samedi 18 août 2018

The Wonders of Bread

Bought at Saturday market
Of course I knew that living in France meant that I would have some really good bread.  Although I don't eat it often, I do buy a baguette if company is coming.  For just myself, I almost never buy one, as they go stale long before I can possibly finish one.  Even half a baguette doesn't stay fresh as slowly I as consume it.  Sometimes I will buy a pain pave--a hard-crust roll that is reminiscent of a paving stone, and have that with some soup, or thinly sliced with butter.  But as a rule, I don't buy bread, because it goes stale before I can finish it.  And believe me, few things are harder than a stale baguette.  

One thing that might startle Americans, obsesses as they are with germs--often your baguette is selected for you by bare hands.  While it might be put is a sleeve or have a little paper napkin twirled around it for east of carrying, most often it's bare-naked.  And never, ever, ever have I seen a baguette sealed in plastic!  Thank God!

Top of the loaf
And not all baguettes are created equal.  Some are the equivalent of white sandwich bread--crusty on the outside, but white and fine grained once cut.  Those are my least favorite and I have to be desperately hungry to have a slice of that.  My preferred baguette is either "Traditon" or "Campagne" (traditional or country-style)  They usually have a darker, thicker, chewier crust and the bread itself is denser and darker and has more flavor.  I have become a bit of a baguette snob, I am afraid.  There are some coated in sesame seeds--pretty tasty. Some larger ones will contain olives, some will contain hazelnuts.  Once in a while as a treat,  I will get the little "paving stone" that contains dried fruits, even though the bread itself is far from sweet.

The French do not eat butter on their bread; bread is an accompaniment to the meal, and is generally used for sopping up leftover sauce.  A basket of sliced baguette arrives with the carafe of water while waiting for a first course.  A slice of baguette and some wine while waiting for the starter is traditional.  I almost never indulge in this.  And I do not ask for butter when I eat out.

But at home-----that's an entirely different story.  I think the bread is simply a delivery vehicle for the glorious French butter.  Sometimes I will put a teaspoon
The Crumb
of jam (preferably cherry or apricot) on the buttered slice of baguette, but most often it's just bread and butter.

But today, I found, on advice from my friend Romain, a new (to me) baker in the Saturday market.  He has resurrected an ancient variety of wheat once grown in this region, cultivates it, grinds it into flour and bakes bread for sale in the market.  There's a guy down in Cucugnan who does the same thing, and he resurrected the mill as well.  But his bread is really hard to get--he is sold out before he even bakes his loaves.  

I love the fact that I didn't have to buy an entire loaf--I could order a half or less if that's all I wanted.  He had a piece there that looked like half a small loaf of wheat with sunflower seeds in it, so I bought it.  It cost all of 2 Euros---for organic, locally sourced wheat (and probably the sunflower seeds as well).  I don't know what the equivalent size of organic bread in the US would be, but I am pretty sure it would be more than 2 Euros.  And while it might be organic, I am pretty sure the wheat would not be full of local nutrients.  
Really browned bottom crust

I had a slice, with butter--of course--for my supper tonight.  Oh my--my bread experience has been taken to a completely new level.  The crust was crisp, and chewy, full of flavor.  The inside of the bread was soft, but not gummy, toothsome and slightly, but not unpleasantly sour.  The texture and taste of the bread combined with the velvety sweetness of the butter was amazing.  I think I have found my new bread man.

And a note about butter--I bought some salted butter a couple of weeks ago, because I was careless and didn't read the label.  I was horrified when I got it home and unwrapped to fund it contained salt.  I can barely stand the stuff now, and once upon a time, it was all I ate.  I am using it as fast as I can to cook with, but I hope I don't make that mistake again. My favorites are the butters from Normandy or the Charentes regions of France.  I guess it's the flavor of the grass that the cows there ingest that makes it so tasty. 

This will toast beautifully in the mornng
I remember reading stories of Europeans setting out on a picnic of bread and butter, or bread and cheese, and little else.  As someone who grew up on Wonder Bread and Velveeta,  I never understood how those two foods could be a meal, much less one that satisfied. I understand it now.  Do they still even make Wonder Bread? 

And oh yeah, I bought some green cheese at last week's market in Limoux....basil flavored.  Yum!

A slice of the moon
 

mercredi 8 août 2018

Heat Wave

The world turned black and white for a few minutes
The newspapers called it the hottest weekend of the summer.  I would be hard pressed to argue the point.  I don't have air conditioning, so it was a battle to keep the heat at bay.  We do it here by opening the shutters when it gets cool (relatively) and shutting them again to live in the dark in the heat of the day.  It works against normal summer heat, but is only partially effective against la canicule--the heat wave.

Unfortunately my apartment is one of those spaces that holds in the heat.  It was too hot to sleep in the bedroom--it gets extra toasty there, even when there is no heat wave.  Coming out into the bigger, airier living room and sleeping on the couch worked pretty well, except for Monday night.  The humidity built and built.  I felt like I was back in the house of my mid-Atlantic childhood.  Even two fans didn't do much against the swelter.

Tuesday the heat wave was scheduled to break, and so it did, but not before I experienced the most uncomfortable day since leaving Maryland two decades ago.  It's not usually so humid here, but at nearly 60% yesterday, it definitely qualified as a HHH day. (Hazy/hot/humid) There were occasional winds that helped, but it was like being back in Baltimore. 
Relief is in those clouds

Late in the afternoon, I decided that a stroll outside would be cooler than my place, so I meandered down to Bar Felix and had a pastis---after one of those I and my numbed lips didn't care that a storm was approaching!  For lovers of anise flavored anything, I recommend this drink so beloved by the south of France, but--with plenty of water to start.  Otherwise, your lips will go numb too!
Note the neighbor's light. 

I got a little buzz, but not so much that I didn't notice the platane tree leaves are dry and rattling and beginning to show up fallen onto the streets. Whether due to the heat wave or to the normal summer cycle, it was a hint that cooler temperatures are not too far away on the horizon.  Once we get through the canicule.... 

The expected storm rolled in as scheduled, with not a lot of rain, at least on my street, but with plenty of thunder and lightning.  For several minutes, the world was black and white--what a very odd sensation.  The storm brought blessed relief from a string of nearly three weeks of nights too hot to sleep.  But last night--I even got under the covers at some point.  Ahhhh

From my living room window

samedi 4 août 2018

You Can Take the Girl Out of the Country, But...

       
In this morning's basket
Even though I don't live in the country (as opposed to the city) or even in the country of my birth, I guess there's enough of the country in me to appreciate the rhythms of food harvest and preservation. There is something about the sight of all that produce at the market that awakens memories of my early days as a country girl, harvesting vegetables from the garden for canning.  There is something eminently satisfying about shelling peas and snapping beans--almost every trip to the market yields a small saucepan of green beans, cooked and cooled for salads.  The peaches have been especially good this year, enough so that I have actually bought extra and frozen them for winter cobblers. 
A not-overloaded basket this morning

     It's nice to know that I don't have to "put up" summer's vegetable bounty in order to eat during the winter.  The French food supply may be seasonal, but there is always something fresh to be had.  I can find beans or potatoes or squash every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, and if I need only two zucchini, I buy only two zucchini--like I did today. (A recent gift of a huge can of Old Bay seasoning is prompting me to make fake crab cakes...using zucchini. ) It's nice to know, though, that I have the skill to preserve food should I ever need to.  And I saw potimarons--little pumpkins--for sale today.  That means fall harvest is on the radar. 
In the freezer for January cobbler

     I did succumb, however, to the peaches.  I sliced and froze several quart-sized bags.  I don't have a big freezer, and I don't have to provide for a big family, so several bags will do just fine to give me a taste of sunshine in the dark days of January.  
This makes me smile and smile