I’ve posted a recipe before where I tried to dupicate a tagine without actually have the right dish. A while ago we got one at our grocery store, a store called Hyper U-I thought it was such a funny name when I first moved here. After you have spent hundreds, if not thousands, of euros there, you can get “free” items. I got a toaster, an electric water pot and now this.

It’s made by a company called Emile Henry whose family has been making these since 1850 in Burgundy. I had wanted to buy a tagine dish in Morocco but was worried about carrying it home. This is a nice substitute. By the way, the word tagine refrers to both the contents cooked inside as well as the cooking container. It’s made from glazed clay and has a lid like a pointed hat that allows the steam to circulate inside.

A close up of the label.

I had been given this bag of spices some time ago but never used it until now. I was afraid there would be a strong taste of curry but it turned out to have a really nice flavor. Normally, tagine is made with lamb, prunes and almonds which is very representative of Morocco. I decided to use chicken.

It tasted so much better than this photo shows. Chicken can be a difficult subject to photograph-so pale.
Here is the recipe. Not really French but you find this type of dish a lot in France now.

In a hot tagine, fry the chicken in olive oil adding chopped onions, salt and pepper, dried ginger and saffron (I just used the spice I had.) Add 3 glasses of water and some sliced preserved lemons. ( I didn’t have preserved lemons so just added some fresh sliced lemons). I also added some white wine. Cover and cook for 30 minutes over low heat. More water can be added if it looks too dry. I usully do this type of dish in the oven but decided to try it their way. Add the juice of one lemon and cook for 15 more minutes. At the end of cooking add 2/3 cup green olives, and chooped parsely and coriander.
It was very fragrant, the chicken very tender and very easy to do. I think I could have put potatoes in the dish too but decided to cook rice serarately.

A vineyard not too far from where we live in Provence called Val Joanis has a really fabulous garden. No weeds, no snails, almost all of the plants are without blemish. They must have a crew of at least four people. Meredith, who joined me there, wondered where the vegetables went. They only appear to sell wine there as well as some gift items but no vegetables. I’ve posted photos of the garden here before but there’s always room for more I guess.

This is on the door into the garden.

I don’t know if they use these watering pots but I like the grouping of them.

A decorative garden item that someone put an apple on.

A road on the side of the garden passing through a grove of olive trees.

They had this vine of berries trained around a charming round frame.

Aren’t these decorated posts great?

This isn’t too exciting as posts go but I thought I would post a couple of photos of a chair belonging to a set of 4 that we bought for our apartment in Paris. We found them at a type of used furniture store which sold furniture both antique and just used. They are bistro chairs, once commonly found at bistros and restaurants in France. I’ve seen a few here and there in Paris but they aren’t as common any more. I just liked the shape of them and the design on the seat. Maurice doesn’t find them very comfortable but I don’t want to cover up that lovely design.

We also got an antique table at the same time which I neglected taking a photo of. It is oval in shape with gate legs that can be folded so a leaf of the table can drop-something we need in our small apartment. We only open it to full size when we have company.

On another note, a look at my French. After my month long immersion class and now only speaking French with Maurice I was feeling decidily optomistic on my French speaking-until I tried to buy some bread that is. Maurice asked me to get him a baquette, but one that is called “tradition”. Sounded easy to me, so I went into the boulangerie and asked for a baquette tradition. The man behind the counter, who was also the baker but manning the shop (he is married to the woman who is usually there), grabbed a regular baguette to stick in the sack. “No,” I said, ” a baguette tradition.” He grabbed a baquette that had been cut in half. I said no again and repeated what I wanted. This time he grabbed a baquette with cereal in it. Again I said, “un baguette tradition”. I could have just pointed at it but I wanted him to understand what I was saying. He finally grabbed the right one. I don’t know if it was a lucky guess or not. I obviously am doing something wrong. Maurice says I am just trying too hard.

At one end of line one of the metro in Paris you will reach a huge business area called la Defense. Maurice even had an office here when he worked with IBM which was the first time I ever visited this area. I got very lost-thank God for cell phones.

This is the main building there. It is also a sort of Arch de Triumph of the modern kind. You can take an elevator to the top but it’s quite a distance from central Paris and it is hard to see much there.

A closer view of the Arch.

It lines up with the Arch de Triumph as you can see here in the distance. If you continue on in a straight line, you go down the Champs Elysees, to Place de la Concorde, and then on to the Pyramid of the Louvre.

The area is full of beautiful business buildings, many places to eat that are full of employees from there, and hotels. There is also a huge underground shopping mall.

There are a lot of sculptures there and this is one. Why the artist chose a thumb, I have no idea. Up close it looks like the hide of an elephant.

It’s hard to find any place more dramatic and beautiful than Notre Dame. Not only has it been standing for over 900 years, it remains the most visited monument in Paris by both the faithful and just the curious or those wanting to see lasting beauty.

Not too far from the front of the church is this marker which is point zero where measurements of distances from Paris to other cities are calculated-I suppose by satellite.

These figures are above the central door in the front of Notre Dame. It depics the Last Judgement and the figures with the angel on the left go to heaven while the figures on the right in chains go to hell with the devil. I wonder when horns, tail and hooves came into being with the devil? So, if you were illiterate centuries ago and saw this on front of a church, wouldn’t you do everything the priest told you?

I don’t know if there is a more dramatic architecture than gothic.

Isn’t this unusual? I thought maybe it was a green man but it isn’t ancient, just a couple of hundred years old, not done with the original construction, but in a small chapel added on by Violet le Duc, the architect who repaired the church after the damage of the French Revolution. (In the treasures section)

On some of the columns you can find painted areas like this. I’ve read that all of the interior was once painted as was the outside where the statues were even gilded in gold.

The other day I was up in Montmartre and came across a French movie being made. It has to do with the period of WWII in Paris when it was occupied by the Germans and the Jewish people had to wear yellow stars on their clothing and then getting sent to concentration camps. I wish I could have gotten a photo of some of the actors but it wasn’t allowed.

All sorts of temporary building was done so the streets would look like they did back then.

A street sign which must look like what you would have seen in the neighborhood. I wonder if a closeup of it will even make it into the movie. It’s just one of the details they do to make it all look real.

Would you believe that the sculpture of Dalida is under this? They had to cover it because she was a popular pop singer in France in the 60′s who lived up in Montmartre. I imagine there were some tourists walking around with maps trying to find it in vain.

They added a wooden gate to this alley that is normally open.

They built this little place looking like a bistro or bar. I think that this is usually just parking spaces.

There wasn’t a boulangerie there so they attached one to an ordinary door going into a residence. I found it fascinating to watch it all put together and it gave me a little thrill to hear the director yell, “Action!” movie junkie that I am.

PS-I am actually back in Provence but have quite a few photos taken from my time in Paris.