Thanksgiving in Provence

"Do they celebrate Thanksgiving in France? Do they even have turkeys in France?" These are a few of the questions some of our American friends asked recently. No, Thanksgiving is not celebrated by the French but it IS celebrated by the Amercians living here. Most French, and some other internationals, have either never heard of it or don't know what it is. Some think it is just a day when Americans give thanks, partly true of course, but rarely have they heard of the Pilgrims or know anything about the genesis of the holiday. That being said, they ARE curious about it. For we expats, Thanksgiving is a wonderful opportunity to tell a bit about one of our favorite holidays and heritiage as well. We had that chance with several people during the week before Thanksgiving and we especially enjoyed being able to say we were from "Pilgirm" land!
And, yes, they do have turkeys but...getting a whole turkey in France is not that easy. Although they sell turkey parts everyday at the 'hypermarche', if you want the whole bird, you must order it at least 3 weeks in advance. Also, they are only available fresh. French freezers are about the size of a bread box and can barely hold a small chicken let alone a 20 lb turkey! A turkey of that size would almost fill an entire French fridge! Also, they are expensive; our hosts bought a 22lb turkey and it cost over 60euro! I will say thought that it was one of the most beautiful and delicious turkeys we’ve ever had!
We, that is Nick, Sarah and I, and our house guests, Fred, Diane and Allison Conley, were fortunate to have been invited to a Thanksgiving dinner by our friends, the Pancoasts. As it is not a holiday in France, no one has that day off to prepare the feast so many celebrate on Saturday.

Our hosts, Steve and Dorothy Pancoast, carving the turkey

We were invited to the Pancoasts at 4pm for champagne and mimosas. After the 16 guests had arrived we had a chance to meet and greet and then we put out our various dishes. Our entourage brought mashed potatoes, green beans and rolls. Once the turkey was carved, we stood together while Dorothy read piece on the origin of Thanksgiving, Steve said a blessing and we had the feast. What a feast it was! Not exactly what we have chez Bates every year, but there were many traditional dishes, in addition to our contributions, such as candied sweet potatoes, homemade cranberry sauce, chestnut and sage stuffing, gravy along with the non-traditional fruit salad, pastry cups filled with chicken, mushrooms and gravy, carrot salad and a tomato, zucchini and pepper tart!

After dinner we enjoyed several delicious deserts. There were apple and pumpkin pies along with other yummy non-traditional deserts. Then, we played a fun game called “Catch Phrase”. This is a fast paced, charade-like game where you are allowed to use words, instead of hand/body motions, to describe your word. It was lots of fun and as we were 8 adults and 8 kids it got the whole group interacting. Might just have to find this one for Christmas time!

Lisa Pancoast, Sarah, Allison Conley and "another" Sarah

After coffee, more fine, French wines and some dishwashing, the party ended about 8 pm and the Bates’ and Conley’s rolled down the hill to our house for a good night’s sleep.

Bible Study and "Orange"...in God's hands..!

This am Susie had her first Bible study at our home. I had every intention to "get out of town" but oh no...the computers went on the fritz. So I was on deck to manage the Orange computer repair man while Ssuei was having her Bible study in the living room. We had ten believers here and the Orange (France's telecommunications company) technician trying to ..so to speak..make things happen. In and out, in and out, the technician tip-toed into the Bible Study to reboot the Orange Livebox, in the center of the living room. He had arrived at 8am and the church group arrived effectively at 9:30 am. At 11:15 "viola"...God answered my prayers and the computers came into sink while Bible study was in session. Sometimes it takes a village to get our computers working! Thank you, Lord....

NLB

Nick's Olive Story

Nick here.......A funny thing happened at the Olive Party over the weekend. This is one of those classic lines that has to be recorded.

Hanneka, my new friend from Holland(in the above picture)and the mother one of the Sarah's classmates, was sharing a story about an event that occurred to her the night before. Being that the Beaujolais Nouveau was released Thursday, there have been lots of beaujolais tasting parties. Hanneke was sharing that the night before she and her husband, Gert, had some friends in and they stayed up late into the night enjoying the new harvest.. She said that when she entered her bedroom she saw both the "bed and bedroom were spinning. So I just waited for the bed to come around again and jumped in!"

Olive Picking Party

This weekend we went to an Olive Picking Party. Our friends, Nathalie and Jerome, live in a lovely home on the west side of Aix, which although only about 10 minutes’ drive from our house, is “out in the country”. We arrived at about 11 AM and joined the others out in the olive grove with our buckets and pails to “ramasser les olives” (literal translation “pick up the olives”). This particular weekend is the traditional weekend for olive harvest as they are all mostly ripe. The soil was VERY muddy as we’d had torrential rains the day before. For those without galoshes, we put plastic bags over our shoes or, like Nick, got very muddy!

As is true with most of the events we go to here, this was an international gathering. The first group of pickers I joined was Norwegian, Australian and American. We were quite a jovial group. While picking, we chatted, joked, shared our experiences of living away from home, speaking a new language and discussed how much we all love living here. Nick had a great time with our Dutch friends.

There are 200 olive trees in this two year old grove. The olives here are being grown for making oil and there are many varieties planted so the resulting oil will be more flavorful and complex. We were instructed to pick every olive whether it was red, green or something in-between.

This is the first time this grove has been harvested and for most of us, it was our first time picking olives. It is certainly not skilled labor! The height of the trees and the method of picking reminded us a bit of picking beach plums or blueberries; especially at the Herndon’s Bog years ago. The children had a good time and were very enthusiastic olive pickers. They filled many large buckets before going off to play and have “children’s lunch”. Sarah had fun with her Dutch friends, Jeanne and Lara.

Here, the youngest olive picker brings in his harvest before lunch....

At around 1:30, we were called up to the house for a well deserved, delicious French feast! Our hostess, Nathalie(wearing the apron), had been preparing and cooking for days and it showed.
On the table, there were large pots of homemade pea soup, fresh bread, a rustic, soft pork pate(which all the Frenchies were gobbling up) and black-peppercorn covered saussison. Jerome set out many different types of red wine and water. While we were enjoying this spread, the next wave of culinary delights came out from the kitchen. There were three different kinds of tarts(tomato, spinach and chevre and Lourraine), a rabbit pate, baked stuffed tomatoes and mushrooms with meat filling, a huge platter of the best cheeses we’ve ever eaten and more breads.
Everyone was hungry after all our hard work and we ate, drank, chatted and rested a good, long while. The meal concluded with a big platter of yummy chocolate brownies, cakes, dried fruits, nuts and marzipan. When we could hold off no longer, we wandered back down to the olive grove and resumed picking for a while. Somehow the group had dwindled in size, hmmmmm…… An hour or so later we decided to call it quits. Afterall, not only were we tired, we wanted to leave something for the group coming tomorrow to do!

PS. Natalie and Jerome told us that if they get at least 250 kilos of olives, they qualify for their own private olive oil. After looking at the day's harvest, they felt that by the end of the weekend they might have close to 300 kilos! We're looking forward to our bottle!

Nick's Driving Quips

It's been two weeks since our return from Rome and the driving experience there still infuriates me. My Dad had a couple of sayings about drivers. First, he had someone the "gawker". This is a driver looking in all directions with no regard to the cars behind. They were limited by Dad to a few expletives and also known as “Rubber Necker’s”. You qualified by driving slowly while in the fast lane or holding things up in any manner. Another way to qualify was to turn your head more than 10% in any direction. Lots of Rubber Necker’s in the City by the Bay. His other favorite saying which he used while sitting and waiting for a light to turn green…tapping his fingers nervously on the wheel. Once the light turned from red to green if the car in front made no attempt to move…Dad would say “Son a of a *7&% , it's not going to get any Greener"!

We're the white car trying to take a left!!!

Anyway, back to Rome. There, I qualified as both the Rubber Necker extraordinaire and of course, as the "It's not going to get any greener" tourist. I forgot to say Dad did have his gentlemanly ways to get back at these obstacle setters…get in front of them and slow down to a crawl. Yes it riled them every time yet Dad wouldn't always have the patience to get his revenge …but he sure thought about it each and every time.
Back to Rome, all I remember is people honking if you didn't rapidly accelerate from your dead stop position. Also that the motorcycles were on all sides and you couldn't just suddenly open a door or might/ would wipe out two or more cyclists with one door opening. Lastly, I wish I’d had a box of spare hand grenades in the front seat.

PS. I consider myself a good, safe, aggressive driver and should have been a cabbie in San Francisco.

Mountain Climbing in Treadless Sneakers...

At lunch, on Mt. Sainte Victoire, Craig asked both his children to listen up and take note: "Make sure you do NOT go near the edge of the mountain, it's too windy and ALWAYS keep your hands on something that is attached to the ground. Last week a man was blown off the mountain in severe winds like this!"

Minutes later, we packed our things, got re bundled and left the mountain hut to climb up to the cross-about 100 meters(300 feet) away. It was blowing hard outside and we were cold in the shadow of the summit. Up the stone trail, we would be out in the sun when we reached the top. Everyone sort of bent forward into the wind and worked our way up the last of the rock face and boom, sunlight and a magnificent view!! Mt. St. Victoire has a little metal four sided "box"(aka lookout tower?) at the top for people to safely stand in-- all five of us squeezed in. It may not have been much but it did give you a sense of stability.

The children just wanted to hunker down and know that they had made it. Susie, Craig and I all wanted to capture the moment with our cameras. Susie asked a group of three hikers if she could take a shot of them and they would do the same for us. Next thing I know, Craig is walking backwards towards the face of the mountain with a camera to his right eye. "Watch out Craig...your going to get blown off of here?" He stopped a bit and looked behind himself and I said "oh shit! he's going to get blown away" He just kept snapping photos, saying "Don't worry I'm fine". His kids were screaming at him "Dad, look out!! Remember what you told us!!!!"

Anyway, the pictures were taken and all wanted to just get off the top and out of the severe winds. About an hour into our decent, all was well and everyone was enjoying the downhill stroll. Kids had smiles on their faces, everyone was warm and the promise of Snickers Bars had some good attitudes. Craig turns to Susie and says “Ya know I just love these old running shoes of mine…had 'em forever and they fit like slippers…the only problem is they have no treads?’”

NLB

Climbing Mont Sainte Victoire

Today, Nick, Sarah and I climbed "the mountain" with some friends. As an introduction to our feat, check out this photo. It is the view, about 15 km away, we have of this beautiful, majestic mountain from our neighborhood looking East-the way Cezanne liked to paint it. At the top, 1011km, is a huge cross-our destination. It was beautiful day-sunny and extremely clear but SOOOO windy! Wind speeds of up to 60mph were predicted-- No exaggeration! During the 2 months we've been here, we have talked of making this climb but weather and other circumstances have always gotten in the way. Honestly, we knew these winds could have nearly blown someone off the top mountain. The local paper last week had a story about a 68 yr old man who fell to his death from that very spot. So, the severe winds almost cancelled our climb this time but we all decided we would dress warmly, be VERY cautious and go for it. At about 10AM, our good friends, the Thompson's, came to our house and we drove to the town of Vauvenargues to start our climb.

We had a great hike up but it was quite steadily steep at about a about a 15 degree incline all the way . We were proud of Sarah, Andrew and Alayna(ages 11,9 and 13) who did really well with the strenuous hiking. We took frequent breaks and took our time. The guide book described it this way: "....there is nothing technically difficult but you need stamina as there is plenty of walking over broken terrain-a strenuous hike".


We reached the church, located about a 10 minute hike under the Cross at the summit, in under 2 hours. This church, Notre Dame de Ste-Victoire at 900m, was constructed in the 17th century.
It was built on the ruins of a monastery which existed since the 5th century and was inhabited by the Carmelites and then the Benedictiines. Evidently, they only lived here a short while due to the climactic conditions. We couldn't imagine sleeping here for even an overnight! And, we wondered, how did they ever build this way up here? After looking inside the church, we ate our lunch nestled in a dark, but warm building which we learned was the former monastery. Talk about rustic! It was a cavernous barn-like structure with a heavy, wide-wood plank floor, a rather huge vaulted ceiling, a couple of windows and a door. There was a nice fire going in the fireplace and groups of families were all happily picnicking on benches and a the few tables in the center of the room. Everyone was eating together, sharing tales of their day's climbing adventures and warming themselves by the fire. Unfortunately, dark room and no flash didn't do wonders for these photos, but you get the idea!





We were snuggled next to strangers on both sides of our little group but it was fun and the strangers were interesting to talk with. Some had brought elaborate feasts-there were even potatoes wrapped in foil roasting in the fire! We had your basic hiker's lunch of bread, ham, cheese, clementines, apples and chocolate. Yum!
After lunch, we carefully made the assent up to the famous Croix, another 100m above. The wind was even more intense here. We each held onto the sides of the rocks to steady our climb. Hats, gloves and windbreakers were all put to good use.


We stayed just long enough to enjoy and photograph the fabulous 360 degree panoramic view...

Looking west from the lookout tower.....

Looking south to the Mediterranean Sea...

Looking north....

Here is our group at the base of the Cross...

We came down as fast as we could safely manage from the Cross. Happily, the wind diminished substantially after we got about 100m down from the summit. We had a cheerful decent and were back to our car within an hour. Our first stop on the way home was for Snicker's bars for everyone!

Orvieto, Italy

Thursday, November 2
We made it to the lovely little hill town of Orvieto by late afternoon. This charming hill town is located in the Umbrian countryside with easy access from the Autostrada. I had visited the town in 1993 when a girlfriend and I did a Butterfield and Robinson bike trip called the “Hill Towns of Umbria”. As we drove up the steep hill to the town, I had a hard time imagining that I had ridden a bicycle up the same one back then!

We had no trouble finding the Hotel Duomo once we arrived, as it is right off the main square where you find the Duomo di Orvieto, a large Roman Catholic cathedral which really dominates the town of Orvieto. A bit of history-It was constructed in the fourteenth century under the orders of Pope Nicholas IV. Its façade, we learned contains elements of design from the fourteenth to the twentieth century, with a large rose window, golden mosaics and three huge bronze doors. Unfortunaltey, it was covered with scaffolding for some repairs and not worth photographing. The building's exterior walls, in contrast to the facade, are more simply furnished with alternating layers of local white travertine and blue-grey basalt stone. They were what I remembered most about my previous visit.




Our corner room was spacious for the three of us and had lovely views of the cathedral and surrounding neighborhood. Nick and I went off to explore while Sarah read and rested in the room.

We went out together about 6:30 and explored the town a bit more. The streets were teaming with people of all ages but it seemed to be mostly families. We thought the atmosphere was jovial and upbeat. Many appeared to be going to dinner but others were eating gelato. During our window shopping, Sarah found the ballet shoes that eluded her the whole trip. Hooray! We went to dinner at a wonderful spot called Hostaria Nonnamelia. It’s a very pretty trattoria a block or two from the Cathedral, along Via Duomo. We really enjoyed the decor and architecture of this restaurant-as well as the food. The entry was through two huge two story, natural wood and glass doors; the size one might expect to find entering a medieval mansion(minus the glass of course). Through the glass you could see the candle lit space inside. The natural palette was warm and inviting-and we were hungry! There was heavy use of texture as well with wood, iron, paper, baskets and glass being used as materials for the decorations, fixtures etc. Here are Sarah’s photos….








We savored every bite of our last Italian dinner! I ordered pasta for the first time since our first dinner in Lucca-a fabulous tagliatelli with fresh tortufo!

Amalfi Coastline

Amalfi Coastline-November 1

This morning when we were showered, dressed and nearly all packed, we went down to our customary breakfast in the hotel but when we got there the dining room was empty! We double checked our watches to be sure we weren’t early but it was after 8. Another guest, there with his two daughters on school break from England, said “We appear to have lost breakfast”! Indeed we had! After a bit of searching, we found it in another dining room. Ah, it was November 1st and the winter season had begun. A lovely continental breakfast awaited us but the ‘eggs any way you like them’ station was just a summer memory…..After a yummy breakfast, we gathered our things and checked out.



Outside the hotel, there was no doubt the weather had changed; it was cloudy and quite a bit cooler. A good travel day and we were glad we’d been to Capri the day before. We drove from Sorrento over to the southern side of the peninsula and began our jouney east along the Amalfi coast. It was an exciting drive. There are lots of switchbacks which lead you from one spectacular vista to the next. We thought the scenery was made even more dramatic with the clouds, although the photographs really do it justice.






Along the road, every so often would be a little roadside stand like this one. We liked this guy's display-especially all the peppers.

















The first town we came to was Positano, then Amalfi followed by the turn off to Ravello. We had planned to go to a special spot there called Villa Cimbrone but sadly just as we were getting to the turn off, it really started to pour. Our reason for going to the Villa was to tour the famous, beautiful gardens and it would be hard to do in the rain.












We continued our drive toward Salerno and then got on the A3 and headed north. We joked the whole way as we approached Rome on the A1 about how we wanted to avoid any possible wrong turn that might get us back into a nightmare where ”all roads lead to Rome”! Interestingly, we had none of the traffic we had experienced on the way down. Couldn’t figure out why the change. Orvieto is our next stop.