Soirée sushi

This one's for you, Dad!**


Who knew making sushi was so easy?...Amélie did!

Bastien's sister, Amélie, was visiting us last week and had some seriously ambitious culinary plans -- pissaladière ratée (failed onion tart) notwithstanding -- for her séjour (stay) in Macau. "On peut faire des makis!" ("We can make maki rolls!") she said excitedly over the phone a week or so before her arrival. Hmmm, I thought...

France is like a culinary Disneyland for me, an endless chemin (road) of delicious discovery. Around every bend is another local, regional, artisanal, traditional, ancestral cheese, pâté, bread, wine, jam, honey, ham...you get the idea. So, though I love sushi, eating Japanese was far from my mind and making it myself was even further. But Amélie was determined, and who was I to stop a good thing? So we set off on a circuitous route to Euroasie (the Kam Man of Bordeaux--a Disneyland in its own right but of rice noodles and banana chutney and all food Asian) in search of the necessary ingredients: seaweed, rice wine vinegar, sushi rice, maki mat, wasabi, soy sauce, pickled ginger, cucumber, avocado, and, of course, the fish (saumon/salmon, merlue/hake, and crevettes/shrimp) from our local and very chatty poissonnier (fishmonger). Oh, and lest we forget the Kirin.

Quite a few hours and euros later, we found ourselves back at home and ready to start preparing our festin (feast). Amélie had already made sushi once or twice before, so she took the reins and got to work cooking the rice (probably the hardest thing to get right), chopping the veggies, and finessing the fish into perfect pieces for maki and nigiri. Once all the prep was done, we set to work assembling the rolls:


And look at what a beautiful spread we created (I say we, but Amélie deserves most of the credit)!!


Miam miam (yum yum)!! We set to work with our baguettes (chopsticks; I am endlessly amused by the number of references to and metaphors for bread and wine there are in the French language...perhaps the subject of a future post!) and filled our bellies with sushi made in France.

**For those of you who have ever eaten sushi with George (or have heard stories), you know how seriously my dad takes his tekkamaki. "Shhhh!" he says, holding his hand up to stop you mid-sentence as he slides a piece of saba (mackerel, one of his favorites) gently into his mouth. Then closing his eyes and chewing slowly, he inhales deeply to get the full sensation of the flavor. You don't even think to interrupt, as you can see just how much he is enjoying this culinary experience. "The last bite is the worst," he always says, because it means there is no more sushi left! If my dad were to subscribe to a religion, it might just be sushi. I think we can safely say that we are a family of gourmands. Bon appétit!

Dimanche à la campagne...

Sunday in the country...


(Just for the record, the hat is not mine.)

This weekend we were in Castelnau de Montmiral, visiting Bastien's family on their vineyard, Domaine de la Tronque, where I WWOOFed this Fall:

http://www.domainelatronque.com

After a late Saturday night in Toulouse at the opening of the Festival de Cinémas d'Amérique Latine, we had a leisurely Sunday lunch at la Tronque of truites au four (baked trout) followed by a stroll to Vieux, a village nearby.

Grâce à Bastien (thanks to Bastien), here are some images from our walk of the surrounding countryside and resident animaux (animals!):



An eager hound, who hopped the fence to follow us:


Ginormous taureaux (bulls). The picture does not do them justice. They were massive!:


A drowsy blaireau (badger; also slang for a jerk):


The village of Vieux, meaning old:


Chantal (Bastien's mom) and I peeking through the cracks and crevices of this gorgeous, old, abandoned stone house. The draft from the inside was chilly...one meter thick stone walls make for some efficient air conditioning!:

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Foux du fafa...

Another video post from the guys at Flight of the Conchords.

Ananas! Pamplemousse! I couldn't resist...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuXdhow3uqQ

Latour-de-Carol

Coucou (hi)!! My near two-week break in blog action has resulted in the accumulation of many photos and lots to catch you up on!

The image above was taken two weekends ago on a hike in the Pyrénées-Orientales (the mountains closer to the Mediterranean; the Pyrénées-Atlantiques are, as you can tell from the name, closer to the Atlantic). We (Bastien and I and 4 friends) spent Friday night in Latour-de-Carol, a tiny town just over the border from Spain, and set out Saturday morning to rent des raquettes (snow shoes) and des bâtons (poles):


Our hike led us up the south-facing slope of the mountains, which meant that we were bathed in sunshine but that there was no appreciable snow accumulation (see the right side of the first photo). I had come prepared for arctic climes, but the temp was about 20°C (70°F) and by half a mile in I had already shed every extra layer without stripping down to my underwear (I was tempted!). Since I didn't have a pack, my sherpa kindly carried my raquettes for me (note the rolled-up pant legs; mid-March and we could have been in shorts!):


Someone had warned of ours (bear) on the map at the trailhead, but we only came across mouflons (bighorn sheep) and isards (izards; nope not lizards...I hadn't heard of them either, but they appear to be similar to chèvres (goats) ):


and a few other unidentified animals:


Oh wait! That's me on snow shoes! After moaning and groaning about our wasted 8€ rental fee, we finally hit an elevation where snow shoes became critical. Hooray! Like walking on (frozen) water!

After a long trek, we shed our snow shoes for a picnic lunch (left to right: me, Sietske, Amélie, Jet, Sylvain):


and some sledding (Bastien):


And then headed back down the mountain, this time trekking off-trail and taking the route of the col (you can more or less see our path between the 2 mountains in the first photo).

Post-hike we drove into Saillagouse for an all-night reggae concert (picture droves of tan, stoned, dreadlocked ski bums), most of which Bastien and I heard in our semi-slumber from a tent in a field across the street. We were so pooped from our randonnée (hike) that we barely made it past midnight and, since we were "homeless" for the night, opted to set up camp and hit the hay. Despite pitching our tent in a field full of rocks opposite a rock concert, we managed to get a good night's sleep and were thrilled to be camping mid-March in the mountains.

Sunday brought more glorious weather, a brebis des montagnes (mountain sheep's cheese...yum!) from the marché (open air market) in Saillagouse, and a lazy foray (by car) into the mountains for a picnic.

After dropping Sietske off at the train station, the rest of us piled back into the car to fill up the tank in Pas de la Casa, Andorra, land of tax-free conspicuous consumption and eye-sore architecture amidst the splendor of the Pyrénées (I can't say I'd recommend a vacation there). Apparently, we were not the only ones with the bright idea of buying cheap booze, cigarettes, and gasoline in Pas de la Casa on a glorious Sunday afternoon, and our trip to Andorra to faire le plein (fill up the tank) took us about 3 hours all-told, 2 of the 3 spent in a massive bouchon (traffic jam) eating potato chips and wondering when we would ever get home. So much for Andorra...we replenished our gas tank and our bar for a pittance, but left the exotic mystique of the mountain republic far behind us in a cloud of exhaust.

Les giboulées de mars?

The giboulées de mars are what we would call April showers, except that the French version occurs in the month of mars (March). And as you can see from the photos above of flowering plum trees, March showers bring March flowers here in Macau! Yippee!!

When I left Boston a week ago, I watched out the window of the plane as snow plows cleared the tarmac and runways for take off. Lucky for me, I just narrowly escaped another 10 or so inches of snow and a cancelled flight out of Siberia, where there was still nary an inkling of green or of flowering vegetation. Morning after morning of 20°F temperatures were really starting to wear on me (sorry to those of you reading this in colder climes--I hope it's starting to warm up!), so it was a pleasure to step off the puddle-jumper of a plane from Madrid and to feel the cool but decidedly more temperate Bordeaux air against my un-gloved, un-scarved, un-hatted self. Though it's still technically winter by the calendar, spring is springing in Southwest France as far as I'm concerned!

Today is sunny and warm, about 15°C (59°F), and not a particularly typical day in March, meteorologically speaking (though I'm not complaining). The giboulées create some seriously fitful and erratic weather patterns as far as I can tell. Nearly every day last week went as follows: glorious sunburst, sudden gust of unyielding wind, foreboding gathering of charcoal grey storm clouds, heavy rain, hail, pause, replay glorious sunburst, etc. Whoa! I (and Mark Twain) thought New England weather was fluctuating, but I've never been so dizzy and confused from the weather as I was from these giboulées de mars!

Though I'm sure the rain and hail and high winds will be back, the forecast calls for sun and temperatures in the upper 60s for the rest of the week. Hooray for spring! Time to go outside...

Le tracteur démarre toujours 2 fois

I'm heading out to Docteur Knock, our organic grocery store, this morning and plan to take some pictures while I'm out to add to my next post. In the meantime, to give you a few visuals of the vineyard (and perhaps a few laughs), here's a short film that Bastien and his friends shot on site one weekend back in October.

Caveat: this is a horror spoof and comes with the requisite faux blood and guts. Faint of heart and stomach, be warned! Also, what little dialogue there is is in French, but as I said it's a horror spoof, so I think you'll get the idea. The title, Le tracteur démarre toujours 2 fois, translates more or less to "the tractor always starts up twice."

Sadly, I can't get the file to upload here, but here's the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9blQ5nBd7M

Macau

In the interest of keeping in touch while I'm away, I've decided to jump on the old blogger bandwagon (I hope there's still room for me!) to keep you abreast of my wanderings. So, with that said, greetings from Macau! For those of you just tuning in, I am not writing from Macau, China (not yet at least) but rather from Macau, France. The Post Office does get confused sometimes, though, and numerous phone bills of Bastien's have been sent to the Far East. What's amazing is that, without fail, the Chinese have sent them all back! Bouygues Télécom says merci.

Macau (pronounced mac-o) is situated in Southwest France about 25km north of Bordeaux on the banks of the Garonne River just before it joins the Gironde (Google Maps may be useful here for a more precise view). A quick sweep of the Internet proves relatively fruitless on most matters Macau (not surprising given its size). I did, however, find this entry on Wikipedia France:

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macau_(Gironde)

If you can't read the French, here are a few things of note:

• The population of Macau in 2006 was 3,196 (up from 1,801 in 1962).
• There is a female mayor.
• One theory (there are several) on the origin of the name Macau is that it comes from the contraction of 2 Latin words, malum cavum, meaning bad place. (Great!)
• There are traces of Roman roads within the vicinity, indicating that the burg of Macau dates back to the Gallo-Roman era.
• Latitude is 45° (Boston is at 42°).

What Wikipedia doesn't tell you is that the thriving metropolis of Macau consists of a pharmacy, a butcher, a barber, a salon, a quickie mart, a 12th century church (every French village worth its salt has one), a post office, 2 pizzerias (have you ever tried foie gras and magret de canard on a pizza? yum!), 3 boulangeries/pâtisseries (yes 3! the French take their bread seriously!), an elementary school, and opening in April, a café restaurant. Most everything is closed on Mondays and every day between 1pm and 3pm (lunch).

But town commerce aside, what takes up the most physical and mental space around here are the vineyards. There are vines just about everywhere (we are in the Bordeaux area after all), and wine is the industry of the region. In fact, if I turn around and look out the window, I am greeted by the sight of about 7.5 hectares, or 18 acres, of vineyard with the bell tower of Macau's church in the distance.

Perhaps I should mention here that the vineyard I see out the window is also the vineyard I am living on. The vines of Château Beau Rivage are only a stone's throw out the front door, which is practical for Bastien, who is the "vigneron et maître de chai" here, meaning he manages both the vines and the grapes as well as the wine cellar and vinification process. More on the subject of the vineyard, the vines, and the wine later.

Photos to follow, as well...