A friend told me that Provence has 25% less water than last year at this time and that they are expecting a drought this summer. Nevertheless, it rained all day yesterday, one of those really nice soft rains and everything looks refreshed and green today. I bought some flowers to plant but the lady who sold them to us told me that it was too early to plant them. I probably should have waited until the middle of May once the days of the Saints of Ice are past-May 11, 12 and 13, but we had such nice sun filled days that I planted them anyway and will now probably be out several nights covering pots with plastic. I have one planting area that I made a couple of years ago that I am just going to cover with gravel. The first time I dug in it, it was full of roots from a nearby huge oak tree. I now know that this is a good sign that plants won’t do well there. I had to water the flowers there every single day and they mainly just sort of sat there, not dying, but very little growth and few flowers. I have three lavender plants there that are still green just sort of blah looking. Always something in the world of gardening.

A friend sent me a link to what turns out to be the caterpillar species that caused me so many problems. Even weeks later I have little itchy bumps on my neck and hands. They are called Pine Processionary Caterpillars. I’ve never seen them myself as I believe they do their little congo line in the winter. Believe me, I will give them and their nests wide berth from now on.

Here are the little buggers traveling in their amazing congo line.

The web/nest that they make. Burn these on site in the tree.

Sideroads of Europe

Monthly I recieve, via the Internet, a e-magazine Called France Monthly http://www.francemonthly.com/
which gives great information on various parts of France. I love reading things like that, storing up places I want to visit next. They always give a recipe from the region written about. This month the subject was a part of Brittany and they offered this recipe for an apple cake. I had just bought some apples that looked good on the outside but on the inside were less than thrilling so I was looking around for a recipe so I could cook them. Maurice doesn’t like cinnamon so that leaves out most of my Amrican recipes so I was happy to find this one. While I was in the middle of mixing the ingredients, I realized that there wasn’t any baking powder on the list. I thought about adding some anyway but didn’t. The photo on the magazine looked like the cake would be rather heavy and dense so I decided to trust the recipe. It turned out to be great-it did raise a little-and the apples made it very moist. It was very easy and fast to make. I beat the egg whites first so I wouldn’t have to meticuously clean the beaters if I did it at the end. It calls for 6 ounces of butter which I think is about 2/3 cup-it’s what I used anyway.

Breton Apple Cake

Ingredients:
6 oz softened butter
2/3 cup sugar
1 cup flour
3 eggs, separated
2 large apples
1 Tablespoon honey
Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit (180 degrees Celsius).

With a mixer, beat the soft butter with the sugar and add 3 egg yolks, having put the whites aside. Add the sifted flour and the honey.

Whip the egg whites until they form firm peaks and delicately fold them into the mixture.

Peel the apples and cut into small cubes. Add them to the dough.

Pour into a 7 ” round, buttered cake pan and bake for 50 minutes at 350 degrees.

Eat when cooled.

Bon appétit !

Sideroads of Europe

I haven’t had a chance to get out with my camera since returning from Switzerland so here are a few more photos from the village of Carona, high above Lugano. And, to answer a couple of questions, the drive there from Provence took about 7 hours returning, almost 8 going which is why we changed our route. My son just moved to Switzerland three weeks ago for a new job. His wife found it on the Internet, he applied, and there you go. He said that it probably helped him get the job when they heard that his mother lived in France as sometimes people leave after a short while due to loneliness or missing family.

Easter snow on a palm tree

Not your usual angel under a balcony

Great Italian colors.

Another window-can’t pass them up

I call this a tulip tree but they look like they are related to the magnolia

A sign in German warning about, I think, an attack cat. There are lots of things in German here, such as menus and when I tried to google something it kept coming up in German.

Sideroads of Europe

We are back after a whirlwind trip to Switzerland. We drove and it was a long drive, full of beautiful scenery as we had to cross the Alps, or at least the edges of them. We have a little GPS unit called a Tomtom which is great for finding your way through countries and cities when you have no idea where you are. On the way we drove along the cost of France from Nice, into Italy, making our way to Milan and then into Switzerland. It took longer than we thought it would so returned by going through Turin and over the mountains from Italy into France which saved us about an hour of time and one hundred kilometers too.
My son and his family are temporarily in a rental high on a mountain over looking Lugano Lake. To say the view is breath-taking is an understatement. Lugano is right across the border from Italy-30 minutes from Milan-and everyone there speaks Italian. I don’t think there is an official Swiss language anymore. Near France everyone speaks French and near Germany everyone speaks German. I never could make myself understood in English there but French almost always worked. My son speaks Spanish and they never understand that either. He is quickly picking up Italian and now speaks what he calls Spitalian as he mixes up the two. What is great is that his children will probably end up being able to speak three or four languages. The four year old, when playing by himself and doing the talking to himself that children like to do, was doing some sort of imaginary Italian. He had the rhythm and the sound of Italian down already. He just has to learn the vocabulary. This is just from hearing it around him now and then, the little sponge.

Not too shabby a view.

They were in a little village called Carona, one of those that are probably over 1000 years old and full of charm and ambience.

This is a painting on the front of the church there.

A lovely door with a balcony.

Many of the older buildings there were painted.

Easter morning we awoke to this view. Overnight there was about 5 inches of soft snow which was gone by afternoon. The children were so excited and couldn’t wait to get out and play in it. Of course, they had no sort of gloves, being from Texas, so we put gloves and plastic bags on their hands which only worked for a while. Jackson, the six year old, couldn’t understand why the snow didn’t last longer. I think it stays fairly warm in this part of Switzerland as there were palm trees here and there. (By the way, I would love to post photos of my grandsons but whenever I do, I can see that all sorts of perverts are trolling around my blog looking for photos of children so I’m not going to post any. I got some great shots of my grandsons taking bites of the ears of chocolate bunnies.)
Soon my son and his family will move to a more permanant rental house down below the mountain close to the lake. The place actually has a chicken pen with chickens which the owner offered to leave but, after seeing the mess that would have to be cleaned up, and what they eat-mash-they decided not to keep the chickens there. It has a lot more room than where we stayed with them and is right by the train station so my son can easily get to work. Right now there is a long, very winding road to take up and down that mountain which my daughter in law calls the vomit road.
I will be returning in May when the new baby comes. I really enjoy being with my grandchildren. They can be so funny. One day I told my grandson, the six year old, to tell everyone that I was 45. I like to think I look that age in my vanity. He told me that I would have to dye my hair and wear a mask if I wanted to pass for 45. Sigh.

Emily, my guest blogger, continues her stories of her time in Provence last Summer.

After a very long day of sight-seeing - climbing to the summit of numerous hilltop villages, exploring shops and art galleries, dining al fresco in the woods, and visiting a large village market en plein air - we were two weary travelers headed home to collapse with a glass of vin. As navigator, I was perusing the map when I noted something we’d missed. Mais alors! “Look,” I said, “we’re very close to Puyvert where there is a very old pigeon tower that sounds interesting. And it will be easy to find because the hamlet is tiny and the tower is tall.”

After looking everywhere in the minuscule town and the tower was no where to be seen, I approached a gentleman who was rooting in the trunk of his car to ask for directions. He pointed me toward the mairie, where I could pick up the key. Once there, I was told that I’d have to return after 5:30. As I headed back to the car ready to throw in the towel, the gentleman asked if I’d been successful and was enraged when I told him the details. He said to wait and then stormed off to the mairie. He returned momentarily - waving the key triumphantly - jumped into his car and said, “Follow me!”

We began driving rapidly along little winding roads, zipping through round-abouts and heading rather far afield from Puyvert. We stopped on a frontage road next to a main highway. He jumped from his car and waved at us to follow him. We walked up the road for some distance and being exhausted from the day’s activities, were glad to see him stop and thought we finally had arrived. The countryside was far below.

He pointed to a steep flight of stairs. Mon Dieu! After hauling ourselves up the stairs we were faced with an additional flight of very steep stairs, at the top of which we saw a rather nondescript building.

And then we entered. What a fascinating place! The tower was behind a locked, ironwork gate.

It was completely encircled with holes for nests - top to bottom - and featured an interesting double ladder that moved around the room on a circular track for harvesting eggs.

At the top of the tower, was a grate large enough for pigeons to come and go but too small for a human of any size to enter. Our new friend told us that for many centuries, only the monsignors were allowed to own pigeons. They sold both eggs and pigeon meat to those less fortunate. However, after the French Revolution, the edict was reversed and anyone could own pigeons. He told us that although it no longer was in use for the original purpose, this pigeonnier had been restored for posterity by students I probably missed some of the details because he spoke in French and sometimes I wasn’t exactly sure what he was saying. What I am sure of is that we never would have seen this interesting place had it not been for the kindness and generosity of a complete stranger.

Sideroads of Europe

A posting by Emily, my guest blogger while I celebrate Easter in Switzerland:

While driving on any one of several winding roads criss-crossing the Grand Luberon, one can see in the distance the chateau of Ansouis high atop a rocky spur, its red baronial flag whipping in the wind. The chateau, built in the 12th century, is the star attraction of the tiny hilltop village and has been in the Sabran family for centuries. Sadly, the current generation has put it up for sale.

The ironwork castle gate originally was raised and lowered by its guards and although today it is motor-driven, it remains the entrance for all wishing to tour the chateau. The day we visited there were about eight people waiting for the tour to begin, and what fun it was to stand outside and see the gate slowly rise and then lower once more when everyone was inside the grounds.

These are bells of the church, which is adjacent to the chateau and is seen in this view from the chateau’s courtyard. It was built in the 13th century and was the courtroom of the counts of Sabran before becoming a church. There are arrow slits on one side which were used during more turbulent times. This church was one of the locations for the film Manon des Sources.

My favorite room was the kitchen and I could have spent a lot of time there investigating the beautiful copper pots and utensils and the antique faience. We were shown a wooden item that looked like an Inquisition era thumb screw used for torture and asked to guess its use. Turned out it was a device to squeeze every bit of blood out of a piece of meat for use in cooking. Since cooking with blood is not my area of expertise I only can assume it was used for blood sausage or blood pudding or some such thing. The kitchen still is in use. This photo is a postcard I scanned because cameras are not allowed inside the chateau.

The lovely dining room (also from a postcard) is hung with 17th century Flemish tapestries. Reminds me of home. Riiiight!

This typically French box garden in an inner courtyard was designed to be enjoyed from above.

Sideroads of Europe