Another local road - they all lead to another vineyard!When moving to any new country, there are some things that can be learned from a book and others that you just pick up as you go along. I am becoming convinced that French cannot be learned from a book and I shall just have to pick it up as I go along. If the French themselves can't tell me why a thing is male or female then what chance do I have of untangling the maze and avoiding tumbling headlong into the pitfalls.
The first thing I discovered when visiting our local supermarket, is that it is no use searching in the freezer or fridge section for milk. This comes in boxes or plastic bottles and is stacked up next to the drinking water which is stacked up opposite the wine and pastis and whisky shelves. Apparently the milk is treated so that it can be stored without being cooled, but once I get it home and opened, I put it into the fridge just in case the process starts to reverse itself.
Baguettes are delicious but have a short shelf life. For the best ones, get to the local boulangerie before 10am and if you have missed out, then there is nothing to do but wait for the evening batch to be prepared. The baker shuts his doors firmly at midday and hopefully has an hour to put his feet up since the poor man has probably been up since 4am firing up his ovens and rolling out his dough. The shop will re-open after 4pm and the queue is usually forming already. Sliced bread bought in packets is reasonable but not great but at least it can be frozen which solves the problem when needing an instant piece of toast. (Ed's note. I did discover that baguettes can be frozen when super fresh but need to be thawed gently to bring them back to their former glory).
Bagettes aren’t the only option and there is the slightly harder but delicious round boule and the shorter and fatter banette, all of which have a wonderful crispy crust. I thank heavens that I underwent a fair bit of American dental work before requiring my teeth to cope with these delicacies, and I do understand why a quite a lot of tearing and dunking goes on with the older generation. Croissants can be dunked but pain au chocolat can get messy and is best eaten straight. I would suggest only one at a time but then who ever listens to me. Whoever invented Mille Feuille deserves some sort of a culinary Nobel Prize in my book.
Bottled water is a personal taste and we have tested a couple of brands which are definitely a bit “thick”, but we have settled for a very reasonable one that comes in a 3 litre bottle which fits onto a stand. All that is then required is a jug and a funnel and a packet of smaller bottles, and we simply rotate these into the fridge, thus cutting down a bit on the mountain of plastic water bottles that are recycled daily.
Recycling is something that the French take very seriously and we have two bins in the garage, one with a yellow top and one with a black top. The yellow top contains all the plastic, glass and paper products and is collected once a week, and the black one goes out twice a week and contains “yucky stuff”. This one has become known as "Smelly Belly" instead of it's proper name of poubelle. All that is required is a large number of strong black plastic bags, and with a little organisation, even the number of plastic bags can be reduced. Bins can only be put out after 8.30pm which avoids the village street looking messy, and everyone nips out early and brings them back in again once the jolly sound of the rubbish truck has passed.
While on the subject, plastic bags are not issued freely in the shops and everyone takes along their own shopping bags which makes so much more sense. The cashier puts everything through the scanner and it is then up to you to pack it into your bags, or re-load it into your shopping trolley (which has cost you the refundable sum of 1 euro to use) and then wheel it to the car. Nobody objects to this system and the cashiers seem to be cheerful and obliging.
I think back to the days of the huge Publix supermarket in Florida, and the elderly ladies who spent an hour blocking the aisles while agonising over the price of salmon, and who would then snarl at the cashier, snarl at the packer before insisting that he push her trolley out to the car and load the boot (or trunk as it was called), and then grudgingly part with a fifty cent tip. Having driven back to her condo building, the doorman would be obliged to haul the shopping out and load it into another trolley and wheel it up to her apartment, possibly fortunate enough to receive a tip (or another snarl). She would have been issued with a plastic bag for just about every item, and in many cases, not one but two thick paper sacks would have been used as well. The very thought of telling her to take these back to the shop and re-use them was utterly laughable, and the only tip she would have given you was to tell you to “B….. off”!
On a more delicate note, I have had the need to use public toilets three times since we arrived, and I notice that on all three occasions, that well known comfort, the toilet seat was missing. Whether this was by design or the result of theft I know not, but all I know is when you have undergone two lower back laminectomies, suspending yourself in mid squat isn’t the most comfortable way to go about ones ablutions and I would be grateful if a stout piece of rope could be provided. Thanks to the incredibly dry heat here however, I find that on most outings, I can behave like a camel and soak up a great deal of liquid without parting with any of it until I get home. I can only think that the torrents of sweat that pour from my forehead and get stuck behind my glasses are the alternative to needing public facilities.
We have just done our third run down to the municipal tip and it occurred to me that again I was the only woman on the scene. The neighbours are also busy cleaning up their large garden but so far I have not seen hide nor hair of the lady of the house, and it is the menfolk and the young lads who are sawing and sweeping and raking out the undergrowth. I have the feeling that the men look on in slight awe when they see me get on the other end of the offloading and then do the driving as well. I get the impression that French wives are considered to have a far more decorative role, and appearing in public with dirty feet, rubber gloves and leaves sticking out of their hair isn’t really the look that they are hoping to create.
And here is that final tip. Don't try and get anything done during the French summer holiday.
HINT HINT FRANCE TELECOM!!!!!!
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