June 16, 2001
three letters from france

While in France I sent out three long emails about my experience in Bourbonaise. Here they are.

5-30-01
Bonjour all and apologies for the group mail:

This is a late note from the very lazy Christina. I'm ensconced in Bourbonnais, a region in Auvergne, somewhere in the middle of France. I'm staying in a tiny Gite on Philippe's father's property, and living a weird alternative life in which I am part farmer's wife and part web geek. I pause from working at the laptop that sits a top a giant oak table to hang clothes on the clothes line. I make giant salads of endive while dreamweaver runs scripts. I carry the laptop to the mainhouse to connect to the internet in the morning (hopefully, if someone is around to let me in and not trying to make a phone call). I roll around with the big dumb-but-sweet dog, and have made friends with the shy farm cats. I actually tell time by the churchbell, which gets confusing around 1 p.m. I pick cherries off the tree in back of the maison for a snack. It's all terribly rustic in the best possible way.

It is amazingly hot here in the day. Real summer. I went shopping around ten this morning, and trudging from fromagerie to chacuterie to patisserie got me so hot and tired I had to hide in a cathedral to cool off. The cathedral in St. Pourcin is a dark gothic thing, 14th century if I got my X's and It's right, and cold as a cineplex. Philippe and I eat salad and cold
pate-en-croute for lunch. He insists the weather is too hot for beer, but I don't see how that is possible, and anyhow I'm addicted to Pelforth, a very nice breton brune beer. The other alternative is just as nice; chilled red wine grown locally from gamay grapes. It is perfectly accompanied by a plate of cheese.
I've forgotten how wonderful french cheese that hasn't had to travel is: we've had an amazingly creamy st. nectaire, and a firm and sharp Contal, and have eaten many tiny chevere-croutes. These little bite sized hand-made goat cheeses are perfect with the gamay, and are light enough to eat despite the heat.

I'm reading M.F.K. Fisher, who is the perfect person to read if you are in France. She is me-- a woman from California eating her way across France. The book I've got is "As We Were" a collection of essays the cover her life from (approximately) 1914 to the late seventies or eighties. I can't quite sort it out, but it contains stunning bits of writing like her description of a town in Alsace in the idyllic days after the recovery WW1 when the hills were full of people picnicking on white linen, to the bleak time shortly after WW2 when the town was nearly burnt to the ground, and in the seventies when the town became the unfortunate tourist-ville we all know full of loud rock played at breakfast waking up hung-over skiers to push them out of bed and into the party again.

History is a heavy presence here. The area reminds me strongly of Iowa, in that it's hot as hell in the summer, full of cows and farmers and mosquitoes. Everyone stares at you, knowing you are not of the village and curious, wondering if you are the first tourist of the season, or a new member of the tribe. But the countryside surprises me everytime I start to feel like its the midwest: it's dotted with castles, manors and cathedrals, as well as covered laveries-- pool table sized stone tubs where the women used to gather to scrub their clothes. Philippe borrowed his father's moto-guzzi and I took a motorcycle ride with him; the rhythm is "cow field cow meadow cow field cow deer castle field vineyard field" Philippe tells me there used to be lot more vineyards in this area. His father's potterie has huge cellars under it containing desiccated old barrels that used to hold wine. Proof of the place's former life.

The best part of it all is being with Philippe, of course. Just to live a simple life like normal husbands and wives is worth more than any of this. Well, soon hopefully it'll all change. July 5th Philippe will have his interview that will tell us if we get to be a married couple in California as we've waited so long to do. Perhaps August will bring salad and pate-en-croute to San Francisco. I hope.

Well, Philippe will be home shortly. We're going out to a restaurant tonight, and I've got to find where I packed my manners. And least I've got the left-fork-right-knife technique down.

I'm putting pictures as I can up at
http://www.nothing-new.com/travel/France/

Until I steal another moment to write, Abiento!

5-31-01

Today the entire outside wants in. Ants march over the windowsill, flies and thumbsized bumble bees fly in one window and out the other, and a bird flew down the narrow chimnypipe and was trapped in the wood stove. I opened the grate and she flew out the open window, scattering ashes indignantly. I've run lemon along the windowsill and set garlic at each opening hoping to dissuade mosquitoes, but it is limited in its effectiveness.

Despite all, including the laze inducing heat and the lure of icy pastis I've been productive. I think if I do end up writing a book, I may come here to hide to write it. The stillness is conducive to the kind of deep thought that produces the best work. Well, I'm hoping...

Last night we drove to Vichy for dinner. The city looks modern-- more like Evanston than the narrow streets of Dijon. We ate a fabulous Brasserie where Philippe's father is clearly a regular: all the waiters came by to shake hands and chat, and the proprietress herself took our order and hovered about to make sure everything was as it should be. It was: I began with an entree of artichoke hearts stuffed with foie gras, both melting away almost before I could lift the fork to my mouth. I followed with a Steak Tartare of the famous local charlonnaise beef seasoned simply and perfectly with parsley, chives and capers. The finish was a desert of tiny sour local cherries seared with kirsch and served over homemade pistachio ice-cream. If it seems I am obsessed with food, I am. France is for eating.

Today I walked slowly into the nearby village to stretch my legs. It's maybe four blocks square... very small. It holds a small epicerie (an everything shop), an Italian restaurant, a church, a museum of ancient washing items (irons, washtubs and the like), a modern art museum (if my French serves me right) and many handsome stone houses covered with flowering vines. I
attempted to visit the museum of modern art, which is in a former 16th century meeting hall but it was shut tight. It appears to be more of an exhibition hall than a museum-- it's the size of a tiny house, not much bigger than the gite. The museum of antique washing items was twice the size but also closed. The church however was open and was the temperature of a frigidaire. I was overjoyed to find it unlocked. It's still hot here. I wish it would rain. Overall the village is relentlessly cute, and the walk made a nice midday break.

I cracked open my trove today and pulled out the New Yorker I had bought at the airport. Nice to read "Talk of the Town" with its worldly take on current events and catty gossip. Refreshing. Philippe has been making ominous comments about becoming a farmer. Must get him addicted to city-life quick!

Nothing more to tell; hope all is well in civilization!

6-01-01

This is a small personal essay MFK has inspired, I'm sure. I felt like writing it, I feel like sharing it...

I will admit to being a little weird about food. Perhaps a little fanatical. Philippe says I'm a goldfish and will eat until I'm too big for my bowl. I'm more so in France which-- as I have said before-- if for eating. But in a weird way my enthusiastic eating has also been my passport into people's favor. Most French who have seen me eat like me. It's as if despite my continued mangling of every French word that comes out of my mouth, my joy at everything that goes in makes it okay. As if loving their food means loving their country.

The only exception I can think of is a small restaurant in Crèche, on the banks of the Soanne. Philippe and I were desperate for food, and it was the only place open we could find, as the two o'clock deadline for eating was near. All restaurants close by two, and many a half-hour before. Philippe and I have the dammnest time remembering to hit the deadline, especially if
we have consumed a few croissant in the morning.

The restaurant was very simple. It was sort of long enclosed porch attached to the front of a hotel, wide enough for two lines of six tables for four, with a passage between, the outer set looking at the river and completely full and the inner set against a whitewashed wood wall-- probably once an outer one. No table cloths, paper napkins and condiments in packets in a small bowl. We sat at a table along the inside wall across from some rangers, and ordered the menu. I ate everything that was brought, as ever, and chose fromage to finish. I was delighted when the waitress left the cheese platter on the table for me to serve myself. I asked Philippe what was going on, and he told me "It's typical in peasant places."

The platter consisted of about eight cheeses, and I took a portion of all of them, and ate all of it: runny epoise and firm contal and chalky chevre all were plopped onto bagette slices and inhaled. The waitress returned to pick up the cheese just as I was considering eating more and making myself truly ill. She looked like a Valkerie with an eighties haircut; she had a hearty
stern blond Alsatian look, rather than the short dark Burgundians who had been our waiters so far this trip. She was taciturn and a bit disapproving.

She asked Philippe where I was from (avoiding more of my mangled French?) and he replied "Americain-- San Francisco". They exchanged a brief torrent of rapid French, she looked at down her nose at me for a few silent moments, then carried the cheese away.

Philippe told me she couldn't believe I wasn't Dutch, German. That I ate too much cheese to be anglaise. "The English don't like cheese." I suppose she made some miscalculation when she left the platter which any polite French would have taken no more than three cheeses from, and an "anglaise" would have ignored it. Voila. Now she has a different view on Americans, anyhow.

It can be hard work representing my country.

When I met Philippe's uncle and aunt in Sucy-Brion they seemed pleasant before dinner, and very genial after. I had put it down to the scotch aperitif and two bottles of wine we consumed over the three hour repast. Philippe told me later they had been nervous about me. It seems they had visions of McDonalds and American cuisine, and thought I would not appreciate their cooking.

When they saw me peel a dozen boiled shrimp in order to carry glorious globs of aioli into my mouth, they knew I was okay. As I swiftly removed all the meat from the braised lamb, working my knife and fork in elegant concert as I have long observed my husband doing, and as I sighed over the fluffy pommes de terre it seems I became quite acceptable. I moved up to genial as I raised my glass to be refilled with Nuit St. George "for the sake of the cheese." By the time his aunt was threatening me with a second slice of frambois tart I was family.

Philippe's father also has been as skittish around me as I have been around him. But the night before last we went to dinner and now he smiles cheerily as we pass. Philippe's father's wife, Catherine has just from Beaujolais, her home region, and is planning to cook us a vraiment Beaujolais meal tonight. I look forward to displaying how French I can be.

Posted by christina at 11:41 PM