Boulangerie Bread Baked by Me!

Someone explain to me why, here in France, surrounded by myriad wonderful boulangeries, I've taken to baking my own bread?

It started when Anthony, one of my clients, asked me to write yet another set of cooking articles for him. One was on artisanal breadmaking. I mean, what better place to be to understand about the advantages of artisanal breadmaking than France, right?

I Can Can, Can You?

Canning is always something I relish having done (no pun intended) but rarely look forward to at the time it needs doing.

For the uninitiated, potting up preserves, relishes, sauces, pie fillings and the like means a delicate dance between boiling/preparing the food itself, while simultaneously sterilizing the jars and lids — separately, of course, I mean, why make it easier, right? — and boiling the water in the canner so it's ready to pop the jars in, as well as orchestrating the transfer of the product to the jars with minimum mess and contamination, then placing the jars on a rack in the canner with sufficient boiling water to submerge the jars at least an inch so you can boil them 20 minutes or so before carefully extracting them, all the while praying that the seal is intact; otherwise you're relegated to dozens of jars taking up precious freezer space ...

The Fruits of Fading Summer

All around me people are planning the return of the school year with autumn around the corner. My garden, however, seems to have, at least temporarily, caught itself in a time warp.

Only this week have the tomatoes that went in during mid-May started to redden. The season was so slow that I didn't have the heart to pluck out the rogue tomato plant that sprang from the upward sliding door at the foot of my compost bin, thereby making it impossible to open the drawer without severing the plant. I've had what feels like boatloads of peaches, apples and squash from well-meaning neighbors, more than I can ever eat, can or otherwise preserve. (I still have five liter-sized jars of peaches from last year soaking in rum because I didn't have the time to preserve them any other way.)

Living in Days Gone By

I was chatting to an ex-boyfriend just last night, trying to describe how different my life here in France is from the days of Wall Street when he knew me as a complete Type A personality. Those days are long past, writing and editing at my patio table whether the sun's shining or not (who knew with am American-sized patio umbrella that I could work outside even in the rain?) and taking brief breaks from work to hang out laundry to dry in the sun, prune or harvest vegetables, and cut tea roses and hydrangea blooms.

This man could not fathom my tales of buying meats and poultry direct from the farmers (or the high prices we pay for it — in France they do pay a living wage and don't economize by jamming animals into cages — $10/lb for chicken anyone?). He laughed in amazement as I described walking into the village market for supplies on those days when the butcher, veg and bread vans don't drive down my street to deliver. We buy cheese from the cheese-makers and wine directly from the vineyards.

Too Chicken to Blog?

   A friend of mine just woke me up to the fact that my blog has done yet another Rip Van Winkle of late.
   Work, admittedly, has been gratifyingly busy, with several books, articles and short stories to edit, not to mention the articles I ghostwrite for various websites, to the point where my own book has also gone back into its regularly scheduled hibernation.

Carving a Niche for Myself

It was six days before I could return, admittedly somewhat unenthusiastically, to wielding a pickaxe and chisel to finish the roadside garden bed. For a week now, it had resembled a side by side, before and after illustration.

The days have been hot so this particular Saturday morning I rose and was outside by 6:45am when it was still quite crisp and cool out. I finished trenching and laying the stone by mid-morning without seeing a soul. Using the pickaxe of an obliging neighbor, I began breaking up the soil bed into fist-sized "rocks" which I then pummeled with the stone mallet into powder.

Spring Transformations

Lately, I've been hard at work doing the typical spring cleaning and reorg, both inside and out. In particular the garden has required a good deal of time.

The welcome catalyst has been the impending visit of a very dear friend from the US come July. So a lot of the tasks that, in true French fashion, I've been willing to put off until another day, have now taken on a new sense of urgency.

To my neighbors' relief, that includes retooling the garden beds that border the street in front of my house and lead down along to the garage (a freestanding building). Neighbors were bewildered when I cloaked the weedy crabgrass-infested section with black plastic 18 months ago, my lazy way of killing off what was beneath and enriching the soil with the resulting decay with very little labor involved on my part.

Bon Anniversaire!

Well, today marks the 2-year anniversary of this blog, as well as V-E Day (Victory in Europe, the end of WWII). It's also Mother's Day back in the States.

It’s been a bit of a whirlwind, more so for chores now that spring is already giving way to summer here with relentlessly sunny days and temps near or at 80F.

When my friend and I returned from the UK, we collected two very excited but well cared for pups and proceeded to spend Easter weekend in moderate isolation, never happier!

Now, in between editing and writing assignments, I’m focusing on the garden.