Pumpkin Soup

Fall is a reliably nice time of year in these parts. Not every day, of course, but on the whole the season is very pleasant. More often than not, days are t-shirt warm and the air so clear that the Pyrenees seem close enough to touch. Newly plowed fields are a deep chocolate brown, turning to tan as the soil dries. Wooded hillsides are a mix of evergreen and changing leaves. In the vegetable garden,
late tomatoes can still be found on the vines, and the potirons have turned a wonderous pale shade of cinnamon. Evenings are cool enough for a fire and a bowl of hot soup. Pumpkin soup. That's exactly what we had this evening and it could hardly have been easier.

In past years we've grown pumpkins for the kids to carve at Halloween, and this year we planted not only traditional orange pumpkins but also a variety of pumpkin known in France as a potiron. As compared to a traditional Halloween pumpkin, a potiron has a more deeply ridged surface, a tan or pale-cinnamon colored skin, and vivid orange flesh.

Inspired by an excellent pumpkin soup served to us last week by some friends who had invited us to supper, we decided to try it ourselves. We looked at several recipes online but they all seemed to be much more complicated than the simple instructions our friends had given us. Granted, our French is far from perfect, but we were pretty sure the preparation they described were very straightforward. It was, and the results were simply delicious.

1. Walk to garden, pick one potiron.

If you don't happen to have any growing in the garden, they're widely available at markets. Wash the outside, and then cut it in half. Remove the seeds and scrape the stringers off the flesh with a spoon.

2. Cook to soften the flesh.

There are three options here: steaming, baking, and microwaving. We steamed half of our potiron, actually just put in a pot with a few cups of chicken broth and let it simmer. Next time we'll try baking it, face down on a greased cookie sheet. The idea is simply to get the flesh soft so you can scrape it off the skin. Forty-five minutes or so should do it. You may have to cut the halves into quarters or further to fit them into your cooking pot.

3. Set aside to cool; when cool, scoop the flesh off the skin with a large spoon and put it into a soup pot.

The only reason to let the cooked pumpkin pieces cool is so as not to burn your fingers.

4. Blend the cooked flesh with a potato masher or electric mixer

5. Stir in a cup or two of chicken stock, depending upon how much pumpkin you have -- just enough to make a thick but still pourable mixture -- and a tablespoon or so of melted butter (if the pumpkin is still warm, just stirring in a chunk of butter will do).

A hand masher or electric mixer in step 4 gives the soup a granular, country-style consistency. For a smoother, more refined consistency, at this point puree the mixture in a blender.

Serve hot with a dollop of creme fraiche or sour cream in the middle, lightly sprinkled with fresh chives and some hot bread fresh from the village boulangerie. Aside from the time required for cooking the pumpkin, total preparation time is 10 or 15 minutes.

Enjoy, and then after supper retire to a chair by the fire. ... read more ...

Le Tour de L'âne (The Donkey Tour)

In the midst of the summer tourist crush, an easily overlooked aspect of the old cité in Carcassonne is that people actually still live there. Today, of course, they have electricity, running water and central heating, not to mention satellite TV and high speed Internet. Yet, medieval traditions survive.

Le Tour de L'âne dates from the middle ages, and was originally held on the 28th of July as part of the feast of Saint Nazaire, one of the patron saints of the city. Currently it is held in October, this year on Sunday the 5th.

Traditionally, the most recently married male resident of the city was dressed in black and adorned with a horned cap from which vegetables were hung, then paraded around the town on the back of a donkey while the kids danced circles around him singing and old song that went "You've been cuckolded, poor man . . . ," while the women of the village kissed and pledged fealty to the horns. Supposedly this was to drive evil spirits away, but then as now it seems really to have been just a warmup for a dance and supper at the Narbonne Gate of the city that evening.

Although the celebration is said to be tamer now than in days gone by, the residents are determined to see it survive. This year there had been no marriages among the residents of the old city, so the most recently retired man rode the donkey instead, in full traditional regalia and to the great amusement of the tourists who were lucky enough to happen upon the event. Any evil spirits remaining at the end of the day were rapidly quaffed by the celebrants.

Much of the information in this post is excerpted from from http://mescladis.free.fr/tour-ane.htm, which has a bit more detail for those who can read French. A link to the newspaper account of this year's tour will be posted here when available.

Speaking of donkeys, one evening this summer we came round a bend in a little country road near home -- fortunately at a leisurely pace, because on one side was a steep dropoff into a cornfield and on the other side an even steeper dropoff into a canal -- to find ourselves behind a donkey carrying all the gear for two cross-country hikers who were a short ways ahead. It was obviously a donkey with a sense of humor because mounted on its rear was a regulation French license plate no. 642 ANE 23. The hikers were dressed in standard hiker gear, so it must also have been a donkey with considerable powers, because when we got home we could find no evil spirits in the house for our aperitif. ... read more ...

Hard Work

In this year of Olympic games, a gold medal surely belongs to our summer guests who came up with the "Les Carries Triathlon."

Bicycle to the boulangerie and back. Run to the pool. Swim.

Not just once, mind you, but every morning. It was hard work no doubt, but someone had to do it. ... read more ...

Obstacle (updated)

The other day the local newspaper reported an accident in which a 17 year-old girl was killed when the car in which she was riding was rear-ended at high speed on the autoroute. Her mother, sitting beside her, was seriously injured. What was remarkable was not that the accident happened, but the newspaper's editorial comment.

According the article the Mercedes, carrying a family headed south for a visit with relatives, was in no hurry. It was in a far right-hand lane reserved for slow moving vehicles on a long uphill stretch. Father was driving, his son beside him, mother and daughter were in the rear. Night had just fallen, supper no doubt had been eaten, coffee sipped. Happy times with other family members lay somewhere ahead.

Somehow, the driver of a Citroen minivan "misjudged" the speed of the Mercedes and slammed into it from behind at a reported 130 kilometers per hour (80 miles per hour;; that's the speed limit, as if the Citroen was obeying it). If the Mercedes was traveling at the minimum autoroute speed of 80 kmh (50 mph; in a lane for slow vehicles it could well have been less), the impact speed was at least 50 kmh (30 mph). The Citroen driver claimed to have tried to swerve to avoid the Mercedes at the last minute. The newspaper, in reporting all this, queried whether the Mercedes, "on account of its slow speed, constituted an obstacle on the autoroute?"

The recklessness of the Citroen driver, and the stupidity of the newspaper reporter and any editors involved (or who should have been involved) is so profound that it is entirely possible to overlook the fact that both driver and reporter reflect entrenched European cultural norms.

A European union report shows that between 2001 and 2007 France made the most progress of any country in the EU in reducing highway deaths. Implicit in this statistic is the fact that in the early part of that time frame the carnage on French highways was gruesome. Older studies show that for a while, at least, France had the fourth worst highway safety record in Europe, behind only Portugal, Spain and Greece. Heady company.

France may be "most improved," but it still has a long way to go. A web page for British travelers in France asserts that in France:

• "Overtaking where there is a solid single line in the middle of the road is heavily penalised;"


• "Drivers must keep a distance of two seconds from the vehicle in front. Any infringement incurs a maximum fine of €750;"


• "Using a hand-held mobile phone while driving is punishable with a fine and two penalty points;" and,


• "Speed limits are applied rigorously, and radar traps are frequent."

The author of this page has obviously never driven in France, certainly not in the south. The lack of enforcement of these rules would be laughable if the consequences were not so serious.

Speed limits are routinely ignored. Radar traps are not "frequent" by any applied definition of the word, the location of each and every fixed radar is available in print and on the Internet, and each and every one is announced a kilometer or so in advance by an enormous sign. Traffic slows down to a good 15 or 20 kmh below the limit shortly before the radar, and then accelerates in a cloud of exhaust just after it. Roving radar patrols are reliably announced in the newspaper ahead of holiday weekends and are otherwise rare.

The ban on use of mobile phones while driving is ignored. Every third or fourth driver on any given road has the telltale cock of the head and hand to the ear. When a Frenchman's mobile phone rings while he is driving, the act of answering is invariably accompanied by a shrug meant to convey a sort of helpless disbelief that someone would actually call while he was behind the wheel.

Overtaking where there is a solid center line happens frequently enough that it is something to be anticipated at all times. Once, while turning left we were nearly broadsided by an impatient driver who had pulled out over a solid line to pass the line of cars slowing behind us.

Regard for safe following distance is practically non-existent. To drive at the speed limit is to be tailgated mercilessly and passed at the first opportunity (safe or not). To pass another vehicle yourself on the autoroute is to risk having someone come flying up the road behind you, headlights flashing, and advancing to within millimeters of your bumper until you pull back out of their way into the right-hand lane.

It's not personal. They just want you out of their way. As soon as you pull back into the right-hand lane they'll blaze on by without a sideways or rearward glance. Or, from the same lane they will pull out around you with inches to spare. No hard looks, no shaken fists. You are in front of them so they have to pass you. Simple as that. You are an obstacle.

This behavior is by no means limited to young drivers. The offenders are as likely to be middle aged as twenty, as likely to be women as men. Nor on French highways is it limited to the French. The Dutch, the Spanish, Swiss, Belgians, Germans and Luxembourgois all play this high speed bumper cars game, almost invariably in high horsepower German luxury cars, or in the case of the Dutch, pulling camping trailers. One can only wonder about their observance of traffic laws in their own countries; in the south of France they display an arrogant disregard for speed limits and safe following distance.

By now, what really happened between the Citroen and the Mercedes should be pretty clear. The Citroen driver's usual habit of racing up behind the car ahead, whipping around it at the last second and barreling on down the highway left no room for mistakes. But this time the driver did make a mistake, and his reckless, self-centered driving habits cost a young girl's life.

Changing this culture is not a simple matter of lowering speed limits. It's going to require a sort of personality adjustment on a national, if not continental level. A regular feature in the local newspaper is the "question of the day," followed by the photographs and responses of five randomly selected people. Recently, following a spate of highway accidents, the question was "Would lower speed limits result in fewer accidents?" Although EU statistics show a direct correlation between speed and accidents, five out of five French drivers said, "No." One even expressed concern that lower speeds would be less safe because drivers would be less cautious.

If you were to walk up behind a Frenchman on the sidewalk, put a gun to his head and ask him to step out of your way, he would regard it not merely as a criminal assault, but an attack on his dignity and a gross breach of egalite and fraternite, not to mention horribly impolite. But, if you tried to explain the analogy to following too closely on the road at high speed he would stare at you uncomprehendingly.

Obviously, not every French driver is a maniac. Some are actually quite considerate and safe. But not nearly enough, and it only takes one reckless idiot to ruin your holiday. Drive carefully.

20 Sept 08 - There's a very amusing article in the Times Online suggesting that French drivers are starting to get the message and that now it's the foreigners who are the problem. As in days of old, the news is still slow trickling down into the south. Yes, the foreigners do blast around in their big cars (did I already say "arrogantly?"), but the French are the real problem. Note, however, the remarkable French creativity brought to bear -- importing British traffic police! ... read more ...

Another Reason to Visit Carcassonne

Over the past few years we have visited the Cité in Carcassonne many, many times, and each time we seemed to discover some corner or aspect of the place that we hadn't noticed before. Eventually, however, one too many hot, crowded days took their toll and we stopped going. Now there's a new reason to go back.

As of May 10, visitors can now see frescoes dating from the end of the 12th and beginning of the 13th centuries in the "keep," or central stronghold, of the chateau at the heart of the Cité. The frescoes, which have been under restoration for two months, are believed to depict battles between French and Saracen soldiers and perhaps illustrations of scenes from the Song of Roland or events from the crusades.

During the Middle Ages the name "Saracen" was used to refer generally to all Muslims. The Song of Roland, the earliest known major work of French literature, is a poem believed to have been written between 1040 and 1115, about an ill-fated unit of Charlemage's forces attacked by Basques at Roncevaux Pass in the Pyrenees (roughly one-third of the way from Pamplona to Pau) while retreating from Spain in 778. Originally passed down by oral tradition, the story became widely popular in the mid-1100s when it was transcribed in several different manuscript versions. By this time, the original historical facts had been skewed significantly: among other things, the minor nobleman after whom the poem is named had become identified as Charlemagne's nephew and the Basques had been transformed into Saracens. These frescoes, then, may represent the artist's representations of a "popular song" of its time.

One can (and people do) debate the accuracy of aspects of the 19th century renovations to the Cité at Carcassonne, or complain about the summer crowds and the souvenir shops that line the main street. There is, however, no gainsaying the historical pull of the place. With these frescoes now on display, even those who have already been several times have a compelling reason to return.
... read more ...

How Not To Be Disappointed

This week our guests are a delightful couple who wound up with us after finding themselves highly disappointed with a rural gite they had rented. "The pictures of the other place looked so nice," they commented. Well, of course! Everyone tries to put on their best face. So how do you avoid what the French call les lezards (literally, "the lizards"), those unpleasant little surprises you find at what looked like such a perfect place in the advertisement?

This is no idle question. Disappointed expectations can cast a pall over a long-planned vacation and gite owners may not be willing to refund payments for a gite they consider perfectly acceptable by their own (or even local) standards. Our guests were fortunate, both that they were able to unwind the deal they had made and that they were able to find suitable alternate accommodations. It helped, of course, that they were travelling well off-season; in July or August they would have had to "grin and bear it."

There are more than 10,000 gites in France, so with an Internet connection, a little patience, and some skill reading between the lines you should be able to find a place just right for you in the area you want to visit. The basics -- number of bedrooms, smoking/non-smoking, whether pets are allowed, kitchen appliances -- are all well covered in any rental listing. Here are some less obvious considerations.

First and foremost, how much are you willing to spend? You can have it all, but usually at a price. Within your price range, what do you truly require, what do you really want, and what would just be nice to have? It's your holiday, so prioritize your wish list. The less you pay, though, the more flexible you need to be about everything else.

Among the things that may require flexibility (literally and figuratively): WCs, shower (or bath) facilities, small or low-ceilinged bedrooms, low doorways, "white glove" cleanliness, and groundskeeping. Many gites are portions of very old buildings that have been inhabited far longer than they have had indoor plumbing and when plumbing was added it was retrofitted as simply as possible. Other gites were built out at minimum cost in old barns or outbuildings. Sometimes, a bit of funk is part of the charm, but that may not be the kind of charm you are looking for.

Photographs can be a good guide if you consider both what is and what is not shown. If some aspect of the gite is not shown, perhaps there is a reason. The vantage point from which a photo is taken can be revealing -- for example, is a picture of the front of the gite taken from across a road that passes just in front of the entry (or bedroom window), or does it show a commercial building next door? Pictures of the kitchen can be particularly instructive, as the type and quality of the kitchen fittings are likely to be representative of the accommodations in the gite as a whole. No picture of the kitchen at all? A gite is self-catering, so unless you are planning to eat out every single meal you might want to inquire. There is nothing to be lost by asking the owner for more details, including perhaps another picture or two.

Which is more important to you, peace and quiet or a boulangerie and the village bar just down the street (and not necessarily in that order)? Sometimes you can have both, but even a "sleepy village" can be be amazingly noisy during the annual village fete or if it is too close to a railway or busy road or highway. On the other hand, a gite deep in the countryside may be unacceptably far from basic ameneties. A sixty minute roundtrip drive to the supermarket may mean you will be going shopping once and only once, or spending far too much of your holiday time on errands.

Is there more than one gite on the property? If you are traveling with others, or if chance meetings with other travelers by the pool or in the garden are part of what you enjoy about holidays, then a multiple gite property may be your cup of tea. If privacy is a priority, you probably want a single-gite property. Very few gites provide a pool for the exclusive use of guests; if you want that degree of privacy look for a villa or village house with a pool.

Are you tolerant of extreme temperatures? Many parts of France can be quite hot in the summer (and quite cold in the winter). Recently constructed villas are likely to be air-conditioned (and centrally heated), but many rural gites in renovated old stone buildings still rely on the traditional combination of shade trees, shutters and the thermal mass of thick stone walls (assisted perhaps by electric fans) to keep inside quarters cool by day. Likewise, being intended principally for summer lets, many vacation rentals are not heated and even central heating is turned off as early as possible in the spring and not restarted until as late in the fall as tolerable. At higher elevations this can mean cold nights, even in summer. If you must have a heated pool, make sure to ask. Due to the expense involved, many (if not most) pools are heated only by the sun. In high season that is more than adequate but mid-season water temperatures may be invigorating, depending upon the weather.

If you are traveling with children, are the gite owners welcoming to, and the gite grounds suitable for, your children? We stayed once at an upscale inn where we felt out of place because our young children, while not overtly unwelcome, were at best a curiosity among an otherwise exclusively adult clientele. The following week, by contrast, we stayed in a very simple gite whose owners love kids, whose own kids had a great time playing with ours, and with whom we became good friends. A place where your children can play without disturbing others or risking serious bodily harm from natural or man-made features can make the difference between a thoroughly enjoyable holiday and a one or two week-long endurance contest.

Finally, there is no controlling the weather. Sometimes it is gloomy or rainy, even in high season. If you enjoy curling up with a good book and passing a quiet day relaxing indoors, make sure to choose a gite that looks comfortable for that. In all events (as some very expert travelers who stayed with us last summer clearly did), have a "rainy day" list of things to do -- museums, wineries, caves, bookshops, or other indoor attractions.

The more adaptable you are to new and different situations, the less concern required. However, to the extent you have specific preferences that you need to satisfy for an enjoyable holiday, the more care you need to take in identifying those preferences and evaluating whether a gite meets your criteria. It goes without saying that the earlier you book the more choice you will have.

Do you have any suggestions to include here? Please let us know. ... read more ...

Brocante Season

Today we went to our first brocante of the season. We finally hit on the perfect strategy for flea-marketing with kids: leave the teenager at home to get her homework done, and tell the 8 year-old to bring his spending money. When the first table we passed had a display of PlayStation2 games, we knew there would be no complaining.

In this part of France, at least, brocantes tend to be village-wide affairs, with display tables lined end to end not just in the town square, but down entire streets that have been closed to traffic for the day. Most of the stuff, as usual, is utter junk, unless of course you are looking for used children's clothing, obsolete electronic equipment or VHS tapes. Used glassware, tableware, dolls, toys and games of every description, mounted wild boar heads, skis, auto parts, rotary telephones, plumbing odds and ends, it's no wonder these events are also known as vide greniers, or attic clearing -- in other words, a giant yard or garage sale. It's not hard to extrapolate from a vide grenier to conclude that there is an awful lot of junk in the world. Yet, in a way the selection is fascinating, both in its sameness and its incredible curious variety. It seems there is nothing you can't find at a village brocante.

What distinguishes these brocantes from flea markets is that for the most part the sellers are not professional vendors, but simply townsfolk taking advantage of a once or twice yearly opportunity to get rid of some of their stuff and make a few euros in the bargain. They do bargain, too, and a polite approach, even with a foreign accent, usually results in a deal satisfactory to all.

These are not merely commercial events, they are recreational and social events as well. As you stroll slowly down the middle of a street in a village you may be visiting for the first time, it occurs to you that a lot of the people there seem to know each other. It's not just the vendors and other locals either, because you recognize some of your fellow bargain hunters from the football league or from a shop in another town, and then a friend is shaking your hand or kissing you on both cheeks and there you are having a soft drink or beer together under the leafy shade trees in the village park.

We moved on past cartons of paperback bodice rippers in the language of love, vinyl 33s and 45s by musicians we had and had not heard of, turntables that would play them, tube radios, coin collections, odd tools, old linens and the occasional interesting antique. Among the antiques were beautiful hammered copper pots of all shapes and sizes, a remarkably intricate bed head- and footboard, old hand tools, and lo and behold a beautiful example of a hand-made traditional wooden farm implement. This fool and his money were quickly parted, and his wife and child knew there would be no disapproval voiced when time came to select a PlayStation game.

One of the benefits of having an eight year-old with a PlayStation2 in the era of the PlayStation3 is that there seem to be a lot of teenage kids who have either moved up to the PS3 and its more sophisticated games, or grown out of game consoles altogether. Whatever the reason, there are a lot of used PS2 games for sale at brocantes these days. Yet, here was one place where bargaining wasn't going to work. Having scouted out the entire selection of games available at every table throughout the entire brocante, and having kept and sorted a running mental tally of his favorite choices, our son returned to the very first table he'd visited. The teenaged owner of the chosen game seem willing to give a break to a young kid who was coming up a couple euros short, but his mother was shrewder than that. As long as the eager eight year-old's parents were standing right behind him, she knew full well that the last two euros were on the table. She was right. It was still 70% off retail.

Strolling back down the street, across the bridge, and up the grassy path to the car, our son clutched his game to his chest and mentally calculated driving time back to the house and the PlayStation. Dad lugged his handmade wooden farm implement and reflected with satisfaction that his purchase plus the PS2 game cost less than the PS2 game new. He entertained only fleeting guilt that mom (who had looked with some interest at the intricate wooden bed pieces) had bought nothing. The fleeting guilt disappeared when she pulled out the flyer stuck under the windshield wiper and announced happily: next brocante at a village near us, May 11. Mother's Day.

We'll have a stroll in a different village, perhaps see some friends and have a beer in the shade. And even if there is another PlayStation game involved, it seems likely that the price of the game plus whatever mom buys will be less than the price of the PS2 game new. ... read more ...