The Recipe for being the Perfect Dinner Guest

Last night, my buddy Colin and his smart, witty wife came over for dinner. (I've already outed Colin, but his wife's name will remain a secret due to the undercover nature of her work.)

They brought an excellent bottle of Chateau Eugenie wine; and, delight of delights, they had visited my favorite chocolate shop, Leonidas, and purchased a big box for me, and my husband if he's willing to wrestle some of the chocolates from me, heavily weighted with my favorite vanilla creams. (The chocolate shop owner figured out who I was when Colin described the nutty American who lives west of town, and advised him on what to select.)

Then, to top off their generosity, and despite my attempt to shoo him out of the kitchen, Colin insisted on washing the dishes while the rest of us dried, and I put the dishes away. I never had a more blissful apres-diner cleanup.

So if you'd like to be the PERFECT dinner guest you only need to follow these three simple steps:
1. Bring wine.
2. Bring chocolate.
3. Help with the dishes.

See how simple it is to bring happiness to the world!

I thought this was a good photo of the new lambs, in honor of Bastille Day. Off with their heads! The buck, Napoleon, is the one with the black spot. 

Lamb Dinner

Last night, my husband and I had our friends Jacques and Odile over for dinner, together with Roger. I was sitting facing the "French" doors. Just as I had served the main course and had sat down and put the first bite in my mouth, I glanced at the door and saw three black-eyed lambs staring at us through the doors.

I was so shocked, I could only stutter "ah, oh, ah . . . " I think the rest of the table thought a robber was at the door. I raced out the door, but had to come back because in my haste I had left my sandals under the table.

Luckily, the lambs had not learned the bad habits of Blanche, and they didn't touch the flowers. My husband and I tried herding the lambs, but we just managed to chase them out of the yard, across the bridge, through the walnut grove, and onto the road, where they stood in the middle of a curve daring a car to come by and hit them.

My husband and I finally figured out how to direct them the way we wanted them to go and got them across the bridge and to the gate for the pasture. But the gate wasn't open so they ran back into the yard.

The other four sheep, who had been grazing peacefully, noticed the ruckus and began yelling out for their commrades to return to the fold, but the three rebellious EWES, ignored them. (My husband pointed out that the Buck was well-behaved.)

Our guests came out of the house to help and the five of us tried to chase three sheep into their pasture. After a lot of maneuvering, Roger aptly described it as "playing rugby," we chased two of the young ewes into the pasture. In the distance, I could hear the third one yelling, so I went to track her down.

She had run out of the park, across the bridge, through our walnut grove, across a small canal, and was standing in the middle of someone else's unkept pasture, at the edge of the creek that divides that pasture from our sheep pasture, and she was yelling for her flock . . . and they were yelling back, but she couldn't figure out how to return to them.

I was able to "shepherd" her back across the bridge. I stood guard at the bridge while she ran around wildly for ten minutes, being chased by my husband and guests. They finally cornered her and she JUMPED OVER THE FENCE (just like a counting sheep) into her pasture.

Amazed, we all returned to our meal, winded and laughing about the excitement of playing Keystone Cops in the middle of dinner.

I still can't figure out how the three sheep got out, why the other two young ones who are always with them did not initially know that they were missing, and why they decided to look in the dining room window to alert me to their escape.

This morning, I opened up the kitchen doors, and they are all out there contentedly laying under a tree, in their pasture.

The Odyssey

Last week, my husband put his back out moving some furniture we had bought at an auction. Even though he went to a chiropractor referred to him by a friend, his back wasn’t getting any better. So on Friday afternoon, I went in search of a heating pad.

I started my search in our nearby “big” village. At the first pharmacy, the woman said that they didn’t have any, but would be receiving a shipment the next day. I thanked her and visited the other pharmacy in the village, which didn’t have one either.

I decided to drive into our bigger town, 30km away, to a pharmacy that specializes in items for home invalid care and homeopathy therapy. They didn’t have a heating pad, but they had a new fangled “water bottle” that you put in the microwave. I explained to the woman that I didn’t have a microwave, could she suggest where I might find a heating pad. She told me of another pharmacy at the bottom of the boulevard.

The sexy young thing at this fourth pharmacy, told me that they didn’t have a heating pad, but they did have this gel pad that you put in the microwave. I said that wasn’t what I was looking for and thanked her for her time, thinking that it was a VERY good thing that my husband hadn't happened upon this pharmacy and this clerk because his back pain might worsen as a result of his reaction towards this young nubile clerk.

I visited three more pharmacies. No one had what I was looking for.

Feeling desperate, I went back to the compassionate middle-aged woman with the microwavable, micro-fiber “hot water” bag and ignoring her bemused smile, I purchased one. Then I drove out to one of the hideous BOX stores and purchased a microwave – something my husband had recently said we should acquire, to which I had responded haughtily that I would NEVER, NEVER have a microwave in my French kitchen. (But, as I’ve learned over and over again, as soon as I swear I will NEVER do something, I soon find myself zombie-like, doing it.)

I didn’t return home until after the church bells had signaled aperitif time and my husband had just started trying to figure out how he needed to go about asking the gendarmes to track me down.

I tell you this long, sad saga to bring you up to speed on YESTERDAY.

Yesterday morning, I sent my husband into the village to check and see if the shipment of heating pads had arrived at the first pharmacy I visited . . . and to do the bakery run. He was functioning well, albeit in pain, and I thought the outing would do him good. While he was gone, I decided to move the sofa in the living room and lay down a different rug.

Of course, it was inevitable that that I would put my back out, since I had been sort of teasing my husband, for the past week, about how he had turned into a crippled old man over night. There it was, my bad karma, searing through my immoveable back and reminding me that in the future, I should refrain from poking fun at the misfortune of others.

When my husband returned home, I asked him if he had purchased TWO electric pads . . . he said he hadn’t purchased one, because the confused middle-aged woman at the pharmacy said they didn’t have any and she didn’t know about any shipment that was to have arrived on Saturday. Through my pain, I mustered the strength to joke that I did want to grow old together with my husband, but I didn’t want it to happen so suddenly.

A few weeks ago, we had scheduled with the man who works as our mayor’s handyman-stonemason to start work repairing, and slightly enlarging our terrace (and perhaps putting on a balustrade railing to add a little elegance to our farmhouse), to start work this Monday morning -- with the stipulation that my husband would work as his day-laborer. Bernard arranged with the Mayor to take the week off, the materials were purchased, and we even found some cool OLD balustrades at an auction – so destiny seemed to be leading us smoothly along on our little This Old Hovel Improvement Odyssey, until my husband was struck down with that most pervasive and dreaded of French Plagues – THE BAD BACK. All seemed lost when I mysteriously contracted the malady.

I told my husband that he needed to walk to our neighbors Leonce and Yvette’s house and talk with their tall, strapping grandson who was staying with them. The guy is quite the stud, and with his muscular body, I predict he’ll go far in California politics . . . certain to be governor of that state in thirty years. My husband, who I never tire of reminding, ever so sweetly of course, that he actually studied French in school and was so good at it that he was able to test out of the language requirement at an Ivy League College, insisted that I, who have never studied French, spoke the language much more clearly and precisely, and he thought that I should go. Of course, he was eating his pain au chocolate and didn’t want to run any more errands, so I took his complement with a grain of salt.

I grabbed a bag of garbage, threw it in the basket on my bicycle, and rode the short distance to Leonce and Yvette’s. (I would throw the garbage in the communal container after I was finished with my mission.)

I rode in their yard as Yvette was just coming out of her house. Two of her daughters and their husbands were visiting, along with the assorted grandchildren, and Yvette was in the middle of preparing the big family Sunday dinner . . . cleaning a few chickens. As I was telling her about our sorry plight, the future Governor of California walked out of the house and told me that my French was much improved, and kissed me on both cheeks. Now this was something new, as I had just told my husband that the kid never seemed to be very warm towards me . . . I passed it off as a liability of growing up in the big city of Bordeaux. But yesterday he was very warm and gracious and I attributed it to the fact that he could now understand what the hell I was saying.

The grandson (I felt awkward calling him a petit fils, “little son.”) was very willing to come over and work for us, especially when I told him that we would pay; but desole ,unfortunately, he was leaving that afternoon for Bordeaux to start a new job the next day. Yvette said that she would have Leonce help us, EXCEPT, that he was building a stone garotte for a man in another village and that would take all week.

Dejectedly, I headed to Roger’s. He has a bad leg and he doesn’t volunteer to do lifting work or shoveling, (he has to do too much of it in caring for his vines) so I wasn’t going to ask him if he could help with the work, just if he knew someone we could hire. When I arrived he was going out the door to pick up his meal from the local restaurant. But he was pleased to see me and he invited me in. I sat down at his table which he had already set nicely for his lunch. His Sunday loaf of bread (he only buys one a week from the wife of the baker I’ve dubbed, Madame Tres Sexy) was sitting on the table whole and fresh.

He scoffed at the idea that there would be a young man we could find to help us. He said that the young men used to do physical work, but they don’t now. They just visit their grandparents on vacation with no intention of working. Would I be interested in a glass of ratafia? Well, okay, if he was insisting, but just a little one. And don’t haul out the “chips” – the assortment of snacks he keeps on hand in case Americana show up and he needs to defend his home against such insatiable locusts. He expressed surprise that I wasn’t interested in devouring a bag of potato chips, a package of pistachios, and an entire saucisson . . . I’m sure he thought I was ill.

We sat and sipped our drinks, and I told him that Therese had told me that ALL the women were after him. He turned a little bit red, and then I was proud of myself when I made a joke and he understood it. I told him that was his cross to bear in life and he laughed heartily.

I mentioned my grape vine that seems to have some sort of brown plague attacking the edges of its leaves. He said he’d come over and look at it . . .but that was after he sort of let out a little gasp, as if my vine had developed phylloxera (that’s the disease that wiped out the vines in France in 1870). I felt a bit guilty, and worried, that soon I’ll be known as a sort of Typhoid Mary among the locals.

(For some unknown reason the cat likes to hang out next to that vine, so it just dawned on me that perhaps the mysterious brown spots are a result of the cat spraying the vine with his urine.)

I wanted to let Roger get to the restaurant, so I bid him au revoir and implored him to ask at the restaurant if there was anyone who might want to work. He told me he was certain that there wasn’t anyone.

As I was pulling into our driveway on my bike, I saw Leonce on his bicycle, talking with my husband. Low and behold, Leonce had called up the guy he was scheduled to work the week with and postponed the work so that he could tackle our terrace with the man from the Mayor’s office. I gave him a big hug. Leonce said that it was more important to help out a neighbor than it was to help out some acquaintance that lived in a village 7km away.

My husband and I were both thrilled that our problem was solved, and emotionally pleased by the turn of events.

After Leonce left and our euphoria subsided, my husband and I started to worry about how the two egos of the master stonemasons would get along . . . envisioning a possible scenario of murder by balustrade.

My husband confided to me that he was embarrassed that an 82-year-old-man would have to take his place doing manual labor. I told him not to feel too badly. I had read an advertisement at the pharmacy claiming that 3 out of 4 French adults have back problems . . . and when I had mentioned this to Roger when we were sipping our ratafia, Roger said it must be true, because the only person he knows who doesn’t have a bad back, is 82-year-old Leonce.

French Mountain Oysters

Yesterday, my husband and I drove to Monsieur Dardennes' farm, arriving a quarter past eight in the morning to pick out our troupeau, flock. His mother, who was serving breakfast, in her rustic beamed dining room with the giant fireplace, to a gite guest, was willing to go out and look for him. She must have been at least seventy-five years old but the woman bounded out of the house and searched in several directions until her son appeared.

Monsieur Dardennes drove up on a huge tractor with his three grown sons hanging on for a ride. He took us out to the sheep barn, where he had already picked out four females for me; but he had a group of about fifteen male lambs penned up for me to make my selection.

I wanted one with lots of black on his face, and my husband pointed out one that had a lot of black, and a black "smile" so we chose him, and Monsieur Dardennes grabbed the chosen one by the hind leg and pulled him out of the group for us to inspect.

I've been to several bull sales in Montana, where they always broadcast the scrotum dimensions of the bull before starting the bidding, so trying to appear as if I was an old pro at purchasing breeding stock, I asked Monsieur Dardennes if I could see the lamb's testicles . . . a word I tried to pronounce with a "French" accent since I didn't know the French word for testicles. He knew what I was saying because, as luck and the evolution of language would have it, the French word happens to be testicules.

Monsieur Dardennes flipped the lamb up on his rear end, and then grabbed the stunned animal's scrotum, massaged it a bit, to show me that he did have deux testicules. I asked him if they were good ones, because they were small, and I was a bit skeptical, since the mature bucks have testicles that hang down virtually to their ankles . . . and I'm not joking. Monsieur laughed heartily and then made some gesture with his hand regarding his own testicles . . . and I laughed nervously not knowing what he attempting to convey to me.

Having chosen our buck, Monsieur called over one of his good-looking sons, and had him cut off the tail of the lamb. Monsieur held the buck upright, while his son took a clamping tool and broke the tail at a length modest enough to cover the lamb's rear end . . . but short enough to show off his testicles should they ever grow. Then the son twisted the tail until it came off. I wanted to ask to keep the tail, to put in the buck's baby book, but my husband restrained me from asking.

Having happily concluded the deal, we'll give him the check when he arrives with the troupeau
on Monday, Monsieur invited us in for coffee and cookies. We sat around the long walnut table as I wrote out the directions, in French, to our house.

I embarassed Monsieur by asking if his family was nobility since his name was DARDENNES. (Which I interpreted to mean d'Ardennes, the de in front of his name signifying nobility.) He turned red and shrugged as I pressed him on the question, then adamantly shook his head non.

Now this was an interesting phenomenon, because when an American explains their European roots, they are ALWAYS proud to tell you that they descend from nobility. But this man was very embarassed that I would even suggest such a grotesque possibility. I dropped my teasing when I saw that he wasn't handling it very well.

His father walked in the door . . . a youthful looking septegenarian who seemed to me to be coming in to fetch his son for more work, since he walked in the door, said bonjour and then just hovered above us without saying a word. I took the cue and initiated the au revoirs and Monsieur the Younger let me know that he'd be expecting coffee when he delivered the sheep on Monday at 10am, and an aperitif -- some whiskey would be preferrable. (I'll make him an apple tart too.)

As we were driving away, and I was discussing the visit with my husband, it dawned on me why Monsieur Dardennes does not want anyone to think that he might be Comte d'Ardennes . . . he's the DEMOCRATICALLY elected mayor of his nearby village . . . and in the countryside, they don't elect nobility to office. That's only done in the big city . . . the reason you end up with a de Villepin or a Giscard d'Etaing.

So, I learned about another social faux pas to avoid. It's okay to discuss testicules with a farmer in the countryside, he might even bring his own into the discussion, but DO NOT suggest that he descends from nobility. He is a citoyen and very proud of that fact.

Ironically, my husband and I drove directly to an auction where the most expensive item that sold was the head of a bishop, hacked off a statue of a nearby cathedral during the FRENCH REVOLUTION . . .a vivid reminder of why one doesn't brag in the countryside about one's noble roots.

Operation Buck

We're all quite excited here this morning. Corinne called the sheep man and arranged for us to go to his farm on Saturday morning, he'll have the coffee ready, and we'll pick out our four new sheep . . . along with Monsieur Buck.

They'll all have black eyes and black ears . . . and some of them may have black markings on their face that look as if they're sporting huge smiles.

The sheep man, Monsieur Dardennes, is willing to deliver them for 20E which we'll take him up on.

When I picked up Blanche, and the late Olympia, I put them in the trunk of the rental car . . . it was a bit messy. Now that we have our very own car I'm a bit sensitive about hauling livestock around in it . . . and I have forbidden my husband from eating in it. Having just said that, I'm now fretting that at this very moment he's eating in it as he returns from his morning bakery run.

We haven't owned a car since 1996. Which means I haven't washed a car or had to service a car in nine years. I've been quite spoiled not having a car. And God only knows how many pounds I didn't put on because I had to do a lot of hiking around San Francisco.

I'm not quite sure if I like owning a car. I really don't like being obsessed about it's cleanliness or if someone's going to ding me . . . or even having to contemplate the price of gasoline. And since it's black, a quality that Roger correctly pointed out would cause it to look dirtier sooner than a light colored car, I'm going to be obsessing about when to wash it . . . I should wash it today, but it looks like it might rain. You see my dilemna.

My husband is going to the lumber yard today to pick up the sacks of cement and other sordid things that he needs to fix and expand the terrace and I'm trembling as I wait to inspect what condition the car will be in when he returns. It will probably be filled with bread crumbs and cement dust.

My Zen state has totally been destroyed by this car! It is cute though.

Status Report

Not much to report. Took a nap with my sheep the other day because it was cool, and that means the flies aren't out. Blanche slept on the beach blanket with me with her head on my stomach.

My husband put his back out, so Operation Firewood is on hold.

Operation Move the Hydrangeas: Beginning next week, we're repairing and ever-so-slightly enlarging our terrace, so today I will start digging up the five hydrangea bushes that line the terrace, and moving them. They have struggled in that location, because they get too much sun . . . a friend told me that I need to put them in a place where they have Northern exposure . . . after inspecting other hydrangeas at other houses, I think she's right.

I may have to move my beautiful grape vine for Operation Terrace Enhancement and that would be traumatic for me because I don't want to jeopardize my fledgling grapes and loose face as a master vigneron in Roger's eyes. He comes over and sprays my vine for me every two weeks after he sprays his own vines.

I'm still trying to get the new sheep delivered . . . I found a seller, but when I went to his house, the next day after the sheepherder's party, he wasn't home, and I've tried to call two times, and no one answers . . . so Operation Blanche Loosing Her Virginity is on hold.

Operation Shear Soixante-Douze is on hold because of my husband's bad back . . . and my girlfriend who helped me with Blanche in March, for some odd reason, has not volunteered to help me again. I thought she had a great time spending three hours on her day off wrestling a smelly sheep in a small shed.

Cirk the cat has lost his virginity . . . we were unnervered yesterday morning by the sadistic sounds of cat coupling.

It's a little out of focus, just think of it as a French Impressionist painting . . . here's my latest painting. 

Suzette and her daughter Francine during their Sunday promenade through the woods to our house. 

The Girth of A Nation

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/04/opinion/04krugman.html?hp

And here are some interesting tidbits from the New England Journal of Medicine's November 25, 2004 issue . . . thanks to my friend Dr. Fogarty:


Health care expenditures -- % of GDP: France 9.7 U.S.A. 14.6

Per capita health expenditures: France $2,736 U.S.A. $5,267

# of practicing physicians per 10,000 population: France 33 U.S.A. 30

Population satisfied with health system: France 65% U.S.A. 40%
(2002 indicators used)

Sheepherders' Dinner

My husband and I attended the first annual "sheepherders'" soiree last night. It was very interesting as well as disappointing.

There wasn't anything "quaint" about the venue . . . there were a thousand people in a brand new convention center, just off a freeway. When we were standing outside for the aperitif, I made the comment to my husband that it looked as if we were in his native Los Angeles.

The head of the organization, was supposed to line me up with someone from whom I could purchase the sheep. He told me that the person wasn't able to make it to the dinner.

At our table of ten people, I was the only one who had sheep! I did sit next to a man from Normandy whose family has raised jumping horses for generations . . . the current three time world champion from Brazil, rides one of this guy's horses. Two of the men, were soldiers in the Algerian War. My husband pointed out that it would be VERY interesting to get their opinions on the current Iraq War . . . but since they weren't used to my French, I found it difficult to carry on a conversation with them.

I couldn't bring myself to eat the first course, which everyone else loved: lamb sweetbreads. I did eat the very tender roasted lamb . . . and when I fed Blanche and Soixante-Douze this morning I tried not to breathe on them . . . I didn't want to reveal my treachery.

Outside the convention hall, they were roasting 150 legs of lamb on a giant brochette . . . attempting to make the Guinness Book of World Records.

They showed a wonderful film on raising sheep. It didn't have a sound track and the heads of the organization were all giving speeches over it (the French love to give long introductions and speeches at all their get-togethers . . . and amazingly, the participants sit attentively through them). I found it amusing that just as the last speaker was wishing us "bon appetite" the sheep on the two giant screens gave birth to her second lamb, and started eating the afterbirth off of it.

The evening wasn't elegant . . . but the sheepherders were all showered, so that was a plus . . . there weren't a lot of smokers . . . the huge facility was adequately air-conditioned . . . and I did find someone who has some sheep to sell me.

Here's an interesting discussion about French and American lifestyles . . . http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/7/2/153038/3021

The Table Manners of French Children

Last night we had the young couple across the road over for dinner. They brought their thirteen-year old daughter. I was a little worried, because I thought she might be bored out of wits . . . we had Roger (age 76) over along with his cousin, Pierre (age 82) . . . not exactly the type of crowd that would interest a young girl.

Unsolicited, this girl helped me serve dinner and dry dishes. She sat quietly through our discussions of the Euro vs. Dollar . . . the current state of the world wine market . . . our discussions of World War's numero one and two . . . and the current occupation of Iraq.

Then, around 11:30, this young girl had the audacity to complain to her father that she was tired! He ignored her. I told her she could go lie down on the sofa, but she said that wasn't polite. So she remained sitting at the table, listening to our banter until we ran out of brilliant things to say around 12:30.