Category Archives: French customs

Food, France, French customs, Loire Valley

Chariots and Pâté in Blois

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Miraculously, the sun has come out so I suggest to my Australian friend Mei Lun, who’s staying with me for a few days, that we go into Blois for coffee and maybe find some ginger tea. It’s warm for late October – 15°C – and the sky is bright blue, certainly not time to be working!

Half-timbered houses in Blois

We park on the “Mail” along the Loire River and walk into the centre of town admiring the half-timbered houses in the sun. Mei Lun remarks on how clean everything looks. It’s almost 12 so most of the shops are shutting up. We’re in the provinces after all. We go past the most amazing collection of shopping trolleys. There’s a black one that says Le Chariot de Maman. “Are they really called chariots?” says Mei Lun. And I suddenly realise how funny the name is!

Chariots in Ambiancestyle.com

We arrive at the tea shop in time. The man behind the counter is very welcoming and finds us the tea we are looking for. We wander around looking at all the wonderful things connected with tea and coffee in the shop, including some Chambord biscuits, which are the local speciality.

Tea shop in Blois

We walk towards Place Louis 12 where “The Clipper” has great lounge chairs but awful coffee, so I discovered a few days ago. Much better for an apéritif which is accompanied by some great tapas. There are a few market stalls. A lady calls us over, vaunting her wares. She has various sorts of pâté, local honey and Cheverny wine. She suggests we taste the wild boar and prune pâté, explaining it comes from Sologne, which is the big hunting area around Chambord castle which you may remember from my bike ride with Jane in the summer.

Our slice of wild boar and prune pâté

It’s delicious so we ask for a slice. She then suggests that we try another one – duck foie gras and truffle pâté (not to be confused with foie gras), saying she only has two left and that she’s willing to cut it in half if a whole one is too much. I remark on her excellent sales technique which makes her laugh. We try the pâté and it’s divine but I’m thinking about those extra holiday kilos so I check that it will keep until Relationnel arrives on Thursday. It will, so we buy half. It turns out she’s there every Tuesday and Thursday so I promise to come back another time.

Le Marignan on Place du Château in Blois

We climb the many steps up to Blois castle and come out on the esplanade. I had planned to go to Les Forges du Château which opened at the beginning of the summer, but it’s closed, so we go down to Le Marignan, which is near the Maison de la Magie. We order our coffees, which are not too bad and enjoy the sun, with the beautiful façade of the castle as a backdrop. And I’m so glad that we found our beautiful Renaissance home in Blois!

Food, French customs

Verrines – another French culinary speciality

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You may remember my post on Café Gourmand last month in My French Life, the global community of French and francophiles connecting like-minded people in English & French . In this month’s post, I’ve talked about another wonderful French culninary speciality – the verrine.

Verrines – another French culinary speciality

At about the same time that the café gourmand became popular in France, another wonderful speciality appeared – the verrine. You may already know the word terrine which is a recipient made of terre, or clay; it has also come to mean the contents, usually a pâté.

Well, the verrine is both a glass recipient and its contents, generally about the size of a shot glass. Read more

 

Australian customs, French customs

Pokies and Casinos in France and Australia

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One of the things I noticed in Australia were the “Pokies” or poker machines. We ate on several occasions in surf lifesaving clubs and pubs that had whole rooms of one-arm bandits. In France the only place you’ll find a bandit manchot is in a casino which is strictly reserved for adults. And casinos are always in coastal towns or spas. There is a place called the Casino de Paris but it’s actually a music hall! There’s a chain of supermarkets called Casino as well.

Pokies at Coogee Beach Palace Hotel in Sydney

The closest casinos to Paris are in Enghien-les-bains and Forges-des-eaux, both of which are spa towns. Then there are the ones on the Norman coast such as Deauville and Cabourg. I’m not a gambler so I haven’t been to many casinos. I did go with a friend to the one in Cabours many years ago though. It was very chic and select and we stood around and watched people playing roulette and blackjack, like in the movies. I was taken to the casino in Townsville in North Queensland but it wasn’t quite the same.

During our family reunion, one of the women present was talking about her father who came to stay with her while looking for work. One day, she discovered that he was spending his share of the rent money at the bookies! Another woman said that her father had clocked up an enormous debt on his credit card before he died which is a bit like gambling on your life, isn’t it?

It made me think about why the Australians are such gamblers. I don’t know any other country where casket tickets (lottery tickets if you don’t come from Queensland) are so popular, for example. Even though they have a large selection in France, usually bought in a tobacconist, the following is much smaller. I might add that all French lottery and lotto tickets are sold by the government-owned Française des Jeux (FDJ).

Bar & tobacconist in Blois selling lottery tickets

And look at Melbourne Cup Day which must be one of the most celebrated horse races of all times. It seems odd to me now that in a Catholic school, betting was actually organised on that day and the nuns were just as excited about it as the pupils! When Black Cat was doing her student exchange in Brisbane, she joined the crowds at the Ekka races in Eagle Farm in Brisbane, dressed to the nines in one of her own creations.

So, what is my conclusion about gambling in Australia? It seems to me that the early settlers and subsequent immigrants were gambling their future by packing up and leaving to go Australia. They all hoped to strike it rich, and many did, but maybe the others had to find some way of achieving the riches they hadn’t found and gambling seemed the only way.

Black Cat dressed up for the Ekka races in Brisbane

We won a car when I was a child and you know what my father said ? “Oh dear, that’s a nuisance. It’s ruined my chances of winning the lottery”. And my father was not a mercenary man by any means. Casinos, pokies, casket tickets, the Melbourne Cup – what do you think about Aussies relation to gambling?

Australia, Australian customs, French customs

Feeling like a foreigner in my home country

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Each time I go back to Australia, I feel more like a foreigner and less like an Australian. Although I have dual nationality, I don’t really consider myself to be French, despite the fact that I have lived there 37 years. The trouble is, I still have my Australian accent so people expect me to know how things work and to act like one of the natives.

Coogee Beach, Sydney

I don’t know the coins to start with. Our one and two euro coins are more or less the same size but the two euro coin has two colours so is easy to distinguish. The two dollar coinn however, is much smaller than the one dollar piece.  Very confusing. I can still remember the pounds, shillings and pence which disappeared in 1966! And those dollars used to be much cheaper in the past as well. Now they are almost worth a euro!

The Just Those Café

I can’t always understand what people are saying either. The other day, I bought two wraps (a new word in itself) in a tiny terrace café in Redfern and was asked “justhose?” “I’m sorry I don’t understand”, I replied. “Do you want anything else ?” Oh, I realised, he must have said “just those ?” I wasn’t expecting him to say that.

The outdoor eating area at Brainy Pianist’s

When we were taking the train to Brainy Pianist’s the other day, we couldn’t get the train vending machines to work so we just stood back and watched the next person. It turned out we were putting the money in the wrong machine – we didn’t realise there were two different ones, one of which said EFTPOS, not that I know what that means. Which leads to another difficulty – they have all sorts of strange abbreviations these days.

View from Leonardo’s terrace

Would you believe that you don’t “go into town” any more but into the CBD or Central Business District. We just went into the Launceston CBD today and were stunned to find that all the shops were already closed at 5.30 pm (which explained why the parking metre was free – I initially thought it was just something else we didn’t understand. Only a news store (which didn’t have any more maps so was of no use whatsoever) and a pharmacy were open plus a couple of travel agents. We did see a Batman number plate on a Suburu though. How can you have a Batman number plate on a car?

Batman number plate

I guess it will gradually get better but I think it would be a whole lot easier if I didn’t sound like an Aussie !

France, French customs, Sightseeing

Pigeon Houses in France

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When we were cycling in the Loire Valley last weekend, we stopped in the little town of Thenay, just in front of an unusual pigeonnier which is a place where you keep pigeons so the name varies in English according to the type of abode. It’s not really something I knew much about in the north of Australia where I was more familiar with parrots, parakeets and bower birds.

Pigeon house in Thenay in the Loire Valley

Pigeonnier is actually a more recent word in the French language and came into vogue in the 19th century. Before that, they were called colombiers although a colombe is really a dove but it comes from the Latin columbarium. It seems the Romans brought the tradition to France. Now why, you might ask, would anyone want to breed pigeons ? I naively thought they were all carrier pigeons but it’s really because they produce excellent fertilizer. When the crops were being sown, though, they had to be closed into the pigeon house to stop them eating all the seeds.

Inside, there were niches, one per couple. Now, isn’t that romantic? In some parts of France, such as Normandy and Brittany, only the nobles and clergy could have pigeon houses. But that was before the French revolution. After that, they became an important adjunct to any self-respecting farmhouse, signifying the end of feudal rights. Smooth walls and a row of varnished tiles were designed to stop rodents and other predators from getting in. When there were two stories, only the second floor was used for the pigeons.

Our first real experience of pigeonniers was in the south-west of France, near Gaillac, also home to an excellent wine. Once we had seen a couple of pigeon houses, we started “collecting” them and would walk for miles to visit a new one. That was in our pre-cycling days. As you can see from the photos, the variety is astounding. Some are stand-alone, often in the middle of a field, while others are part of the house. Some are in a state of decay while others have been beautifully restored.

There were a few safety rules to be followed. They had to be built away from large trees to keep birds of prey at bay and out of the prevailing winds. The largest could house over 2000 pigeons! We started our own little collection of miniatures but haven’t got very far.

Our nascent collection of pigeon houses
Food, French customs, Loire Valley

Bread Ovens in the Loire Valley

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Well, I shall start with my own! Closerie Falaiseau, our lovely house in Blois, has its own beautiful bread oven, unfortunately no longer in use, but Relationnel has every intention of turning it at least into a working fireplace.

Our bread oven in the kitchen with the door open

 

The day we were given the keys, Mr Previous Owner opened the door to the oven and we were able to look inside. It has a beautifully renovated inside vault which it is a pity to hide.

The inside vault of our bread oven

Among the things that Mr and Mrs Previous Owner left us are two utensils related to the oven – one for raking the cinders and the other for putting the bread into the oven and removing it. Now, the wooden pincers that you can see on the left have nothing to do with bread. Do you remember those old-fashioned woolen mattresses with grey and white striped covers that had a sort of roll around the edges? Well, the pincers were used to pinch them into shape.

Our oven utensils

I doubt if you can guess what the next photo represents. According to Mr Previous Owner, the baker used a poker to check when the oven was hot enough. He’d put it in the oven, leave it for a few minutes, then test it on the beam above! I find this a little difficult to believe because if it were true, there would theoretically be a lot more burn marks, wouldn’t there ? It’s a nice story anyway …

Burn marks on our oven

 

Mrs Previous Owner, who is one of those people with the knack for finding authentic objects, managed to salvage three bread baskets when the local bakery closed down several years ago. They were used to shape the loaf as it rose.

Bread baskets

Up on the hill behind us is a house with a lovely little village bread oven, that is, it’s not inside a house but separate. Baking day was usually once a week and all the villagers would prepare their bread and bring it along to cook because only the bigger houses like ours had their own oven.

Bread oven in Les Grouets in Blois

When we were cycling to Chaumont one day, we came across another type of village oven as we left the little village of Candé sur Beuvron. As you can see, it’s a much bigger and more sophisticated affair than the one in Blois.

Bread oven in Candé sur Beuvron

I currently make my own bread with a bread-making machine, you may remember, so I have high hopes of one day being able to bake it in my own wood-fired oven!!!

Our bread oven from the back
Cycling, France, French customs, Lifestyle, Loire Valley

La Promenade – Paris-Mont St.Michel Route Gets New Name: La Veloscenie – Blame France

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Many of the Anglophone bloggers who live in France are off on their summer holidays at the moment, often taking a break from blogging, which has given me the chance to discover some new blogs, in particular that of Gaynor B. from La Petite Presse who spends the summer in the Loire Valley. She takes us to a very enticing restaurant called La Promenade. This time, Experience France by Bike gives an exhaustive explanation of the bike route that connects up Paris and Le Mont Saint Michel – a mere 442 k!  Bread is Pain explains how, if you live in France, you can blame everything negative that ever happens to you on that very fact and not take any responsibility for anything you do! Enjoy!

La Promenade

by Gaynor B. from La Petite Presse who divides her time between the UK and the small village of Le Petit-Pressigny in the Touraine Sud area of France

We seem to have a ‘nose’ for picking homes in small villages with excellent places to eat. In Staffordshire it is the Hollybush, and in Le Petit-Pressigny La Promenade and Le Bon Coin. Different in price and ambiance but each offering good quality food. Last week we ate at La Promenade which is a Michelin starred restaurant run by Jacky Dallais. The food was fantastic and the wines of excellent quality and value. We’ve eaten here before and really think that it is an experience to savour and better shared with other people. Our partners in the gourmet experience this time were Maureen, John and their son Daniel (who live near to us in the UK and have a lovely home and gite near Chatillion sur Indre) together with Nick and Janet. Read more.

Paris-Mont St.Michel Route Gets New Name: La Veloscenie

by Experience France by Bike, an American who loves biking anywhere in Europe, but especially France, which has the perfect combination of safe bike routes, great food, great weather and history.

If there are any more long-distance bike routes developed in France, I am definitely going to need to relocate so that I have more time to explore all of them!  This summer has already seen the grand opening of La Velodyssee, the Atlantic Coast route which I wrote about for 2 weeks in May. Now, the much talked about Paris-Mont-Saint-Michel route has introduced a new name, a new website, and significant improvements to the route. The new website for La Veloscenie is only in French, good for my French readers, but not for the rest of us.  So here are some key details about this itinerary in case you want to consider it for a future trip. Read more

Blame France

by Bread is Pain, a 30-something American living in the Rhone-Alps, and slowly eating and drinking herself through the country

Narrator’s Voice is heard: 

“Does this ever happen to you?”

Queue photos of a woman carrying a grocery bag that breaks, a man having a car splash water on him, a couple having the doors to a theater shut in their face.

“Do you ever feel like you just want to throw in the towel, like the world just isn’t on your side?”

Show image of unattractive depressed person looking out a window on a rainy day.

“What if you could change all that?  What if I told you that there is a way that you could never have a bad day again and nothing will ever be your fault?”

The word “HOPE” flashes across the screen. Read more.

Burgundy, Cycling, France, French customs, Germany, Paris, Sightseeing, Travelling

Paris Plage on a Saturday – Bacharach-on-the-Rhine – Biking in Burgundy: Upcoming Wine Events and Festivals

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This week, even Paris is on holiday.  Mary Kay from Out and About in Paris has captured the essence of Paris Plage which has got off to a wonderful start with exceptional weather. It’s supposed to be 30°C every day this week. Andrea from Destination Europe reports on the delightful little German village of Bacharach-on-the-Rhine whcih will make you want to include it in your next trip to Germany while Experience France by Bike has lots of suggestions for wine festivals and events this summer in Burgundy. You can enjoy them even if you’re not a cyclist!

Sunday’s picture and a song – Paris Plages on a Saturday

by Mary Kay from Out and About in Paris, an American by birth, Swiss by marriage, resident of Paris with a Navigo Pass for the metro that she feels compelled to use

Vamos a la Playa! After weeks of grey skies and rainy weather, Parisians put on their flip flops and swimsuits and headed to the beach this morning. They didn’t have to travel far because the city of Paris has been creating an artificial beach along the Seine for its residents and guests since 2002. With deck chairs, ice cream vendors, bands, street performers and the smell of suntan lotion in the air, Stéphane and I felt as if we had been magically transported to a seaside locale.

To enhance the illusion, here’s the song that used to blast from the speakers of our little Fiat Uno as we whizzed along the highway from Switzerland to the beaches of Italy, Monaco or France. Listening to it now, I realize that it’s not a great song. But in those days, it was synonymous with freedom. No work, no worries…just long luxurious hours spent relaxing on the beach. Read more

Bacharach-on-the-Rhine

by Andrea from Destination Europe, also an Aussie Expat who’s been living in France for the last 5 years, food and travel blogger

While looking for a place to stay in between visits to Trier and Heidelberg, we stumbled across one of the most perfect German villages I’ve ever seen. Bacharach on the Rhine is made up almost exclusively of medieval timber framed houses with the oldest dating from 1368.

Sometimes when visiting Germany I get a bit bored with seeing this kind of architecture everywhere but Bacharach is so quaint and adorable I loved every minute I spent there. Each house is so well preserved and maintained it really is like stepping back in time. Read more

Biking in Burgundy: Upcoming Wine Events and Festivals

by Experience France by Bike, an American who loves biking anywhere in Europe, but especially France, which has the perfect combination of safe bike routes, great food, great weather and history

Are you fortunate enough to be cycling in Burgundy in the next couple of months?  Perhaps bicycling on the Vineyard Trail in the Cote de Beaune, or along the Canal du Centre or Burgundy Canal voies vertes?

If so, why not plan to visit a local wine festival? If you’ve never stumbled upon a festival while touring the French countryside,  you are in for a treat.  They are an experience of a lifetime.  They remind me of old fashioned festivals that I remember going to when I was a kid: lots of food, games, pony rides and music.  And of course wine. Read more

French customs, Paris

Bastille Day or 14th July

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Outside of France, everyone celebrates “Bastille Day” while the French call it “le quatorze juillet” (14th July). The very first year I was in France (in 1976, the summer that has gone down in French history as the hotest in a century – this one could well be remembered as the coldest), I celebrated 14th July watching the fireworks on a beach in Biarritz. Unforgettable. And the fireworks have remained  the highlight of France’s national holiday for me every since.

 

Planes flying over the Palais Royal on 14th July 2012

When Leonardo was little, I can remember taking him into Paris to see the fireworks at the Champ de Mars but found the crowds horrendous. After that, we always went to our local fireworks in Fontenay sous Bois, near Vincennes in the east of Paris. To start off with, we could walk there and secondly we could sit down and chat to all our friends. There was a different theme each year and the standard was usually pretty good.

But now that we live in Paris, we have a secret venue. We watch the fireworks from a vantage point on the top of a six-story building. We don’t get to see them close-up of course, but having Paris spread out unhindered before us is pretty exciting. We take our bincoculars of course and in addition to the fireworks next to the Eiffel Tower, we can see others in the distance. But the weather report is not looking good for tomorrow night so we may be staying home …

American blogger Mary Kay from Out and About in Paris has given an excellent run-down today of all the celebrations in Paris. Here’s her post:

Put on your dancing shoes and get ready to boogie down! The official schedule for July 14, 2012. National Day in France.

I took this photo this morning. Do you notice anything different about the Eiffel Tower?

Take a closer look. Those of you who have an acute sense of observation and were alive in the 1970s and early 80s will probably recognize that big sphere as a disco ball. That’s right! Paris is getting ready to boogie down to the tunes of “It’s Raining Men”, “YMCA” and “I Will Survive” when it celebrates National Day on July 14. Put on your platform shoes, bell bottoms and tank tops and join the fun at the Champs de Mars.

Here’s the official schedule, compliments of the Tourist Information Center. Read more

 

French customs, Loire Valley, Paris, Restaurants, Sightseeing

Domaine de Chaumont-sur-Loire’s International Garden Festival – Paris Day Two. Chantilly – The Audacity of Age

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For this Wednesday’s bloggers’ round-up, I’ve chosen Kathy Stanford‘s description of the highly original international garden festival at the château of Chaumont-sur-Loire, Denise from Bolton‘s visit to the Chantilly race course, which definitely seems a worthwhile excursion and Bread is Pain‘s very amusing story of an elderly woman jumping the queue at the Orsay Museum.

Domaine de Chaumont-sur-Loire’s International Garden Festival

by Kathy Stanford from Femmes Franchophiles, who has an ongoing passion for France and the French language

The Domaine de Chaumont-sur-Loire covers an area of approximately 32 hectares and is located between Blois and Tours in the Loire Valley.

The Domaine de Chaumont-sur-Loire is the foremost Centre for Art and Nature entirely devoted to the relationship between nature and culture, artistic creation and the impact of landscape, our heritage and contemporary art.

The Domaine not only includes the Château de Chaumont-sur-Loire (15th to 19th century), its gardens and parks, but also from April to the end of October, the stunning International Garden Festival. In addition, there are many exhibits and installations by contemporary artists. Read more

PARIS DAY TWO – CHANTILLY

by Denise from Bolton, another francophile from the town of Bolton in the UK who spends as much time in the City of Light as she can

Chantilly racecourse is in a lovely setting, with the châteaux on one side, the forest in the distance. Even if you are not into racing it is a pleasant place to have a picnic, and the chateaux is worth a visit too.

20minutes on the train from Gare du Nord, it makes a nice day out.  On a previous trip I watched an interesting dressage show in the famous Grades Ecuries, which legend has it, was commisioned to be built like a palaceby Henry, Duc de Bourbon, Prince of Conde, because he thought he would be reincarnated horse.

My husband had “bribed” me to accompany him, with a reservation at the stunning Panoramic restaurant overlooking the course.  The set “outsiders” menu was pricey at  42 euro each, but was very good and the entrance fee to the racecourse was only 2 euro,( as opposed to a lot more for British racecourses) so we were not complaining. Read more

The Audacity of Age

by Bread is Pain, a 30-something American living in the Rhone-Alps, and slowly eating and drinking herself through the country.

Standing in line at the Musée D’Orsay with my Mother who is visiting.  We are about thirty minutes back from the front of the queue.  An old lady has recently shoved past us in line and we are watching in disbelief as she speedily makes her way through the five or six rows of people in front of us.    

Mom:  This is too good to be true!

Me:  No way she is going to pull this off.

Mom:  I think she is.  Look at her go!

Read more

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