Building works

It It has been a long time since I wrote the last blog entry - before I went back to London for a month, to let the flat in Cambridge Road and get on with selling the garage at the back of the house.

Not that long after I came back to Roujan, in March, wonderful builder John Platings from Tourbes and his team - Joel the ex antique dealer, Ahmed and Muktar - came on site to start work on building the extension at the back of the house and create two rooms within the existing "cave". Work has gone on apace from the start. The photo above right shows the legal notice of works starting - not a thrilling pic, but for the record!

Below: inside the former wine-storage "cave" on the ground floor. On the left is a whole new storage/emergency bed room - where the wine storage "cuves" were that were torn down (see earlier blog). To the right of the back door is the new shower-room/loo.

[Apologies to all readers: I'm finding it impossible to impose the lay-out I wish on this blog - it just puts the pix wherever the prog wants, not where I've indicated or, indeed, as I see it while typing the text. Bloody infuriating! Will try to put this right as soon as poss...]

Now I've just discovered that all the pix I thought I'd taken of work in progress don't appear on the camera diskette or whatever it's called. So, I'd better buzz off and take some more....

Wine Cuves Are Munched

For five days the whole house trembled and groaned - and I did much the same when I could bear to be indoors rather than elsewhere on some excuse. And the dust! Clouds and clouds of the finest, most insidious dust known to man - it gets everywhere, and I mean everywhere!

It was, however, a real tour de force because the space to manoeuvre is pretty tight considering the size of the red machine-tractor-digger-muncher thing. The driver not only did not knock down the new column supporting the two RSJs (which hold up the first floor) but he even missed the grey sewage pipe suspended from the ceiling. Every day he went home looking like the little man in the flour adverts on TV - white from top to toe.

But, at last, the man from Horizon Demolition has left. Peace is restored. The pair of 5m x 3.5m x 2m high very reinforced concrete wine storage 'cuves' in the ground floor of the house are finally extinct, no more, gone... And, instead, we have masses more space to use for storage or rooms. We shall see: the next exciting stage of work on the house is due to start at the end of March. In the meantime, I'm off to London for a month...

What's In A Name?

Mancunians, Glaswegians, Londoners... Well, perhap the names of certain city-dwellers or townspeople are a bit odd in English. But even the French derive quite a bit of amusement from the very weird names given people who live in certain towns - and they also form the subject of many a French TV quiz show question. This is a list I hope to add to over time. Warning: my spelling may not be perfect:

People who live in Roujan are known as - Roujanais(e) [masc(fem)]
Agde - Agathois(e) [absolutely nothing to do with Aunt Agatha]
Pezenas - Piscenois(e) [absolutely nothing to do with their drinking habits]
Beziers - Bitterois [no, they're not fans of English beer, as far as I know]
Neffies - Neffiotes (?)
Gabian - Gabarois

By the way, the name "Roujan" in the language of Oc (langue d'oc) means Red and doubtless refers to the colour of the earth around here, which ranges from blood-orange to dark oxblood red/almost purple.

Opera and Musicals, Montpellier and Orange

Captions: (top) Inside Montpellier's Opera Comedie, as seen from the gods; (centre, from left to right) Poppy, Yvonne, Erszi, Justin, Michelle, Josh and Alex, sitting on the opera house terrace; (above) the Opera Comedie, Montpellier.

About two or three times a year, a group of buddies from Roujan go on an outing kindly organised by our pal Yvonne (who lives in London, but now also has a house in the village). The first expedition was to see 'Carmen' in Montpellier and it turned out to be an extraordinary production. Of course the music is sensational and we practised all the major arias in the cars on the way there! Perhaps not unnaturally, we were expecting lots of colourful costumes with the cast moving in lively fashion around Spanish-looking sets. We were therefore rather aghast, therefore, when instead the cast wore mainly everyday clothes, the sets I recall as expanses of grey, and the lead singers and chorus spent most of the time standing still and singing straight at the audience; really, there was no acting or natural movement. Despite all this we had a fab time - a dreary production can't spoil a great opera - and we sang all the way home.

Then there was the marvellously sung and beautifully designed production of 'The Marriage of Figaro', which we all found enchanting. The third - never to be forgotten - trip was last summer, when eight of us went to see the 10 pm performance of 'Aida' in the Roman theatre in Orange. (Naturally I nicknamed it 'Ada in Orange', and so it be came known locally.) The theatre seats 9,000 people and we were on stone benches right high up - so high we could even see outside the theatre and catch the breeze on what was a tropically hot night. The full height of what the ancient Greeks called the 'skena' or structure at the back of the stage still stands, in brick, five storeys high - it's simply stunning. (I'll try to add some images later of Orange.)

Our most recent outing was not to the opera, but to see a French touring production of 'Fiddler on the Roof', the musical which made Topol famous. Yes, we did all sing 'If I were a rich man' driving along the autoroute, in between speculating on how well most of the numbers would work in French. After all, everyone knows that French isn't the best language in which to sing great pop songs - they rarely work - so we wondered whether the same would be true of American and British musicals. In the event, 'Si j'etais un richE', with heavy emphasis on the last E, worked fine. And it was a lively, well sung and visually attractive production. Bravo, Yvonne!!

In My Garden, mid-February

It's an exciting time of year for anyone who loves plants, the countryside or gardens. While most of the landscape is shades of russet, prune and dark organge, the grasses stand out as mostly glowing ochre because we've had so little rain. There have been promising showers that lasted an hour or two, but the last good downpour was in October 2006. A couple of storms rolled over in the previous August, but, apart from that, we've had nothing useful since Autumn 2005! Now, however, despite the lack of rain, the countryside is dotted with the heartlifting palest pink of almond trees in blossom. And the mimosa tree (accacia) in my garden is in full bloom.

In the middle section of the garden, wafts of delicious honeyed scent envelopes you when you least expect it. It's the smell of Spring coming.

Pezenas market in midwinter

On sale in the buckets above are vine stems. If you enlarge the image, you may be able to read at least one label, as they are sold by variety, e.g. merlot, chardonnay, syrah, etc.

As you can see, it was a hazy, cloudy day with occasional sunshine, instead of the usual clear, sparkling light we're more accustomed to.

Pezenas is only about 10 minutes by car from Roujan, so I go most Saturday mornings. It's a great place to bump into friends, buy lots of delicious local produce and the occasional piece of clothing - a pair of summer trousers for 8E, for instance. Last Saturday I was pretty restrained and simply got some french beans, organic potatoes, vine tomatoes, a fennel head and a special grain loaf. Usually, though, I'd also buy some of the local cheeses such as Lacaune, Comte and goat's cheese.

By the way, last Saturday was the first time in a couple of months that the Roujan goats' cheese producer, who sells under the trade name Le Chalet, was there with his stall. In late December and during January, while the nanny goats are having kids and feeding them, cheese isn't made. I particularly like the small, soft, white cheeses that are only a couple of days old. Other people prefer the solid, yellow ones grown pungent over a month or more.

Other favourite purchaces are handmade green or black olive tapenade and sundried tomato tapenade, which smell of sunny summer days. You see some shoppers going past with large platters of shucked oysters, which they tuck into with a glass of wine at a table in front of the Cafe des Arts. Even on a fairly grotty day, people prefer to sit outside rather than in the warm fug indoors. (Smoking is still permitted in bars and cafes in France, until December 2007, I think.)

Lizzie's recipe for Boeuf Bourguignon

For a dozen people and maybe a bit for the freezer.

2 packets of lardons (bacon chunks, cut into ½ -inch pieces)
4 kilos boneless beef chuck/stewing steak, cut into 2-inch pieces
1 cup flour
Lots of olive oil
1/2 cup brandy
Handful of fresh parsley
8 large garlic cloves, chopped
1 litre local Languedoc wine (at least)
1 kilo shallots
3/4 kilo mushrooms, quartered if large – but preferably button
Salt & pepper

Other people add carrots and celery, but I think it makes it a bit too English stew-like

Now the secret with this recipe is to do lots and be generous. It freezes perfectly, is not wildly expensive if you’re lucky enough to live in France and is even better the day after. Think more in terms of lobbing stuff in, rather than measuring out exact quantities.

Turn on the oven – red hot for the first half an hour, then down to gas mark 6 (sort of upper middling with electricity - 175) for the rest of the cooking.

Get the worst bit over first – ask a friend round for coffee, and make them peel the onions. Don’t let them get away with doing the mushrooms, which only need a wipe with a damp cloth. That’s your job. Peel the garlic while you’re at it, just to show willing.

Find the plasters, sharpen your best knife, put the plasters away. Cut up the steak into chunks, remembering that they’ll shrink a bit so don’t cut them too, too small. Put some flour on a plate, season it well, then coat all of the steak chunks with flour.

Now, send the friend off to buy a couple of loaves of fresh crusty bread because you have to concentrate briefly. It’s time to start cooking. Take the very biggest pan you have that will work on the top of the cooker, and in the oven. I use one or two of those big deep trays school cooks used (when they used to cook real food in the 60s & 70s). Pour in lots of olive oil and get it smoking. Lob in the meat to sear it. If there’s too much for one go do it in batches. Rush to open all the windows or you won’t be able to see. Turn it down a little bit and chuck in everything except the wine. Toss it about until the onions look half cooked and the bacon is beginning to burn. Pour over the brandy and set light to it. Keep your eyebrows well out of the way. When that’s calmed down pour over enough red wine to cover everything completely. Season it like the clappers. Cover the pan with foil – if the pan’s enormous you’ll have to put two bits of foil together and pleat it to make it wide enough. Heave it into the oven and forget about it for at least two hours, although it’ll carry on getting better if you can wait an extra hour. Pour yourself a drink.

To serve: Toss on a generous handful of chopped parsley. Serve it from the pan, with mashed spud and chard if you have a trencherman’s appetite like me, or tagliatelle and fine green beans if you want to be a bit more French. Try not to look too disappointed when the last morsels are wiped from the pan with chunks of bread – you won’t have to eat it three days running, and you could have a takeaway pizza tomorrow, if no-one invites you out.

Cake a la francaise

CRYSTAL'S RECIPE FOR
CAKE AU JAMBON ET OLIVES
(Ham and Olive Cake)

3 eggs
150g Plain flour
1 sachet of yeast
10 cl Olive oil (I use slightly less)
12.5 cl Whole milk - warmed up
100g Grated gruyere cheese
200g Diced ham or leanish bacon
75g Green olives without stones
Salt and pepper to taste

Put on your oven to 180 degrees. Put the milk to warm in a pan.
With a whisk, beat the eggs and then mix in the flour, yeast, salt and pepper.
Now mix in the oil, warm milk and then the cheese, ham/bacon and olives.
Tip the mixture into a meatloaf/brickshaped baking tin lined with cooking parchment, and bake in the oven for 40-45 minutes.

This cake is at its delicious best when eaten warm! Bon appetit!!

Valmagne and Wine

In the sparkling sunshine and beneath a cobalt sky, the stone of the Abbaye de Valmagne glows rose-ochre and is dappled by the spidery shadows of the tall plane trees beside it. A winter's day is, in many ways, the ideal time to explore this stunning Gothic Cistercian abbey: apart from the resident mouser and two female staff, we had the place to ourselves. Although it's only about 20 minutes' drive from Roujan and 8km north of Meze on the coast, Lizzie, Ali B, Michelle and I had never been there before.

Valmagne was an early Cistercian foundation, begun in 1138 and financed by Raymond Trencavel, a name which will be familiar to anyone who has read Kate Mosse's 2005 novel Labyrinth, set in medieval Carcassonne and the Languedoc eastwards as far as Beziers. Because the Abbey gradually acquired a large number of vineyards, it apparently became one of the richest houses and in time notoriously decadent. A fair amount of its carved decoration is of vines and grapes. On the whole, however, because it was pillaged during the French Revolution and has lost its stained-glass windows, the church, chapter house and cloister are beautiful but fairly austere.

There are several things which make this place special. The first is the wow-factor of the church: it's nave is 370 ft long and its massive pointed arches are said to be as high as those in Narbonne cathedral; it has an earth floor; and in each recess on both sides right down the nave, instead of little side altars there are gigantic wooden wine vats, each of which is big enough to hold a truck - I've never seen such enormous ones. Though the vats are empty now, they were once used for wine storage by a grower who bought the Abbey in order to prevent it being plundered for its stone by local builders.

Within the golden stone cloisters is to be found a second special feature: an octagonal stone Gothic pavilion, over which a creeper (probably a vine) has been trained to shelter a plashing fountain. It's straight out of those evocative illuminated manuscript paintings of the medieval courts of love. Indeed, I'm not the only one to whom this thought has occurred. My copy of the Cadogan Guide to Languedoc-Roussillon says that an eighteenth-century poet by the name of Lefranc de Pompignan declared this a 'fontaine d'amour'. On a hot summer's day this would be a wonderful retreat in which to sit and read a book...

After lots of oohs and aahs, we tried a couple of the Abbey's wines: a red which didn't seem anything special and an OK rose, which at 4.80 Euros is reasonable value. We all agreed, though, that we prefer the rose from our local Chartreuse de Mougeres, where it's sold at 9.50 E for a 5-litre box, or the smarter and yummy rose by Christa and Hans at Domaine Bourdic. The other thing we decided before leaving Valmagne is that the entrance fee of 6.50E is high, but worth it because the money's going towards repairing this marvellous place.

From Valmagne we drove along a little back road through the garrigue to the small hilltop village of St Pons de Mauchiens. (Isn't that a wonderful name? St Pons of the Bad Dogs! Sadly St Pons isn't listed in my ancient copy of the Penguin Dictionary of Saints, so I'll have to track him down later.) This has to be one of the prettiest villages in the area. We entered its medieval heart by a fortified archway and wandered around the winding lanes up to the fine Romanesque church at the top. From here there are panoramic views south across undulating small vineyards and garrigue as far as the Bassin de Thau and the sea, and, from behind the church, the view northwards is of the alluring, dramatic mountains of the Haute Languedoc. Again this would be a nice spot to bring a picnic to eat sitting on the bench at the side of the church - perhaps even, Lizzie suggested, a breakfast picnic early on a summer's day, when you might be able to see the peaks of the Pyrenees about 70 miles away.

After a brief coffee session in Montagnac, we headed home to Roujan for a glass or two of wine chez Michelle and Justin.

We live in the midst of one of Languedoc's great winemaking regions. Roujan itself is a winemaking village. I live, as do many others, in a 'maison vigneronne': a former winemaker's house with a huge doorway at street level wide enough to allow access into the property by a horse and cart carrying grapes. Within the ground floor of the house are two massive reinforced concrete cuves, in which the wine was stored. They are built into a corner of the main house walls, stand about 2 metres high and go down about 2 m into the ground. I know other people have knocked doorways and steps down into their cuves to transform them into dens, workspaces, storage or even a sauna. However, in my case, this isn't feasible, so I'm paying a specialist a lot of Euros to knock them out completely next Tuesday (of which more later); I need the space...

Anyway, over several glasses of Valmagne wine at Michelle and Justin's, we discussed an article in a local freebie mag, Blah Blah Blah, about how overpriced local wines are in many restaurants and how limited is the range of wines on their lists. Restaurant owners here seem to multiply the cost of wine in an oversimplistic fashion. While an ordinary 3E bottle will be charged out at 10E, a 6E bottle will be listed at 21E, giving a whopping 15E profit. I'm sure restaurants would sell more of the middle-priced and more expensive wines if they didn't mark them up so greedily. Greater turnover, more profits and happier customers. As for the limited range of wines you can order with a meal, well that is just absurd when we are surrounded by some really scrumptious wines both single and blended. We eaters-and-drinkers should vote with our feet as well as protesting in print!

On the other hand, the daily set lunches offered by most village restaurant-bars are generally good value and sometimes very tasty: our local Grand Cafe offers a three-course lunch with a quarter-litre of wine for 13 Euros, ie around £8 sterling. (Last year it was 12E, so a bit of inflation there.) At the Caves Cooperatives in St Pons de Mauchiens, local restaurateurs and bar owners were bringing their own bottles to be filled at 0.85E each (that's about 50 pence per bottle). Of course I've no idea how good or bad the wine is they were buying, but, given the competition for business, it can't be too awful, can it?

In the Beginning

Alex's first post - sitting at the kitchen table Le Couvent, Roujan, in the warmth of a log fire on a cold, windy winter evening. Lizzie and Ali have just persuaded me to start a blog. In fact, Lizzie just grabbed her tiny laptop and set this up in an instant. I'm out of the starting block even before I realized I had a foot in it. Now she says I've got 5 minutes to write something and I haven't a clue what to put. I'm feeling self-conscious and at a loss what to say - no doubt this will soon change...

I'd like this blog to be full of anecdotes funny, sad, illuminating about life in this part of the Midi and not just about me. If I come across a good joke, a delicious recipe, an interesting fact or such like then they can be included.

This all came about because Ali and Lizzie were telling me about a website named Deux-Pieds (from 2 feet in the earth/ground) they've just set up for a German-Swiss couple here named Christa and Hans, who own a lovely vineyard, Domaine de Bourdic, just outside Roujan.

C and H make some delicious red wines we enjoy drinking. Like all winemakers, Christa & Hans are keen to interest people in their creations. By chance, everyone came up with the same idea at the same time: to offer, via a website, the chance for people to adopt 12 vines, follow progress at the vineyard and then receive 12 bottles with that individual's name on the label. One can then also be taught how to blend wine and have the chance to attend the vendange (grape picking). There'll be lots more on the site than that and the whole thing is a fabulous, fun idea, so do please follow the Deux-Pieds link above (and the others too!).