Carcasonne

After the oh so lovely visit from Eddie and Phil to Aix, they were total sweethearts and gave me a lift back to Bordeuax. It was such a long drive, but Phil had some killer tunes and I rolled along the French countryside listening to Jeff Buckley and Nina Simone. I do need some sugar in my bowl, Nina, yes I do. We stopped for a refresher in Carcasonne. I had no idea that the city was so old and beautiful. It was a wonderful surprize.

I've seen other fortified cities before and they are impressive. But I have to say this one was stunning. It's really huge, a whole little village surrounded in stone walls with tall towers. It made me feel like Sleeping Beauty; I expected a dragon to be perching on the tower behind me and a dashing knight to come rushing to my rescue at any moment.

But of course I did have two dashing heros, my buddies Phil and Eddie. They delivered me to Chateau Brandeau again to have a little work in the vines again before I fly away for the states. Their humor and kindness have saved me many times before on this trip.

I think that Eddie was looking for his Prince Charming in Carcasonne....

Bistrot des Philosophies

While Eddie and Phil were visiting, we took them to a lovely dinner in my favorite square in the city, Place Forum des Cardeurs. (We really needed the sustenance after a long day of potonk tournaments.) The square has recently been renovated and is so lovely at night with all the pretty lights and pretty people. Elly had discovered this little gem of a place, Bistrot des Philosophies, and took me there for the most delicious appetizer I've ever had: foie gras créme brulee. We went there earlier on our trip and fell in love with it. Of course we had to return and share this amazing dish with our dear friends...we ordered two. Creamy and savory and smooth with a little sweet crunch on top. I must learn how to make this dish. The atmosphere in Philosophies is chic and casual, the prices are totally reasonable (for Aix) and the lighting was divine. I'm always surprized at how the right lighting can transform a good meal into a great experience. We sat and drank some bubbly and enjoyed a piece of fabulous piece of cote du bouef (a slow cooked hunk of steak that is seared and then baked). The best French meal I've had since I arrived. Parfait!

The night was topped off with a hilarious encounter between Elly and a random young man on the street. Since my arrival in Aix Elly has had me convinced that there are these small toilets on the street that rise up out of the ground for festivals and other times of high tourism. You see the little portals on the streets all over town. I kept seeing them everywhere and never really thought too hard about it, just a passing thought of how odd it was to have these elevator bathrooms. On our way out of dinner a young man was lowering one of the units back down and Elly struck up a conversation with him about the uniqueness of this particular town feature. He explained in patient and rusty English that they were not toilets....they are trash bins. Lowering them underground keeps the unsightly mess off the posh streets. I really have no idea how or where her theory formed, but we had a good laugh when we actually stood over supposed bathrooms and realized that the unit was far too small to turn around in, let alone sit down. I have to credit Elly's enthusiastic nature with having me so unquestioningly convinced. It is sometimes a joy to be a clueless tourist.

More Provencal Cheese

My goodness, it's been too long since my last post...and there's so much to tell! First, let me catch you up on the cheese news. After Roquefort, Elly and I went back to Aix en Provence where she and her French boyfriend were settling into their new "country house." I really do feel more comfortable away from all the plus posh hustle found in the center of Aix, and it gave me a chance to learn the finer points of a fabulous French lawn game called potonk, similar to bocce ball. I also had the chance to visit a local goat cheese farm and try out a few new recipes of my own the quiet countryside.

Elly and I visited a small goat operation just outside of Puyricard. Sandrine, who runs the farm with her husband and makes the cheese daily, was kind enough to allow Elly and I to watch her make the specialty of the farm and pester her with questions. We watched as she prepared a very rare and delicious ricotta style goat cheese called brousse du rove. It is made from the milk of the Rove goat, a breed that used to be found commonly in and around Marseilles. Nowadays you find mostly Saaen, Alpine and some others, but the milk from Rove goats has a special grassy quality that is super tasty. Sandrine prepared the yogurt style cheese by slowly bringing the milk up to 90°F and then adding a little vinegar to help the small curds form. Then she very carefully spooned the curds into tall, thin plastic tubes and sold them to us right away, no draining necessary. Usually the cheese is served as a dessert with jam or sugar and it was divine. The consistency was much more delicate and moist than ricotta, but much cheesier in flavor than yogurt. We took a bunch home and had some for breakfast each morning. You can learn more about the history of the cheese and the traditions of thier cheese making style here.


With no Hermes store around the corner to distract me, I was able to try out a few recipes I'd dreamed up on Bob Dylan's farm and had the perfect excuse for such elaborate creations; our friends Phil and Eddie from Chateau Brandeau in Bordeax came down for a weekend visit. You may remember this fabulous couple from my earlier posts. Eddie is a deliciously over the top Kiwi and Phil is his quiet, delightful companion from the UK. These men have the most wonderful bromance I've ever encountered and share cheeky rapport that instantly puts a smile on your face. I knew they would appreciate a little culinary experimentation, so I put together some dessert cheeses to try. The first a sugared rose petal with a dollop of fresh chevre rolled in sponge cake crumbs and topped with a healthy smear of dark chocolate. The crunchy petal with the soft cheese and smooth chocolate made for a really dynamic little bite...totally a winner. The next experiment was soaking some slightly aged chevre in various liqueurs. The first was soaked in a fruity, syrupy Minervois red wine, the second in a dry rose and the third in violet liqueur with lavender. The result was an Easter basket of colors and some lovely delicate aromas infused into the little pats of chevre. I loved the presentation but would like to try soaking them longer next time to get a stronger flavor.


That's all for tonight, but stay tuned for wine adventures in Bordeaux, an underground cathedral and a sand dune that swallows entire buildings!

Blue & Smelly

After Elly came and broke me out of goat jail, we decided to take a good old fashioned American road trip to the cheese mecca of the entire country of France: Roquefort. I like to think that this pungent, difficult cheese is what separates the men from the boys in the world of cheese lovers. There's not a whole lot about Roquefort that's accessible or easy.

Roquefort is a protected region and the regulations about its production are strict and specific. The cheese can only be made and aged in the town of Roquefort, an area about 2 miles square. The sheep, from which come the delicious milk for the cheese, must be pastured on the mountainous land surrounding the town. The shepherds have formed a co-op for milk production, helping to organize the 2100 sheep farms, which each year contribute material for the 3 million cheeses produced in Roquefort.

The production of this famous cheese is a happy accident of geography. A fault line runs underneath the town and this has produced a network of underground caves which have steady, cold temperature...perfect for the ripening of large cheeses. Native to these caves is a very special bacteria called penicillium roqueforti. The bacteria is collected by putting under-baked loaves of bread in the caves and allowing the p. roqueforti to proliferate on it. It is then collected and inserted into the core of the cheese wheels and allowed to develop for several months.

And oh how tasty the result is. Having it directly from the source really changes the experience of eating it. First, the cheese was far more delicate and moist than varieties I'd had in the states. It was also far stronger than anything I'd ever tasted. It actually burned my nostrils as I exhaled, the same sensation as the few times I've had grappa or grain alcohol. To balance out this super strong flavor, we ate it with fresh figs, honey and mint. It was divine.

Bob Dylan Broke Up With Me

Frustration. I was scheduled to stay in La Caunette making cheese for the whole month, but it seems that the fluffy, jovial, drunken god that rules my life is trying to teach me a lesson about the best laid plans. I need to let go. I need to be flexible. I need to stop being so attached to my expectations. (God, I sound like I've joined the Oprah book club...) I also need to get a better grip on the nuances of living in a foreign culture. My mantra for the last year has been this:

Let go

Let go

Let go

Let go

Let go

I still have not let go. But I'm getting better. And I'm getting slightly better at understanding the mind of average French person.

Yesterday my host, Bob Dylan's French cousin, told me that she would not be needing my help for the rest of the month. I could say that it's unfair that she was upset that I didn't help her as much as she thought I should....on the weekend...while I was in bed sick with a horrible cold. I could complain about the lack of instruction and hospitality. But instead I'm taking the lesson that I need to better at communicating my expectations and perspective, and that I'm trying my best to be graceful and kind and helpful even though I am severely frustrated. I am leaving today to go back to Aix-en-Provence with Elly to regroup. And buying a plane ticket back to California, because the cheese in my beautiful home state is pretty damn good too.

Daily Prayer

Let my heart be where my feet are.

Mindfulness

Maybe

Sweet Jesus, talking

his melancholy madness,

stood up in the boat

and the sea lay down,

silky and sorry.

So everybody was saved

that night.

But you know how it is

when something

different crosses

the threshold--the uncles

mutter together,

the women walk away

the young brother begins

to sharpen his knife.

Nobody knows what the soul is.

It comes and goes

like the wind over the water--

sometimes, for days,

you don't think of it.

Maybe, after the sermon,

after the multitude was fed,

one or two of them felt

the soul slip forth

like a tremor of pure sunlight,

before exhaustion,

that wants to swallow everything,

gripped their bones and left them

miserable and sleepy

as they are now, forgetting

how the wind tore at the sails

before he rose and talked to it--

tender and luminous and demanding

as he always was--

a thousand times more frightening

than the killer sea.

--Mary Oliver

Today

I

Do not

Want to step so quickly

Over a beautiful line on God's palm

As I move through the earth's

Marketplace

Today.

I do not want to touch any object in this world

Without my eyes testifying to the truth

That everything is

My Beloved.

Something has happened

To my understanding of existence

That now makes my heart always full of wonder

And kindness.

I do not

Want to step so quickly

Over this sacred place on God's body

That is right beneath your

Own foot.

As I

Dance with

Precious life

Today.

--Hafiz

Oh Barcelona, I'm Coming Back to You Soon

I hemmed and hawed and twisted in every imaginable direction to squirm my way out of it. All to no avail. Elly wanted to go to Barcelona last weekend, and, try though I might, I simply could not talk her out of it. Looking at it from this side of the trip, I don't know why I struggled so much. Barcelona has captured my imagination; it was enchanting and I can't wait to return.

Back to why I'm being such a hater lately. You may be wondering, "Jenny, not up for a fabulous adventure to a new city with her favorite traveling companion? That's so unlike her...I wonder if the smelly goat cheese is affecting her sanity?" And you'd be right! I have been uncharacteristically square lately...timid...conservative...even downright boring. Maybe it's the cold pasta at every meal, perhaps I'm finally feeling homesick or maybe I just need to get my act together. I don't know why, but I've been a real pain in the ass as of late. So when Elly suggested that we go to Barcelona, it actually took her four days (as opposed to four minutes) to convince me. The final showdown happened on Friday night when I was being so mopey that even I wanted a break from myself. Elly, being the best friend a girl could have, handed me a glass of wine, instructed me to down it in one gulp, and then dragged me into the pool with my clothes on. After that, I relented and we went to Barcelona the next morning.

From Narbonne, it was a very short train ride into Spain and so beautiful! We slid past wetlands with flamingos and pretty marshes and along the most gorgeous stretch of coast that I'd seen in a long time. (Don't be jealous, California...you're still the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.) When we arrived in Barcelona, it was warm, dry and so perfectly sunny. We took our time walking from the train station to our hotel, a warm little stroll in the afternoon past shops selling either high-end ham or high-end handbags....both tempting. We'd found a real steal on a room right in the happening part of town. The little boutique hotel had a tiny rooftop pool (more like a large bathtub), so we changed into our suits and took a bottle of cava up to sit in the sun. All that sunshine and bubbly transformed me back into my adventurous self.

The city is strange and lovely. We had so little time in this charming place, but I saw just enough to wet my palate and tempt me back for more adventures. On the high hill overlooking Barcelona is small amusement park called the Tibidabo with rollercoasters, bumper cars, cotton candy and hot dogs. You reach it by taking first a trolley car then a funicular. All this wholesome fun is juxtaposed by the church right next to it on the hilltop, the beautiful Temple de Sagrat Cor. We also got a glance of a few of the Gaudi buildings. The Sagrada Familia was so beautiful, I could not stop looking at it. It is still under construction, but you could see the spires and towers rising up so ridiculously high, the figures and statues bending down and up in the most evocative lines. The building is continually under construction, with scaffolding and piles of construction materials lying around. It was like seeing a sculpture half-done. Walking around and seeing all the beautiful buildings was by far my favorite part of the trip. The streets are wide with tree-lined walkways in the middle of the boulevards, broad buildings on either side with neat balconies and beautifully carved doorways. The whole town feels big and open and warm. Every now and again the traditional, solid architecture was interrupted by a gothic or art nouveau building. I could have wandered around the streets and parks and squares with pretty fountains for a whole other week.

In anticipation of our somber journey back to Le Bouquet, it was gray and very rainy when we awoke on Sunday morning. We came back to La Caunette by train, a little damp from the walk to the station and a little less than enthused to return to our smelly goat dwelling after having spent the weekend in such a beautiful city. Sometimes when I'm milking and wrestling the thorn bushes away from the goat fences, I'm inclined to forget that I'm in France for the summer with one of my favorite people in the world learning how to make cheese because it makes me happy. Going to Barcelona was just the thing to screw my head back on straight and make me focus on where my feet are for this brief moment in my life: beautiful Europe.

Photos from Le Bouquet

I have now officially added the term "goat herder" to my resume

The only escargot I'm likely to get here...

Daily cheese making.

Fresh milk each morning and evening

The little molds for fresh chevre

The Cat Ate My Quiche

I arrived last week at a new farm in a little town called La Caunette. Our new home, Le Bouquet, sits at the foot of the Pyranees, just a short drive from Narbonne and the beautiful beaches of Southern France. We had finally arrived at our destination for the trip: a goat dairy. Our host, Melissa, came to get us at the train station, greeting us with a kiss on both cheeks. I kid you not, her Bob Dylan fro actually had a caterpillar crawling in it; this woman was a true farmer.

Le Bouquet has a small herd of goats (about 30) that are milked twice per day and this is the mainstay of the business. Melissa inherited the farm from her parents and, amazingly, runs the whole operation by herself. She's a tough broad, and I gotta give her props for the huge amount of work that she manages all by her lonesome. It takes a lot of commitment to work a 12 hour day, 7 days a week and live by yourself with a herd of smelly goats. She really seems to enjoy it, and has managed to make a vital business from cheese-making.

My respect for her is the upside. The downside is that our relationship is characterized by mutual bafflement. I have never thought of myself as a particularly high-maintenance person, and since I started traveling and staying on farms, my expectations for daily comfort have drastically reduced. But somehow, I still seem to come across to this kind farmer as hopelessly posh. My daily shower was interpreted as extravagant. Heating milk for coffee in the morning is greeted with a raised eyebrow and a quick glance at the propane tank. I have never felt so bougeois in my entire life.

The entire WWOOF program is predicated on a basic agreement of three things:
1. You come and work
2. You are fed
3. You receive a place to sleep and bathe.
I have had no trouble with adapting to the lifestyle of my hosts...until now. We arrived on Monday and by Wednesday had eaten, literally, the same thing for every meal: the same loaf of bread, the same block of cheese, the same pot of plain, cold pasta, the same bowl of salad. Not that there's anything wrong with that...I just was in the mood for something, say, warm or perhaps, not pasta. Melissa went to the farmers' market on Wednesday morning to sell her cheese and left Elly and I in charge of making our own lunch. I got super resourceful and made a lovely quiche with whatever I could find; a bit of flour we found in the pantry, some leftover cheese from the evening before, a few eggs we had collected from the hen-house, a bit of mushroom and onion we scrounged from a bin and voila! delicious quiche.

Melissa came home and looked a little skeptical. I could see that she thought this was a bit of a production for an afternoon meal, but I was really ready to have something tasty and sat down to munch. I thought myself very clever to have made two so that we could have a bit for dinner as well and was congratulating myself for being so thrifty. It felt like a small victory. But I really had only won the battle not the war. This quickly became evident when I went into the kitchen post-lunch to clean up. On the counter was the bloody cat, hovering over my perfect, tasty, live-affirming quiche. She had eaten big bites out of the whole thing and I thought I might break into tears on the spot. Here's the thing about staying on farms: your whole world is reduced down into the most basic elements. You do not have movies or parties or social circles or any of the other things that make life so full and busy and rich from day to day. All you have is a full day of hard work and the promise of a bit of relaxing and eating in the evening. These basic elements take on a new meaning since they are literally ALL that you have to look forward to each day. So when that damned cat ate my quiche, I felt like someone had sucker-punched my new puppy.

And here's the real kicker: Bob Dylan served it for dinner anyway.