It's Quiet Here

I came back to Chateau Brandeau as my last farm for my last days in France. Elly isn't here. Neither is Phil or Eddie of Ana, my new friends since I've arrived. In fact, it's a little too quiet, and as always there is lots of time in the vines...which means lots of time for contemplation. But contemplation makes it sound serene, meditative even. Sometimes it's that, but the most honest description would be a daily a panic attack.

I came to France for a lot of reasons, but if I were going to psycho-analyze myself, I'd say the main reason was that I still felt par-baked after my return from Hawaii. Like whatever had been forming there was close to done, but not quite there. I tried to come back to California and put it all together again last winter, but nothing was quite forming up inside of me and I had to admit that it just wasn't time yet. So I came to France for another adventure, thinking that this time I'd be ready to go back when it was all over. Only now I feel even less confident than before....I'm returning with an even skimpier game plan.

I wish that I could wrap it all up in a neat and tidy arc, or end with some witty and clever thought, but I can't. All I know is that today I leave for Paris for three days and then I fly to New York. After that I have no schedule, no job, no house and no fucking clue.

Saint-Emilion

Because we simply had not yet exhausted our thirst for wine yet, Jess, Kate and I decided to do a little more wine adventuring around Bordeaux. On the way to their friends' wedding we took leisurely drive through the country and stopped at a tasting room in Graves on the way. We learned a little bit about the white wines from Aquitane and gawked at the hugest bottle of wine I've ever seen. I have no idea how huge it was, but it must have been at least twice the size of a magnum. I can't believe I haven't seen one in the states--it was totally supersized.

The next day I picked up the girls again after a long night of French-style partying (a five hour dinner followed by dancing til 6 am) and we took an hour's drive to the picturesque town of Saint-Emilion. The city evolved from the lonley hermitage of a monk, to a community of small religious community and lately to one of the most expensive wine regions in France. The grand cru vineyards that surround the stone village are perfectly manicured and pristine. We started with a tour of the old hermitage and moved on to the catacombs and finally the underground cathedral. According to our guide, the massive underground chapel was originally a natural cave, but thanks to the thousands of years of use as a stone quarry for the village, the space eventually became so vast that it was appropriated for religious use. It was might impressive. Especially when you returned above ground to see that sitting right on top of this massive hole in the ground is an equally massive bell tower made from a monolith...that's right, a steeple made from one giant hunk of stone, sitting on top of a huge underground dome. I tried not to think about it too hard, otherwise I might have started hyperventillating about the amount of time I had spent down there.

The town itself is quite charming, but definitely means business. All you can find are high end wine shops and fancy restaurants. So we went with the flow and took a self-guided tour of some extensive wine cellars and ducked into a couple of shops to taste the fancy wine.




For dinner we found a little restaurant overlooking the city and had some delicious tartine (the French version of bruschetta).

The next morning the ladies flew back to NYC and I returned to work in the vines at Brandeau. The countdown for my return to the States has begun...

An Amazing Weekend in Bordeaux

Darling sister and sister-in-law came to France last week for a wedding and stayed for a bit in Bordeaux, which gave me the perfect excuse to spend some time in the beautiful old city. It's truly gorgeous, with little narrow alleyways, a lovely old cathedrals and tons and tons of little squares, each of them with their own unique vibe...a brand new universe every few blocks.

Kate & Jess arrived just in time for the Fete le Vin on the riverfront, a huge celebration of Bordelaise wines. We walked along the water, tasted as much of the many varieties as we could handle in the heat and eventually ended up cooling off a very smart water feature in the Place de la Bourse called the miroir d’eau. It is a black granite pool with about 1/2 inch of water, making it the perfect spot to cool your toes on a hot summer day. When we were just about dying of the heat and red wine, we came upon the square just teeming with kids and parents having the greatest time in the shallowest pool I have ever seen. There were toddlers splashing, little kids chasing each other and one enthusiastic young boy on a scooter cutting a truly narley wake in the pool. Then, all of the sudden, the water drained out and the entire pool turned into a mist machine. Collectively the entire square breathed a little sigh of relief and went quiet, suddenly shrouded, walking slowly and mysteriously across the square.

Other than the wine festival, there was a lot of good food to be had. Jess and I went a little nutty in a chocolate shop and ordered every flavor of macaroon our hearts desired...rose, lavender, noisette, pistachio. The pastries reminded me of miniature candy hamburgers, but much more delicious. Kate promptly squished them to smithereens in her bag, but the crumbs were still delicate and delicious.

I also got to try my first plate of escargot. The little buggers really appealed to my well-known obsession with circles. They were served in a round ceramic dish with six tiny circular indents that perfectly fit the shells. The special utensil for grabbing the little buggers was a circular tong to hold the shell while digging out the delectible morsel inside. Mine were steamed and then topped with butter and pesto...similar in texture to a perfectly cooked mussel; I can see why they're such a delicacy here. I don't think I will ever be able to look at those garden pests again without briefly entertaining culinary daydreams. Just as we were finishing our dinner that evening, we heard some commotion on the street and knew that the fireworks were beginning for the festival. As were wandered down the plaza, we could hear the big, full orchestra music and see the pink flashes in the sky.

The next day all three of us were feeling wilted from the heat and decided to take a little road trip to the Atlantic coast to cool off. We'd heard tales of La Dune du Pila, a huge sand dune a hour away, the largest in France. Supposedly the thing just kept growing and growing over the years, swallowing trees even hotels. Finally someone put a stop to the horror movie madness and they planted a whole forest of pine trees to tame the monstrous sand dune. Now its a tourist attraction with a HUGE set of stairs to the top...you know, accessible. So we climbed and climbed to the top and when we finally arrived we saw that the dune just kept going and going off into the distance. It was like being on the set of Laurence of Arabia. And the view of the calm little harbour below was fantastic and extremely enticing.



After stumbling to the bottom for a quick swim and then heroically climbing back up to the top in the mid-day heat, we were ready to reward ourselves with some sea-side snacking. For a while we drove around the tiny villages, looking in vain for a simple meal of ocean critters, and we finally happened upon the haven that is Papa's Restaurant. In the town of Arcachon was a Basque bistro serving up both fresh oysters and plates of moule-frites. We gladly partook of both and had the pleasure of being served by the fat, red-cheeked Papa himself. In between singing, shouting at his equally jolly wife and entertaining his five-year-old grandson with the radio on his Gold Wing, Papa kept us happy with bubbly drinks and plates of tasty mollusks. We arrived back in Bordeaux that evening in time for an ice cream cone and another round of festival fireworks.

P.S. This has absolutely nothing to do with the narrative, but I loved this photo and had to share it. Kate bought yogurt for a car snack, but there were no spoons in sight. So we improvised and made our own go-gurts. Totally clever until she started slurping the last dregs...and then giggling...and then almost choking and wrecking the car. Brilliant.

L'Omlette Geante (a.k.a. the giant omlette)

There are certain experiences that you cannot have without the following combination: lots of time, little inhibition and loads of wine. Case in point, yesterday my fellow WWOOFers and I went in search of a giant omelette in Libourne. We saw a sign a couple weeks back promising an omelette with 3011 eggs. This simple quest blossomed into a grand adventure. Let's start at the beginning.

Any great day must begin with a great outfit. Eddy led the way with his fabulous red feathered cap and Elly joined in with an amazing fur one that necessitated a photo shoot for posterity. Somehow she managed look like an old Russian woman, a feat that I'm still not sure how she pulled off. It really did set the tone for the day.

Our first stop was the beautiful, beautiful town of Saint Emilion. I'd heard a lot about how perfect and lovely it was, but it didn't really register until we arrived. It has lovely cobbled streets, a great view of the surrounding valley and lots of charming shops. It also happens to be in a grand cru appellation, which means that the wine from there is extraordinarily expensive ($500 a bottle and up), so the townsfolk have got some bucks to beautify the place. We stopped in to take a peek and have a coffee on our way to the omelette geante.

We drove on to Libourne and tried to find the omelette, which turned out to be much more challenging than we had thought. We assumed that such an amazing culinary feat would be prominently displayed in the center of town, the pride of Libourne. Not so. First we were guided to a dog show in a park, then to a track meet/swap meet in the stadium, finally to a botanical garden, all to no avail. No one seemed to know where the omelette was located. Eventually we followed the trail of some small, out of date signs found ourselves at what was basically the coolest block party ever. Situated in a courtyard for some low-income apartment buildings was the promised omlette. There was an emcee doing karaoke, a huge rummage sale, cheap booze, face painting and lots of colorful area residents. My favorite was a couple of French greasers in leather jackets; I'd swear that the fella was Hugh Jackman's twin. Clearly, we were the only folks in attendance who did not live in that neighborhood.


We did our part to fit in and contribute to the local economy by purchasing bottle after bottle of the 2 euro wine, pilfering through the rummage sale and buying some real gems (a gold sequin purse, a spindle, leather pants, a killer nautical sweater, etc.), and dancing with some men in berets. All in all, I think we blended seamlessly into the crowd.


Let me tell you about the star attraction: 3011 eggs, five men stirring, countless old ladies dicing, slicing and serving, and hundreds of full, happy people. It was an overwhelmingly successful production. The emcee serenaded the men circling the omelette pan, an old dude stoked the fire with old grape vines. It was magic.






Here I will introduce you to Ana. She's a fellow WWOOFer from Chateau Brandeau and seriously might be one of the more amusingly photogenic people I've ever known. Let's just scroll through this little collection for a moment...




And that pictorially sums up how the omelette festival progressed.

And this was the result...we went to Bordeaux, rode a carousel, danced in the street at a cafe, and I fell asleep on the sidewalk from too much wine.

And apparently this is the face that I make after too much wine...