Julie, Julia and Me

Drawn in by my adoration of Julia Child and a mild interest in the Julia/Julie blog a few years ago, but mostly by the chance to see an American movie in V.O. (version originale), we zoomed into Sarlat this afternoon to see the new movie, "Julie & Julia."

I loved it. Yes, maybe Meryl was a little over the top with her hoots and high heels, but I found myself teary-eyed, reminiscent and nostalgic. I've always adored Julia Child. When she died, I felt a little like when John Lennon was shot...shocked that someone who was part of my world was gone.

We stopped at the supermarket on the way home, picked up beef cut for bourguignon, some smallish white onions, mushrooms and a bottle of cheap Bourgogne, hustled back to the house and I threw myself into making Julia's Boeuf Bourguignon. It's 8:30 p.m. now, and the beef has another half-hour to go before I assemble the dish with the braised onions and sautéed mushrooms. We won't be eating until 9:30 tonight...but we'll be raising a glass to Julia.

dot...dot...dot...

The boeuf bourguignon was delicious, despite my not having any beef broth or bouillon in the house. I improvised with chicken broth plus Worcestershire sauce and a few drops of soy sauce...and it was just fine. Not sublime. Just fine.

And it's all about who you share the meal with, anyway. We ate in front of the TV, watching "Mystery Men." I'm not sure Julia would've appreciated the film, but her recipe made it all the better. And she's my own SuperHero.

Whew!

We're exhausted but thrilled with this season so far at La Tour de Cause bed and breakfast, after a busy summer. New friends have been made, old friends have come back for visits, and we hope our all our guests so far have taken home good memories!

It's the weekend of the "rentrée," the semi-official end of summer and the reentry to school, to work, to real life, for the thousands of tourists who swamped the Dordogne River Valley during the last few weeks.

A steady stream of amazing and lovely guests passed through our gates this year -- Dutch, English, Scottish, Irish, Canadian, French, Italian, Indonesian, American...who am I missing?

We had families, singles, couples, multi-generational groups, young, "older," honeymooners, birthday and anniversary celebrants, lovers, friends.

We had several delightful young women (yes, Jody & Lorrie -- you are YOUNG!) stay with us as live-in "laundry girls," helping with room changeovers and laundry in exchange for room and board and good times. Bless their hearts!

What do our guests have in common?
It seems the "typical" guest at our B&B is open-minded and inquisitive, progressive or liberal, interested in history and/or prehistory, an Anglophone, college-educated, middle-income or comfortably well-off.

Most arrive with an established respect and admiration for French culture and French people- although I'll admit we've had a few pass through who still cling to the myth of "rude France," or who still somehow believe that French people dislike Americans.
Hopefully, their brief visit to this heartland of France has changed their minds.

Breakfast table conversations have been lively, with spirited round table discussions of health care systems around the world, current politics, the economy, global warming and vigorous debates about the best local restaurant. Somehow, we haven't been able to figure out a simple answer to any of these pressing issues, but I've got lots of notes to share when the Obamas come stay with us. Ha!

Still six weeks to go, and a few vacancies yet to fill. We take a deep breath and look forward to new arrivals!

Marché Nocturne at Audrix

We celebrated our Fourth of July by heading off for the picturesque village of Audrix, north of Siorac and south of Le Bugue, for the first summer "marché nocturne" (night market) of the year. We feared it might be overrun with visiting Americans who may have read about this charming gastronomic event in last May's Gourmet Magazine.

But we were pleasantly surprised to find the gathering crowd mostly French, and mostly hungry, like us. After quickly staking out our claim at a sunny table, we quickly emptied out our basket of important tools for this event -- tablecloth, bread knife, silverware, napkins, bottle opener and wineglasses. Gotta come prepared for an event like this!

Worrying about finding a parking place and an empty table, we had arrived early, about 6:30 p.m., and found plenty of room for our group of eight, six of whom were our Sonoma County guests at our B&B. They'd hoped to participate in an event like this during their stay with us, and we were happy to find that the first night market of the year would happen during their stay.

Our first bottles of Bergerac rosé were promptly opened, and some of us headed out to scout out the vendors and find goodies to bring back to the table. Not a problem...the first booths we headed to featured classic sampler plates of Perigordine treats such as dried, smoked thin-sliced duck breast, foie gras, green salad and walnuts, and some deep-fried escargot.

The escargot was actually from a small, local producer and was a bit of a surprise to me as it's not really a Dordogne regional specialty. Who knew there was an escargot rancher in our neighborhood? You can even visit their farm in nearby Vaunac for a tour and tasting, during the summer months.

Sadly, the deep-fried version was a little dough-y and I don't think it showed off the escargot well -- it could've been a little nugget of chicken or any other mystery meat in the middle of that dough-ball. But later, someone else went for the more classic preparation, in the shell with garlic-parsley butter, and the slimy little guys became tender, delectable treats.

We followed up with plates of sautéed foie gras, glazed with balsamic vinegar and a few drops of honey, grilled lamb with herbes de provence, cheeses, tourain blanchi (white garlic soup), and ...surprise...more wine!

Exceptional, artisanal ice creams finished us off -- with the sun-drenched flavors of local ripe fruits, and the always popular classics of deep bitter chocolate and creamy vanilla.

Side show of the evening was the dance of the bread baker. This guy works hard for his money. Watch a moment or two of his technique on this video...(oops! trouble uploading...check back later)

One half-hour after loading the oven, the boulanger was back at work, pulling the hot loaves out of the oven and onto a slatted table. We queued up to grab the steaming hot babies and juggle them from one hand to another as we waited to have them individually weighed so we could pay for them by the 100g...then a mad, juggling dash back to the table to tear it apart.

The stone and brick bread oven in the town square gets this same workout every Saturday night through August now -- and we'll be there as often as we can. Can't think of a better way to spend a summer Saturday evening in the Perigord!

Strawberry Tarts Forever

Today we trekked twenty minutes to the village of Nabirat for the 12th Annual Foire de la Fraise, a celebration of the strawberries of Périgord. The weather was disappointingly cool and damp, but our enthusiasm carried us through.

First we tried parking in a muddy lot on the edge of the village, but found that the nearly bald tires on our Renault Laguna couldn't gain traction and we feared being mired in for the day. Albert expertly maneuvered the car out of the boggy field and into a safer spot on a side street in the town. We wandered through the festival, eyed some junky odds and ends at the vide grenier tables, but managed to resist temptation.

The main attraction is a giant strawberry tart, over 25 square meters, put together by the bakers of Grolejac and Nabirat and 15 or 20 village volunteers who assemble the creation of pastry, custard, fresh strawberries and glaze. The powerful berry aroma from the tarte géante pervaded the town square, blended with overtones of roasting caramel popcorn and horse manure. Yummmmmm.

In 2004, strawberries grown in the Dordogne area achieved their own special IGP status (Identification Géographique Protégé), and along with that, the right to mark them "Fraises du Périgord." Similar to the AOC system used for remarkable French wines and cheeses, IGP protocol mandates that the strawberries must be proven to have specific organoleptic qualities, must be grown in very specific geographic locations under defined conditions, harvest must be made at optimum sugar levels, early in the morning under "fresh" conditions, and delivery from grower to market must be swift. The entire protocol is comprised of 60 separate conditions that producers must comply with, covering standards of culture, harvest, delivery, traceability and marketing. If you'd like to know more about "Fraises du Perigord" and the IGP standards, AND you can read French, click here.
It's French bureaucracy at its finest, yet it guarantees a freshness and quality that we don't see in those flavorless red objects we're so accustomed to in American supermarkets. Unlike supermarket strawberries, the varieties here are developed and cultivated for aroma, sweetness, flavor...not just for how well they ship and how long they'll last on the shelf. What a concept! The season begins with early varieties Gariguette and Darselect, followed by remontant strawberries such as Mara de Bois, Charlotte, Cirafine and Seascape. Growers strive for a perfect equilibrium of acidity and sugar.

We serve Fraises du Périgord every morning at our breakfast table. Only the best for our guests here at "La Tour de Cause B&B!"

First of the Foire des Fleurs

Sunday, April 19 -- We ventured out and about, paying a visit to one of the first foire des fleurs of the season, in beautiful Cadouin. Time to start loading up on flowers for the window boxes and old pots around the garden. There'll be many more flower fairs to come -- next week is the big one in Le Bugue, and our favorite of all will be later in May at L'Abbaye Nouvelle near Leobard. We bought geraniums, mostly.
Funny, I never really liked geraniums when I was young; they made me think of old ladies' gardens -- the peculiar smell of the leaves was unpleasant to me and I promised myself I'd never plant them in my own garden when I grew up. But somehow, here in France, I find geraniums are everywhere, natural and brilliant and colorful. I'm addicted. Does this mean I'm an old lady now? Will I start planting hollyhocks and hydrangea too?

We also visited our first foire des brocante of the year, at Le Buisson de Cadouin, just a few kilometers away from Cadouin itself. There, we browsed among other people's junk and a few overpriced antiquités. After browsing through dusty picture frames and bug-eaten furniture, the best thing we found was Andrea and Barbara, our Italian friends who've transplanted themselves from Milan into an old house in Montfort, where they now operate their own beautiful and tasteful B&B, L'Ombrière.

That's Andrea Polato on the left, Albert in the middle, and Andrea's wife, Barbara Menzio, on the right. The abbey of Cadouin is in the background.

Must be spring

Thursday, our first day here, was glorious and sunny, balmy almost, and we reveled in the beauty of spring in our little Céou valley. We made a thorough inspection of our garden and found tulips in perfect form, the flowering quince (cognassier du Japon) fading, and the lilac buds forming. Weeds of all sorts are rampant, of course -- so we spent most of the day pulling, mowing and trimming. I love love love this time of year, until the ugly dark side of spring shows itself...which it did beginning Friday morning and continuing through the weekend. Gray skies, showers and chilly temps chased us inside to do the important work of housecleaning.
We took time on Easter Sunday to take a quick drive around the area, checking out the Easter crowds whose enthusiasm seemed undampened by the cold, wet weather.

We drove up the hill to Domme and searched for a parking spot on a side street, finding all the public lots full up. Families and couples, mostly French, wandered about the charming cobbled streets, chatting, browsing through postcard racks, eating ice cream (brrrr!) and seeming to find pleasure on a wintry afternoon holiday. These two large white tourists from the Pyrenees were well-dressed for the weather!

Our first guests arrive on Wednesday afternoon, so no more excursions for the next few days as we put the finishing touches on guest rooms and put on our happy host faces.

Pissenlit

We have returned again, ready for another year of adventures in Perigord...we arrived last night at our house, exhausted from our 24-hour trip from Santa Rosa to Pont de Cause. Good friend John Virball was insane enough to volunteer to fetch us at the Toulouse airport and haul us and our bags back to La Tour de Cause.

Starving at 8:15 p.m. (20 hr 15) as we entered Cénac from the south, we were thrilled to see the Pizza Lolo wagon was still open. We stopped and ordered our favorite "Indienne" pizza so we'd have something to eat before falling into bed.

After the usual first night's sleep -- forcing ourselves to stay awake until nearly midnight, then crashing, then waking at 4 a.m., forcing ourselves to go back to sleep -- we finally arose near 8 a.m. and jumped into gear, pulling weeds, cleaning the refrigerator, opening up the guest rooms, taking down shutters, hooking up the computer, vacuuming, unpacking, mowing the "lawn" (weeds). Still found time to snap a couple of photos. The weather's gorgeous today, but neighbor Odette says rain is prévu pour demain, so we decided to spend most of our limited energy on outside work, leaving the indoor housekeeping for tomorrow.

The walnut orchards around us are full of vibrant pissenlit flowers, a name which is always a bit of a conundrum for me. The French are said to have called it "dents de lion" or "lion's teeth" because of its dentillated leaves -- hence "Dandelion" in English. But in our little Céou valley, during my first springtime here back in 2002, I tried calling it "dents de lion," thinking to impress my new neighbors with my impressive vocabulary. I received quizzical looks until finally someone suggested I probably meant pissenlit. I've seen a neighbor gather basketsful for his rabbits, the young tender leaves are lovely in salads, and each year since then I imagine I'll finally try making dandelion wine. I really mean to go out and gather the blossoms first thing in the morning when they're still damp with dew as my recipe recommends. I don't get to it, then a few more mornings slip past, and suddenly -- poof! The fields are no longer yellow but white with the downy blown blossoms. Maybe this year?

But why pissenlit? One is warned to consume dandelion leaves with moderation -- and the same with the wine. Its diuretic powers are notorious, hence its popular name, which means, literally, "piss in the bed."