Goodbye autumn.

The bleached light has distinctly sharpened in the face of winter.  The last of the clinging leaves are giving up their paper selves as the cold goes from being an incoming 'front' to something that settles in around the fields, the villages, the houses, our bodies.  You find yourself straining to find the last bits of color, natural or not.  You tell the children, you tell yourself: there is so much to love about winter--the snap of wind that pinks the cheek; the damp give of the browning leaves underfoot; the clear rush and babble of the full-again brook just beyond the green sway in the field; the Christmas lights twinkling in neighbor's windows; the glittering, shimmering frost in the early morning; the lacy trees stretched bowl-like in the empty sky; the embracing glow of the banked fire in the kitchen corner.  What's not to love?



Sometimes, it's a hard sell.  That's when you say to yourself: next year, I'm doing it differently.  At any rate, this is what I told myself last winter, when I was a.) snowed in with 40 cm of snow outside (with our steep driveway in the middle of unplowed nowhere, it might as well have been 40 meters), and b.) simultaneously bronchitis'ed in with a steadily 40C temperature.  Doing it differently. 

So now, just as a sleek new winter unsheathes her claws, I'm leaving, for more than a month.  Kids pulled out of school, dog at the neighbor's place, the whole kit and caboodle.  Between making lists of lists and de-virusing my computer (...) I've also been spending way too much mental energy trying to figure out how I could continue to blog while traveling.  I finally realized I can perhaps better spend that time with, y'know, my family, rather than scrambling to find a nearby internet cafe then sitting hunched and closed as a parenthesis, tapping out my missive while trying not to be distracted by the clackety fan.  (Oh, the notion of the fan's because we'll be in Vietnam...)

I really think of those extra few hours of non-blogging as a Christmas presents to yours truly. 

Because, man alive, these kids, I really have to enjoy them this very moment: they absolutely insist upon growing, and at a speed that leaves me slightly dazed.  The little one's plaid flannel pyjama sleeves?  Midway up his forearms.  My sweet eldest (her face lengthening into something frighteningly close to maturity)? She does things on a horse that make me blanch--circus tricks kind of stuff.  Sigh.  I'd just like for this time, during which their open faces are still small enough to cup in my hands, to last a wee bit extra.  Is asking for time to stretch asking for too much?

So yes, I'm off for a big long month with the family. Cross your fingers that we, all of us, are too thrilled to notice the slight time difference between Alpha and Golf. 

Please look for me again in the beginning of January, a few short days after the hangovers wane and the New Year's resolutions to lose weight are declared, after the friends and family have straggled home and you're just beginning to evaluate the possibility of maybe perhaps taking down the decorations.

In the meantime, I didn't want to leave you sitting there empty-handed, so I made you something.  Like all things handmade, if it's pretty, it's only the roughest kind of pretty, an assemblage of little moments that caught my eye while I was in New York.  The exact hue of a certain sort of daydream, it is the product of wanting something and being lucky enough for it to happen. 

I think of you in kind of this way, out there in the ether, my own New York--only in human form.

Maybe you are someone who smiles and laughs at some of the same things I do, and maybe, just maybe, you are also someone who wants to spend a little time with the ones they love, somewhere warm.   I wish you loads of smiles, laughs, warmth and more.  Happy Thanksgiving, if there's a turkey in your near future.  And Merry Christmas, too.  (Bet I'm the first this year to say that!)  I promise I'll bring along a little bit of Vietnam to show and tell in the new year.

Burgundy break.

There's nothing finer than a little rest and relaxation with some good friends. Top down, radio tuned to something Cuban-ish, I've just breezed in from a long weekend due north of Beaune, the endlessly charming little capital of Burgundy wine, smack dab in the pastoral Côte d’Or. In the time we had together, there was a lot of talking going on. Some low-speed swaying in a hammock. Even a moment of badminton, in the thinnest summer blouse hauled out of the back of the closet. But mostly, I was eating (with lunch winding down at 4.30 pm et cetera). There may have been some drinking of wine going on. In my own garden I always putter. Nod if you know what I mean. I can't help myself; there's always something. But in someone else's finely-manicured, sun-soaked garden, well, strain was not the order of the day.We didn't solve all the world's problems, but we did catch up on all the news closer to home. We swapped recipes. And visiting them reminded me of how much there is to do in Burgundy. Yes, there is wine. If you go, definitely treat yourself to the 60 kilometer long Route des Grands Crus, which wanders in and out of about forty of the most renowned wine villages of the fabled region--Puligny-Montrachet, Pommard, Volnay, Meursault, Nuits-Saint-Georges, and so on, from Dijon to Santenay. Beyond the tipple, Dijon and Beaune themselves are well worth visiting (outside of the high season!) And there is the twelfth century Cistercian Abbey de Fontenay, which I still haven't managed to visit though I really do want to see it, and its gardens. There are also heaps of gorgeous chateaux well worth a wander. I didn't do any of that, didn't actually do anything really touristic, although I did manage a visit to the rather sedate city of Gray (pictures to be posted next time, I think). I did have time to think about Burgundy and its exquisite pleasures--both the ephemeral and the ageless ones--as the weather kindly allowed for extensive lingering over glasses. One late night, after cheeses and Burgundy reds, I tried eau-de-vie de gentiane. This? Not for the faint-hearted. The roots of the flowering yellow gentian are laboriously ripped from the earth, cleaned and finely sliced; it takes 16 kilos of roots and rhizomes to make a single liter of eau-de-vie. These plant bits are fermented in oak barrels, and the resulting clear, powerfully scented liquid weighs in at about 55% alcohol, and can easily run to 75 euros per 3/4 liter bottle. Your head spins once you get a decent whiff of the radically earthy, pungent drink, considered a healthful after-dinner digestif. Take the smallest of sips the very first time. Give your head and senses time to adjust. You'll either be wildly for it or against it. No fence-sitting here. I've no photo, because I forgot to take one, but even if I had you'd be no more the wiser, as I drank an artisanal (read: illegally home-distilled) one--high-quality, with no added sugar--but no label either. If only blogs had a scratch and sniff application, then perhaps you'd have an idea. But yellow gentian is also in the French apéritif Suze, so if you've ever tasted that, you've a notion of what I was imbibing. (Yellow gentian's also one of the 56 herbs found in Jägermeister, but comparisons to that 70 proof, heavy metal hangover-in-a-bottle are probably neither alluring nor accurate...I mean, yikes.)

Hitting the spot.

Outside of Laramie, I had a late lunch at a near-empty diner. It wasn't a great diner--it was the only option. But it was clean--and it wasn't only a diner, either, being a (busier) tavern (with a separate entrance), gas station, and mini-market, all in one. There were the swivel chairs at the counter and the fry cook with a beer. And there was me, hungry.The obvious choice, among the burgers & company crowding the menu, was the classic BLT. This stands for Bacon Lettuce Tomato, if you are one of the uninitiated. The BLT is as basic as it gets: between two slices of dead-plain toasted square sandwich bread, throw a lick of mayonnaise, a few rashers of bacon (no matter the sort, as long as it's crispy), thin slices of tomato, and some crunchy Iceberg lettuce. That's the lettuce with virtually no nutritional content. If you're nouveau, you use Romaine or Bibb lettuce. But don't even suggest arugula.

You may not know it, but human beings are genetically programmed to respond very positively to this dish. Lick-their-fingers positively. (Those who eat pig, anyway). It's a noisy, down-home party in your mouth, just try it and see. Some'll try to gussy it up, turning it into the multi-layer club sandwich, with its addition of chicken breast. Over the top. On the other extreme, you have the English, who apparently sorely lack imagination if their minimalist bacon sandwich is anything to go by. This is inexplicably popular despite being only bacon...crammed in bread. With brown sauce. (Hangover food?) Sometimes life brings you a question mark. But what do you do if you live other places, say France, where sliced bacon/rashers aren't easy to find? You could ask your butcher for a custom cut, but you can also satisfy this deep-seated craving you never knew you had by making a BLT salad.

This salad finds its perfectly bacon-y equilibrium in the yummy somewhere between crisp-sauteed lardons (small cubes of bacon, sold everywhere and all but ubiquitous in French cooking), home-toasted croutons and some mouth-filling toms and lettuce. This salad isn't what you proudly describe to your doctor as she's checking your blood pressure, nor might you advertise it to either your vegan friend or the one who (masochistically?) pinches calories. All the same, this BLT salad will earn you friends, recipe requests--and an aura of respectability that the lowly (if spectacularly satisfying) BLT sandwich simply cannot.

This salad, this bowlful of backyard USA, is what's for lunch tomorrow; this may be because life threw us another question mark(/exclamation point), here in the sunny south of France.
Yes, folks, that is my backyard Français today, March 9 (and that is the elevated hen house pictured below). Making this salad might just be my calorific form of denial: spring and its salad fixin's are too on the way!
A shoutout to the recently dearly departed Gourmet Magazine, whose 20th century recipe was my starting point, with input from many along the way, including an old friend in Chicago, Sheila Lukins and Martha Stewart. (Oh dear, I think that sound liked a draft Oscar acceptance speech. Not as good as Sandra Bullock's, but hey, when it's this good...) Salade a l'Americaine (BLT Salad)

Serves 4.

200-250 g lardons
4 cups cubed, stale but not hard baguette
4-5 ripe tomatoes, cubed
7 cups lettuce, preferably Romaine or Bibb-style

3 tablespoons mayonnaise
1/3 cup buttermilk (in France, get the Arabic fermented milk, available in most markets)
1 teaspoon pesto
2 tablespoons cider vinegar

2 tablespoons fresh garlic chives or green onions, minced
optional: one or two handfuls crumbled blue cheese

Preheat oven to 350F.

Clean and air-dry lettuce. You don't want wet lettuce diluting the luscious kick of this salad. Tear into manageably bite-sized pieces. Especially if this is for a date.

Saute the lardons in a pan over medium heat golden and crispy. Drain them on a paper towel, setting aside 3 tablespoons bacon drippings and discarding the rest.

Toss bread cubes with bacon fat. Season with salt and pepper, spread in a single layer on baking sheet. Bake until golden, 12-15 minutes, shaking the pan once. Remove and set aside.

In a separate bowl, emulsify the dressing ingredients with a fork. Drizzle over salad, toss well, add tomatoes and croutons. Sprinkle with chives and optional finely crumbled blue cheese.

Highways and byways: to Laramie via Laguna.

Old signs have intrinsic appeal for me. They suggest that a particular life has happened in a given place. They remind you of graphic and font styles that came and went, or that were never really here to begin with. I like the idea of one-of's, the no-franchising-likely-with-that-kind of-signage, but if you stop on by, we'll provide you with a service of one sort or another kind of places. Heck, I like that you can still get gas at Sinclair gas pumps, and that sometimes there's an actual model of a rather beaten-up green dinosaur. I know it's a corporation, but those gas stations are still old school.

Perhaps I like old signs most of all because they remind me of the kinds of road trips that involve more time on the secondary roads than the numbing major highways. If that sounds like it's your way to travel, here's where I strongly recommend William Least Heat-Moon's transcendent Blue Highways, for serious dreaming and escaping in the comfort of your shabbiest armchair. His book may even occasion a shift in how you view the United States.

This latest trip was limited in scope, though I did have time to recharge my vitamin D levels on the coastline (for a emptier beach, like the one above, try Crystal Cove State Park, just to the north of Laguna Beach), and to people- and seagull-watch on various boardwalks and piers.

How I'd love to take you up the coastline north of LA; that'll have to wait for another trip. Can you see how much affection I have for all the microclimates--coastline, desert, deep forest, mountain range--that make up the state of California? Too soon, it was time to head north (by plane, darn the pesky constraints of real life). Upon my arrival in the snow-stung state of Wyoming, the hotel clerk asked "business or pleasure" and looked at me in mild disbelief when I declared the latter.

The winter months aren't exactly high season in Wyoming (population 550,000, give or take) where until recently the pronghorn antelope outnumbered the people. It's the emptiest state in the nation (which is perhaps why it teems with wildlife); in the winter, you basically only go to Wyoming if you dig snowmobiles. That, or if your sister has just had her first baby. (Wyoming summers, on the other hand, while brief, are incredible).

Laramie is home for my sister--and the University of Wyoming. The presence of students may help explain why it is a liberal oasis in an immense, solidly conservative state (aka Dick Cheney Territory). At 29,000, the town isn't that small. Just up the way, Centennial proudly stands at 110 residents. Down the highway, the metropolis of Buford wins. Its population? One. I kid you not.I strolled through the well-stocked organic co-op (you can grind your own flours on the spot!), browsed for books in the independently owned, immensely welcoming Second Story. Perhaps its past as a thriving brothel and dance hall (located strategically next to the train tracks) explains its openness. I was pointed to the "best coffee in town"--Coal Creek Coffee Co.--just past the "massage therapy & oxygen bar". From their extensive (for a coffeshop) menu you can order a "Hot Snow", which is a hot chocolate made with almond extract and--you guessed it--white chocolate.

The people are friendly in Laramie. Very friendly. They make the French locals where I live seem nearly surly in comparison, which they actually (almost) never are. There were chats left and right and unsolicited offers of help for the duration of my Wyoming visit.

6-foot high snowbreak, to limit the drift of snow.

Maybe you get friendlier when you live where it's winter more than half the year--and a stranger rolls into town.

Rooms with a view and a bit more.

A table for two, with a view of the San Gabriel mountains.

The J. Paul Getty Trust, with its $4.2 billion endowment (from oil--what else?), is the world's richest art institution and the one the other museums love to hate due to its ability to outbid anyone, inflating art world prices along the way. The Getty Center is its $1 billion+ Richard Meier-designed showpiece, which serenely watches over Los Angeles and the Pacific Ocean from its 110-acre hillside perch. How does one go about spending that kind of money? For starters, while there is a charge for parking, there's no entrance fee (in 2008 they welcomed 1.8 million visitors) in this museum that houses a large collection of Western art and decorative arts (like the amazing French clock below--see that clambering monkey?). The pieces date from the Middle Ages to the present. There are the Caravaggios, the Rembrandts, the Renoirs, the Picassos, just to name-drop a bit. Then there are the series of pavilions themselves, built using more than 16,00 tons of Italian Travertine marble and the white metal panel cladding favored by Meier. This is the antithesis of Frank Gehry's effervescent Bilbao Guggenheim. While grand by virtue of sheer scale, long sightlines and the measured balance of its curves and straight lines, the Getty Center is above all serene. You slow down, your eyes have room to travel.

Paul Gauguin also sculpted.

The art has room to breathe--and plenty of gorgeous natural light. Photos are allowed (!), without flash--except of photos on exhibit (?). The architect used a lot of white, somewhat broken up by pools of water and when you move from one building to another, the brightness really startles. It must be simply blinding in summer. If it rains, there are umbrellas at the ready door-side. If you become hungry (this easily becomes a day-long visit), the food options are good, but bringing a picnic seems only natural given the space and seating options.

Detail of a painting by Franz Winterhalter.

I didn't have the kind of time I would have liked to explore the gardens, but as you can see in the well-illustrated and described post by the Intercontinental Gardener, they are sumptuous and original.

If old paintings leave you cold, there are the buildings. If architecture isn't your deal, there are the gardens. If gardens don't rock your world, there is the view, from innumerable vantage points, indoors and out. If I had to do it over, I would have stayed for the sunset; on Saturdays after 5 pm there is no fee for parking. How the sprawling LA nightscape must glitter.

Un peu de nostalgie.

This little reverie was put together by Marco Aslan, from footage taken in France, with a couple of images from Sao Paolo and New York City. The music is by Sigur Ros. To be enjoyed near a crackling fire, with a cup of [insert name of your favorite hot beverage here]. Failing those options, five minutes of quiet attention will do nicely; just remember to click twice on the play icon and give it a bit of time to upload before clicking once again.

When things aren't as might be expected.

I haven't disappeared, but am simply somewhere else, very different indeed. Every now and then, La Vie Cévenole just isn't, well, Cévenole. This is one of those times. For the past week, I have been forging my way through the vast African expanses of the Northern and Western Cape down toward Cape Town. Access to a computer, let alone internet, has been non-existent.

I can't wait to share some of what I've been able to see, but I'll have to. I do promise to share stories and photos just soon as I am home again, in front of my trusty old screen...

Going all tourist.

I had a minor dose of weather shock in the Netherlands, having gotten quite used to the pervasive siesta-inducing heat of the south. But other than the on-going distraction of scattered showers and rummaging for sweaters at the beach at midday, I was fully occupied in a bit of unabashed tourism, the kind of visiting that I too rarely did as a local. Here is some of what I liked of this most modest and splendid of cities.

The last few photos are of the newly renovated Royal Palace on Dam Square. In the decade I lived in Amsterdam, I was never really tempted to enter the building, in large part because from the outside it simply looks like the time-blackened municipal hall that it once was. But, you know, if it was good enough to serve as the royal palace for Napoleon's brother Louis (anointed King of Holland) and currently reigning Queen Beatrix, then it's most likely good enough for me to visit. That was sort of how my thinking went anyway. Plus it had just reopened a couple of weeks ago after a long renovation. The lavishly carved (over 15 years' worth by 17th century Artus Quellinus), jewel-box vaulted interior spaces of glowing white marble validated this line of reasoning quite admirably. Dutch Baroque, and unabashedly so.