest.

The impact of cold. You may remember that this past February was incredibly cold here, by Greater Daglan Area standards, and it looks like this had quite an impact on the plants and trees here. Here we are in May, and many of the trees that were pruned back hard in the fall are only now starting to show leaves. As an example, here’s the large plane tree in front of Le Petit Paris:

Grow, baby, grow!

The impact of rain. Following the very cold winter, we had a very rainy spring. The water was much needed, because the landscape had become very parched, and the vegetation had died back more than we’ve ever seen it. But all the rain has brought back the flowers, grass and weeds with a vengeance.

Back in October 2010, I wrote a posting called “Shave and a fauchage, two bits,” in which I pointed out that one of our countryside’s “striking characteristics” is “how neat and tidy it is.” In case you’ve forgotten, fauchage simply means using huge mowing machines to trim the roadsides.

Now, with all our recent rain, the plants along the road are getting just a touch out of control. Here’s how one of the roads leading out of Daglan looked this afternoon:

Can we please get a bit of fauchage going around here?

I have no doubt that some fauchage action is just around the corner. Meanwhile, our thoughts are turning to our brand new barbecue, which has been sitting in the garage waiting for the weather to warm up. I am thinking of some nice fat hamburgers cooked over charcoal; my wife Jan is thinking of grilling some sardines. We shall see.

 

Our damp V-E Day ceremony

Today (Tuesday, May 8) is a national holiday here. No, not to celebrate the election of a new President, but rather to mark Victory in Europe Day, the end of World War II. Whenever we’ve been able, my wife and I have attended the Huit Mai ceremony in Daglan, and today’s assembly was easily the smallest we’ve seen.

Part of the problem of the low attendance may have been the weather. As I’ve mentioned  several times in Radio Free Daglan, we’ve been having a fairly bad spell — completely unlike the spring of 2011. We’ve gone from a very cold winter (especially in February) to a spring that’s marked by days upon days of grey skies and lots of rain.

Within the past week, we’ve had some thunderstorms, and even hail. They weren’t large enough to do any damage, but hail is still fairly rare in the Greater Daglan Area. Those little crystal balls you see in the photo below are some hailstones that landed on one of our stone window sills:

No, they’re not mothballs. They’re hailstones!

In any case, weather may have played a part in today’s poor showing. It wasn’t raining at 11:30, when the ceremony began, but the skies were certainly grey. Here’s how the event began, with our Mayor, some officials, and a few residents walking from the Mairie (the Mayor’s office) to the war memorial that stands in front of Le Petit Paris:

A small parade, complete with CD player for the national anthem.

Once the officials were in place, and a few of us residents were standing under a tree watching them, the ceremony began.  It started with the raising of the flag:

Raising the French flag to begin the ceremony.

With the flag raised on its pole, the Mayor and another woman placed a bouquet of flowers at the foot of the war memorial:

A bouquet is placed carefully at the war memorial.

Next came the speeches. First, one of Daglan’s war veterans read a speech made by General de Gaulle at the end of the war:

The French flag is well represented around the memorial.

Then it was the Mayor’s turn, reading a lengthy speech that described the war and the eventual victory (although, once again, the roles played by the Americans, British, Canadians, Australians and others were conspicuous by their absence). Here is Madame Le Maire:

The Mayor reads her speech to a rapt — but small — audience.

The last steps included observing a minute of silence and then playing the national anthem on a CD player; that didn’t go all that smoothly, since no one seemed to know exactly how it worked. But eventually the song was played, and in less than 15 minutes the ceremony was over.

Then our Mayor invited us to join her for a complimentary apéritif at Le Bistroquet, the bar at the south end of Daglan. She concluded by thanking us for attending — and also made a rather cutting reference to the village councillors who had not bothered to show up.

As always, my wife and I were glad we went. Chatting with one of our neighbours at Le Bistroquet later, we both got the “thumbs up” sign when we could identify various départements by the numbers on the licence plates of passing cars. Local knowledge can be hard to develop, but it’s appreciated.

The President’s (amateur) gaffe

By the time you read this, the French election results may well be known. If the pollsters are correct, then François Hollande will have narrowly defeated Nicolas Sarkozy to become the nation’s next President.

Here’s my take on how President Sarkozy missed his last chance to make a comeback.

Last night (Friday night) I watched a replay of most of the televised debate between the two men, which actually took place May 2. And what it brought back to me was the famous televised debate between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon — where personal characteristics or actions (rather than words) seemed to make the difference.

Whether or not you’re old enough to remember the Kennedy-Nixon debate, you may well have read about it, because it was an early indicator of just how powerful television would become in politics. Kennedy seemed cool and in control; by contrast, the cameras showed Nixon perspiring under the hot lights, and the 5 o’clock shadow on his jaws made him look either unkempt or thuggish, depending on your viewpoint.

Like the Kennedy-Nixon debate, the Hollande-Sarkozy debate probably won’t be remembered for its content. It included a virtual torrent of statistics (debt, deficit, unemployment, economic growth, and so on) that I’m sure the average voter couldn’t follow. But what will be remembered was the behaviour of the two men before the cameras, and the two TV journalists who moderated the debate.

Hollande sat straight, looked directly across the table at Sarkozy, and directed all his comments directly at his opponent. I can’t recall him taking his eyes off Sarkozy.

By contrast, Sarkozy kept turning to his right, away from the camera and towards the two journalists at the head of the table, almost as if he were trying to convince them — rather than the voters at home — of his arguments. From his expressions, it was easy to imagine what he hoped he was conveying to the journalists: “See what I mean?” “Can you believe this guy?” “I’m right, aren’t I?”

Honestly, it was a striking difference. The result was that Hollande seemed presidential, and Sarkozy came across as a rather petulant chap trying to win over the two people who probably mattered the least (the journalists) and ignoring the very voters who might have been swayed in his direction at this last-minute stage. In this age of media-savvy consultants and advisers, it was a pretty amateur mistake.

We call it mellow yellow

Since green is my favourite colour, spring is my favourite season. Yesterday morning was sunny and beautiful, so we went for a long bike ride through the countryside. Along the way, I spent some time watching the countless hawks that were out hunting, and even played a bit of tag with one large hawk that kept landing on a telephone wire just ahead of me, then taking off, then looping back.

But as I cycled along, I most enjoyed gazing  at the hills and fields with their infinite shades of green — from British Racing Green (dark, rich, and still my idea of the perfect colour for a sports car) to bright, light green to yellowish green. Beautiful.

For all that, it seems that the colour experts here in the Greater Daglan Area have pretty much decreed yellow to be this spring’s highlight colour. It’s everywhere, including our own flowerbeds. So for today’s posting, here is a visual tour:

At the Mairie. These bright yellow pansies are in a planter just outside our Mayor’s office:

Proud to be decorating the Mairie.

In the countryside. Driving home this morning, after our aquagym session, we came across this field of canola (also called colza in France), brilliant in the late-morning sunshine. The field is actually in the Lot, a department that adjoins the Dordogne, and is just off the road between Salviac and Gourdon, near the turn-off for Dégagnac:

A field of yellow canola amidst the green.

Here’s another, closer look at the same field of yellow flowers:

A closer look at the field of bright yellow canola flowers.

By the roadside. All along the roads in the GDA, you’ll find a variety of wild flowers. These were by the side of the road just outside Daglan, on the way to St. Cybranet:

To me, these looked like buttercups — or a close relative.

And here is another cluster, growing by the side of the road at the entrance to the stade (proud home of the Daglan Rugby Club):

An explosion of yellow blooms.

On the hillsides. A light carpet of yellow blooms lies on this hill, above the village of St. Pompon:

Green grass with touches of yellow flowers.

In a neighbour’s garden. In the garden of one of our neighbours, there’s this lovely yellow tulip, still managing to hold on to its petals:

In a neighbour’s garden.

Chez nous. Here at our place, we have been doing our bit for the colour yellow. For instance, one of the perennials beside our house is this variegated euonymus (a Yellow ‘N’ Gold, I believe) that includes some nice yellow highlights:

Hints of yellow among the euonymus leaves.

For the flower beds this year, we chose bright yellow marigolds, simply because they looked so cheerful, to replace the geraniums that had died off. Here are some of the marigolds, which I planted in a small corner at the front of our house, growing along with one of our young wisteria vines:

Growing under the leaves of a wisteria vine.

And here’s another look at some marigolds in the front of the house:

A row of marigolds in the afternoon sunshine.

For a double whammy of yellow, here’s a smaller variegated euonymus that I recently planted (hoping to cover up the cables that lead from our satellite TV dishes into the house), with a marigold plant in front of it:

Marigold flowers in the foreground, euonymus at the rear.

Finally, here’s a young forsythia that I bought earlier this year and planted while it was still covered in yellow blooms:

This young forsythia is growing well.

As you can see, the forsythia blooms are long gone. The good news is that the plant is growing vigorously, so by next February or March, it should be putting on a pretty good show of early-spring sunshine: mellow yellow. Stay tuned.

A new breakfast treat

It was a great tradition. For several years before we moved to France from Toronto, we got together with friends for a champagne breakfast on a Sunday in July, while glued to a large-screen TV.

Why? Because we were celebrating “the ride into Paris” — watching the final day of the Tour de France, when all the riders head into the French capital and conclude the Tour with a wild race. And because of the six-hour time difference, the afternoon in Paris was breakfast time in Toronto.

Typically, we arranged the breakfast as something of a potluck meal, and our contribution was Baked Eggs and Mushrooms in Ham Crisps, a dish that I learned from my copy of The Gourmet Cookbook, More than 1,000 Recipes, Over 60 years in the Making (highly recommended, by the way).

The dish included thin slices of ham, pushed down into the cups of a muffin tin; into each cup was spooned a mixture of sliced mushrooms and shallots that had been cooked down and mixed with crême fraîche and fresh tarragon leaves; and into each cup was placed a raw egg. The tin was then baked in a hot oven (200 Celsius, 400 Fahrenheit) for 15 minutes to set the eggs and make the ham slices crispy.

To serve, you simply loosen around the edges, and then carefully lift out the ham “cup” with its baked-egg centre. Delicious!

Recently, I was reflecting on the status of some nice smoked salmon in our refrigerator (status: not yet eaten). That’s when I thought about using the smoked fish instead of ham slices to make the egg cups. So this morning I tried the experiment, and I think it turned out rather well. Here’s how I made this new breakfast treat:

First I buttered the insides of two small ramekins, and tucked thin slices of good smoked salmon down into them. Then I stirred some dried dill (fresh dill wasn’t available) into a small amount of crême fraîche, and placed a spoonful or two into each ramekin. I topped each of those with a raw egg, sprinkled on some salt and pepper, and added a few thin slivers of salmon that were left over from carving up the main slices of fish.

Then it went off into the hot oven (200 C, 400 F) for the full 15 minutes. When the eggs were set, I ran a knife around the edge of each ramekin, and gently lifted out the salmon-and-egg morsels with two tablespoons. Topped with a fresh sprig of thyme (which we grow in a pot on the front steps), breakfast looked like this:

Eggs baked in smoked salmon "cups."

Verdict No. 1: Delicious, although just a touch salty. Next time I won’t use any extra salt, because the smoked salmon is salty enough.

Verdict No. 2: Sorry that I didn’t have a fresh brioche or croissant available, to deal with the runny yolk. Oh well — to make up for that, my wife Jan and I later went over to Daglan’s tea room, which opened for the season this very morning. I had a nice Earl Grey  tea and a couple of small croissants. Yummy.

Final note: Oh yes, and it’s a beautiful day. No rain, for a change. Beautiful blue sky with puffy clouds. Yay!