Category: stories

Although we can hear every night (in France) wild
boar descending the mountain in search for water and though
shooting them seems to be the only (male) social activity in Sablieres
this time of year, it is much easier to prepare a wild boar stew in
Belgium than in the Ardeche-
Cevenole. The reason being that it is impossible to find wild boar
meat in a supermarket or butcher in the region. A few years ago we
went there in the winter and I wanted to prepare wild boar for
new-year's eve but every butcher we approached for meat replied
with a fairly angry 'ne fais pas!' as if we asked him to
perform some illegal act (which probably, unknowingly, we did…).
In contrast, supermarkets and butchers are flooded with duck
('fillet de canard', 'cuisse de canard', 'confit
de canard', you name it) but I've never spotted a living duck
in the entire region! It turned out that, in order to prevent people
from shooting boar to make a living, it is not allowed to sell wild
boar meat. The only possibility to get it is either to shoot one
yourself or to have a friend in the local hunting society (les
chasseurs, omnipresent and rather political influencial in France).
Once you managed the latter, you have to master the basics of the
exchange-trade (you always have to give one commodity to get another).
The first time we offered a bottle of Pastis (Ricard) which was
flatly rejected because to them the value of Pastis is much higher
than that of boar meat, but they would accept a bottle of wine
instead…
Anyway, here is a fairly erratic recipe for wild
boar (serves 4 to 6) as I made it on thursday : get 1kg to 1.5kg of
wild boar meat, defrost if necessary and slice it into 1-2-3cm
cubicles (don't take this too strict). Meanwhile, heat up plenty
of olive oil, slice up two fairly large onions and as much garlic as
you (and your dinner partners) can master and fry this in the oil. Add
the sliced up meat and let it fry until all pieces are nicely brown.
Add pepper and your favourite herb (which is Thyme in my case, but
Oregano or Rosemary might be other choices). Add half of bottle (or
more) of red wine and some water (change percentages if you have
younger children) and heat it up. Have a look in the refrigerator for
vegatables that would go well with the meat. This time I used carrots,
mushroom and courgettes as they were available but use your own taste
to change this. Slice up 6 big carrots and add them (in general :
slice up the harder vegetables and add them now, keep the softer
vegetables for later) and let all of this stew for 2 hrs or more on a
moderate fire (stir every 10 minutes and add wine/water when needed).
Half an hour before serving add the courgettes (or any other softer
vegetable) and 15minutes later the mushrooms. Should be accompanied
with a proper 'gratin' but as I cannot approximate the one
made by Michel, chef of camping la drobie and part-time mayor of the local
village, I went for Rosti on thursday. Enjoy!

Clearly the best thing to do for me right now would be to get into
the car and drive a 1000km south to our regular place in France. The
weather should still be good enough to have lunch outside wearing only
a T-shirt, the colours of the leaves will be splendid and the grapes
'a point'. But then we all have resp. work to finish, schools
to attend and courses to teach so all of this will have to be delayed
just a little bit longer…
Some people are more fortunate.
According to her october column, Jeanette Winterson did spend most of
september in France and the daily routine she describes resembles ours
quite well. Mind you, there are differences. Whereas she goes for a
Kir I'll prefer a proper Pastis any time. She drinks the local
white wine, we go for the Rose (weather and supply permitting…)
from the Cave Cooperative 'La Cevenole' in
Rosieres. She only has to cycle 4 kilometers to get into

… a remote village enjoying two bakeries, a
butcher, a greengrocer, a fabulous deli, and a bar.

For us the nearest village having all of this on offer is Joyeuse and it takes 45 minutes by
car along narrow and winding roads to get there (1hr by bicycle to,
2hrs by bicycle back). The more important facts are similar though as
Jeanette Winterson describes in her september column :

It was a good day
to slow down, and now that I am here, I will find a different rhythm,
or rather, re-find the rhythm natural to me.Of course, what’s
important to me may not be important to you, different priorities are
fine, but I think we should make intelligent choices. The fact is that
a lot of what we do isn’t a choice at all, intelligent or stupid, we
just do it passively, and wonder where the day has gone.

How
many days in a life?

And when it’s gone, it’s gone.

I can hear a woodpecker tapping away like me. Maybe that
woodpecker is writing its memoirs. The woodpecker can hear me tapping
too. I am right by its tree, high up, in a top turret room. This
sympathetic Morse code makes me feel part of the life of the tree. It
is easier here to belong to other life forms, other ways of life. I am
aware of all the noises, the scents, the temperature. In the city, we
spend a lot of energy shutting life out – the noise, the aggression,
the crowded feel. It is such a relief to let life in, and even as I
write those words, I wonder how bonkers we are, making a life that is
anti-life; a life where life has to be shut out.

my mother died this afternoon. everything else is irrelevant.

lieven.

After several years of total inactivity in the DIY-sector I managed to do the following over the week-end :

• Replace two bedroom reading lamps (at least two years overdue). We had a two-lamps-in-one IKEA thing but ThePartner’s side broke off two years ago and mine followed a year later. Since then one lamp hung in very unstable equilibrium and in the end the only way to prevent nightly accidents was to position it vertically

• Fix the halogen spots in the kitchen (at least one year overdue). Two years ago one half of the spots went dead because the transfo overheated. I spend a week trying to find the (totally unreachable) place where it was hidden by the installers, so I wasn’t looking forward to a repeat when the second half went dead last year. Yesterday, after replacing the transfo it became clear that this time it was just a matter of faulty spots

• Rewire the dinner room (at least three years overdue). For years an outlet was lying around on the floor. It is now replaced by a state of the art cable tray

You do not need to have a master in psychoanalysis to figure out that I am subconsciously trying to regain some control over OurHouseSystem which PseudonymousDaughterOne gave a couple of blows this week. And, running electricity errands has a much higher effect-rate than parental interference.