Tour de France '14(4): Food / La Bouffe

France is famous for food, but not for obesity. They eat lots of fat, and yet they’re not fat.

Perhaps it is part of the French Paradox that is thought to be due to their drinking a lot of red wine. Some ascribe it specifically to the resveratrol in the red wine, but elsewhere I argue that this might be just so much snake oil.

Anyway, the real paradox to me is that everywhere else in the world, I am told that drinking red wine will make me fat!

So here I am in France doing some important research on this issue: to see if speaking French, living in France and eating (and drinking!) as they do has any effect on my weight. It’s a heavy gig.

My son has kindly noted that my six-pack looks like a bloated, squishy, mini-keg when I’m sitting down.

However, I think this is an artefact. If I stand up, it goes away. And if I put my fingers in my ears, I can't hear any remarks.

Besides, France is exactly the place for addressing an important dilemma: would you rather live forever on water and celery or live (and die) happily on fine food and drink.

It’s hard to go past the sights, the sounds, the smells of the market. The poissonnerie, fromager, boucherie (including the cheval-boucherie) all selling their wares. Zach enjoys how they offer little tastes of their wares. He and I were treated to some roasted pork rib one day and we liked it so much we went back and bought some.

The other day, buying some Toulousain sausage (a long thick sausage that is coiled into a frypan for cooking and cut up afterwards), I noticed some boudin (blood sausage) and remarked to the butcher that I loved that and would get some next time. He simply reached over, cut off about 250g and threw it in the bag of meat as "un cadeau". And it was good!

And then the rows and rows of fruits and vegetables that positively radiate colour and flavour. Bénédicte, the chief of the household where we are staying, makes a fabulous courgette soup. She slices fresh courgettes, blends them with a bouillon cube dissolved in boiling water, heats the soup, and adds maybe a dash of cream or butter added just before serving. Miam (i.e., yum!)

Marc, the household’s number two, Béné’s number one, makes a fabulous dish out of ‘fève’. These are young broadbeans. You chop off the ends of the pods and cook the whole damn thing. It is fantastic – but make sure the fève are young. Sadly, it’s almost impossible to find broadbeans in their pods in Australia – but you can grow them yourself.

I love how the day revolves around meals. Marc and Béné’s home has a moveable population of between five and twenty people. At about 12h00 and 19h00 every day, everyone is called "à table" to enjoy a fabulous meal. Aside from those mentioned above, some of my favourites are confit de canard (duck preserved in duck fat and then pan-fried), cassoulet (a traditional stew of white beans, duck and sausage made in the south-west of France), patés, terrine, foie-gras (probably best you don’t ask), etc.

And then there’s the cheese platter. What Australians offer in terms of cheese is a bit like what the French offer in terms of beaches: you can see the resemblance, but it's a long way from the real deal.

A French fromage stand – even in a supermarket – offers a staggering array of cheeses: hard & soft; round & square; white, yellow, orange, blue; delicate to downright stinky, cheese from the milk of cow, chèvre (goat), brebi (sheep), etc.

I love the simplicity of meals. I think we have this impression of French cuisine being complicated and rich. Much of the time, it is fabulously simple. Good ingredients, simple combinations. For instance, there is hardly anything better than the French ‘picque-nicque’: a baguette, ham, fresh tomatoes and a chunk of cheese and a trusty French Opinel knife.

In this the French are very much akin to the Australians who love nothing better than a simple barbecue. Incidentally, some claim the word comes from the French: « barbe-au-cul » referring to the cooking of a goat on a spit and literally translated as “beard to butt” – but it is disputed.

Anyway, enough of this talk about food – which the French love to do. There’s more research to be done, more tasting, more discussing, and so forth. And besides, dessert is about to be served!


(For more images made entirely of food, see Carl Warner's stunning Foodscapes: http://www.carlwarner.com) 

Tour de France '14(3): Snow & Andorra

Some days, the snow-tipped Pyrenées which mark the border between France and Spain feel so close, its like we might be able to touch them. But Zach who had never experienced snow wanted to touch it for real.

So, we headed out to Andorra, a little principality (like Monaco) of about 40 x 25km between France and Spain. Its claims to fame are skiing, tax-free haven, and third longest-lived inhabitants in the world (average of 84 years).

We were accompanied by two brothers: Jean and Blaise. Jean is a year and a half less than Zach, and Blaise is transitioning to young adult. Blaise probably only came in order to buy cheap cigarettes in Andorra, but it was fun to have him along.

The drive along the Ariège river towards the mountains was amazing. Lots of signs explained that there were caves and museums of human pre-history along this way. We didn’t stop, but it is nonetheless rather moving to think we were passing near to human homes over 15,000 years old with their artworks still hanging on the wall !

To enter the mountainous country of Andorra, we drove up a very picturesque valley through Ax-les-Thermes, a famous thermal spa resort town. The route then climbed by making very long zig-zags across the mountain up to the crossing into Andorra.

Despite the drive up being like something out of James Bond or the Italian Job (as Zach noted), the crossing into Andorra was uneventful. They didn’t even stop us. Not even to stamp our passport to show we had entered Andorra. How can we log all the countries we have visited if not by passport? Maybe a self-stamping point at the border would be good.

There were at least a few policeman/customs men standing around, but being a tax haven, I daresay the contraband is travelling the other way. This perhaps explains why our nonchalant, James Bond wave seemed to count for little.

Entering from the east (see map), we quickly came upon Pas de la Casa: big apartment buildings, lots of parking (for the tax free shoppers), and access to ski-lifts and slopes.

Didn’t work for me, and I was the driver so we kept going on up. We passed up over the town (more zigzags) and finally came to the Porte de l'Envalira (2408m) at which there were two service stations and a café. We kept going and started going down the other side.

Zach was being very quiet, but I became ‘inquiet’ (French for feeling uncomfortable) because we were going away from the snow - and I knew the snow was where he wanted to be! 

We passed another ski-station called Grau Roig, and came into another little village, Bony d'Envalira. Lots of chalets for skiing in and out of during the season, but not enough snow right now.

We decided to stop at a supermarket to collect the fixings for a 'picque-nicque' and practice our Catalan - the language spoken here. Our Catalan sucked, but we managed to get all that we wanted including Blaise who bought his cheap cigarettes. I presume that the cheap prices aren't that attractive to Andorriens, otherwise they surely wouldn't be living as long as they do.

We headed back up to the top and Zach got to see and touch snow.

Remember the first time you touched snow? It's kind of weird to explain, isn't it? 

It is said that the Inuit (Eskimo) have 20-50 words for snow (although it is disputed!). Australians, not surprisingly perhaps, do not have much of a vocabulary for snow: powder, packed, ice – or more simply, skiable or not!

It appeared to have snowed in the last couple of days because there were a couple of centimetres of light, fluffy, powdery snow over packed, icy snow. Within seconds Zach was making up and throwing a snowball. Then we pulled the toboggans out of the car and started sliding around on the snow. As we ran around, our legs plunged into deep, long-standing snow, our clothes got wet - and of course, none of this mattered. 

Zach wanted to eat some snow – which allowed me to advise him that Australian snow vocabulary does extend to include ‘yellow snow’ which one should not eat. Zach always trying to prove me wrong pointed out that he had poured some lemon Fanta into the snow and it was great! Sigh.

After our picque-nicque from the back of the car, I took advantage of the sunshine to walk up a slope to a lift station to get a 360 degree view of Andorra (see below).

None of the lifts were working anywhere which surprised me as the snow was good for skiing and the sun was shining! Ski season ends in March apparently. I guess it is like back on the Gold Coast – when you live on the beach, you’re spoiled for good waves, and only tourists would go out on a crap day. Anyway, nice walk, and nice view.

So, now we can look at the view of the snow-tipped mountains from the front door, and Zach can say, ‘been there, done that.’

Tour de France '14(2): Fire !

180 degree view from the front door (straight ahead are the Pyrenees)

We’re in Europe – so of course, we have to talk about the weather. It’s changing all the time, so it is the thing to talk about. But Thursday 24 April really gave us something to talk about.

There was a thunderstorm that afternoon. Not such a big one by Gold Coast standards. Just to take a moment out to boast, if you want to see a lightning show, it doesn’t get much better than we have in Coolangatta looking out over the ocean from our balcony. We can watch lightning flashing about for hours. And if that is not sufficiently entertaining, you can spend some time trying to console Zoey the dog, her shivering and shaking and tremors continue as aftershocks for some time after the storm has passed!

However, what France gave us was an up-close and personal experience. 

A loud sizzling sound sounded while we were in the kitchen preparing dinner along with a simultaneous flash of light outside was accompanied by an electricity outage. We mussed around, found the switchboard and turned the electricity back on. In the kitchen, someone commented on the smell of the cooking and closed one of the connecting doors to elsewhere. 

One of the other people in the house, upstairs, came down complaining of the smell of smoke – we told her we had closed the kitchen doors. She returned upstairs and then we heard her say, no there was really smoke. We all raced upstairs and could see through the skylight, smoke rising from the roof. 

We went outside to see that the roof was on fire (see Zach’s photo – the only one of the roof on fire!). A cast of us went running around looking for ladders, fire-extinguishers, hoses, etc. and proceeded to try and extinguish the fire while we waited for the fire-engines (pompiers). The house is some 10 kms from the nearest town, so it was going to take some time. Meanwhile the hose that Papa was using to put out the fire was leaking almost much as it was spraying so his clothes and he himself became soaked through as he did his bit to use water to douse the flames.

Fire engines arrived – four in total eventually – and took over. The roof over one of the bathrooms was completely destroyed and was removed, and two bedrooms on each side of the bathroom were rendered unusuable due to smoke, water-damage, etc.

Dinner that night was by candlelight. Our guests were four firemen who had stayed on after the initial fire was put out, removed hot tiles from the roof and generally making sure the fire was really really out. They also came back at 5am the next morning to check again.

Since then, we have had intermittent electricity which cuts out from time to time – e.g., when someone plugs a mobile phone into a plug to recharge and many of the appliances like the dishwasher are no longer working properly!

And above all, no internet! This has been a bit of an eye-opener. I have realised that the apocalypse in modern times will not heralded by four horseman, not even by the arrival of a tsunami wave, an earthquake, a volcano or even a fire. Rather it will be heralded by the eerie silence that comes by cutting the umbilical that we call the internet! 

Tour de France '14(1): Korea (en route to France!)

The view from our front door in France !

On our way to France, we had a one night stop-over in Korea, a country that neither of us have visited before. But there wasn’t much to see!
There was a heavy fog all around airport – we couldn’t even see the terminal when we landed, and the planes coming and going kind of appeared and disappeared in the mist. Very disturbing sitting in a plane taxiing around among massive planes coming and going!

The bus to the hotel took about 5 minutes and was apparently right next to the airport, but you wouldn’t know for all the fog!

Looking out of our hotel room window, we were able to see into the courtyard of the hotel and there were a couple of cherry-blossom trees blooming which were very pretty. I reflected on whether there might be cheries when Zach dismissively explained to me that cherry-blossom trees are not cherry trees. I never knew – I thought the cherry-blossom season in Japan was from cherry trees. Apparently not according to Prof Holden (Jr).

A pilot on stopover explained there was a nice walk along the street near the hotel and so we went out exploring. Still weird in the fog, but we found an Australian fish and chip shop which the pilot had told us about. Strange kind of blend of Korean shop and Aussie bar.

The thing that delighted us both about are short overnight stay in Incheon in Korea (aside from the dessert bar pictured!) was the friendliness of the people. The waitresses kindly taught us how to say ‘thank you’ in Korean: kum-sam-yi-a-da (no idea how to write it). We’re looking forward to our stopover on the way home when we might venture into Seoul and find a hotel there to stay.