Planting Cabbages

the healer of arles

 

i have witnessed many acts of healing in arles with chef erick of association cuisine et tradition.

when asked, erick made the following suggestions to have a quest fulfilled.

think about your wish very strongly.
think about it all the time.
post a photo of your intended and look at it, making your wish.
ask help from nature and the universe by going to a forest with tall trees. find one, tell it your wish and ask its help while putting your hands on it gently.  walk around it, then sit down next to it, rest against it for a few moments.
you'll receive the energy to accomplish your wish.

 

HERE WE ARE PLUNK, IN GASCONY...

(continuation of the story from the previous post about 1996, my first summer in france, originally written for the chapel hill news, email then was so haphazrd from france! a reminder of how quickly technology changes, but the old ways I learned about that summer, thankfully are still with us. kate and patrick have since taken different barges, so to speak.)

 Bon jour!

Here we are. Plunk. In Gascony, Southwest France, along the Canal Lateral. This morning's breakfast, a still warm butter-sugar almond croissant in one hand and a deep rich cafe creme in the other. Thank you, God, for ambi-dexterity.

 

I sit on a long oak bench at a hand hewn rustic farm table in the kitchen at "Camont," which is this farm's address. My American computer's plugged in through various multicultural technical contraptions which may make it possible to converse with you aka this column. I still don't know if this is really going to work. 

Last week, when we arrived, the phone line had been totally obliterated by a lightening storm. We pulled into the driveway to find Kate in "le piggerie" struggling to get past le cochon (the washing machine) to the connection box. It's taken a good ten days and numerous trips to the new French shopping extravaganza called Castorama (Home Depot) to figure out a compatible answering machine. 

So, will you, dear readers, achieve satiation through e-mail, via this piece meal correspondence? We shall see.

 

Our friends, Kate and Patrick Ratliffe, launch their European Culinary Adventures from this farm, Camont. Their barge, the Julia Hoyt, is docked at the end of the path ouside this two hundred year old farm-house. My seven year old son Jaryd, has his head on my lap while my husband Rich and soon-to-be ten Erick bicycle on the towpath along the canal towards the bridge and the next village, Serignac. In the morning and evening light,

songbirds (oiseau de chanson) twitter and frogs (grenouille) croak.

Even though I'm familiar with this aural background in North Carolina, they sound so much more lyrical here en France.

Our first meal from this cozy kitchen, which was tres casual by French standards, began with aperitifs on the pebble studded terrace.

 

 

Aperitifs coddle your appetite, hold it, and caress it, until the moment when the deep plunge into "diner" commences. It's such a gentile way to end the day.  Ice clinking glasses of pastis, peche (peach), and mure (mulberry), intensified the sharing of travel stories by table companions.  Crockery bowls filled with pistache (pistachios), salty crackers (biscuit sale), and shiny black olives d'rosemary create diversions for our warming palates.  

White wine glazed red peppers began the serious business en table, followed by our entree of grilled gascon saucisse and thin spicy North African merguez sausages lifted from the grill.

 

We passed wide heavy bowls of couscous hiding sultanas and pignolia.

 

With aperitifs having worked their magic, a Sancerre dry rose wine welcomingly filled our glasses, tout de suit.  

 

Broad beans, a special variety which look like fava beans but taste like green beans, are slowly steeped in the pan with red onions and olive oil. 

 

Of course, du pain (french bread) is broken and shared liberally, and provides crunchy discourse throughout our repast.

 

Dessert was tres simple, cassis sorbet and glace aux vanille, intensely purple raspberry sorbet and creamy yellow vanilla ice cream.

 

The approaching full moon and sound of the rumbling train on the tracks in nearby Agen swept us to bed in a state of tres satisfait.

east of bordeaux, where france became maman.

you have been very patient and kind while i reflected on the journey of mothers. this intuitve time of the year between easter and mother's day shifts focus from winter's rest into the burst of spring. back in 1995 is when it all began. when france beckoned like a sweet mother, and a home I had long forgotten was found again.  and it was the beginning of how i thought of bread as a character.

i wrote this story shortly afterwards and will post it, serial style, over the next few posts.  

parisian poulet madame

vin de noix, drunken poetry of walnuts. 

“When I said I’d like to drive past the Eiffel Tower I didn’t mean through the belly of Paris.” My husband, Rich, objected to the route I had chosen for us as he careened our summer-sky Peugeot down a long narrow street that hadn't seen the light of day for four hundred years.

            “But everything begins with the appetite in France. " It was my first time as an auto passenger in Paris, during November's IACP conference I was a rider of the Metro. The pile under my feet shifted when we rounded a tight turn and I rolled the window down to hear June bustin out all over the Place de la Concorde. At my feet were our precious Auto Europe papers, postcards, and groggy orangina bottles. And The Food Lover’s Guide to Paris stuffed with maps I had torn out of an atlas to guide us. 

    The Lover's Guide hypnotized me and put me in possible eteranl denial of anything more pressing needing my attention. On page two-forty-six I read that Lionel Poilane had a brother named Max who also baked bread and worked with the same ingredients as he, flour and yeast and water and love, (okay they didn't say love but I knew what he was thinking) and had five huge wood-fired ovens running for twenty-four hours a day but that he was stuck on a bread that was less acidic than his famous brother and took a bag of it with him whenever he went out to eat and in fact ate bread with bread and bread with everything even sorbet and prided himself on the fact that he baked breads like white levain and petits pain aux noix and that he was lean and intense. And poetic.

            The word poetic hit me as we drove past trucks and stocky French men, singing to their crates of lettuce and cauliflower. And parsley. They smelled like salad. Or was it oysters and anchovies? I couldn't ask my husband to turn around. From their voices the men seemed as though they could care less about our being lost, and perhaps Paris was planned this way. Soon, I too forgot about being lost. I waved and dreamed of laitue poems.

    We sailed by the unloading as if in slow motion and I imagined spending the afternoon deciding who and what would dress the lettuce. Just as we turned the corner they heads of a feathery laitue looked like, well, an exotically plumed bird. This was love. Or was the sun blinding me?

Just as Max and Lionel Poilane were obsessed with bread, so I would measure the outcome of June against my memory of the first vin de noix I had tasted in November on a post conference tour to Gascony after IACP's Paris meeting. Once we arrived, if the vin de noix tasted the same as it had, and brought visions of joy and fall's demise then I wouldn't be dissapointed. And I would know and feel content that something was true. If not, then with all the drama I could muster, what then? WHAT THEN?

The maps I had torn out were were sad at best but they would take us East of Bordeaux to Brax, a small village outside Agen, in southwest France. In nine hours, give or take a quick American picnique, we would be sitting with vineyards, foie gras, and vin de noix at our feet instead of maps.

In my bones, I knew we’d be passing many more culinary spectacles. Round tables of people eating and drinking must be everywhere. Their circles radiating out from

Paris, through layers trickled thick with history that I longed to adopt,

as I had been adopted. 

       To live a culinary life. To find a geography where I didn't feel guilty about taking a few

moments to sniff the sun in the ripe tomatoes or enjoy the crackle of long baguettes. 

        As we drove through Porte de Clichy, the air held a delicious palpable anticipation. The veined papers I had so carefully nurtured and carried safely across the Atlantic ruffled loose and flew out the window like leaves wanting to be dressed tenderly ala vinaigrette like all lettuces in Paris. I rolled the window up, turned and smiled. Nothing was wrong.

        Poetry I hoped, was all we needed to find our way.

full moon dancing with four mothers

dear gayle, mom, nana, and jackie, 

 

after 53 years i have come full circle to dance with you; the four mothers in my life.

 

for a period of time, maybe as much as seven years, you were all alive, all at once, and perhaps even in my life in some way. i seriously doubt though, that there was any real meal shared between the four of you.

 

but i have imagined it. what would gayle say to nana? thank you for taking her out of that house? did jackie, my stepmother, ever speak to gayle? was she there when i was born? and mom, aileen. would anyone choose to sit next to her except her own mother, nana. could anyone else tolerate her biting tongue.

 

 

 

at the table i witnessed the danger of secrets. depression and sometimes, open hostility. i also had moments of unbelievable joy. and without a doubt in my heart, i know those moments were shared around preparing food. i am grateful for the chance to see you as separate women. sharing cooking or in mom’s case, dining.

 

the only exception to this is gayle. you were the one female link to my blood. i used to think of your path as my true past. my past. as if the life i had led was not my past. how i longed to find it, and who my father was. this little tiny seed bursting in my imagination was one impetus to writing city of ladies.

 

shared among you is the fact that each one of you gave me an incredible gift. and each of you abandoned me at some point in our relationship. i have pondered my feelings in that regard and am happy to be on the other side of what i used to see as a stone wall. one of the hardest things i ever had to face was being abandoned by more than one mother.

 

on this green and fruitful side of the wall is an understanding of who each of you were, and why you made the choices you did.

 

and so i've chosen a smattering of dishes that best illustrates each of our relationships.

 

gayle

i learned about you from a few letters you wrote, on green hospital stationary, while in the philadelphia hospital, written over a series of months with the last ones about a month before you died from heart complications brought on by a childhood bout with rheumatic fever.  i have always imagined there was much more unwritten than written. 

in the letters you mention pizza and beer. today gayle when i make a fire, make the dough - i think of you whenever i make pizza in the tuscan wood-fired oven in my backyard.

mom

charred steak, rare.

the dessert cart at the waldorf astoria circa 1965

seafare of the aegean, another nyc restaurant

the crystal restaurant, reading pa.

 

nana

ketchup and butter sandwiches 

chicken corn soup

chicken pot pie

potato filling (for thanksgiving)

pennsylvania dutch sand tart cookies

 

 

jackie

spaghetti and meat balls

the bbq

your mom’s house suppers

mrs. hilbert’s labor day picnic’s and her horseshoe birthday cakes

the corner candy store

hello, 53, its a brave new world. here, not there.

i think turning 50 was a cataclysmic event. in retrospect its very nice to arrive at 53. here. not there.

what is life like for you at 50? at 40? at 30 or 20? is is what you expected?

i've gone back to look at the four mom's in my life to see what was happenng for them.

for nana, dorothy, born in 1903 she was 54 when took on the task of caring for my brother, jeremy, and me. here she is circa 1973 with my brother, jeremy, 17. this would be his last christmas.

 

for aileen, she was just extricating herself from a disasterous and painful second marriage. the divorce wouldn't be finalized till 1975.  "mom" was 50 when my brother, jeremy, drowned.

 for jackie (who is now 74) she still had another fifteen years before she could retire from acme markets in reading, pa. as a checker. here she is with my dad, bud, and me on my wedding day.

and for gayle, my biological mom, she only lived till she was 29. she died from heart complications brought on from having childhood rheumatic fever. but she was tended in the hospital by aileen, who was her physician. and a heart specialist.

the quartet

good friday. i must say it seems an important day to post these photos. even as i sat down to write this post - and didn't have gayle's, my biological mom, photo in the pile, i groaned to think i am still not over this. i had to really think where i might find her photo. in the old suitcase? no, there were memorabilia and photos from hawaii's trip in 1998, the year aileen (my adopted mother) died. then maybe in my photo albums in the book case?  no, but i found some petite and darling albums of the iacp conference with julia child at the ritz hotel and napping at the chocolate demo. these were made by a friend, anne, that i met on my first plane to paris and never saw since. 1995. i let her in to the champagen tasting - even though no one knew her, and i barely so!   

ok, so now what?

suddenly i remembered. they were tucked in the folders and zippered pockets of the book, the beautiful book of memories, my dear friend, peg gignoux, had made.

so finally i had them all assembled. let the scanning begin.

gayle, 1952. i'm guessing this was her high school photo. i was born 4 years later.

as i say, none of this makes any sense as i was always told that she (and her sister joan) got pregnant the night of the high school prom. now, not too many girls go to the prom four years after they graduate. and besides that, since i was born in april  - even i can count and not too many proms are held in august. what can i say? even at this point i feel guilty over my birth as if that somehow i was responsible! from what i know, she was a sweet lady. loved pizza and beer. and unfortunatley got mixed up - fell in love - with an italian young man who was destined to marry an italian girl.

so, i am thankful. thankful for one night in august of 1955 - and the sweet mist in the air. it comes to me too, that perhaps i inherited a gram or two of her impetuousness - and love of life.

carrying a torch to st gilles

st. gilles is the patron saint of mothers and while i am not at all religious in an organized sense of the word, there was something about this hermit and his life of quietude that inspired me to make him a central force, goal in my story.

 

in my life i think i've always been a little gypsy. wandering around corners and into rooms roped off with velvet. a little off the cuff, and felt most at home with a bunch of bon vivants mumuring gratitude and spiritual bon appetit. those who have really inspired me enjoy living at the edge of the seams.

now does that have anything to do with mothers? yes, because so did my mother. and no, because i have always said i had four mothers. the first being my biolgocial mom, gail. the second, my adopted mom, aileen. the third being my nana, dorothy. and the fourth being my step-mom, jackie.

i am going to have do include photos of all of them, scanned in, in the next few days.

forgiveness and compassion drove me to light candles on my own pilgrimage to southwest france and provence.  and now i'd really like to thank a bevy of the women - fabulous individuals all - who i've had the bounty of enjoying this journey.

this will be a gradual process over the next few weeks as there are so many!!

here i am with kitty on one of our self-imposed writer's retreats. kitty's novel is about a women's journey of self-reclamation on the AT.

 

below is madeleine, who was a driving force in the research in provence. and her husband erick, who also (though not a woman!) was also a huge gracious influence in exploring healing and healers in provence as well as taking me to the camargue and to st marie de la mer to explore gyspy legends.

 

here, below from left to right is emily wipper, a young lady i've known almost all her life. her perseverance after the loss of her brother, miles, that echoed my loss of my brother, jeremy, to drowning at a similar stage in my own life.

next to her is teresa, who champions adventure and france and examination of the soul.

 

that's a good place to stop for now.

the two eyes of the fish and other interesting wisdom

if you're a writer have you ever made a w.a.g. (wild a.. guess) or rather has one of your characters ever said or done the most absurd outlandish thing - and you write it down, as you are compelled to do, and it turns out to be a stunning link in the story you would otherwise have missed? 

one character had been mumbling about how the "two eyes of the fish can see inside." i believed he was referring to the great tradition and mythical greek elements of catching swordfish off the coast of messina in sicily. but in researching the italian name for swordfish, pesce spada, came across this amazing photograph (on about.com) which, well, shocked me with it's "two eyes." 

 

then there was the bread stamps, the medieval viole maker, john pringle, who lives right down the street, not to mention where the map was found.

honey thieves mapping the mediterranean

i don't know if you do, keep a notebook by your side while writing - but i have found it helpful to keep stray thoughts written down, and mapped out.  the gipsy kings help too.

at the moment i am following the thread of the map in the story. in the process i have made cuts that don't seem to support the action or - heavens! - might not move the plot forward at all.

so, i was thinking. why is it that resolving conflicts in your work often parallels up with the real life opportunity to put those wise words to work?

the honey thief was the book discussed at book club this week. i was totally amazed at the variety of  empathy and patience for the daughter, eva, who had lost her father to suicide at the age of six and who was, some of us thought, suffering also from a bout of magical thinking (perhaps the precursor of ocd?) and that was the direct cause of her kleptomania and utter removal for the world. but was it also just possible that eva was simply "being a teenager?" i think the fact that there was confusion over this is quite to be expected in our society.

murkiness over motivation.

after all, we can horribly misjudge messages from someone who is about to commit a violent act. (we have seen this all too often in the past few years) one woman mentioned she knew a friend of a friend whose spouse was diagnosed with autism (albeit a mild form) but the partner spouse of 25 years had missed it. and while a little different in theory - who can forget the powerful film a beautiful mind?  which also is a book, and more importantly a story where a wife believes along with her husband that he can control his mind. 

i think these are threads worth following.  

and as we are between seasons here be a recipe for:

honeyed apple sauce

1 cup honey

1 cinnamon stick

1 tsp. cumin seeds, toasted

5 apples, cored and sliced 1” thick

½ cup red wine vinegar

pinch salt

prep apples. heat honey, vinegar, spices, and salt in a sauté pan. heat for a few minutes to for a sauce. cook apple rings in the sauce.

supreme over roasted turnips!

nice day for a chapter summary

it may seem a little late in the game - the great novel writing game - (not the GREAT NOVEL writing game but the GREAT GAME of novel writing) but i have come to the conclusion - after an agent requested the full manuscript and then turned it down nicely by saying she loved the story - but it was too long. i came to decide that a chapter summary is such an easy way to keep my lovely-but-prone-to-ADD-antics-mind on track. you know beginnings and endings - of paragraphs and pages, topics, etc.

i don't think i ramble THAT MUCH, but there was that one time when i sufferred a horrible distraction, plagued by other thoughtful topics for three months and didn't post the recipe for the sauce and the stuffing of the palombe when you all clearly had started deboning your palombes.

life is a journey. and it seems each day is one. but i digress.

the above photo above is a perfect case in point.  so let me tell you the story of the nice quiet lady - who is not a quiet lady.

AT ALL.

browsing thru photos to post, i came across her - and it sparked off a fond memory of pistoia, italy. 

since gypsy women were in my story - and this was an early phase of research, they were making necci (chestnut crepes) in market, and i became quite taken with the idea that pistoia was to be featured in my story. then, SHE  turned up. which made it a foregone FACT that i had to snap a photo of her to study later. well, she became the study right then and there. she was not the least bit interested in me taking her photo. she would in fact, stand up and scream and wave her hands when i tried. i decided to give up and walk around the corner and go to lunch. always an option in my opinion.

well, after passing these pans.

and then lunch ----which was a lamprodotto sandwich

 

and then, alright, there were a few chestnuts to be had.

i came back (full circle actually) to the market square where i had left her.

and there she was, just as plain as day - and so i was standing actually over to the right, out of view of the camera so if she did see me she wouldn't see my friend who took the photo so that i would be free of a curse. (i think i still am free - of the curse, but check back with me soon.)

so, does this prove that distraction is a benefit? or perhaps that persistance pays off?

i don't know, but i will let you decide.

and yes, she is in my story - but the chestnut crepes had to go.

here is the recipe though..

necci - chestnut-flour crepes

 

 1½ cups italian chestnut flour

 1 cup cold water

 pinch of salt

 1 t. olive oil

 all-fruit preserves or ricotta cheese

 

sift the flour to remove all lumps. place the flour in a bowl and make a small well in the center. start adding water little by little, mixing with a wooden spoon. when the water is all used up, add salt and mix again. be sure that there are no lumps in the batter. cover and let the batter sit for ¼ hour on bottom shelf of refrigerator. place a seasoned cast-iron griddle over medium-high heat. when it is hot, brush it with 1 tsp. of oil. pour ½ cup of batter in the center of the griddle and let it cook for 30 to 40 seconds, until bubbles appear on the surface. flip and cook for 1 more minute until the pancake is golden brown. place the prepared necci on a platter, cover with fruit preserves or cheese, and roll it up. repeat this procedure for as many necci as you need, using 1 tsp. of oil for every 3 pancakes.