The little village of Le Mesnil Jourdain in Normandy has some wonderful half-timbered houses, both new and old, in addition to the manor house we stayed in over Christmas. Can you tell the old from the new in the ones below?
The oak structure was built first and the holes filled in with wattle-and-daub (upright branches interwoven by smaller branches and covered by a thick coat of clay mud), laths and plaster, or bricks. Nowadays, they are usually renovated with concrete and whitewashed.
The misshapen walls on these old half-timbered buildings are the result of age and not sloppy craftsmenship of course.
This one has a thatched roof. Irises are often planted on a bed of clay along the roof ridge. This is to make sure the ends of the thatch are firmly anchored in place.
From this side, you can tell it’s of recent construction but from the other side, only the regularity of the timbering gives it away.
Once the main building was finished, the towers were added to one end to take the staircase up to the upper floors.
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When I first came to France, the galette des rois was only celebrated on the feast of the Epiphany, the famous 12th day of Christmas, January 6th, the day on which the three kings reached Bethlehem. Now you see the first galettes at New Year and you can buy them right up until 31st January. A galette is a flat cake and the word is also used to describe buckwheat crêpes.
They are two types of galettes des rois: fourrée and non fourrée, meaning that they contain almond cream or are plain. Leonardo disliked almond cream up until recent years so we always bought the plain one, which caused problems among adepts. I can remember one friend actually buying a second galette when I said I’d bring the galette to her house, just in case I only bought the plain sort! Our friendship was short-lived.
The quality of the galette depends on the bakery or pâtisserie you buy it from. It’s basically flaky pastry with a thick pasty almond cream (called “frangipane“) containing a fève or broad bean and is sold with a cardboard crown. Today, the fève is a small plaster or porcelain figurine that can represent anything from a traditional baker to a Disney character. The crowns can be anything from a basic gold affair to something more elaborate and colourful. Usually the more expensive the galette, the more original the fève and crown will be. When the kids were little, they used to make their own.
Traditionally, the youngest child gets under the table. The galette is cut into as many pieces as there are guests. The person under the table then indicates who should get each piece. This was Black Cat’s prerogative before I met Relationnel. After that, it was Thoughtful, as the second twin to be born, who would go under the table. This year, we had our first galette (a little early) with my Australian cousin who is a few months younger. When Brainy Pianist comes back from holidays, it will be his turn. It’s very amusing to see these tall teenagers disappearing under the table!
Whoever gets the fève then chooses a king or queen. When the galette is shared among friends, the person with the fève has to buy the next galette so you can see why it could go on forever. The galette is better when you can warm it in the oven. I’ve tried making my own, but flaky pastry is a tedious affair and even if you buy the pastry ready made, I still prefer the almond paste in the ones from the bakery.
Sharing a galette des rois is popularly known as tirer les rois, where tirer means to draw stakes. We usually accompany it with apple juice and cider but that may just be our own tradition.
I know it’s supposed to be holly and ivy though I don’t know why because most of the ivy – well, the Viriginia creeper anyway – loses its leaves around here in winter. Our holly and mistletoe come from Normandy. We had a lot of problems finding holly with red berries this time but the mistletoe, which is a parasite of course, had grown lower on the apple trees so Relationnel didn’t have to stretch his arms as much!
Photo by Black Cat
When I was a child, we used to buy real holly (houx) from David Jones at Christmas time but I’d never seen mistletoe (gui) until I came to France and discovered that it grows in large bunches that are particularly obvious when the host tree loses its leaves.
The only problem with mistletoe is that its sticky little white berries keep falling off so I’m keeping the New Year branch we’re supposed to kiss under in a bag until the day. Relationnel is on call this year so we won’t be able to join the throngs on New Year’s Eve on the Pont des Arts which has a perfect view of the Eiffel Tower which shimmers and shakes at midnight. We can actually see it from our window but last year low cloud obscured it, which was very sad. I had to use my watch to check the time.
I’m starting to think about our New Year’s Eve feast for two, particularly as it could be interrupted any time if Relationnel is called out. One year we made this terribly complicated capon dish that I got out of “Simply French” by Patricia Wells, but considering the hours it took to make, I found the result very disappointing. So now I make much simpler recipes such as pan-fried foie gras and verrines with lots of interesting bits and pieces that I can vary according to whim and the ingredients I have at home. Far more satisfying.
Verrines – from verre meaning glass and modelled on the word terrine which comes from terre or clay – are shot glasses in various shapes and sizes that have become very popular in France over the last few years for serving individual starters and desserts. I love making them because you can be very inventive and they can be prepared ahead of time. The idea is to have different layers and colours so that they look attractive from the outside.
At Christmas we had two verrines for starters: slices of sea scallops alternating with beds of leeks and eggplant purée topped with ricotta and walnuts; and two for dessert: pannacotta on a layer of coffee jelly topped with crumbled brown sugar biscuits from Belgium called speculoos and slightly cooked pear pieces alternating with fromage blanc and candied ginger. Since I had only taken along two sets of verrines, I used ordinary glasses for the desserts.
Unfortunately, there is no Boxing Day in France. We had to pack up everything in Normandy and leave last night which was very sad. I couldn’t believe how much stuff we’d acquired in just over a week! There were all the Christmas decorations for the tree and crib and table of course plus the holly from the forest and mistletoe from the apple trees. But we also went to two other dépôt vente places and came away with all sorts of wonderful things for the new house in Blois, including a lovely old 5-branch ceiling light that Relationnel managed to drop when putting it into the car for the return journey – fortunately it didn’t shatter and the crack shouldn’t be too noticeable when it’s attached to the ceiling. We didn’t buy the Australian guitar or the aggressive GI!
When we got home to our apartment in Paris, it all had to be unpacked of course which was complicated by the fact that the bedroom ceiling had been repainted during our absence. A few months ago, large drops of water suddenly started to appear on the ceiling above the bed. Apparently, the gutters on the terrace of the flat above us were blocked up. By the time they were unblocked, the paint was peeling off in large flakes. So all the bedroom furniture was in the lounge and we couldn’t put it back until we got the curtains back from the dry cleaners today.
Gathering holly
To console ourselves, we finished off our home made foie gras that turned out to be the best we’ve made yet (must have been because I dropped the iPhone in it during the process) accompanied by the delicious compote de fruits vieux garçon (bachelor’s fruit compote) we made on Saturday (recipe below – requires expertise in making caramel which I do not have but that fortunately Relationnel does) and the rest of the Pierre Adam Kaefferdopf gewurztraminer 2006. There were even a few slices of pain brioché au miel left to go with it. Followed by smoked salmon, lychees and Rozan chocolates with our coffee. A nice way to end off Christmas day.
My scales told me this morning that we’ll be eating grilled fish and chicken and steamed vegetables for the rest of the week … in preparation for New Year!
Compote de fruits vieux garçonIngredients : 1 apple, 1 pear, 6 dried abricots, 6 prunes, 6 cl of port wine, 80 g of honey.
Peel the apple and pear and cut them into 1 cm squares. Chop the dried fruit into 5 mm pieces and soak in the port wine. The recipe doesn’t say for how long but it was probably about 20 to 30 minutes because I was using the only large saucepan for something else.
Put the honey in a large saucepan and caramelise. You have to use fairly high heat. Quite suddenly, it all froths up and this is where the expertise comes in. If you cook it too much it burns. The trick is to squeeze in some lemon juice at just the right moment to reduce the heat and stop the caramelising process. I did the squeezing. Relationnel said when.
Then you add the apple and pear and cook for 3 minutes followed by the dried fruit and port. You let them stew for at least 20 minutes at moderate heat, stirring often to prevent sticking.
You can keep it for a week in the fridge.
When I was a child in Townsville, our Christmas tree was an athel pine. Well, I think it was anyway. You certainly couldn’t buy fir trees or go out and cut them down in the forest as Relationnel and his father did when he was little. After a while, my mother got sick of all the mess from the athel pine and decided, to our great dismay, to buy an awful looking imitation tree. It was also tiny.
So when I had my own children in France, we used to buy a real fir tree until the first year I spent Christmas on my own after my divorce. I had decided not to have a tree that year but felt so miserable on Christmas Eve without my kids or a tree that I went to the local hypermarket and bought a pretend one. These days, they are far more realistic than the one Mum bought. Black Cat and Leonard were not impressed though.
When we started coming to Le Mesnil Jourdain for Christmas, there were no more excuses for not buying the real thing. First, there is always a vendor in Louviers, second, they sell Nordman trees that don’t lose their needles and third, there is plenty of room for a big one. Last year, it snowed so much that we nearly missed out because we were housebound for two days. By the time we got back to Louviers, the vendor had packed up and gone. Fortunately the flower shop in the main street still had some left. This year, it was the first thing we did when we got here. I love the system. First, you choose your tree, then they put it through a Christmas tree packaging machine and it comes out the other end in netting so that it’s easier to transport.
Black Cat is coming this afternoon so we’ll decorate the tree together. The male element (as my father used to say) likes the idea of the tree but are not even remotely interested in decorating it. All our decorations have a story, starting with the oldest, two little Chinese lanterns a friend brought back from Hong Kong when I was in high school and that I kept safely until I had my own tree. Several of the decorations were made by Leonardo who is an origami expert and one by Forge Ahead when he was little. All the others come from our travels.
We try to bring back something for the tree from each place we visit. We began in Rottenburg in Germany after we discovered the wonderful Käthe Wohlfahrt Christmas store. I could have bought the whole shop! The decorations are absolutely fabulous. Our latest acquisitions are a flamenco shoe from Seville, a traditional heart from Croatia, a pendant key ring from Bosnia Herzogovina and a violin from Innsbruck in Austria. We seem to have forgotten about Slovenia! Black Cat also adds to the collection whenever she can. This year she brought us back a lovely hand-painted bauble from Sweden. Friends who know about it contribute as well – we now have a little plaque depicting the French quarter in New Orleans.
My favourites are two baubles from the decorative arts museum next to the Louvre, the one Black Cat brought back from Saint Paul’s in London, the beautiful ruched egg a friend made me, Leonardo’s origami unicorn, Thoughtful’s king on a reindeer and the crib inside a glass bauble.
It’s a good thing we’ve bought a house of our own in Blois – we’ll need a truck to transport everything soon!
We always go to the market in Le Neubourg in Normandy on the Wednesday before Christmas. Definitely not a tourist venue, but it’s a real country market with lots of little old ladies selling what they can spare from their gardens, such as chestnuts, eggs, leeks, carrots and even holly with red berries (that’s why I can’t find any in the forests – they’ve taken it all). There are vendors you only find on local markets selling blouses (a sort of house coat that country housewives of the older generation still wear over their regular clothing), charentaises (those awful checked carpet slippers), rubber boots (because it rains so much), flannel nightdresses buttoned up to the neck, handkerchiefs and other things you can’t buy in Monoprix any more.
Then there are the local specialities such as onion-flavoured black pudding from the charcuterie and Norman high-fat cheeses such as the well-known round camembert, the square-shaped pont l’évèque, the heart-shaped neufchatel, the strong-smelling livarot that I won’t let Relationnel buy any more and the very delicious excessively creamy brillat-savarin that I don’t let myself buy because of how quickly it seems to disappear!
We also like to buy our favourite “spéciales” oysters from Normandy but this year, for some unknown reason, there wasn’t a single oyster vendor on the whole market! So instead we bought 4 kilos of coquilles Saint Jacques (the large sea scallops they fish off the Norman coast which I love), a real bargain at 22 euros! They opened them all in record time, joking among themselves the whole time, despite the cold and steady drizzle! Last year, they were just as cheery in the snow.
There isn’t only food and little old ladies’ clothing of course. You can buy the latest fashion, including jeans and demin jackets, stretch pants and boots and these gorgeous little hats! I tried a couple on in the hope of keeping my ears warm without having to wear my hood all the time but I look absolutely ghastly, not anything like these cut little models!
But what I like best is the live poultry. An amazing variety of hens and ducks (including wild mallards), capons, turkeys, guinea fowl and geese. I felt rather sorry for them, knowing that they’d soon be in the pot, particularly since we’ll be having côte de boeuf cooked in the open hearth! I won’t mention the foie gras …
Le Mesnil Jourdain with Le Logis du Porche & church
One of the sad things about Normandy is that it rains a lot. For the last four years, we’ve had snow at Christmas with particularly heavy falls last year. This year, however, it’s not cold enough so we’ve got rain instead.
This is the fifth Christmas we’ve spent in this lovely mediaeval manor house in Le Mesnil Jourdain. The main buildings form an L-shape. “Our” house, Le Logis du Porche, was built in the 15th century while the owners, Valérie and Marc Jonquez, live in the 16th century wing. Le Logis de la Garenne on the other side of the courtyard was built during the reign of Louis XIII in the 17th century up against a mediaeval motte. That, in case you don’t know, is the artificial mound on which theNormans used to build their keeps. Today it’s home to a herd of goats. There is a beautiful vaulted ceiling on the ground floor.
16C wing
But we prefer the Logis du Porche for its huge brick fireplace, large bay window with its original grille and stone seats where the ladies used to sit with their embroidery and watch the world go by in the courtyard below, its original timbered ceiling and lovely oak panelled door. The stone walls are as thick as the length of your arm and there’s even an arrow slit! That’s on the main floor. Upstairs, one of the bedrooms has a massive low timber door with a peak hole and traces of oil lamps on the walls while one of the others has an enormous fireplace where they used to hang the meat and an original mullion window.
La Garenne
Valérie et Marc have done a wonderful job of restoring and decorating both houses, combining modern comfort with the historical charm and authenticity we love. It was Le Mesnil Jourdain that inspired us to buy the house in Blois. Our four children usually join us for Christmas, but this year, with Leonardo in Sydney and Forge Ahead in Madagascar, there will only be four of us. We’re waiting until Black Cat arrives to decorate the tree and put up the crib. But more of that in another post.
Joan of Arc's tears
Back to rainy Rouen. One of our pilgrimages is always to Auzou’s in the main street where they sell Joan of Arc’s tears – chocolate-coated almonds! I actually prefer Rozans des Pyrénées, melt-in-the-mouth chocolates that traditionally are only made in the Pyrenees in winter and that you can only usually find at Christmas. You have to keep them in the fridge. But the other members of the family prefer praline chocolates except for Black Cat who has never liked chocolates. When she was growing up in a country of chocolate freaks, she was so embarrassed about it that she used to tell everyone that “my mother won’t let me eat chocolates.”
Rouen cathedral with Christmas market
I like doing our Christmas shopping in Rouen because the historical centre is very attractive with its half-timbered houses and enormous clock tower spanning the main street. The cathedral, made famous by Monet, is always worth a visit as well. We usually have lunch at the art deco Brasserie Paul on one side of the cathedral. It’s in all the guide books so it very popular, but we still enjoy it. At 14 or 15 euros for the main dish, it’s also good value for money. It also sells real cappuccino (as opposed to the usual Norman “all-cream” version if you prefer a mid-morning or mid-afternoon break instead. Maybe next time, it won’t be raining!
I love the Christmas decorations on individual homes in the French countryside. It’s amazing how many Santa Clauses (père noël) you see climbing up the walls! I don’t know how they explain it to the kids. Apart from the Father Christmas in David Jones, I don’t remember ever seeing any others. We would dutifully leave out our milk and biscuits and I even went to sleep on the floor of my parents’ room once because I’d left something off my wish list but I didn’t get to see him after all.
My mother used to play Santa Claus for my youngest brother on Christmas Day. Dad certainly wouldn’t have done anything as undignified! She wore a pair of men’s pyjamas that she’d dyed red and ho! ho! hoed! around. She realised it was time to stop though when my brother whispered to her “Mum, your fly’s undone!”
In his sleigh this time
Leonardo came home from school when he was in first grade and said, “You know, the teacher and I are the only ones who believe in Santa Claus. Pity for the others!” He thought it was like god – there were believers and non-believers and obviously the stakes were much higher for Father Christmas.
I didn’t perpetrate the photo with Santa Claus tradition for my children though I do have one taken in Townsville one time we were in Australia for Christmas but I love getting the ones from my brother with his three little boys.
I don’t know how they explain this one – if you look closely, you’ll see two Santa Clauses! Maybe it’s a race.
And I think the next photo is the best of them all. This time, Père Noël is climbing up the town hall in Port Mort (Dead Port!). I’ve been trying to imagine what sort of presents the town councillors are expecting! May a new name for the town.
The French post office has changed. You used to spend hours waiting in queues in dismal-looking buildings hoping that the person behind the window in front of you wouldn’t suddenly close it just before you got there. I took to buying aerogrammes (remember them?) so that I wouldn’t have to go to the PO too often. I discovered that one of the reasons for the long queues is that the post office is also a bank, which is particularly popular in rural areas where there is a post office, but not a bank, in every village. Why anyone would have a post office account in Paris is beyond my understanding.
One of the most wonderful things about the arrival of the internet was that it freed me from my bondage to the post office. Before that, I was always having to worry about meeting deadlines for my translations, rushing out in the car to catch the last post at peak hour. There was a special “emergency” room behind the main office where you could make sure that already-stamped letters got there in time or else send them by Chronopost. I had dreams of buying a house next to the post office.
Then a couple of years ago, when the post office was practically bankrupt, they changed the concept. All the buildings were revamped with white walls and floors to offset the yellow and dark blue signature colours. The windows disappeared and were replaced with open desks. Stamping machines and a self-service area were added. It has taken a while for people to get used to the new system but it has gradually become more efficient and the queues have diminished slightly.
Recently, I had to collect a registered letter. I don’t know about Australia, but in France, they send you a registered letter whenever they possibly can. This was to confirm that I had signed the promise of sale for our new home in Blois. Jean Michel had one too but we obviously couldn’t collect each other’s! There was quite a long queue in front of one counter and no one at the other counter which was labelled “registered letters”. I went up and someone came out of nowhere to serve me almost immediately. Suddenly, people started shouting at me from the other queue that I’d jumped my turn! I am usually very respectful of queues but I just acted very French and ignored them. I collected my letter and scuttled out.
The final sale of the house was brought forward by a couple of months so I had to pick up another registered letter of course. We arrived to find that the PO doesn’t open until 10 am on Saturdays. With ten minutes to spare, we went to the dry cleaner’s across the street. When we got back, there were already several people waiting in front. Once the PO was open, we were served quite quickly but the lady took ages to find the letters.
They may have revamped the inside of the post office but they haven’t changed the staff. I also asked for a prepaid box to send my Christmas presents to Australia only to learn that they’d run out of medium-size boxes. God knows how I’m going to fill the ludicrously priced big box but I can’t bear the thought of going to another post office where they probably only have big boxes anyway. Why don’t I just make my own parcel you may ask? It’s because the same weight would probably cost twice as much.
The lady then gave me TWO FORMS to accompany the box which means, obviously, that I’ll have to go back to the post office to send it once I’ve filled it. I’m going to try and find a country PO in the hope that it will be less stressful, but with Christmas coming up, I think it’s a lost cause. I’m also hoping I’ll have a friendly little corner post office in Blois but that’s not for another two and a half years.
I’ve already told you about my obsession with showers. I’m probably just as obsessed, if not more obsessed, with beds. Not as easy to do something about though. I don’t think I’ve always been this fussy. It’s probably developed with age.
The worst are the ones that sag in the middle, particularly when there are two of you. Now this shouldn’t be a problem – it’s not when you’re young anyway. That’s why I think age has something to do with it. Inner spring mattresses are often the culprit here. They can also cause hard lumps, particularly if they happen to be the beds you jumped on as a child.
Bed in a hotel in Innsbruck
I have horrible memories of terrible beds in French hotels and rental homes in the past. They’ve improved considerably over the years, partly because we can afford to stay in more expensive accommodation, I assume, but also because hotel owners and Gîtes de France have now realised that foreigners (like me!) don’t like awful beds. We’ve never had the problem in the Netherlands, Germany, Austria , Luxembourg or Switzerland because double beds always consist of two single beds joined together. They even have separate covers most of the time, usually dooners. Now, I think that is very strange. There is something I don’t understand. I still haven’t worked out the logistics. How do you sleep at night (and otherwise use the bed) with two separate mattresses and two separate covers? In Italy, you usually have a double bed which is rightly called a « letto matrimonial » and is generally comfortable. The country hasn’t gained its reputation as the land of the Latin lover for nothing.
Speaking of dooners, that is something I have a problem with as well. When I first moved to France, I loved them. I bought a very expensive one made of goose and duck down and used it for years. Then I guess I got used to the cooler weather so that now, even when the heating is not very high, I absolutely roast with a dooner and have gone back to using a woollen blanket. However, dooners have become standard equipment in rental homes so we usually take our own!
In the last place we lived, we had a small bedroom so we had a small bed (140 cm). When we moved into Paris though, we decided to get a BIG bed, meaning a queen size. However, I didn’t realise it would have two separate bases joined together, nor that that would pose a problem. However, instead of sagging in the middle, it gradually developed a hump in the centre which forced us to sleep on the outer edges. Now the reason for the two bases is that it is otherwise impossible to get a queen size bed up to the fourth floor without a lift. This, it seems, is a recurring problem in Paris.
We eventually decided to get a new bed and went to a local store. The salesperson said we could claim on our warranty and get the other one replaced. I hadn’t thought of that! So we went to back to the original shop and organised to have the mattress replaced. I was relieved because despite my obsession with good beds, I find it nearly impossible to lie down on a bed in a shop and decide if it’s the right mattress or not. Some are very treacherous. You think they’re fine and they turn out to be too hard or too soft. And it’s a bit difficult to take them back. What’s that saying? If you make your own bed, you must lie in it?
Angelus at Le Clos Postel
Since we’ve been going to B&Bs, which have really upgraded in the last ten years in more ways than one, we haven’t had any more bed problems. Our first and all-time-favourite B&B in the Cotentin in Normandy, Le Clos Postel, has the most wonderful bed imaginable. First, the bed itself is not too hard and not too soft. Then it has this luxurious down cover between the mattress and the sheet that doesn’t generates just the right amount of warmth and is oh so soft. I couldn’t wait to have one myself so we got all the details from our hostess Lydie. Now we have one of our own and that, together with our electric blanket in winter, makes our bed the best place in the world to be!
B&B Le Clos Postel : http://www.clospostel.com/, though it is probably a big mistake sharing the link because if you all take my adivce, there will never be any room for us!
The oak structure was built first and the holes filled in with wattle-and-daub (upright branches interwoven by smaller branches and covered by a thick coat of clay mud), laths and plaster, or bricks. Nowadays, they are usually renovated with concrete and whitewashed.
The misshapen walls on these old half-timbered buildings are the result of age and not sloppy craftsmenship of course.
This one has a thatched roof. Irises are often planted on a bed of clay along the roof ridge. This is to make sure the ends of the thatch are firmly anchored in place.
From this side, you can tell it’s of recent construction but from the other side, only the regularity of the timbering gives it away.
Once the main building was finished, the towers were added to one end to take the staircase up to the upper floors.
