Mars 2009 PRINTEMPS

March 2009

AH, spring has sprung here. It has been glorious. Sun and warmth. And we are finally on Daylight time too. We turned our clocks ahead this last Saturday night, the end of March. Does anyone really get up at 2am to change their clocks?
The forsythia has been in bloom for over a week, flowers starting to bloom everywhere.

 

Keith has a job. He finally received confirmation (although no contract yet) and he starts in April. It is with DuVine Adventures, and he will be guiding bicycle trips between Dijon and Beaune and in the Loire Valley. April will be meeting on the company policy...etc, then a Loire Valley training trip. In May he will lead one trip here in Burgundy and 2 in the Loire Valley. They have not scheduled beyond May yet.
Website :  Duvine 
Burgundy Trip:   Burgundy  
Keith at DuVine Adventures Keith Klein
He is now happy that he will have some income for this year and of course it will be on a bicycle. The tour actually is only about 18-20 miles per day on the bike. Then there is wine tasting and evening meals. Not all bad.

It is so easy to try to keep my head in the sand about the financial crisis. But it is real, and it affects us too living here. 
From looking at the crisis here in France, some things are a little different. Government take-over in bad times is not unheard of, so imposing a law on a company that has accepted bailout money is not shocking. I would say that there are not as many foreclosures on houses, because the regulations to get a house loan were very tight. However that said, people are loosing jobs, stock market (bourse) is down, companies are closing and general sales of everything are down. So it is every bit as real. Who would of thought this just one year ago.

Getting my 3 photos ready for the Expo in May. I think that I settled on a Panoramic of the Poppies, Chateau de Gevrey, and Reulle Vergy. Final update in May.

Marsonnay la Cote has a “Journée Gourmand” each year. Keith was going to Bligny, “comme habitude” (habit) and Marie Therese was coming to go with me to Marsonnay. We had gone other years together. Wendy called and wanted to go to, but also wanted to dig up a butterfly bush that was just over the fence on the vineyard side blocking the sun from my garden. So plans were made. We would all meet here in Gevrey, Wendy, Robert, Marie Therese and me, and we would go to Marsonnay. Then when we returned, Wendy and Robert would dig up the bush, while I prepared some aperitifs. Plan went well. They had some good vendors, tasted (as always) some wine and even won a demi bottle of wine. It was a blind tasting, I chose a white, Marie Therese a red. I thought mine was a Chardonnay from Burgundy. I leaned then towards the Marsonnay Chardonnay, but it was a Maconnais. But for picking the region and grape type, I won a demi bottle. Not bad ....
When we returned to the house, Keith was already here. The bush was dug up (it was a beautiful day outside) and we had some snacks and Cremant. A very nice afternoon I must say.

I have talked about Clemencey before and the horse stables: "Ecurie des Combes Rouges"{Stables in the Red Ravine}.

This last month there was a new colt.

I took this photo when it was only 5 days old.

The poor thing had been very sick during the first couple of days. So I took the photo that I could get without disturbing them too much. C’est mignon (it is cute, pretty).

Prior to (some start in November) or during the month of March the vines have to be ready for the new buds. Those that have not cut off last years growth, must get out in the fields early March and cut down the vine. They leave one branch that has about 4 buds and a shorter branch in case the long one breaks! All the rest is cut away.

Then the braches that have been cut are burned. We had lots of “smog” here in Gevrey. Once the vines have been cut and burned, the vignerons must return and attach the branch that was left to the wires. I watch them from the house and all this work is done bent over. It hurts my back just to watch (well almost).

I had a bad cold/flu, so lost a lot of days this month. Nothing exciting to tell about sitting in the house. So I will keep it short and end it here. I hope to get out and profit by the beautiful spring weather we are having. Keith of course is already out on his bike.

I will toss in a spring photo of the Gevrey Chateau (this photo is from the upper side of the chateau). I know some of you have probably seen other photos before!, but it is right here in Gevrey and it was taken just 2 weeks ago.

Note that there is some information on Burgundy wine and labels below this posting. I posted it at the beginning of March. I have not included anything on tasting, that is a another subject entirely.

RECIPE OF THE MONTH
Mixed Mediterranean vegetables

I just made this one up the other week and it is not too bad. It may look complicated, but it really was not. After I browned the vegetables and put them in a baking dish, I browned the pork tenderloin in the same pan, and put it in the oven first. Then slipped the baking dish in to finish.
Easy, colorful and a good flavor. Although I used a little olive oil and some cheese, it really is not that unhealthy either. Give it a try.
When you try one of my recipes, drop me a line and let me know how it turns out.
INGREDIENTS

1. 1  red sweet pepper sliced in long strips
2.  3 small to medium zucchinis sliced in circles
3.  15 black olives sliced
4.  1 red tomato diced
5.  3 oz Garlic flavored Boursin cheese (or Rondele if I remember the name correctly)
6.  Olive oil
7.  Salt and pepper to taste
 

PREPARATION

1.  Preheat oven to 320 degrees
2.  Put the zucchini in a bowl with about 1tsp water and cover with “micro-wavable” plastic wrap. Leave a small air vent. Microwave for 4 minutes. While in the microwave, start step 2.
3.  Heat pan with about 1 TBS olive oil. Toss red pepper strips and sauté for about 7 minutes remove from pan and put the red pepper in a baking dish.
4.  Drain all the water off the zucchini and add to the hot frying pan. Brown quickly, stand by and turn the zucchini often You just want to lightly brown some of the zucchini. This process should take about 5 minutes, so longer.
5. Add zucchini to baking dish. 
6. Add sliced black olives and toss together
7.  Sprinkle the diced tomato on top
8.  Break the cheese up and use about 1/3 of the cheese or about 3 oz. If using garlic, too much may take over the dish. This should just be a nice light flavor added. I used a fork to break it up
9.  Put it all in the oven to warm the cheese and tomato, but not overcook the zucchini. About 15 minutes. You do not want the zucchini to cook until it is soggy. 
10.  SERVE

End of March

March 28, 2008

It was a dark and stormy night in Gevrey Chambertin. Actually, more like a dark and stormy month. This month we have had violent winds (two street lamps came down one night in our little neighborhood), lots of rainy days and then, to top it off, over Easter weekend, SNOW. All right, I will admit that it did not stay on the ground past 11:00 am, but it was snow nonetheless. The cherry and apples trees are in bloom, and it snows. It does not appear that the snow did a lot of damage, so maybe there still will be black cherries in June (one can hope).

Spring arrives earlier here than it ever did in Minnesota, and I do like that. But once spring arrives, I also would like it to stay. These somewhat freezing temperatures are for the birds. And then speaking of birds….

We have birdseed in the feeder out back, and the birds arrived in droves. The feeders were empty in a few hours. I had to keep filling them, and on Monday, still a holiday here, I had to find a store that was open to buy more seed. Most stores are closed on Sundays and holidays. Easter Monday is a holiday. What birds do we have you ask: European gold finches, mesanges (chickadees), pinson de arbre and pinson de nord (chaffinch and brambling), merles[1] (thrush) which are the European blackbird, European Serin, rouge gorge (british robin), green finches, and other assorted brown birds.

Enough of the weather.

Other activities of the month? At the start of the month my Photo Club had its annual photo exhibit on Saturday and Sunday. I worked on setting-up the exhibit, and this was on Friday afternoon. I packed my bag with what I thought may be necessary for the afternoon and went up to the Espace Chambertin. Our exhibit was down in the grand cave. As each problem with set up arrived, I reached into my bag and brought out pliers, tape, scissors, measuring tape, calculator…and thus was dubbed Madame McGyver for the afternoon.

We had to unpack all the photos, label them all, and attach chain and hang (and even make some hooks). To spruce up the exhibit there were to be flowers, however the flowers had been forgotten. So Saturday morning I bought some pansies at the local store and went back to the exhibit before it was to open. Eight little pots of colored pansies for only 4.50 euros, good deal (and now I have to plant them in the yard). Put some colored paper around each pot, and VIOLA. Someone else provided some primroses. So all was ready when the mayor arrived for a glass of wine and to open the show.

On Saturday night, those from the club that wanted, gathered in the cave for a pizza party. It was a nice evening, spouses and significant others invited.

The exhibit went well. Over the weekend over 300 people passed through to see it. You can see some of the photos and the 2 winning photos here at my club website : Reflets et Echos http://reflets.echos.free.fr/blog/?p=253

The weekend before Easter, Marie Therese received a nice order for a wedding (remember she sells wine). The wedding however was Easter weekend. In addition to the wine, they asked if she could get 6 bottles of good champagne. We (Keith and I) offered to drive up to Buxeuil for the Champagne. This is a small village about 2 hours north of us, just within the boundaries of Champagne. We like to go to Champagne Moutard. We even get a discount for being good customers. Our friend Chris had wanted some champagne back, Wendy and Robert needed some champagne and had asked when and if we were going to Buxeuil, we wanted some too, and now Marie Therese needed some champagne. Sounds like a road trip to me. The day was misty and not a day to be out riding a bike or taking a hike anyway. We drove up, through the small villages and enjoyed the scenery, of course had a small taste of champagne while there (I more than Keith since he was driving). Then we loaded the car down with everyones Champagne and returned by a different route. I had stopped raining and was a pretty route back. A bottle of good champagne costs about 17.00 euros, and I will not tell you what we pay with the discount!

That was Monday. On Tuesday I agreed to go with Marie Therese to Volnay, Buxy and St Aubin to pick up some of the rest of the wine needed (we had just done this same trip the week before). Tuesday was a gorgeous day. Off we went and stopped at Buxy (the most southern place from here) and she bought some wine there. Then we stopped at St. Aubin for a few boxes there. They usually leave the wine in the garage/warehouse, but Marie Therese said the door was locked. We waited 30 minutes to see if Vincent would arrive. He did not. This is a small village, with tight winding streets. We did finally find a telephone booth to our surprise, but Marie Therese ‘s telephone card was expired (there are no coin operated booths, you need to have a card that allows you to talk so many minutes). So now we had the booth, but no card (if you haven’t guessed yet, neither of us has a cell phone). Ah we found a tabac (a tabac sells tobacco and also phone cards). The tabac was out of phone cards. And by the way, this tabac was located in the Poste or post office, small village as I stated earlier, but strange even for a small village I should think. No wine, no cell phone, no phone cards....zut!!!

With no other alternatives, we headed north to Volnay without the wine from St Aubin. We arrived at Volnay and the wine was ready. Marie Therese mentioned that she did not get her order from St Aubin and the proprietress told her to use their phone. Vincent did indeed answer the phone, but he was in the south of France in Toulouse! He gave his brothers number and Marie Therese contacted him. He would meet us there, back in St. Aubin. Maire Therese loaded the trunk with wine from Volnay and demi-tour (U-turn) back south to St. Aubin. When we arrived, the young man was waiting for us and told Marie Therese that the door was never locked, just stuck. Sometimes you have to pull extra hard he said (this door is about 10 feet tall and 6 feet wide and made of wood, heavy in the best of circumstances). But as the old bard said, all is well that ends well. We now put this wine in the trunk too (which was getting full of wine boxes by this time) and headed north once again, towards home. Sure do hope the wedding was grand.

Chris (our friend from London) arrived on Thursday. This is when the weather started to change. Friday it was pouring rain and I needed to run into the market in Dijon. We were going to be tasting white wine on Friday night and I wanted (needed) some things from the market to make sumptuous hors-d’oeuvres. Chris and I went into Dijon for the market. Inside the market it was cold, not much difference from the outside! We found everything we needed and left there as soon as possible. Still had to make a few more stops on the way home and it was noon when we arrived, wet and cold. I had bought a nice pate en croute at the market and made some potato soup. Warm house, warm food, a little wine and good conversation made up for the trip to Dijon. It actually cleared up towards the end of the afternoon. It was still chilly though.

That evening we tasted 5 different bottles of white wine (7 people). All the wine was from Burgundy and all was Chardonnay, but the difference in taste was really extreme. Two were exceptional: a Rully (from Domaine Breliere and the St Aubin from Domaine H. Prudhon). We spent the whole evening talking and eating with friends and tasting wine. What started as a wine tasting with apertifs, ended up to be a full evening with our friends. Chris speaks some french so the conversation ebbed and flowed between french and english. It was all so pleasant.

On Saturday, Keith always prefers to go to Bligny and work on the trains. Around 10am, off he went with the car. Gevrey now has better train service (started in December) and I suggested we go down to Beaune by train, have lunch, shop and taste wine (Chris likes to buy wine here because it is about ½ the price of what she pays for the same wine in England, so when she comes over we do taste a lot of wine).

The train is not too far from the house, but the day was cold. There were still flakes in the air, although it was not snowing hard. The train only takes about 15 minutes to get to Beaune, that part is easy, but after that we had to walk about 6 blocks into the wind and the snow was coming down once again. Heads down we trudged forward. We found a nice restaurant and had lunch (salad and omelets for me, Croque Monsieur for Chris). The weather kept changing from rain, snow , sleet to clear. We just kept ducking in and out during the bad parts. We shopped for a while and then found the wine place I had wanted to try. You pay for the privilege of tasting, but then there is no obligation to buy wine. There were 15 wines to taste, 3 whites and 12 reds. And I was not driving for once, so I tasted all 15 of the wines. There were signs all over that you could fill your tasting cup (tastevins) only once, in 3 languages. The last wine was Corton Grand Cru. It was sublime. But at 39 euros a bottle, I passed on it. Chris found a wedding present (cork screw) for her friends and bought some wine too. We thought that we had finished a cold ugly day on a nice note, so off to the train and back to Gevrey for the evening. Also I found a good place for wine tasting.

Easter Sunday I had made reservations at a restaurant for noon. It is in the country and there was still snow on the ground when we arrived at the restaurant. It is up in the hills (Haute Cote). We had a nice lunch, but not anything to write home about, so I won’t.

Marie Therese had invited us over for dessert, so off we went to Messagnes. She and Christian and her father and Andrea were just having dessert. For dessert we had cherry tart (tarte de cerise) or compote de peche ou pomme (peach sauce or apple sauce), or a bit of all three. Also wine and Cremant was served (Cremant is sparkling wine). After talking and eating our dessert, she thought Chris should meet Ohtar[2] (the horse) and see the new barns (see Decembers journal on the American Barn). After looking at the barn and petting Ohtar, we went into what is now called the “club house”…a basement room with a wood burning stove. The room is walk in level with the house above. Christophe has set up his office area on the right, a table in the center and a couch over on the left wall. Marie Therese had brought some Cremant and Christophe had some gateau (cake). As we sat talking, others arrived and soon the room was full. Along with everyone, more Cremant arrived too. So we spent a couple hours talking, inside away from the cold snowy outside. This time the conversation was only in french.

Have to mention here that Angelique, a young woman boards her horse there too. She had come in from riding her horse, which is an Icelandic horse. She said Icelandic horses are the 4x4 of the horse world, although they are small. I will try to post a photo in the future, they are really mignon (cute).

Chris stayed until Wed morning, the 6:30 train to Lille. Monday and Tuesday were rather uneventful. Monday Chris and I walked into Gevrey and around the vineyards in cold blowing snow. We did need to get out and get some exercise, so although the day was not ideal, off we went. We had a good 2 hour hike, and once we were not walking into the wind, it was much nicer. My hardy Minnesotan upbringing does come in handy now and then, I was not as cold as Chris.

Tuesday night Chris took us out to dinner. We went to a place (Clos de Napoleon) we have always like, simple Burgundian food, but good food. They hired a new chef last September and said it was under new ownership (we think it is the son of the former owner). We sat next to the fire and the food was very good, and the servings more elegant. We had a very enjoyable evening.

The weather is starting to return to normal.

The trees in Gevrey on the Place de Marronier were pruned this last week. When they prune here, they really do a complete job! Had to take a photo to show you.

That is all for now, until April. I have written enough to probably bore you all.

RECIPE for March

Easy Bruschetta

Ingredients

• Good bread (Italian bread or French) sliced (10 slices)
• Mozzarella Bufalo (sliced in ¼ inch slices) 2 balls
• Grilled red pepper (cut in thin strips) 1 pepper
• Basil
• Lettuce (small mixed leaves preferred) large hand full
• Vinaigrette
• Garlic
• Olive oil
• Dijon mustard

Preparation

Slice bread and toast top side and then rub with a garlic clove cut in half.

Pick basil leaves and mix with equal amount of small salad leaves. Add Vinaigrette (see below).

Toss salad lightly.

Place a small amount of tossed salad on each toast.

Place one or two (depends on size of toast) slices of Mozzerella on top of the salad.

Lay some of the strips of grilled pepper on top.

Dribble some olive oil over the top.

Vinaigrette

3 TBS Olive oil.

1 tsp Dijon mustard.

1 TBS vinegar.

Beat with a fork until it is all incorporated into a smooth vinaigrette. Add salt and pepper.

It is that easy.

Bon appetite

[1] Merles have a wonderful song and now I understand “4 and 20 blackbirds baked in a pie, when the pie was opened the birds began to sing” [2] By the way Ohtar went through his first proves at an event – 2 separate jumping sessions without faults.