A couple of people expressed some interest in the plates I had taken photos of a few days ago so, this being a slow day here in Provence, I thought I’d put up some more photos and a little about them.

This is a Quimper plate. Maurice gave this to me a long time ago. I never use it, it is for display only as these plates can become collector items. Quimper is a city in Brittany, an interesting part of France, and well known for their pottery. They started putting these little figures dressed in traditional costumes on their pottery in the 1800’s.

I bought this plate in Sante Fe about 15 years ago. It was made in Mexico.

Isn’t this a great plate to serve French cheese on? Would you believe a friend of mine found it at a boot sale in England?

I have a set of four of these salad/dessert plates. A friend of mine gave me these for my birthday right before we moved to Provence. They all have typical scenes found around Provence. Here are the other three:

I bought a set of this pottery in Provence in a village called Biot, also known for their pottery. It was hard to choose, they had so many cute designs. I love blue and yellow-so cheerful.

A shot of the cup and saucer. Can you tell I like pottery? Especially plates.

Of course you will find differences in countries other than your own but I find many of mine are due to not understanding what is being said. For instance, my French teacher said the word, “Achat” which means to buy. I only heard the word “Chat” which means cat. She and I had puzzled expressions on our faces for a while until I finally realized what she was actually saying. She kept wondering why I was looking at her cat.

Our little neighbor boy, Yannis, was here for a couple of hours the other day while his mother expecting her second child-a little girl-went to the doctor. Yannis is a cheerful little guy and chatters on and on in French and I usually understand what he is talking about. I won’t let Maurice leave me alone with him though. The one time Maurice went outside for something Yannis said something that sounded like “le pain gris”. He wanted bread? Gris, which is the word for gray, puzzled me. Was it some type of pastry? So I showed him some bread we had to see if he wanted any but he shook his head and repeated, “Non, le pain gris”. I told him I didn’t understand. He repeated, this time with emphasis, “Le Pain GRIS“. Finally Maurice came in. Yannis wanted his gray rabbit, “Lapin Gris”. It all sounded the same to me.
On our hike the other day with three French women, I was asked how I met Maurice. I told them I met him on a blind date. This got an immediate reaction of interest. I often get this even from Americans with exclamations of, “Really?” and questions wanting to know how it all came about. I was a little puzzled by the reactions and questions of the French women. They said things about being in a dark room and having to find your date by feel and how that all happened. I thought they were just kidding around but the next day my teacher told me that the word “blind” had totally thrown them all off. They thought Maurice and I met in a dark place and literally couldn’t see each other-those crazy American customs. Isn’t that funny? I laughed about it for a long time and still do.
I still haven’t figured out which cheek to offer when doing the double French cheek kiss exchange, by the way. I asked Maurice and he, being a male, didn’t really know. I will ask my French teacher the next chance I get.

I take French lessons from a lady in a nearby village. She is a very active woman into many activities, such as singing in a jazz group, attending many cultural events and, especially, physical activities. When she heard that I did a lot of walking she invited me along on a hike with some of her friends and another of her students. So we met, two American women and three French women, early one morning and set off on a hiking path. Our area is packed with all sorts of hiking paths and they are marked here and there but she also brought along a map. Each of the women had huge back packs while I had a small one carrying my lunch and I wondered what I was going to need that I didn’t have.
I was a little worried as we set off. I do walk just about every day but Dominique had asked me if I could do a rather long and a little difficult hike. Hiking and walking are too different things although it seems to me like they shouldn’t be. It seemed easy as we began. We started off on top of the Luberon Mountains, the crest, and then went downhill and walked along a little road and passed some lavender fields, a cherry orchard where we helped ourselves to some cherries, some isolated houses and an abandoned car. I was feeling rather confident as we walked along chatting in a mixture of French and English when one of them pointed at the mountain on our left and said that was where we were going. They showed me on the map the road we were on and then the curvy little line denoting the climb. And what a climb it turned out to be. In the morning I was upset that a mistral wind was blowing but I blessed it as I climbed for the very much needed ventilation. I was doing fine for a while but after about thirty minutes of steady climbing I knew I was not in good enough shape to make it. I had a similar experience the last time I went skiing. I am a definite average level skier. I love green and most blue runs but put me on a black run-those for advanced skiers-and I loose all confidence. On this ski day I was with all advanced skiers. We did a run on the lower hills and they all skied quickly down hill while I made my slower way down to where they waited for me. Before I could even get my breath they were off again and I had to catch up again. Then they decided to ski a bowl which is a huge open area and, from previous experience, usually can be difficult. I wanted to take off on my own and stay on my happy green and blue runs but they assured me that I was capable of skiing in the bowl. I should have listened to my inner voice. I handled everything ok but was exhausted and finally had to sit in a lodge on top of the mountain while they skiied for a few more hours until we all returned to the bottom at the end of the day. What can I say, I’m a wuss.
Anyway, I digress as usual. I finally ended up at the end of the group. I couldn’t go back, I had to make it to the top. I was wondering what in the world I thought I was doing but finally, at last, made it to the top. What a great feeling even though my legs were killing me. I staggered to the area where the other women waited and we sat down to eat our lunches. I was hoping I would be able to get up again and finish the walk. This was when I found out why their back packs were so large. Two of the women brought out tuperware containers filled with pasta salads and one lady brought out a bottle of wine and crackers for us to start our meal with. Another brought a thermos of hot water and the makings for tea or coffee. There were also cookies and chocolate. Only in France.
Getting back was a piece of cake, all either flat or down hill. The American and I were talking about the French custom of the double cheek kiss when meeting friends or relatives with one of the French women. The other American ’s husband works for an international company in the area and between dinners and meetings with Russians, Germans, Japanese and French, the way to greet someone was getting confusing to her. The French woman helped her saying that the cheek kissing was when you felt you knew someone well. It didn’t have to occur with someone new and her husband wouldn’t be expected to greet his secretary that way. I’ve had a few uncomfortable times myself when I stick out my hand only to find the person I’m greeting is leaning forward to do the double kiss thing. I often offer the wrong cheek too-they are aiming left while I am aiming right.
We had a lot of fun. I don’t know if they will ever invite me back on a hike though. Maybe if it is an easier one.

What do you call leftovers? I was just reading a food blog in the New York Times where the writer, Bitterman, asks his readers what they do with leftovers, what was their favorite thing to do with them. He called a plate of the resulting dish a garbage plate which is less than appetizing but I guess a common name in New York. One lady said she called it a plate of things which I liked. Most people ended up making either an egg dish, a stir fry type dish or mixing things and putting it on pasta.

We don’t have food left over that much. I try to cook so that we don’t as I always end up throwing it out most of the time after it has set in my refrigerator too long to be used without wondering about health risks. The other day I did have left over bean salad, polenta and some Italian ham. So I made a tomato sauce using the ham, grilled slices of polenta so they were crispy and brown and topped it with the sauce and served the bean salad along side. It wasn’t my greatest culinary moment but it is satisfying to use up everything. By the way, my son found out accidentally that if you have some cooked polenta, just off the stove, mix it with spices, butter and cheese and stick it in the oven, it will stay soft until you seve it without turning into that rather hard, rubbery substance too soon. It really works but does harden again once it cools off. Polenta is new on my cooking agenda but I like it. It’s something different from potatoes or rice. (I didn’t take any photos of my leftover meal so took two photos of plates I have)

Can you see the rain falling in this photo? I spoke a little too soon a couple of days ago about the fact that the warm weather was finally here. We are getting some sunshine every morning but heavy thunderstorms every afternoon. There is some sun off in the distance. Today the sky got really black but, luckily, the storm seemed to stay south of us. I wish I could package up the rain and send it to the States or Australia.

A look at sun, sky and clouds all together.

This means, of course, more weeds. Still, it is nice to have some sunshine even if it is only for half a day. I hoping my vegetable garden does as well as the weeds. My roses all sort of rotted on the bushes before they could bloom due to too much water and not enough heat. I hope the vineyard are doing ok around here too. I think they need sunshine and heat more than water. This morning Maurice told me someone in our area was killed by a lightning strike. I love watching storms with lightning and thunder but I try to remember we are high on a hill and that I had better stay inside.

I’m sure everyone has heard of French toast. Did you know that here in France it is called Pain Perdu?This means “lost bread” since it is a way to use up stale bread-hard bread is softened by dipping it in a mixture of milk and eggs and then fried. In Spain it is called torriga, and in England “Poor Knights of Windsor” or Eggy Bread. Denmark calls it arme riddere and Germany arme ritter. It’s also been called nun’s toast. Who knew, right? Maurice has happy memories of eating pain perdu growing up on a farm with his grandmother. Two days ago he bought a loaf of bread that he didn’t like so, since it was stale, he decided to whip up some pain perdu. Here is the recipe he found at www.meilleurduchef.com. I’m sure everyone has their own.

Pain Perdu

1/2 liter milk (about 2 cups)
2 eggs
50 grams sugar (1/4 cup)
2 teaspoons vanilla sugar
100 grams butter (use a tablespoon at a time)
6 pieces of bread

Mix up the milk, sugar and eggs, soak the bread in that mixture then fry in butter. Maurice ate his with sugar sprinkled on top. I dug up an old bottle of maple syrup for mine. We ate it for dinner.