It’s quieted down in the village. The peak summer season is on its last legs. You can see it in how the light changes, in how the temperatures are turning just enough to show for certain that one season is making away for another. You can hear it at night as there are fewer TV’s heard through fewer open windows. And the clarinetist who partied with friends until 4 AM is gone. Which is lucky for him, because Tim and I were fighting over who would get first chance to brain the guy with that effing clarinet…if we had the chance. (4 AM people! Seven out of seven.)

Neat animals...shame they're so tasty.

So, he’s luckier than the boars- the sangliers – who had to deal with yet another pack of hounds at daybreak this morning. It’s boar hunting season now. Many of the mountains that form the backdrop of our village are “chasse reserve” or hunting grounds. So, we’ll be enjoying the howling of hunting dogs for several weeks to come. I’m going to TRY to not grouse about this. This is life in the country. Maybe I won’t have to set my alarm clock for a while. I’ll just rouse to the hounds.

Soon, too, the wild mushrooms will be in season. That should make for much less disruptive hunts. I picture placid but earnest gourmands gently threading the hillsides with wicker baskets, not beagles and rifles. God, I hope there’s not a catch, no fungi hunter ritual that has them yodel at dawn. That being said, I LOVE mushrooms. I could eat mushrooms every day and not get tired of them. If I found a nice bunch of wild ones – the non-deadly kind, of course – I might let rip a rebel yell myself. Just as soon as I can get my hands on some girolles, cèpes and mousserons I’m going to have a go at a lovely dish of rabbit roasted with shallots and wild mushrooms. That’s a plate-licker dish. Roasting pan, too.

A mother sanglier and her little sanglier - CUTE!

We’ll probably start to see more cuts of sanglier at the boucheries. Maybe it’s been available all along, and I just haven’t noticed. Dunno. The idea of eating something when it’s in its glory season is really appealing I have to say. It feels like we’re more in touch with the natural cycles of food. The strawberries here, for instance, are fresh off the local farms in June. They’re trucked in from somewhere else the rest of the year, and I promise you they’re not as good and they’re absurdly expensive. The peaches are having their day, now. Actually, I think the peaches are on their tail end, but no matter. There’s also berries, figs, and shortly the apples will have their turn.

There’s something to be said for waiting all year to be able eat something at its peak, like a cherry clafoutis at the end of May or a sanglier steak in September. It’s a new way of marking time for me, and a new way of relating to food. I think I’ll savor some of these things more, be more grateful even, if my access to these things is corralled by a natural cycle of production.

Spending a few days with my parents for my brother’s wedding was a stark reminder of how important it is to live in the here and now.

My parents have spent most of their lives living for the future, always sacrificing the present. But the future they’ve always focused on is proving hard for them to hang onto. Although they have the house built of logs that they wanted and live in mountains like they’ve always wanted, health issues stalk them and retirement isn’t the cake walk they assumed it would be. So, there’s sadness and frustration and bitterness entering into the picture. It’s very hard to be around. I’m all sandpaper and sharp edges when I’m around them. Yet at the same time I hurt for them. It’s hard.

I cannot change what my parents choose, only what I choose. Today, I choose to noodle about the lovely day we spent at the Gorge d’Heric a couple weeks ago.

Swimming hole at the Gorge d

We’d been to the gorge before for a long walk. The river that cuts through the gorge is broken up with loads of lovely mineral hued pools, perfect for swimming. The water is so clear, and it’s not as cold as I had assumed it would be. We decided to go there for an afternoon of picnicing and swimming, only I couldn’t swim – only stand in the water – as at the time as I had conjunctivitis. ( Eye doctor’s orders.)

I spent half my time standing in the water, as deep as I could go and not get my shorts wet. Tim said I should just put on my suit anyway, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to resist the temptation to immerse myself if I put on my gear. So, I just enjoyed watching the little fish nibble on my toes. The only reason I’m OK with my feet being in this picture is that the water hides that they’re in desperate need of a pedi. Tim mentioned that spas in the states now use fish in their pedicure treatments. The fish ever so gently gnaw off the dead skin. The man who has never had a pedicure in his life, who thinks that pedicures and spa treatments are a scandalous indulgence, was telling me (the person who’s had to listen to him rant and rave about how people should save their money and not spend it on scandalous indulgences) about the latest trend in pedicures. Go figure.

To the fish, apparently, my toes are tasty. Ew

We had to share our swimming hole spot, but for the most part our neighbors were no problem, respectful even of nappers…that was until a family of 10 oafs showed up and ruined everything. By that point, the other families had left. For about 20 minutes Tim and I had owned our little hideawy. Then the oafs appeared and took over. They outnumbered us ten to two. I was pissed. I had a moment. To Tim I said, “We’re going. NOW.” He thought I meant we were going home. I just wanted to be away from the horrible, miserable, rude, wretched oafs and find another spot. Which we did. It was a nice, too, although not as nice as the first. After a little more swimming/standing, I took Rufus for a long walk. After about a kilometer, there weren’t very many people around and the peace and quiet was heavenly.

Oafs aside, it was really one of the loveliest afternoons we’ve had in France.

Back in January 2008, I found out that my neighbor, Lara Lowman, had recently returned from a three month sailing trip aboard her uncle’s catamaran – the Queequeg II – that began in Florida and ended in Tahiti. I was impressed. I was inspired. I had to know more. So, I asked if she would let me interview her about her trip. Luckily, she said yes.

This interview was originally posted on a blog that is no longer in service. But I couldn’t bear to see Lara’s story join it in the dustbin. It’s too good. So, it’s being resurrected here (with her knowledge and consent), because it so perfectly conveys how answering life’s BIG Questions can spur us to bold decisions – so bold it’s hard to imagine we can actually do them, yet many of us forge ahead anyway. The result: life changing life experience.

I recently asked Lara about what stands out for her having been back for seven months, and she remarked that she misses the boat, the unstructured time to read, the unbelievable skies, and the excitement of seeing land and watching the port take shape as the boat approached. (These are her words, by the way). And, she was quick to add, “The trip really reiterated that you need to live here and now. And continually recalibrate that balance between planning for the future vs experiencing the present.”

To learn more about the Lara living on dry land, be sure to read through to the end.

Atlanta, February, 2008:

MG: So, Ms. Lowman, dish about this sailing trip to Tahiiti!

LL: My uncle, who sailed around the world forty years ago, decided to sail around the world again. I’ve always wanted to go with him. He’s taken numerous sailing trips in between. I had thought about taking a couple weeks vacation to join him, a fly-in fly-out sort of thing. But I was never able to make it happen. So when this next around-the-world trip showed up, I thought, gosh, I’d love to join him. He would stop over in Atlanta on his way to Florida from Illinois– he was spending two weeks every month getting the boat ready – and Bard {fiancé at the time, now husband} and I would say wouldn’t it be great to do a one-two week leg with him. And then we started saying, why don’t we just go! Let’s do the Florida to Tahiti segment. My uncle was only asking for us to chip in for expenses – food, gas, port fees that sort of thing, may be $7-10 a day. It’s nothing.

MG: What was the tipping point in your decision?

LL: I had already scaled back in certain ways. I had cut back from 40-30 hours a week to see if I could make a living as a freelancer. And I had already stepped back from climbing any sort of career ladder and was more focused on how I wanted to live my life. Bard is a self-employed photographer so he has flexibility. I don’t know that I would have gone without Bard because it’s just nice to have someone on the trip with you. We’re a good support system for each other.

MG: Where and how often did you stop [in port]?

LL: We—there were five of us total on the boat–sailed from Florida to Belize to San Andreas (a Columbian island) to Panama through the canal to Sua, on the Ecuadorian coast, then to Galapagos , the Marquesas Islands, the Tuamotus, and then Tahiti. It was 25 days from Galapagos to the Marquesas. All the other stops were 8-11 days in between.

MG: 25 days…at sea? Not a square inch of dry land? continue reading…

This tea, which is really a tisane, has become a summer staple. I wish I could say I thunk it up, but no, I nicked the idea from, B, an English expat who lives in a beautiful little cottage at the edge of our village. Sage, apparently, has ache-soothing properties. I’ve found it to be just plain tasty and relaxing.

I love that I make this tea with leaves from the sage plant on our terrace. It’s a magnificent plant, but when I bought it from the village Friday market back in April I had no idea what a great score it was. At first I found it “wanting”. This variety didn’t have the whiz bang sharpness of the sage I was used to. I wondered if it was really sage. I even cursed its health and vigor, for the annuals I’d added to the pot for color were getting squozed.

Fast forward: the sage thrives; the annuals went bye-bye. But that’s turned out to be a good thing, because this sort of sage sports an abundance of big, fat, velvety leaves with a delicate, elegant aroma. I’ve been told that it’s probably an Italian sage. Whatever its pedigree, the steeped leaves produce a refined flavor and a very palatable brew.

While I haven’t road tested this tisane with a purple leafed variety of sage, that should work equally well as would the type that’s readily available in markets. You may have to adjust the brewing time, though, if the sage you buy really packs a punch.

The ingredients for this tea/tisane are simple:

• Either a nice sized sprig of fresh sage, or at least a few leaves. Washed and gently patted dry.
• Some good quality honey. (I happen to like the mountain or lavender varieties.)
• A squidge of fresh lemon.

To make this tisane, simply pour boiling water over the sage leaves and let them steep for about 10 minutes. (If you get antsy, and fudge on the time it’s understandable but the brew will potentially be less flavorful.) Remove the sage. Spoon in some honey and add lemon to taste.

Sip.  Savor.

In the twelve hours before we leave for Girona (today) where we’ll catch a Ryanair flight to Brno tomorrow, we’ve had to deal with a potty that won’t stop running, some ants trying to build a nest in the kitchen, and a dash to the sous-prefecture in Beziers to pick up my recepisse so that I can get back into the country. I’m being really lazy here and not adding the accented e’s as I should be. Apologies. But we gotta dash. Ahead of us there’s the 3-hour drive to Girona, a flight that leaves too early in the morning, a bus ride from the Brno airport to the trainstation, a 3-hour train ride from Brno to Prague, and then a metro ride from the train station in Prague to the metro stop near the hotel. I’m exhausted just thinking about it. This is travel in the age of sky-high airfares, and it’s like getting a rock in your trick o’ treat bag. The silver lining: I’ll get to see my brother get hitched in the Old Town part of Prague.

Back next week. Adieu!