I am indebted to the fair Lindsay and The New Yorker for the above. Double click on the pic if the caption is too small to read.
Friday, August 31, 2007
Casa nostra
I am indebted to the fair Lindsay and The New Yorker for the above. Double click on the pic if the caption is too small to read.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
A Piece of Truth
Fact:
Wormwood, Artemisia absinthium, contributes not only to absinthe, but to vermouth and Campari. Once more, I lament not brewing the wormword roots I dug up near Aurillac.
Wormwood, Artemisia absinthium, contributes not only to absinthe, but to vermouth and Campari. Once more, I lament not brewing the wormword roots I dug up near Aurillac.
Fraise – Fresa – Fragola – Erdbeere
I have little idea of the etymology of any of the words for strawberry in the title to this post, although I have long admired the pragmatic poetry of the German Erdbeere (literally, earth-berry) which has always sounded far more mammalian than vegetal to me. What I do know, however, is that the English word ‘strawberry’ has nothing to do with straw. The straw of the berry has instead to do with the straying, self-strewing behaviour of the plants along the ground. The referential wheel spins strangely in Corsica: the strawberry plants are tucked into beds of straw and called fraises.
Strawberries might be ruined for me. Firstly, I recently spent ten days doing little but care for strawberries on an organic farm in Corsica. I’ve weeded strawberries, I’ve scattered woodchips and straw over beds of strawberries to keep weeds away, I’ve aerated the roots of strawberries, I’ve pruned runners and dead leaves and under-achieving leaves and any unsightliness away from millions of strawberry plants and I’ve picked more kilos of strawberries than I care to count. I have implanted a visual guide to the strawberry in my brain and I expect fraise related imagery to punctuate my dreams for many decades hence. What it will mean for me to dream of strawberries in twenty years, I do not know. Nostalgia, perhaps, for my irresponsible tridecennial berry fling on the hills of Corsica where the plants are as tough as barbed wire?
Or maybe strawberry dreams will draw to mind a place where the sun beats down like anything but honey on our ladies of the garden? Was it in one of Roald Dahl’s memoirs that the story was told about the boy who worked in a chocolate factory and got sick of the taste of chocolate? Was it my friend Skye’s grandfather? Was it family apocrypha? I’m not sure I will find myself sick of the taste of strawberries for a long, long time. What worries me is that I might never find strawberries to match those of le Jardin de Niolu, delicious, warmed by the sun, impeccables.
I’m also worried that I might turn into one of those insufferable food types who points out all the flaws in the produce before them. ‘If your strawberry isn’t bright red and glossy right up to the stem, forget it, just forget it.’ 
Worse, I could become the tedious globe-trotting food nostalgists whose every bite is a pretext for a yarn. ‘Yes, these are nice strawberries that you are serving me, kind host, but not a patch on those wonderful, wonderful organic berries from Corsica, I ate them when I was young and the sun was warm… [Insert dull and self-focussed travel anecdote here].’
Mindful of these dangers, I register only the following. Recently, I have eaten the best strawberries that have ever come my way. They resemble only marginally the hard red pyramids which taste of wood and water often sold under the label ‘strawberry’ in Australia. This is an outrage.
Since leaving the rocky and mountainous terrain of Lozzi, I have been weeding the internet for useful information, a far less satisfying project than digging into the earth, albeit kinder to the knees, hands, and back. Had I been foraging through the internet and not hacking into Corsican soil, I might have come across this reference to the Strawberry Project earlier and tucked a few runners into my pocket; so equipped I would have strewn the strays all over Genoa and thus propagated the guerrilla gardening meme, one of my long-term (almost non-ironic) favourites.
Strawberries might be ruined for me. Firstly, I recently spent ten days doing little but care for strawberries on an organic farm in Corsica. I’ve weeded strawberries, I’ve scattered woodchips and straw over beds of strawberries to keep weeds away, I’ve aerated the roots of strawberries, I’ve pruned runners and dead leaves and under-achieving leaves and any unsightliness away from millions of strawberry plants and I’ve picked more kilos of strawberries than I care to count. I have implanted a visual guide to the strawberry in my brain and I expect fraise related imagery to punctuate my dreams for many decades hence. What it will mean for me to dream of strawberries in twenty years, I do not know. Nostalgia, perhaps, for my irresponsible tridecennial berry fling on the hills of Corsica where the plants are as tough as barbed wire?
Or maybe strawberry dreams will draw to mind a place where the sun beats down like anything but honey on our ladies of the garden? Was it in one of Roald Dahl’s memoirs that the story was told about the boy who worked in a chocolate factory and got sick of the taste of chocolate? Was it my friend Skye’s grandfather? Was it family apocrypha? I’m not sure I will find myself sick of the taste of strawberries for a long, long time. What worries me is that I might never find strawberries to match those of le Jardin de Niolu, delicious, warmed by the sun, impeccables.
I’m also worried that I might turn into one of those insufferable food types who points out all the flaws in the produce before them. ‘If your strawberry isn’t bright red and glossy right up to the stem, forget it, just forget it.’ 
Worse, I could become the tedious globe-trotting food nostalgists whose every bite is a pretext for a yarn. ‘Yes, these are nice strawberries that you are serving me, kind host, but not a patch on those wonderful, wonderful organic berries from Corsica, I ate them when I was young and the sun was warm… [Insert dull and self-focussed travel anecdote here].’Mindful of these dangers, I register only the following. Recently, I have eaten the best strawberries that have ever come my way. They resemble only marginally the hard red pyramids which taste of wood and water often sold under the label ‘strawberry’ in Australia. This is an outrage.
Since leaving the rocky and mountainous terrain of Lozzi, I have been weeding the internet for useful information, a far less satisfying project than digging into the earth, albeit kinder to the knees, hands, and back. Had I been foraging through the internet and not hacking into Corsican soil, I might have come across this reference to the Strawberry Project earlier and tucked a few runners into my pocket; so equipped I would have strewn the strays all over Genoa and thus propagated the guerrilla gardening meme, one of my long-term (almost non-ironic) favourites.
Chicken soup for the soul
It is no doubt a sign of invigorated spirits that my capacity to nominate things that I like has improved markedly over the last few years. Time was I could only cobble together compilations of things of which I heartily disapproved (white jeans, spelling errors and missing apostrophes, frozen meals, Dan Brown’s readership, people who wear silver Birkenstocks, chokos, Reece Witherspoon…) or things of which I approved only in ironic mode (Beyoncé, . Happily, things have changed and I can make non-qualified, declarations like this without a glimmer of irony: I like views of rooftops. There, I said it. I’ll say it again. I like views over rooftops and I’ve got hundreds of photos to prove it. Upbeat? Like, totally.
A friendly security guard at the Palazzo Rosso museum escorted me to the roof from whence I beheld the city of Genoa in its shabby splendour.
My, what a view! The mess of scaffolding accurately reflects the construction and renovation work that seems to be underway all over the town. And here am I, beaming and basking, surrounded on all fronts by rooftops, rooftops, rooftops.
Unfortunately, my head is blocking out the most advertised of Genoa's attractions, its aquarium, which is, if you believe the hype, the best in Europe. Alas, I have not the mettle to trawl an aquarium without the moral guidance, emotional sustenance, and translation assistance of my short, dear, loud nephew, Bailey, friend of the fishes. The large white spider just to the left of my head is one of the city’s more curious attractions. Called the Bigo, it suspends and elevates what appears to be a large tuna tin full of people, presumably so that they too can have a rooftop experience. Fair enough, I say. More power to the aficionados of rooftops.
Thrice I affirm it: My name is Catriona and I like views over rooftops.
A friendly security guard at the Palazzo Rosso museum escorted me to the roof from whence I beheld the city of Genoa in its shabby splendour.
My, what a view! The mess of scaffolding accurately reflects the construction and renovation work that seems to be underway all over the town. And here am I, beaming and basking, surrounded on all fronts by rooftops, rooftops, rooftops.
Unfortunately, my head is blocking out the most advertised of Genoa's attractions, its aquarium, which is, if you believe the hype, the best in Europe. Alas, I have not the mettle to trawl an aquarium without the moral guidance, emotional sustenance, and translation assistance of my short, dear, loud nephew, Bailey, friend of the fishes. The large white spider just to the left of my head is one of the city’s more curious attractions. Called the Bigo, it suspends and elevates what appears to be a large tuna tin full of people, presumably so that they too can have a rooftop experience. Fair enough, I say. More power to the aficionados of rooftops.Thrice I affirm it: My name is Catriona and I like views over rooftops.
A Tale of Two Cities
Genoa and Venice have been jealous rivals since the early Renaissance, the desires of their citizens to distinguish themselves one from the other comparable perhaps to those held by Sydneysiders and Melburnians, or perhaps, more acutely, by residents of Albury and Wodonga. That is why it may not have been a great idea to order a cocktail – a Bellini – inextricably connected to one city – Venice – in the other – Genoa.
I wandered onto a terrace which just happened to contain tables and chairs and a drinks menu after an exhausting afternoon spent admiring wonders of Renaissance art and the palazzi which house them. It was definitely cocktail hour but I surprised even myself when I ordered a Bellini. The waiter stopped being charmed by my feeble attempts to speak his language and gave me a slightly disapproving, slightly chilly look. When my drink arrived, he plonked it on the table without even a perfunctory gesture towards flirtation, a very unusual occurrence. No sooner had he twirled on his heel away from me and towards someone with a little more respect, the slice of peach, yellow, I note, not white, adorning the drink tumbled onto the tabletop.
Whilst my choice of drink might have been a faux pas, the drink itself, I am happy to report, was delightful and exactly comme il faut: sweet, cold, sharp, frothy.
I wandered onto a terrace which just happened to contain tables and chairs and a drinks menu after an exhausting afternoon spent admiring wonders of Renaissance art and the palazzi which house them. It was definitely cocktail hour but I surprised even myself when I ordered a Bellini. The waiter stopped being charmed by my feeble attempts to speak his language and gave me a slightly disapproving, slightly chilly look. When my drink arrived, he plonked it on the table without even a perfunctory gesture towards flirtation, a very unusual occurrence. No sooner had he twirled on his heel away from me and towards someone with a little more respect, the slice of peach, yellow, I note, not white, adorning the drink tumbled onto the tabletop.
Whilst my choice of drink might have been a faux pas, the drink itself, I am happy to report, was delightful and exactly comme il faut: sweet, cold, sharp, frothy.
Breaking news
Ah, technology, the shrinking world, logistics. Here I am in Genoa and somehow I've managed to book a flight from Istanbul to Nairobi. So it's official, I'll be in Nairobi on the 26th October. I now need to sort out the following logistical challenges:
1. Get from Genoa to Milan tomorrow. And then from Milan to Padova or Verona. And then to Venice. People tell romantic stories about the craaaazy Italian trains. Nothing is on time! The platforms change every ten minutes! Abandon hope all ye who enter here!
2. Get from Venice to Odessa. Five weeks should be long enough to do this, hopefully via Vienna, Budapest, Transylvania, Bratislava, Sofia, Pilsen, Kiev and the Crimean coast. Hmmm.
3. Get from Odessa to Istanbul. There's a ferry across the Crimean which links these two ports. Catching a ferry across the Crimean will count as a significant life experience. Plenty of How to questions to answer in the interim.
Emirates offers an impressive selection of meal types to their passengers. I have until 24 hours before my flight to make a final decision as to whether I want a Jain meal or not. What I do know now is that I will not be selecting the BLAND meal that is, I swear by the grave of Brillat-Savarin, an option.
1. Get from Genoa to Milan tomorrow. And then from Milan to Padova or Verona. And then to Venice. People tell romantic stories about the craaaazy Italian trains. Nothing is on time! The platforms change every ten minutes! Abandon hope all ye who enter here!
2. Get from Venice to Odessa. Five weeks should be long enough to do this, hopefully via Vienna, Budapest, Transylvania, Bratislava, Sofia, Pilsen, Kiev and the Crimean coast. Hmmm.
3. Get from Odessa to Istanbul. There's a ferry across the Crimean which links these two ports. Catching a ferry across the Crimean will count as a significant life experience. Plenty of How to questions to answer in the interim.
Emirates offers an impressive selection of meal types to their passengers. I have until 24 hours before my flight to make a final decision as to whether I want a Jain meal or not. What I do know now is that I will not be selecting the BLAND meal that is, I swear by the grave of Brillat-Savarin, an option.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Twenty tongues worth of strawberries
List 2
STRAWBERRY in Twenty European Languages
Aardbei – Dutch
Awberrystray – Igpay Atinlay
Eabbean – Bavarian
Erdbeere – German
Eper - Hungarian
Frago – Esperanto
Fragola - Italian
Fraise – French
Fresa - Castellan
Hamtsùrus – Romany
Jordbær – Danish
Jordgubbe – Swedish
Majofa – Occitane
Mansikka – Finnish
Marrubi. – Basque
Morango – Portuguese
Maduixa – Catalan
Soo thallooin – Manx
Syfien - Welsh
Syvyen – Cornish
Organic strawberry in Lozzi, Corsica. I think fragola is Corsican for strawberry.
STRAWBERRY in Twenty European Languages
Aardbei – Dutch
Awberrystray – Igpay Atinlay
Eabbean – Bavarian
Erdbeere – German
Eper - Hungarian
Frago – Esperanto
Fragola - Italian
Fraise – French
Fresa - Castellan
Hamtsùrus – Romany
Jordbær – Danish
Jordgubbe – Swedish
Majofa – Occitane
Mansikka – Finnish
Marrubi. – Basque
Morango – Portuguese
Maduixa – Catalan
Soo thallooin – Manx
Syfien - Welsh
Syvyen – Cornish
Organic strawberry in Lozzi, Corsica. I think fragola is Corsican for strawberry.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Les trois fromages
Several goats bleat the day through here, in company of an aggressive and randy buck named Negrito, a creature who scares the bejesus out of me. In fact, Negrito rammed Myriam’s thumb so hard the other day that her nail will fall off. I’m keeping a safe and secure distance away from Negrito: photos of this obnoxious feller will be unavailable. Anyway, the nanny goats, bearded, bell-bedecked wonders that they are, provide fresh milk everyday. I’m sure that drinking it is doing wonders for my health. Not only does the milk moisten my muesli, everyday it yields mighty good cheese.
Top left is fromage frais, two days old and delectable with extra salt and olive oil. If this is left in a cool place for a month, it turns into its neighbour, a sharp, hard crumbling cheese with quite a chewy rind. Left alone for three months, save for the occasional washing of the rind, - I've been washing the rinds of washed rind cheeses, oh, the cheese platter anecdotes will roll - the cheese on the bottom, mature chevre is something very special. Ammoniac aromas which induce mild palpitations below the eyes, a sharpness which clears the sinuses, a texture which is hard and dense; this may not be a cheese with wide appeal, but it certainly rings my bells.
Top left is fromage frais, two days old and delectable with extra salt and olive oil. If this is left in a cool place for a month, it turns into its neighbour, a sharp, hard crumbling cheese with quite a chewy rind. Left alone for three months, save for the occasional washing of the rind, - I've been washing the rinds of washed rind cheeses, oh, the cheese platter anecdotes will roll - the cheese on the bottom, mature chevre is something very special. Ammoniac aromas which induce mild palpitations below the eyes, a sharpness which clears the sinuses, a texture which is hard and dense; this may not be a cheese with wide appeal, but it certainly rings my bells.
Bouillabaissez-moi
It is easy to stumble when talking about French food. The level of submissiveness you express when you make some sort of terminological gaffe when ordering in a French restaurant or talking about food with a francais is, in my experience, what will determine how cutting the inevitable rebuke will be. If you admit the impropriety of your culinary faux pas and cede to the authority of your interlocutor, you may just get away with a condescending reminder that you are not French and never will be. To call a bouillabaisse a fish soup is to risk an embarrassing miscategorisation for a bouillabaisse is neither a fish potage nor a consommé aux poissons, nor again is it a soupe de poissons or a bouillon de poisons or a pot-au-feu de poissons, all of which sit in the English lexical box marked ‘Fish Soup’. In brief, a bouillabaisse is a thick fish soup, a soupe, as a matter of fact, in which fish and crustaceans are poached; it is served with croutons and rouille.
Once upon a time, bouillabaisse de Marseille was a sailor’s meal that combined the best of day’s catch with saffron, garlic, tomatoes and pastis. Something happened and bouillabaisse turned into one of the showy standards of French cuisine, the signature dish of tough, brash Marseilles. I’d eaten restaurant bouillabaisse before and that was enough to convince me that it was a dish worth worrying about. So much so that I resolved to cook it at home a few years ago, not a particularly simple undertaking. To make the soup you need first to make a vat of stock out of the heads and bones of the fish, tomatoes, red capsicum, celery and so on. It is a dish which requires at least five fishes of different weight and texture; one of these should be an eel. Once the stock has been strained, generating a pile of fishy stench, you are ready to make the soup. Now that I set myself to recalling the matter, there are so many steps which precede the dishing up of the bouillabaisse, I will not labour to recount them. Hints and tips: if you are using a lobster (do), make sure you shut it firmly in the freezer…
The end product is a thick soup heady with saffron and garlic and olive oil and pastis in which the fish fillets are gently cooked, rouille, a thick, utterly divine mayonnaise made with reduced stock, garlic, red pepper, and croutons. If you use the amount of saffron recommended in most recipes (I didn’t), you will short-change yourself a decent pair of shoes. It takes hours and makes a filthy, odiferous mess but it’s worth it and the very concoction of it all, longwinded and convoluted as it is, provides an excellent pretext to feed large numbers of people and toast every single one of the fishes in the sea, as well as the great institution that is French cuisine, to wake up to a pile of dishes and people and a hangover with the pleased glazed morning after glow which follows a night before of solid eating.
All of this prior knowledge was largely irrelevant on the Quai du Vieux Port: eating bouillabaisse in Marseilles was an ecstatic experience, one from which I may never recover. The meal eaten by Kym and I was as described above but prepared by a chef to whom the gods bequeathed a gift of dangerous culinary prowess. We met the chef as we stumbled delirious out of the restaurant and garbled thanks and appreciation at him. He got out of the way quickly, fortunately enough, for had he not done so, I would have found the franÁais with which to propose all sorts of terms in exchange for a lifetime of bouillabaisse. There were photos of him with beaming French starlets on the walls of the corridor leading to the loos so I guess I wasn’t the first. The thing is, the photos I took don’t really say much about the meal.
Here’s the rouille and croutons, for example, which don’t look as spectacular as they were. Note the cloves of garlic piled ready to scrape over the croutons. It would be wrong to post a photo of the soup, every mouthful of which filled the cavities in my head and chest with sensation. Instead, here is your author, wits long lost, smiling like a fool at a rouille bedecked crouton floating in the soup of my dreams.
Although there was no calorific justification for ordering dessert, there was no way we could leave without sampling the bouillabaisse dessert. Two courses of bouillabaisse weren’t enough. The dessert ditched the fish, happily, and kept the key flavours of the meal – a sublime pastis ice, strawberries and raspberries muddled in warm olive oil, and oranges dressed with saffron. By this time, our meagre store of eloquent superlatives had dwindled to gasps of ‘gosh, mmm,’ ‘wow, best aaah,’ ‘most golly, yeah.’
Oh yes, and if you were wanting to look up bouillabaisse online, you’d go somewhere like www.bouillabaisse.com, wouldn’t you? That’s the website for our restaurant, Le Miramar, bouillabaisse central and highly recommended.
The fact that the complementary truffle toasts with a drizzle of very old balsamic vinegar, the scent of which I would follow through the most arduous of obstacle courses, warrant only a closing note should seal the recommendation of the bouillabaisse.
Once upon a time, bouillabaisse de Marseille was a sailor’s meal that combined the best of day’s catch with saffron, garlic, tomatoes and pastis. Something happened and bouillabaisse turned into one of the showy standards of French cuisine, the signature dish of tough, brash Marseilles. I’d eaten restaurant bouillabaisse before and that was enough to convince me that it was a dish worth worrying about. So much so that I resolved to cook it at home a few years ago, not a particularly simple undertaking. To make the soup you need first to make a vat of stock out of the heads and bones of the fish, tomatoes, red capsicum, celery and so on. It is a dish which requires at least five fishes of different weight and texture; one of these should be an eel. Once the stock has been strained, generating a pile of fishy stench, you are ready to make the soup. Now that I set myself to recalling the matter, there are so many steps which precede the dishing up of the bouillabaisse, I will not labour to recount them. Hints and tips: if you are using a lobster (do), make sure you shut it firmly in the freezer…
The end product is a thick soup heady with saffron and garlic and olive oil and pastis in which the fish fillets are gently cooked, rouille, a thick, utterly divine mayonnaise made with reduced stock, garlic, red pepper, and croutons. If you use the amount of saffron recommended in most recipes (I didn’t), you will short-change yourself a decent pair of shoes. It takes hours and makes a filthy, odiferous mess but it’s worth it and the very concoction of it all, longwinded and convoluted as it is, provides an excellent pretext to feed large numbers of people and toast every single one of the fishes in the sea, as well as the great institution that is French cuisine, to wake up to a pile of dishes and people and a hangover with the pleased glazed morning after glow which follows a night before of solid eating.
All of this prior knowledge was largely irrelevant on the Quai du Vieux Port: eating bouillabaisse in Marseilles was an ecstatic experience, one from which I may never recover. The meal eaten by Kym and I was as described above but prepared by a chef to whom the gods bequeathed a gift of dangerous culinary prowess. We met the chef as we stumbled delirious out of the restaurant and garbled thanks and appreciation at him. He got out of the way quickly, fortunately enough, for had he not done so, I would have found the franÁais with which to propose all sorts of terms in exchange for a lifetime of bouillabaisse. There were photos of him with beaming French starlets on the walls of the corridor leading to the loos so I guess I wasn’t the first. The thing is, the photos I took don’t really say much about the meal.
Here’s the rouille and croutons, for example, which don’t look as spectacular as they were. Note the cloves of garlic piled ready to scrape over the croutons. It would be wrong to post a photo of the soup, every mouthful of which filled the cavities in my head and chest with sensation. Instead, here is your author, wits long lost, smiling like a fool at a rouille bedecked crouton floating in the soup of my dreams.
Although there was no calorific justification for ordering dessert, there was no way we could leave without sampling the bouillabaisse dessert. Two courses of bouillabaisse weren’t enough. The dessert ditched the fish, happily, and kept the key flavours of the meal – a sublime pastis ice, strawberries and raspberries muddled in warm olive oil, and oranges dressed with saffron. By this time, our meagre store of eloquent superlatives had dwindled to gasps of ‘gosh, mmm,’ ‘wow, best aaah,’ ‘most golly, yeah.’Oh yes, and if you were wanting to look up bouillabaisse online, you’d go somewhere like www.bouillabaisse.com, wouldn’t you? That’s the website for our restaurant, Le Miramar, bouillabaisse central and highly recommended.
The fact that the complementary truffle toasts with a drizzle of very old balsamic vinegar, the scent of which I would follow through the most arduous of obstacle courses, warrant only a closing note should seal the recommendation of the bouillabaisse.
Cynorhodons
Wild rosebushes sprawl unexpectedly over the harsh Corsican mountainsides. They flower in early summer and so now, in August, they are covered with hips, one of my favourite botanical phenomena.
It’s not often that English utterly trumps French for poetic expression. In English, we have rosehips; en français, on a les cynorhodons, a far less attractive term, I think, entirely arbitrarily; or course. Were I staying here longer, I’d insist on picking basketfuls to make jam and dry for tea. I’d also experiment with rosehip liqueurs, both to stay on the right side of wholesome and because, although I’ve never encountered them, I’ve long been convinced that they would be spectacular.
On flora, I post this photo not just because the onion flower is so impressive but because the backdrop – bright blue cloudless sky and dry stony terrain – encapsulates conditions here nicely. I have no plans for onion flower teas or liqueurs.
It’s not often that English utterly trumps French for poetic expression. In English, we have rosehips; en français, on a les cynorhodons, a far less attractive term, I think, entirely arbitrarily; or course. Were I staying here longer, I’d insist on picking basketfuls to make jam and dry for tea. I’d also experiment with rosehip liqueurs, both to stay on the right side of wholesome and because, although I’ve never encountered them, I’ve long been convinced that they would be spectacular.
On flora, I post this photo not just because the onion flower is so impressive but because the backdrop – bright blue cloudless sky and dry stony terrain – encapsulates conditions here nicely. I have no plans for onion flower teas or liqueurs.
Sunday, August 19, 2007
List the First
I’ve been thinking a great deal about lists lately. My thoughts on the matter have not yet sufficiently ripened for me to elaborate fully on the definition, appeal, poetry, history and significance of the list. I have a terrible feeling that I am going to develop a grandiloquent theory on the list which will seem vitally important to expound via this highly convenient medium. Suffice it to say for now that I have decided to start posting some lists on this blog.
List 1
Books that I’ve read in the last four months whose titles make reference to celestial happenings.
John Berendt, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.
Paul Bowles, A Sheltering Sky.
Octavia E. Butler, Dawn.
Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night.
Ursula LeGuin, The Lathe of Heaven.
Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow.
Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children.
Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything is Illuminated.
Neal Stephenson, Zodiac.
List 1
Books that I’ve read in the last four months whose titles make reference to celestial happenings.
John Berendt, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.
Paul Bowles, A Sheltering Sky.
Octavia E. Butler, Dawn.
Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night.
Ursula LeGuin, The Lathe of Heaven.
Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow.
Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children.
Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything is Illuminated.
Neal Stephenson, Zodiac.
De Marseilles en Corse
It was from the upper deck of the good ship Pascal Paoli that my view of la France metropôle for who knows how long receded into the past.
It would be nice, if both implausible and untrue, to claim that I stowed away or fought my way aboard but the truth is, I had a ticket for an armchair seat. It is now my strenuously held opinion that it is a grave mistake to select the cheapest option when travelling on an overnight ferry. Never have I been so uncomfortable as I was in the so-called tout confort fauteuil. Buses on pot-holed Burmese roads? Cheap flights? Not a patch on the Pascal Paoli for extreme discomfort. In future, I will not begrudge a single one of the extra eighteen euros required to sleep in a cabin. I slept on the floor of the salon fauteuil, my grumblings of discomfort interrupted only by the shrieks of a few mismanaged babies. With all that behind me, this sign at the port in Bastia spoke quite directly to me.
It would be nice, if both implausible and untrue, to claim that I stowed away or fought my way aboard but the truth is, I had a ticket for an armchair seat. It is now my strenuously held opinion that it is a grave mistake to select the cheapest option when travelling on an overnight ferry. Never have I been so uncomfortable as I was in the so-called tout confort fauteuil. Buses on pot-holed Burmese roads? Cheap flights? Not a patch on the Pascal Paoli for extreme discomfort. In future, I will not begrudge a single one of the extra eighteen euros required to sleep in a cabin. I slept on the floor of the salon fauteuil, my grumblings of discomfort interrupted only by the shrieks of a few mismanaged babies. With all that behind me, this sign at the port in Bastia spoke quite directly to me.
Sign up!
Want to run away and join the Foreign Legion?
There’s a recruitment point in St Charles Station, Marseilles.
There’s a recruitment point in St Charles Station, Marseilles.
Strawberry Fields Forever
Corsica may be the birthplace of Napoleon, but this island is a land apart from France. Closer to Rome than to Paris, Corsicans insist that the French colonised the island. The Corsican flag is ubiquitous – printed on t-shirts, flapping in the sun, tattooed on forearms, stuck onto windows – whereas the tricolore only flies before official buildings. This distance from metropolitan France perhaps accounts for the fact that it is quite easy to get online. I’m wwoofing chez Myriam and Felipe, a Corsican-Colombian couple, until around the 27th in the high and searing mountains smack bang in the middle of Corsica – the nearest town is Ponte Leccia – and should be able to provide updates if not of the minute, then surely of the prolonged moment, on the reality of the frontline of organic strawberry production. Fifteen varieties of organic strawberry. Chèvre du maison. More chooks.
I’ve just finished reading the extraordinary first installment of Javier Marias’ Your Face Tomorrow trilogy, Fever and Spear, a book which has given me more than enough to think upon as I pick strawberries, weed strawberries, prune strawberries in the Corsican sun. There’s a copy of the Slow Food manifesto and companion on my desktop following some interesting conversation on the matter in Aix-en-Provence; the most recent issue of a triennial organ devoted to Ecology, Civil Disobedience and Peasant Solidarity in Corsica is within reach, as are many Corsican cookbooks. I’m also in possession of a book about life on the other side of the Mediterranean that I’ve been wanting to read for years, Paul Bowles’ The Sheltering Sky. After that, I’ll have only one more hot weather, Mediterranean-appropriate book left, William Dalrymple’s From the Holy Mountain. In order to avoid the absurdity of Reading Thomas Mann in Corsica, I’m learning to incorporate Slow Reading into my Slow Living.
I’ve just finished reading the extraordinary first installment of Javier Marias’ Your Face Tomorrow trilogy, Fever and Spear, a book which has given me more than enough to think upon as I pick strawberries, weed strawberries, prune strawberries in the Corsican sun. There’s a copy of the Slow Food manifesto and companion on my desktop following some interesting conversation on the matter in Aix-en-Provence; the most recent issue of a triennial organ devoted to Ecology, Civil Disobedience and Peasant Solidarity in Corsica is within reach, as are many Corsican cookbooks. I’m also in possession of a book about life on the other side of the Mediterranean that I’ve been wanting to read for years, Paul Bowles’ The Sheltering Sky. After that, I’ll have only one more hot weather, Mediterranean-appropriate book left, William Dalrymple’s From the Holy Mountain. In order to avoid the absurdity of Reading Thomas Mann in Corsica, I’m learning to incorporate Slow Reading into my Slow Living.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Narcissism and negation
OK. So I googled myself for the first time in a while. Actually, I googled Catri. I have no explanation for this beyond run of the mill narcissism. Everybody does it and I'm not ashamed. There's even a Facebook group for people who google themselves. I'm not sure if there is one for people who google the vernacular abbreviation of their Christian names. That said, I'm delighted to report that no-one seems to be slandering me online. For now at least, phew! I do, however, want all false association to be stripped from my Catri avatar.
Let the following be said only once.
The Catri writing this is not:
a boat
a warcraft character
a town in Elba famous for its mineral deposits.
Should anyone else wish to pursue this utterly pointless and mostly fatuous searchline, I am neither the one posting advice about mixing anti-depressants and various herbal remedies nor am I the expert witness -- although I have performed both these rolls. I'm not Furio di Catri (although I do kind of wish I was an Italian bassist), I'm not San Catri the deathmetal head, and I'm not Dick Catri the pro-surfer. Got it?
I won't even get started on the trashglam alter-egos save to insist that I was there first. It was the nineties. Got it?
Let the following be said only once.
The Catri writing this is not:
a boat
a warcraft character
a town in Elba famous for its mineral deposits.
Should anyone else wish to pursue this utterly pointless and mostly fatuous searchline, I am neither the one posting advice about mixing anti-depressants and various herbal remedies nor am I the expert witness -- although I have performed both these rolls. I'm not Furio di Catri (although I do kind of wish I was an Italian bassist), I'm not San Catri the deathmetal head, and I'm not Dick Catri the pro-surfer. Got it?
I won't even get started on the trashglam alter-egos save to insist that I was there first. It was the nineties. Got it?
Cow, Catriona, Corsica
I'm still not quite sold on the Cow Parade. Yes, it is the world's largest public art project. Yes, sculpture is demystified by presenting such whimsical bovines. They invite interaction, do they not? 
And yet? I find myself yearning for putti. Myself, I have never had too many qualms about posing with public artworks. Anyway, here pose I with a cow decked out in Corsican regalia. If I look a little strained, it is due to the effort of trying to come to some witty, insightful, critical conclusions on the cows.
Nonetheless, this photo provides me with the occasion to note the following.
1. I am catching a ferry to Corsica tomorrow. Not only will this ferry take me from Marseilles to Bastia, it will allow me to indulge my Mediterranean pirate/stowaway/sailor fantasies.
2. I am travelling to Bastia and from thence to Porte Leccia and Lozzi to go woofing for another ten days.
3. It is more than likely that I will not be online, updating this blog, answering emails, procrastinating on Facebook, pursuing random Google searches until close to the end of August, at which point I will be in either Sardinia, Genoa, Naples or Genoa, depending on how strenuous I am feeling, how strenuous my woofing interlude has been, and, of course, the whims of the tides and winds.
And yet? I find myself yearning for putti. Myself, I have never had too many qualms about posing with public artworks. Anyway, here pose I with a cow decked out in Corsican regalia. If I look a little strained, it is due to the effort of trying to come to some witty, insightful, critical conclusions on the cows.Nonetheless, this photo provides me with the occasion to note the following.
1. I am catching a ferry to Corsica tomorrow. Not only will this ferry take me from Marseilles to Bastia, it will allow me to indulge my Mediterranean pirate/stowaway/sailor fantasies.
2. I am travelling to Bastia and from thence to Porte Leccia and Lozzi to go woofing for another ten days.
3. It is more than likely that I will not be online, updating this blog, answering emails, procrastinating on Facebook, pursuing random Google searches until close to the end of August, at which point I will be in either Sardinia, Genoa, Naples or Genoa, depending on how strenuous I am feeling, how strenuous my woofing interlude has been, and, of course, the whims of the tides and winds.
Pining for the fjords?
If you want to vary the Marseilles beach experience, you can jump on a boat from the port and head to one of the islands in the bay, past islands which served to fortify the city, to quarantine immigrants, to host wild parties, to house grizzled fisherfolk.
We took a boat which dropped us at La Frioul, expecting to arrive on a desert island. Just in case things got dire, we took a melon along. Not so. It is difficult to be more than two hundred metres away from a) a baguette and b) a bar in France. The Marseilles side of La Frioul was nicely equipped with a slightly dilapidated marina, loads of bars and some slightly shabby restaurants. Not too far away we found a calanque, or fjord with a tiny beach at the end. The islands and coastline around Marseilles are combed with such fjords which provide ample prospects for swimming and punning.
There was no sand on the beach but I was nonetheless able to install myself easily enough.
This kind of show is perfectly acceptable on the free-thinking shores of the Mediterranean. Those who are interested in such matters will note the Birkenstock tan.
We took a boat which dropped us at La Frioul, expecting to arrive on a desert island. Just in case things got dire, we took a melon along. Not so. It is difficult to be more than two hundred metres away from a) a baguette and b) a bar in France. The Marseilles side of La Frioul was nicely equipped with a slightly dilapidated marina, loads of bars and some slightly shabby restaurants. Not too far away we found a calanque, or fjord with a tiny beach at the end. The islands and coastline around Marseilles are combed with such fjords which provide ample prospects for swimming and punning.
There was no sand on the beach but I was nonetheless able to install myself easily enough.
This kind of show is perfectly acceptable on the free-thinking shores of the Mediterranean. Those who are interested in such matters will note the Birkenstock tan.
La Marseillaise
I have made representations, my friends, about Marseilles. I promised to write an in-depth account of the pleasures of the bouillabaisse, once a stew of the fisherfolk, now the romance of the saffron rich.
This photo demonstrates the state of reverence to which I was moved by the bouillabaisse, less than a week ago. I have barely digested the five fishes and the garlic and saffron are still tart on my tastebuds. I am still coming to terms with the fact that I might never be able to concot a bouillabaisse as brilliant as that au Miramar. The memories of a certain soirée de bouillabaisse chez moi a few years ago are yet to be integrated into any disquisitive state. For all these reasons, it has been impossible for me to address the Marseilles bouillabaisse experience in writing. These things are not to be rushed.
Marseilles in summer is not a city in a rush. The Vieux Port is full of boats designed for cruising, fishing, lounging, sunning, but not for rushing.
Around the point from the Port lies this beach, les Catalans, as good an example of Med beachtrash as any other. Cold water, premium sand, leopard-skin bikinis, pig-skin tans, false eyelashes on the beach, extroverted children, a distinct lack of inhibition.
This photo demonstrates the state of reverence to which I was moved by the bouillabaisse, less than a week ago. I have barely digested the five fishes and the garlic and saffron are still tart on my tastebuds. I am still coming to terms with the fact that I might never be able to concot a bouillabaisse as brilliant as that au Miramar. The memories of a certain soirée de bouillabaisse chez moi a few years ago are yet to be integrated into any disquisitive state. For all these reasons, it has been impossible for me to address the Marseilles bouillabaisse experience in writing. These things are not to be rushed.
Marseilles in summer is not a city in a rush. The Vieux Port is full of boats designed for cruising, fishing, lounging, sunning, but not for rushing.
Around the point from the Port lies this beach, les Catalans, as good an example of Med beachtrash as any other. Cold water, premium sand, leopard-skin bikinis, pig-skin tans, false eyelashes on the beach, extroverted children, a distinct lack of inhibition.
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Is punk dead?
If punk is well punctuated, surely it is moribund?
Photo taken on the steps of St Charles Station, Marseilles.
Photo taken on the steps of St Charles Station, Marseilles.
Mas mas mas Massillia!
I’ve been in Marseilles for the last few days, a city I’d been looking forward to visiting for so long that that I worried about high expectations. A port city both French and Mediterranean, settled by the Phoenecians in 600 BC, home of the bouillabaisse, Cézanne’s sunshine, rough around the edges… of course I’ve been wanting to visit Marseilles. Friends, I am happy to report that the city exceeded all expectations. 
I remain slightly stunned by the water, the forts, the aperitive, the locals, the boats, the cathedrals, the boat jousting...
In company of the lovely Kym, I ate what is, thus far, the definitive bouillabaisse of my life. Once I have fully digested the bouillabaisse, I will write all about it. For now, suffice it to say that it was definitely a two post meal.
And then? Tomorrow I head to Aix-en-Provence to meet Will and hopefully to bond with a bicycle, Flann O’Brien style. I will be Provençal until Friday on which day I will board a ferry in Marseilles for Ajaccio and another woofing spell in Corsica. Life on the Mediterranean is, as they say in the Bible, good.
I remain slightly stunned by the water, the forts, the aperitive, the locals, the boats, the cathedrals, the boat jousting...
In company of the lovely Kym, I ate what is, thus far, the definitive bouillabaisse of my life. Once I have fully digested the bouillabaisse, I will write all about it. For now, suffice it to say that it was definitely a two post meal.
And then? Tomorrow I head to Aix-en-Provence to meet Will and hopefully to bond with a bicycle, Flann O’Brien style. I will be Provençal until Friday on which day I will board a ferry in Marseilles for Ajaccio and another woofing spell in Corsica. Life on the Mediterranean is, as they say in the Bible, good.
La Festa de Païs
Being introduced as an Australian in a small town in France is a cheap ticket to celebrity: plenty of ‘Ah, bah, dis donc, vous êtes australienne! Bah, kangourouh! Oauis? Comment ça que vous parlez le français aussi bien? I’d add that the accent du sud, particularly in rural, mountainous areas like Cantal, lies somewhere between the strong and the indecipherable. The accent draws its particularities from the dialect spoken all over the south, l’Occitaine. It is extremely nasal, vowels are squashed flat and unexpectedly harsh consonants are added onto the ends of words: bien becomes being, pain becomes paing, and the g in vingt is loudly enunciated, for starters. Country folks speak slower than their city counterparts, but the difference between a broad Cantal accent and a Parisian one is tantamount to the difference between a British public school accent and a thick Scots brogue. I had ample opportunity to grapple with the Occitaine accent at the Foire de St. Flour, a fair in a town about an hour away from Thiezac.
As should be the case at any country fair, delights and attractions abounded. Many mini-tractors were on display. A tough looking man was sculpting decidedly un-tough mushrooms and fairies and birds out of blocks of wood with a chainsaw to great acclaim. I was very taken with the prize-winning cows and bulls. None of your Jerseys and Herefords here, only the best Limousins, Aubracs and Salers. Here’s a family of prize-winning Aubracs.
Of course, for me, the stalls devoted to local produce and regional food – most of them organic and all of them small scale – were the main event. I love the distinct gastronomic identities of different regions of France, all based on ingredients produced locally. Local snails, local berries, local lentils...
I’m not sure why I find the concept of la lentille blonde de St. Flour so deeply amusing. The delectable Puy lentils also hail from this part of France and are the basis of many good meals. Auvergnat food relies heavily on potatoes, cheese, and meat in all forms: sausage, terrine, hunks, chunks, joints. Hefty slow-cooked dishes which are split before serving into a soup and the melting meat and veggies are popular. Lard, butter, salt, garlic and olive oil seem to be added to all savoury dishes. Trout and local crayfish figure seasonally, as do berries, cabbage, honey, pumpkin, frogs, mushrooms, chestnuts, snails, rabbit and wild ingredients like dandelion leaves and nettles. Green vegetables are conspicuous by their absence as are what in other parts of the world are termed light meals. I’m not sure if the Auvergne is a great place for vegetarians, although I did meet a nice man who ran an organic vego retreat in the hills.
Loads of huge, pungent, delicious cheeses – that’s some nice old Tome above – were on show but no camembert or brie or Roquefort or other exotics. Instead, I tried Salers, a hard cheese made from the milk of the Salers cows; two blues, Fourme D’Ambert and Bleu d’Auvergne; lots of St. Nectaire; and Tome and Cantal aged from 3 days (ie fraîche) to two months old. Many variations on the theme of chèvre also brought me happiness. Myriam was on good terms with most of the organicos which meant plenty of tasting for me. I sampled until my belly was full and my heart was warm.
I note with approval this uninhibited display of saucisson sec at a stall selling only the charcuterie of the region, including an outrageously good terrine d’Auvergne which I ate for dinner. I wonder when the day will come that the onerous restrictions on Australian butchers and cheesemakers are lifted. Ya Basta! Raw milk cheeses! Slowly aged charcuterie! Now!
As should be the case at any country fair, delights and attractions abounded. Many mini-tractors were on display. A tough looking man was sculpting decidedly un-tough mushrooms and fairies and birds out of blocks of wood with a chainsaw to great acclaim. I was very taken with the prize-winning cows and bulls. None of your Jerseys and Herefords here, only the best Limousins, Aubracs and Salers. Here’s a family of prize-winning Aubracs.
Of course, for me, the stalls devoted to local produce and regional food – most of them organic and all of them small scale – were the main event. I love the distinct gastronomic identities of different regions of France, all based on ingredients produced locally. Local snails, local berries, local lentils...
I’m not sure why I find the concept of la lentille blonde de St. Flour so deeply amusing. The delectable Puy lentils also hail from this part of France and are the basis of many good meals. Auvergnat food relies heavily on potatoes, cheese, and meat in all forms: sausage, terrine, hunks, chunks, joints. Hefty slow-cooked dishes which are split before serving into a soup and the melting meat and veggies are popular. Lard, butter, salt, garlic and olive oil seem to be added to all savoury dishes. Trout and local crayfish figure seasonally, as do berries, cabbage, honey, pumpkin, frogs, mushrooms, chestnuts, snails, rabbit and wild ingredients like dandelion leaves and nettles. Green vegetables are conspicuous by their absence as are what in other parts of the world are termed light meals. I’m not sure if the Auvergne is a great place for vegetarians, although I did meet a nice man who ran an organic vego retreat in the hills.
Loads of huge, pungent, delicious cheeses – that’s some nice old Tome above – were on show but no camembert or brie or Roquefort or other exotics. Instead, I tried Salers, a hard cheese made from the milk of the Salers cows; two blues, Fourme D’Ambert and Bleu d’Auvergne; lots of St. Nectaire; and Tome and Cantal aged from 3 days (ie fraîche) to two months old. Many variations on the theme of chèvre also brought me happiness. Myriam was on good terms with most of the organicos which meant plenty of tasting for me. I sampled until my belly was full and my heart was warm.I note with approval this uninhibited display of saucisson sec at a stall selling only the charcuterie of the region, including an outrageously good terrine d’Auvergne which I ate for dinner. I wonder when the day will come that the onerous restrictions on Australian butchers and cheesemakers are lifted. Ya Basta! Raw milk cheeses! Slowly aged charcuterie! Now!
Flower Soup
Before leaving la Bastide Haute I was corralled into helping make a gêlée aux feuilles de ruisseau, jelly made from stream-side leaves. I don’t think I’ve ever cooked anything with such a romantic set of ingredients.
Meadowsweet. Filipendula ulmaria. Meadowsweet, along with water-mint and vervain, is a herb considered sacred by druids. Back in the day, it was used as a strewing herb and to flavour mead. It is apparently bad luck to bring it into the house as it may induce a sleep from which the sleeper cannot wake. No such qualms in the Auvergne.
Angelica. Angelica archangelica. Possessed of a most beautiful botanical name and big dramatic flowers, angelica is what the green stuff that sometimes comes with mixed dried fruit is supposed to approximate.
Stinging nettle. Urtica dioica. There is nought that the nettle cannot fix. Sting they do, but they are overwhelmingly wholesome. Nettles are good for your blood because they contain iron, histamine, formic acid, and silicic acid and apparently improve circulation and purify the system, nettles are good for rheumatism and sciatica, nettles lower blood sugar and blood pressure. – to use for cooking when they are young shoots –ie in spring and early summer. The Scots and Irish peasants who, according to my book, subsisted on a broth called Brotchan Neanntog made of oatmeal, nettles, water and salt (mmm) would have had some important dietary requirements satisfied. Although nettles perform well as a tasty lead in the jelly, I cannot say whether a diet heavily reliant on the nettle would be delectable.
Mint. Plain old mint. Mentha ordinairia. Here’s a factoid about mint: it was named after a nymph named Minthe. According to Ovid (who else would be the source of such a tale), Minthe tempted that shady character Pluto and was metamorphosed into a herb by his jealous wife, Prosperine. Remedies for marital discord aren’t what they used to be.
The leaves, blithely plucked in the morning, were steeped and soaked like this, a cooking process that an airy-fairy five year old would appreciate. The liquid was strained and weighed and sugared and cooked and cooked and set with agar and voila! Gêlée aux feuilles de ruisseau!
Meadowsweet. Filipendula ulmaria. Meadowsweet, along with water-mint and vervain, is a herb considered sacred by druids. Back in the day, it was used as a strewing herb and to flavour mead. It is apparently bad luck to bring it into the house as it may induce a sleep from which the sleeper cannot wake. No such qualms in the Auvergne.
Angelica. Angelica archangelica. Possessed of a most beautiful botanical name and big dramatic flowers, angelica is what the green stuff that sometimes comes with mixed dried fruit is supposed to approximate.
Stinging nettle. Urtica dioica. There is nought that the nettle cannot fix. Sting they do, but they are overwhelmingly wholesome. Nettles are good for your blood because they contain iron, histamine, formic acid, and silicic acid and apparently improve circulation and purify the system, nettles are good for rheumatism and sciatica, nettles lower blood sugar and blood pressure. – to use for cooking when they are young shoots –ie in spring and early summer. The Scots and Irish peasants who, according to my book, subsisted on a broth called Brotchan Neanntog made of oatmeal, nettles, water and salt (mmm) would have had some important dietary requirements satisfied. Although nettles perform well as a tasty lead in the jelly, I cannot say whether a diet heavily reliant on the nettle would be delectable.
Mint. Plain old mint. Mentha ordinairia. Here’s a factoid about mint: it was named after a nymph named Minthe. According to Ovid (who else would be the source of such a tale), Minthe tempted that shady character Pluto and was metamorphosed into a herb by his jealous wife, Prosperine. Remedies for marital discord aren’t what they used to be.
The leaves, blithely plucked in the morning, were steeped and soaked like this, a cooking process that an airy-fairy five year old would appreciate. The liquid was strained and weighed and sugared and cooked and cooked and set with agar and voila! Gêlée aux feuilles de ruisseau!
Interdit aux nomades
Bedouin? Forget about it? Posted in front of a vacant lot beside a main road, here we have a sign which is directed at the gypsy population. The idea of the nomadic life has romantic connotations to some, but clearly not to civic authorities in France.
Les Patates de mon Coeur
Potatoes are big news in the Auvergne. Near Thiezac, there is a small village called Ville-dieu in which a potato conservatory is maintained. Myriam tells me that more than one hundred different types of potatoes are cultivated and, er, conserved there. This is why there are Tibetan and Hungarian varieties of potato in the vegetable garden here. September is the month of the potato fair, an event which sounds something like a potato-fanciers swap-meet, gab-fest and love-in all rolled into one. You can buy any one of the mythical hundred varieties of potatoes and the wherewithal to grow them yourself. You can bring new varieties of potatoes along and donate them to the conservatory for the good of the potato-loving community. You can talk potatoes until you grow tubers.
According to the locals, potatoes are the truffles of the Auvergne and prized as such. There exists a local specialty named the ‘truffade,’ so named in honour of the truffilicious standing of the potato. Although every Cantal kitchen dishes up a different truffade, the basic ingredients – equivalent quantities of potatoes and Tome fraîche, salt, garlic – are fixed. For one such as myself, who invests both potatoes and cheese with miraculous healing properties, it is a fine dish. A light dish, however, the truffade is most certainly not. I think the ideal conditions for eating truffade are in the middle of winter, following many hours of serious physical exertion and before a long sleep.
Hélas, the first time I ate truffade was in the middle of a hot day, after a few hours in the garden, and before a long walk home. The sections of the walk which were not downhill were extremely challenging.
The second time I ate truffade, I helped with the preparation and understood why I had so much trouble the first time. Peeled potatoes are firstly lightly fried in lard with some onions. In my book, light frying in lard is an oxymoron. That chapter is not written in French, obviously. Once the lard has penetrated the spuds, they are boiled to complete the cooking then drained and smashed up a bit. Loads of garlic are chopped into the pot and a handful of salt stirred in. Enfin, a vast amount of very young cheese is thrown in and left to sit with the potatoes with the lid shut for a little while.
Before serving, a few glugs of olive oil go into the pot and the dish beaten until the cheese is stringy. Incredibly rich, incredibly good.
According to the locals, potatoes are the truffles of the Auvergne and prized as such. There exists a local specialty named the ‘truffade,’ so named in honour of the truffilicious standing of the potato. Although every Cantal kitchen dishes up a different truffade, the basic ingredients – equivalent quantities of potatoes and Tome fraîche, salt, garlic – are fixed. For one such as myself, who invests both potatoes and cheese with miraculous healing properties, it is a fine dish. A light dish, however, the truffade is most certainly not. I think the ideal conditions for eating truffade are in the middle of winter, following many hours of serious physical exertion and before a long sleep.
Hélas, the first time I ate truffade was in the middle of a hot day, after a few hours in the garden, and before a long walk home. The sections of the walk which were not downhill were extremely challenging.
The second time I ate truffade, I helped with the preparation and understood why I had so much trouble the first time. Peeled potatoes are firstly lightly fried in lard with some onions. In my book, light frying in lard is an oxymoron. That chapter is not written in French, obviously. Once the lard has penetrated the spuds, they are boiled to complete the cooking then drained and smashed up a bit. Loads of garlic are chopped into the pot and a handful of salt stirred in. Enfin, a vast amount of very young cheese is thrown in and left to sit with the potatoes with the lid shut for a little while.
Before serving, a few glugs of olive oil go into the pot and the dish beaten until the cheese is stringy. Incredibly rich, incredibly good.
Aperitifs sauvage
Sloe gin is great stuff. 
Aperitifs made from sloe, or blackthorn, shoots, might even be better.
Aperitifs made from sloe, or blackthorn, shoots, might even be better.
Friday, August 10, 2007
Dipso du Jardin
Who can identify this plant? I’m restraining myself from issuing a roll-call of those who might (or should) be able to do so.
Give up? Les français call this l’absente. Les anglais call it wormwood. The world calls the drink brewed from its root – yes! – Absinthe! – and shudders with an odd mixture of apprehension and maniacal excitement at the very thought of the green fairy’s tipple extraordinaire. Had I been born a wench in Rouen in 1875, there is no doubt that I would have turned to absinthe just after running away from the evil Marquis’ scullery, hotfooting it to Paris and starting modelling for Renoir or Toulouse-Lautrec. Had I been born a wordy, rebellious, precocious bourgeoise in Paris in 1845, I would have, to the distress of maman et papa, become hooked on the stuff as I tried to emulate young Rimbaud. God knows, I probably would have had to smoke hashish to keep up that act. And then? Downhill. Thank heavens for 1977.
In the vegetable garden which occupied my attention for such a prolonged period, l’absente grows wild. Myriam allows it to grow because the silvery leaves are so very beautiful in a flower arrangement. So wild was the path of the wormwood this summer that I was charged with digging up many stands of the silvery stuff. I made a feeble comment about cooking up some absinthe sauvage but the mirth which greeted my proposal was of the sort which made it very clear that there was not going to be any homebrewed absinthe. What did I do? Some will be shocked and disappointed to learn that with a heavy heart, I dug up the wormwood.
Here are some wormwood roots, which are what you need to make absinthe. If memory serves me correctly, the internet is a great source of guidance to those who wish to make absinthe de la maison. Vodka is required.
I have greatly enjoyed the gentle absinthe available in Australia, purged as it is of psychotic and hallucinogenic ingredients. The Symboliste poet lurking in the lower cerebellum is coaxed out hiding – one blusters with dreamy Baudelairean eloquence and yet one’s inner psychopath stays under lock and key. My one experience drinking the real deal absinthe in the Czech Republic, on the other hand, had somewhat dire consequences: a lengthy argument of the blazing variety devoted to the relative merits of Jane Austen and Charles Dickens, conducted over several hours in a public square, several lost hours, mysterious bruises, a sore throat, and, of course, an almighty hangover dredged from one of the more fetid levels of hell. Just in case my dear grandfather is shaking his head in concern and wonder at such depravity in one just past the heyday of her youth, I note that I do not know anyone who has consumed absinthe in the Czech Republic. without such dire consequences. I will hopefully be happily in the C. R. in the next few months and this will give me the opportunity to consider whether I want to sample the fearsome genuine article once more, albeit with care. As a dilettante scholar of literary Modernism, I do consider it my professional duty to investigate such matters. Fear not, I shall treat the green fairy with extreme prejudice.
Give up? Les français call this l’absente. Les anglais call it wormwood. The world calls the drink brewed from its root – yes! – Absinthe! – and shudders with an odd mixture of apprehension and maniacal excitement at the very thought of the green fairy’s tipple extraordinaire. Had I been born a wench in Rouen in 1875, there is no doubt that I would have turned to absinthe just after running away from the evil Marquis’ scullery, hotfooting it to Paris and starting modelling for Renoir or Toulouse-Lautrec. Had I been born a wordy, rebellious, precocious bourgeoise in Paris in 1845, I would have, to the distress of maman et papa, become hooked on the stuff as I tried to emulate young Rimbaud. God knows, I probably would have had to smoke hashish to keep up that act. And then? Downhill. Thank heavens for 1977.
In the vegetable garden which occupied my attention for such a prolonged period, l’absente grows wild. Myriam allows it to grow because the silvery leaves are so very beautiful in a flower arrangement. So wild was the path of the wormwood this summer that I was charged with digging up many stands of the silvery stuff. I made a feeble comment about cooking up some absinthe sauvage but the mirth which greeted my proposal was of the sort which made it very clear that there was not going to be any homebrewed absinthe. What did I do? Some will be shocked and disappointed to learn that with a heavy heart, I dug up the wormwood.
Here are some wormwood roots, which are what you need to make absinthe. If memory serves me correctly, the internet is a great source of guidance to those who wish to make absinthe de la maison. Vodka is required.I have greatly enjoyed the gentle absinthe available in Australia, purged as it is of psychotic and hallucinogenic ingredients. The Symboliste poet lurking in the lower cerebellum is coaxed out hiding – one blusters with dreamy Baudelairean eloquence and yet one’s inner psychopath stays under lock and key. My one experience drinking the real deal absinthe in the Czech Republic, on the other hand, had somewhat dire consequences: a lengthy argument of the blazing variety devoted to the relative merits of Jane Austen and Charles Dickens, conducted over several hours in a public square, several lost hours, mysterious bruises, a sore throat, and, of course, an almighty hangover dredged from one of the more fetid levels of hell. Just in case my dear grandfather is shaking his head in concern and wonder at such depravity in one just past the heyday of her youth, I note that I do not know anyone who has consumed absinthe in the Czech Republic. without such dire consequences. I will hopefully be happily in the C. R. in the next few months and this will give me the opportunity to consider whether I want to sample the fearsome genuine article once more, albeit with care. As a dilettante scholar of literary Modernism, I do consider it my professional duty to investigate such matters. Fear not, I shall treat the green fairy with extreme prejudice.
Le grog sauvage
Juniper, the berries of which are vital ingredient of that most vital spirit, the gin of my heart and dreams, grows wild on the hills and plains of the Cantal. I have been avidly reading through a library of books on wild foods and la cuisine sauvage and so am overburdened with botanical lore. The remarkable powers of the juniper tree (ahem, Juniperus communis) are lauded by folklorists, particularly those averse to the supernatural. Juniper branches hung over doors and windows on May Eve repel witches; smoke from a juniper fire keeps demons at bay. An infusion made from juniper berries apparently restores lost youth. To dream of a juniper tree is bad luck but, oddly, to dream of juniper berries signifies coming success. The herbals proffered no information as to the significance of dreams of gin.
After lunch chez Roselyne, a hoary organic old chestnut who deserves but probably won’t get a post of her own, I decided to walk home to la Bastide and was duly charged with the collection of juniper berries. Life would truly have exceeded art had the juniper berries been solicited in order to produce organic gin du maison. They were in fact picked for the enhancement of the pâté and terrines du maison made later in the week.
To access the bright blue berries of the juniper (which ripen only in their second year on the bush), one must negotiate some tough and spiky leaves. Picking juniper berries is more taxing than drinking a gin and tonic in the late afternoon, to this I can attest. Berried picked, fingers pricked, I found myself terribly lost in the forest. My orienteering skills never were that crash-hot. I was charmed by the deer I saw leaping through the trees – such charm! – until I stumbled over a sign which designated the area a hunting reserve and had a strong and unpleasant sense of myself as a moving target. Oh là là… Clambering, trampling, muttering, sliding, swearing, deep-breathing, back-tracking and clear-headed focus were required to get me home. In spite of the trying circumstances, not one juniper berry was lost.
After lunch chez Roselyne, a hoary organic old chestnut who deserves but probably won’t get a post of her own, I decided to walk home to la Bastide and was duly charged with the collection of juniper berries. Life would truly have exceeded art had the juniper berries been solicited in order to produce organic gin du maison. They were in fact picked for the enhancement of the pâté and terrines du maison made later in the week.
To access the bright blue berries of the juniper (which ripen only in their second year on the bush), one must negotiate some tough and spiky leaves. Picking juniper berries is more taxing than drinking a gin and tonic in the late afternoon, to this I can attest. Berried picked, fingers pricked, I found myself terribly lost in the forest. My orienteering skills never were that crash-hot. I was charmed by the deer I saw leaping through the trees – such charm! – until I stumbled over a sign which designated the area a hunting reserve and had a strong and unpleasant sense of myself as a moving target. Oh là là… Clambering, trampling, muttering, sliding, swearing, deep-breathing, back-tracking and clear-headed focus were required to get me home. In spite of the trying circumstances, not one juniper berry was lost.
Thursday, August 9, 2007
Woofing like a blog
So I wrote the below labouring under the expectation that Myriam’s computer and mine might be able to collaborate in such a way that I could post live and direct from organic bliss-ville. Alas, not only could my memory stick find no safe haven in Myriam’s computer, almost as ancient as the farmhouse, but much less charming, the internet connection moved so slowly as to thwart any alternatives. So that was that. I post it nonetheless as an eccentric historical piece. Like a newly trained forager, I have gathered much trivia, many photographs, and too few pieces of genuine wisdom on topics like la vie auvergnate, flora of the Massif central, botanical history, la cuisine sauvage, quirks of pronunciation in the South, potatoes, cheese-making, and so on. I shall post my gleanings in due course. I have nought to lose. I am, after all, now in Toulouse, if only for a night.
Ahem.
Yes, I’ve left the fleshpots of Paris far behind. There and then, I was trawling the Place de Clichy after midnight; here and now, I am collecting wildflowers from fields unadulterated by pollutants. I’m two days into the first of two woofing stints, this one in the Auvergne and the next in Corsica, and la vie is looking pretty belle. Woofing, I will remind you, is a scheme whereby likely types, like myself, work for four to six hours a day on an organic farm in exchange for food and board. I seem to have fallen into rather the right situation here in the Auvergne. Auvergne is the region, Cantal the département, Thiezac the nearest Holbrook-sized village and Aurillac the nearest Albury-sized town. I’m staying with a lovely woman named Myriam who lives in a big sixteenth century farmhouse, la Bastide Haute, perched on the side of a hill nicely plonked in the middle of the Massif central. It is a most ridiculously scenic place. There are po-faced sheep wearing bells bleating around the place and at least four dormice resident in the beams above my bed. There is a rooster, an orchard and a big stand of wormwood. There are fruit trees, raspberry and blackcurrant canes, beehives, nettles, and many varieties of potato, zucchini, carrot, turnip and beans. I’m tasked with pottering in the vegetable garden, picking wildflowers and herbs for dinner and tisanes, chatting to the chickens, and learning to cook a few new dishes. I’ve got a huge stone barn cum studio to myself (plus the local dormouse population), the dog, Gigi, seems to like me, and if it rains tonight, we’ll go on a trip into the pine forest to pick mushrooms tomorrow. It’s all rather nice.
As proof that I’m not fabricating this substitution of good, wholesome, hearty, living for fast, bad, and loose life, I tender the following.
Some valerian picked by mine own hands.
Chickens cavorting beneath the washing line. Cavorting, I might note, before the revival of my long-buried lawn-mowing skills and the subsequent transformation of the lawns.
As a consequence of this new phase of healthy living, I won’t be as proximate to the toxic fumes of the internet as usual. This is one reason why this may be an ephemeral – if entirely delightful – phase. If you have urgent questions about matters dilettantish, note that I’ll be following a slow-dripping herbal clock for the next few weeks.
Ahem.
Yes, I’ve left the fleshpots of Paris far behind. There and then, I was trawling the Place de Clichy after midnight; here and now, I am collecting wildflowers from fields unadulterated by pollutants. I’m two days into the first of two woofing stints, this one in the Auvergne and the next in Corsica, and la vie is looking pretty belle. Woofing, I will remind you, is a scheme whereby likely types, like myself, work for four to six hours a day on an organic farm in exchange for food and board. I seem to have fallen into rather the right situation here in the Auvergne. Auvergne is the region, Cantal the département, Thiezac the nearest Holbrook-sized village and Aurillac the nearest Albury-sized town. I’m staying with a lovely woman named Myriam who lives in a big sixteenth century farmhouse, la Bastide Haute, perched on the side of a hill nicely plonked in the middle of the Massif central. It is a most ridiculously scenic place. There are po-faced sheep wearing bells bleating around the place and at least four dormice resident in the beams above my bed. There is a rooster, an orchard and a big stand of wormwood. There are fruit trees, raspberry and blackcurrant canes, beehives, nettles, and many varieties of potato, zucchini, carrot, turnip and beans. I’m tasked with pottering in the vegetable garden, picking wildflowers and herbs for dinner and tisanes, chatting to the chickens, and learning to cook a few new dishes. I’ve got a huge stone barn cum studio to myself (plus the local dormouse population), the dog, Gigi, seems to like me, and if it rains tonight, we’ll go on a trip into the pine forest to pick mushrooms tomorrow. It’s all rather nice.
As proof that I’m not fabricating this substitution of good, wholesome, hearty, living for fast, bad, and loose life, I tender the following.
Some valerian picked by mine own hands.
Chickens cavorting beneath the washing line. Cavorting, I might note, before the revival of my long-buried lawn-mowing skills and the subsequent transformation of the lawns.As a consequence of this new phase of healthy living, I won’t be as proximate to the toxic fumes of the internet as usual. This is one reason why this may be an ephemeral – if entirely delightful – phase. If you have urgent questions about matters dilettantish, note that I’ll be following a slow-dripping herbal clock for the next few weeks.
Non, je ne regrette rien
Lordy me, where was I? I left Paris with a hangover and found myself stepping off the train in the middle of the Massif central six hours later. That was it for the metropolis, I said to myself. Time’s up. I’m travelling light. Can’t afford to be gathering any moss. At least, that’s what I thought. And then I discovered that there was no effective internet access at La Bastide Haute. Luckily, I spent such a beautiful ten days under the auvergnat stars that I was able to cope with being unwired for a while. I’m still so rested and calm and centred that even though I have just flouted the first law of blogging, ‘be thou of the minute,’ and indulged in Paris post-a-go-go ten days after the fact, I think I can still cope with posting this, a non-binding list of Paris-related topics I didn’t write about:
• Le Rhumerie.
• How much I dig the Métro, particularly the view from line 2 over Stalingrad and the top of the Canal St Martin.
• The Canal St Martin.
• Crèpes with butter and sugar after midnight.
• My long held suspicion that Paris holds a world record for the highest number of pharmacies per capita. This might account for the terrifying grooming habits of many residents.
• The back streets of Belleville.
• The Tuileries and Luxembourg gardens. And Le Jardin des Plantes.
• The weirdness of thousands of respectable tourists and family groups lining up at Clichy to see what is essentially a live sex show at the Moulin Rouge.
• Eating dinner in one of Benjamin’s arcades that has been re-colonised by a set of Indian restaurants.
• Great chimney pots.
• How deeply I disapprove of the bookshop Shakespeare and Company which, save for the name, has nothing in common whatsoever with the bookshop through which Ulysses was first published in 1922. A related topic is of course my affection for the Village Voice bookshop on the rue Princesse and the garrulous middle-aged porn collector who runs it.
Flirting shamelessly with a cheesemonger. Returning, winking at him for his St Nectaire and feeling very cheap.
• Extensive digression on the great pun that is Parrots, France.
• How highly I rate cornichons.
• Neighbourhoods in which I’d like to live if I lived in Paris again.
• The pleasure of returning to a bakery I remembered to be excellent (cnr rue de Marseilles et rue Yves Toudic) and finding it still to be so.
• People carrying dogs in baskets on trains.
• Le Rhumerie.
• How much I dig the Métro, particularly the view from line 2 over Stalingrad and the top of the Canal St Martin.
• The Canal St Martin.
• Crèpes with butter and sugar after midnight.
• My long held suspicion that Paris holds a world record for the highest number of pharmacies per capita. This might account for the terrifying grooming habits of many residents.
• The back streets of Belleville.
• The Tuileries and Luxembourg gardens. And Le Jardin des Plantes.
• The weirdness of thousands of respectable tourists and family groups lining up at Clichy to see what is essentially a live sex show at the Moulin Rouge.
• Eating dinner in one of Benjamin’s arcades that has been re-colonised by a set of Indian restaurants.
• Great chimney pots.
• How deeply I disapprove of the bookshop Shakespeare and Company which, save for the name, has nothing in common whatsoever with the bookshop through which Ulysses was first published in 1922. A related topic is of course my affection for the Village Voice bookshop on the rue Princesse and the garrulous middle-aged porn collector who runs it.
Flirting shamelessly with a cheesemonger. Returning, winking at him for his St Nectaire and feeling very cheap.
• Extensive digression on the great pun that is Parrots, France.
• How highly I rate cornichons.• Neighbourhoods in which I’d like to live if I lived in Paris again.
• The pleasure of returning to a bakery I remembered to be excellent (cnr rue de Marseilles et rue Yves Toudic) and finding it still to be so.
• People carrying dogs in baskets on trains.
Attention aux piètons!
Although Paris is a great city in which to perambulate, the relationship between drivers and pedestrians is a little tense. There are many pedestrian crossings in Paris, it is true. Pedestrians are even factored into some traffic light arrangements. The novice Parisian flâneur who presumes that these civic arrangements impose any kind of obligation on the drivers of Paris errs egregiously, and perhaps fatally. Parisian drivers take an attitude to each other which is a little bit Benjaminian: they insist upon their individuality – nay, singularity – as driving entities; they take some pleasure in participating in the great seething mass of traffic, but they regard all other entities within the crowd of vehicles with contempt. The horn is rarely avoided. The bumper nudge is a common manoeuvre. No infraction is suffered in silence. La vie flâneuse is thus invigorated.
This sign indicates that children are being walked in the neighbourhood. I lived near a pre-school in the 10th arrondissement a few years ago. When the kidlets were being taken for a walk, they all grabbed onto a rope whose tail was held by the teacher and were marched double time, sometimes dragged, along the footpath; it was a caterpillar made of toddlers. You might run into such a hazard near a sign like this one. More importantly, however, if you park your car here, you will be towed away. By a truck. Sans hésitation.
Here we see a highly qualified notice of a pedestrian area. Although this byway, which happens to run alongside the Seine, is designated a pedestrian area, the fine print ratifies more loopholes for cars than you’ll find in a big block of emmental. The relationship between responsible adult and young beskirted lass is, presumably, less close in this quartier.
This sign indicates that children are being walked in the neighbourhood. I lived near a pre-school in the 10th arrondissement a few years ago. When the kidlets were being taken for a walk, they all grabbed onto a rope whose tail was held by the teacher and were marched double time, sometimes dragged, along the footpath; it was a caterpillar made of toddlers. You might run into such a hazard near a sign like this one. More importantly, however, if you park your car here, you will be towed away. By a truck. Sans hésitation.
Here we see a highly qualified notice of a pedestrian area. Although this byway, which happens to run alongside the Seine, is designated a pedestrian area, the fine print ratifies more loopholes for cars than you’ll find in a big block of emmental. The relationship between responsible adult and young beskirted lass is, presumably, less close in this quartier.
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