Going AWOL

Dear Chitlins Readers,

This is not a Dear John letter. It's just a note to say that I'm taking a break. I have a wonderful story idea, and can't find enough time to get it down on "paper". It's too hard to do when I keep thinking of all of the things I want to tell you about. Like:

• Lucia's Dragon Birthday Party last Saturday...



• and the fact that the morning of the party I pulled off Max's pajamas to find his body covered with chicken pox. And then it started hailing. And an hour later I broke a tooth.


• Max's incredible speech improvements since his surgery...in French. But not in English.
• My beautiful new office out in The Boulangerie.

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

AFTER

• The fact that my foot still hurts 14 months after surgery.
• The great books I've read lately.
• The cherries that are weighing down our trees and what I'm doing with them.
• All of the flowers (and a tree) that I've planted in the last month that are STILL ALIVE.
• The new cafe in Bourgueil that I'm dying to go to, which actually looks like something you'd find in Brooklyn instead of a place where strong-smelling, tobacco-stained farmers go, like all of the other local cafes.
• And much much more.
  

BUT

I am fighting that urge tooth-and-nail. Because I want more. I need more.

I don't want to work teaching a subject that doesn't interest me to students who aren't interested for a pay that, if you break it down by total pay for the hours I have to put into it, I could make working at MacDohs (as they call it here).

Writing is what I love. I need to do it to feel "well". Sane. Happy. And if I could possibly make a living from doing something that is necessary to me...if I could use all of the time I spend grading papers that read, "the dolphins battle with the jaws since them is enemies", to instead write down all of the stories that are in my head...well that would be a beautiful life. Or, I should say, an even more beautiful life.

I have spent the last four years telling you my stories. It has been the best writing program I could have asked for. Your comments have shown me what has touched you, what has made you laugh, cry, and empathize with, as well as (just as importantly) what didn't strike you as all that interesting. You have helped me find my voice.

The compulsion to get a post out every day (at first) and finally just a couple of times a week has been an exercise in discipline. And now I need to find out if I can keep that discipline going when I don't have my blog to answer to...waiting for me to fill its pages, and hanging like a scimitar over my head if I haven't posted for a while.

I will keep posting photos to my Flickr account. And I will keep updating my Facebook page with "status reports". I can even hook that up to a Twitter account, if any of you are into that. But I'm going to put aside my writing time for The Goal, The Goal being the opportunity to offer you something better than this blog. To let you hold a book or magazine in your hands, and think, "I knew Amy back in the Chitlin' Days."

If I can't resist the urge, I might allow myself to come back in the autumn and post irregularly. If you want to be informed of upcoming posts without having to check back here, click the "Followers" button in the left margin to be updated when a post appears.

One thing I promise to do is let you know book progress (currently nothing to report) and if I have any articles coming out (one was bought by The Advocate, but who knows when they will print it).

But as an extra-special "thank you" for your years of support, I would be happy to send you a teaser for my book...the prologue. I can't print it on-line, but will send it to those who want it if you send me an email with the heading "Prologue, please" to my email address misschitlins@hotmail.com. I hope you enjoy it. And I hope that someday I'll be able to give you more.

"A bientôt" and not "au revoir"!
Amy

Redneck Yard Update

No commentary is even needed here. I will just give you the before and after photos and give all credit for the hard work to Laurent and Jean-Pierre (to whom I pledge my undying gratitude)

BEFORE

AFTER
Ok, maybe just a bit of commentary. The half-roof will be rebuilt, and we will use it as an outdoor dining area (covered since it rains so much here). Door on left hides the well, which is why Jean-Pierre boarded it shut with those two pieces of wood.

BEFORE

AFTER

They are going to tear the metal off the side of the hangar (ugly and makes noise), but leave it on the top to shield the building materials. Until we finish construction. Which will be in 2020, the way things are going.

BEFORE

AFTER

AND MOST IMPORTANTLY...

BEFORE

AFTER

THE VAN IS GONE...I don't know how, I don't know where. All I know is that I'm retracting my application for 2009 Loire Valley Redneck of the Year.

The Best Chocolate Cake in the Entire Universe

Max putting the candles on

For those of you who have been reading Chitlins for a few years, you may remember the Best Cake in the World : Le Fondant Baulois. It is this amazing chocolate cake that you can buy in La Baule, a seaside town on the northwest coast of France.

Well Isabelle, a dedicated Chitlins reader with a sister-in-law from La Baule, decided to find the recipe. Isabelle's SIL didn't have it but asked her mother, who asked a friend from the gym, who knew a woman that had the recipe. Isabelle made the cake for her birthday and then wrote me to say, "OMG, this is the best chocolate cake I've ever eaten."

And then (I could just kiss her) she gave me the recipe. And said I could give it to you.

Since today was Laurent's birthday, I decided to give it a test run, and I am proud to say - it did not disappoint. Although it wasn't quite as good as The Best Cake in the World, it is by far the best cake I have ever made. And I think after another try (my oven wasn't quite hot enough), it might even trump the bought version.

So without further ado, here is the recipe for Le Fondant Baulois, as noted by Isabelle, translated/converted by me (so maybe not quite perfect...expats welcome to double-check my figures):

Ingrédients :

• 6 oeufs (on garde 3 blancs pour les monter en neige) 6 eggs (you use 6 yolks and 3 whites)
• 250g de sucre (j'utilise du sucre roux) 1 cup sugar (Isabelle suggests "sucre roux", but they didn't have it at Hyper-U so I used regular granulated)
• 100g d'amandes en poudre a little less than 1 cup powdered almonds
• 200g de beurre ramolli (attention: ramolli, pas fondu. Et j'utilise du beurre 1/2 sel) 1 cup soft, but not melted, salted butter
• 3 cuillers à soupe de Maïzena 2 1/2 Tbs cornstarch
• 250g de chocolat à pâtisser 9 oz. cooking chocolate (I used Nestle Dessert)
• 2 sachets de sucre vanillé 2 packets of vanilla-flavored sugar (maybe 2 Tbs)
• 1/2 cuiller à café de levure chimique 1/2 tsp baking powder

Préchauffer le four à 180°
Preheat the oven to 350°

Beurrer et sucrer (avec le sucre vanillé) le moule à gâteau, puis le placer au frais.
Butter a 9" cake pan, coat bottom and sides with the vanilla-sugar, and then put it in the fridge.

This is the first package of "sucre vanille" I've ever bought.
I'm sure it could be found in a high-end supermarket, perhaps, in the States?

Blanchir les jaunes avec le sucre.
Mix the 6 egg yolks with the sugar.

Faire fondre le chocolat et l'ajouter aux jaunes, mélanger.
Melt the chocolate (I did it in the microwave) and add it to the yolk mixture.

Ajouter la poudre d'amandes avec la levure et la Maïzena (la pâte est très épaisse et assez difficile à travailler !), puis le beurre ramolli.
Add the powdered almonds, the baking powder, and the corn flour (the batter will now be very thick and hard to work with!), then the soft butter.

The batter is almost a paste by the time you stir the whipped egg whites in.

Battre les 3 blancs en neige avec 1 pincée de sel et les incorporer à la pâte en soulevant.
In a separate bowl, beat the three egg whites with a pinch of salt until it forms stiff peaks. Fold it into the batter.

Verser dans le moule et cuire 25 minutes.
Pour this into the cooled cake pan and bake for 25 minutes.

Both Isabelle and I thought our cakes should have baked a little bit longer. I actually left mine for 30 minutes, but it could have stood 3 or 4 more. Every oven is different, though. Sticking a knife in won't help you see if it's done since this is a "fondant", which means a bit runny in the middle. However, you want the entire top of the cake to look firm.

Pockmarks due to birthday candles

Isabelle thought the cake was even better the next day. I will have to wait 'til tomorrow to find out! But even though eaten the same day, it had thumbs up from both Laurent and his mom, who are both picky chocolate fiends. The butter gives it a slightly salty taste, and the vanilla sugar on the outside caramalizes to make this...

Chocolate heaven. Bon appetit!

Wine Etiquette

Click here to see my article in the May 2009 issue of Wine Enthusiast!

The title was not mine...

Amy's Beauty Tips for an Economic Recession, Tip #1

For those wanting to give their lips that little Angelina Jolie pick-me-up, save your money and forget the collagen shots. Just find a toddler with a very hard head and tickle or wrestle with him until he is crazed with energy. Then lean forward, and voila! A fat lip ... absolutely free!

Flustered by the Fauna

On Saturday Laurent and I were enjoying the beautiful summer-like day and the fact that the kids were at their grandparents' for the afternoon by treating ourselves to a bit of good, healthy, backbreaking garden work. (You should see me take the pick-ax to the rocky garden soil...it's worthy of inclusion in the upcoming Friday the 13th remake.)

So I was digging up old potshards and mini-boulders to re-plant a flowering bush, when I heard Ella whining her "I've found something alive, and am too chicken to approach" whine inside the barn. I put down my death-tool and found her in the back of the barn peering into a lowered section of the floor. Two planks were leaning on each other against a sealed-up door, and it looked like something was nesting in between. I pulled the front plank forward and saw this:

At first I thought it was a kitten, and then I got a bit closer and noticed that its fur was kind of spiny-looking.


It had found a sheet of insulation somewhere and shredded it to make a nest. I went to find Laurent, who is usually as clueless as I about Country Things, but he took one look at it and said it was a hérisson. "A baby hérisson?" I asked, thinking he was talking about a porcupine. "Nope, it's full-grown," he replied, and stood there trying to devise a cunning evacuation plan while I went to look up hérisson on the internet.

"Hedgehog", I read, and then went to Wikipedia to see if hedgehogs act like porcupines, shooting barbed spines at people who try to move them out of their barn, and the like.* (They don't.) I went back in the barn to brainstorm with Laurent. My plan was to lure it out with some shepherd's pie leftovers, but Laurent thought it had probably fallen into the pit and couldn't get out on its own.

He remembered trying to get a hedgehog out of his tent once, when he was a teenager, and said it wouldn't budge and tried to bite him. So we went for a self-defense style of approach, picking it and its nest up with a shovel and gently placing it inside a big plastic bin...


then carried it to the back field, and placed the bin on its side so it could get out by itself. I hung around with my camera to see what would happen, and for about ten minutes, nothing did. It unrolled itself, but then kind of just sat around looking disgruntled.


Then, obviously tired of the National Geographic photo shoot I was going overboard with, it crawled out of the bin, took a look around,


and headed straight for the abandoned pig sty, where Laurent and his dad stocked some building stone.


And that was that. If it chose to stay, the hedgehog had a nice new home protected from the elements by a solid roof and from human intruders by the decades-old, but still very strong, pig smell and a row of stinging nettles outside the door.

It would have been the end of the story if I hadn't pulled my camera out that night at Laurent's dad's place to show some REAL countryfolk what we had found in our barn.

In that universal "stay off my land" old farmer way, Alfred, his daughter, and his grandson had spent the sunny afternoon stringing up barbed wire across a beautiful grassy path that people often follow to walk through the woods. "That'll show 'em," Albert grumbled, leaving us to wonder just who he wanted to show and what. They stopped by Jean-Pierre's afterwards for an apéritif, and I showed them this hedgehog photo:


"That's a beau hérisson!" they exclaimed in the way that everyone did when they saw Max as a baby, using beau to mean "fat" rather than "beautiful". "Yep, she looks about ready to pop," one of them said. "Pop?" I repeated, confused. "Well, that's a pregnant hedgehog if I've ever seen one," replied the woman.

And then it all clicked. The hedgehog was using our barn as shelter to give birth to her little hedgehog babies. She COULD get out of the pit, because if not, how did she drag that insulation down there to make a nest? And she probably didn't want to leave the plastic bin because her nice cozy birthing nest was in there, and she'd have to go somewhere else and start all over again before her time came. And what if her time were now? What if the hedgehog babies were cold and uncomfortable and DIDN'T MAKE IT BECAUSE OF ME???

I didn't say anything about it in front of the countryfolk, for fear that they would find my horror so ridiculous that they would force me at pitchfork-point to leave the countryside and move back to the city. But as soon as I got home, I found the remains of the shepherd pie and left it outside the pigsty door.

*Thanks to Wikipedia, I now know that porcupines
don't "shoot" their spines, but that's not what
the other kids told me growing up in Alabama!

English Book Club in France

Click here to see my article on "starting an English-language book club in France" from the April 2009 issue of French Property News!