Quoi de Neuf? (What news?)

Hello, faithful readers! I hope you haven't forgotten us. We haven't forgotten you. I'm so sorry that it's been so long since our last post. We've been pretty busy!

We had our first sort of mini-vacation a few weeks ago! We were given Monday and Tuesday off, so we drove west, through Bordeaux, where we visited IKEA (about the most economical place to buy things around here) and then up to La Rochelle, on the coast. It was beautiful!!! We stayed overnight in a hotel that had a view of the ocean -- which cost less than the gas to get there. We enjoyed some French conversation, some French television, and we got to walk around inside a castle that was built in the 15th century. We also saw some postal workers on strike, which was very interesting. All in all, La Rochelle is a beautiful city!





Tuesday, we drove down to Brouage, where there's a museum dedicated to the first voyage of French people to the New World -- which Charles' family was a part of. It was fascinating to learn all about the things leading up to Champlain's voyage to Canada and the conditions they faced there. Brouage *was* a city on the coast, but because of alluvion, it is now 50km from water. Anyway, it's a city surrounded by a wall, with passages that go underground. It was a really nice little town, and there we met a re-patriated Cajun! Damien was SOOO thrilled to meet Charles! We got to talk with him for a long time, and he even took us to his favorite place to eat.


Work at Le Colorado has been going well. Unfortunately, Sheri Misegades is suffering from an inflamed muscle which is pinching her sciatic nerve fairly severely. She's been all but bedridden for the past 3 weeks. This is really hard for her because she's such an active person. It means a little more work for everyone else, but we've been doing fine, just truckin' right along. :) In fact, we're finding that the things we're cooking are very well received. Today for lunch, Charles cooked for eight men and there were only six -- but it was so good, they ate it all! Tonight we had sixteen people for dinner, and one man wanted the recipe for Amber's chocolate cake because he said his daughter LOVES chocolate cake! It's been such a pleasure to cook for people who are appreciative.

Yesterday, we took a trip with Nolan and his two daughters, aged 4 and 1/2 and 3. We drove to Sarlat and saw an old church with flying buttresses. It was awe-inspiring... and there was even someone inside playing the organ. We're finding in so many of these old churches, one can't help but be silent in reverence and respect. They're absolutely beautiful.


We also saw a castle that was built by a man who was born in the year 930. We couldn't go inside because it was closed for renovations, but it was fun to see... especially with Kristin and Nolan's little girls, who kept asking if the Princesses live there. :) Anyway, here are a few pictures of the city and the castle.

We also noticed this place for sale... would you want to live here?
And finally, here's a picture of our little Christmas tree. Christmas is not the same here, but we're looking forward to sharing it with Amber's parents and our new family here. :)
We promise to be more consistent bloggers from now on! Thanks for keeping up with us!

Fromage Montage

All right, I'm sure that many people (of our 8 faithful followers) are wanting to have the skinny on French cheese. After all, Fromage (cheese) is an entire course in the traditional French Dinner and when the French are really enjoying the meal, the Fromage helps them to finish well and feel like they have "dégusted."

So in the interest of those who have been asking us about cheese, I got the cheeses out of our Fridge and took pictures of them. There are actually more types of cheese here than you could try in a year if you tried more than one different cheese a day in that year, never repeating.

First off, let's go with a cheese everybody has at least heard of: Roquefort

I know what some of you are saying: "Hey! That's Blue Cheese!" and yes, you'd be correct, but in France, there are many varieties of «fromages bleu» and Roquefort happens to be one of them. Here, if your blue cheese is crumbly, that means that it isn't worth putting on the table; in fact, it'd probably be best to just use it to catch mice. Good blue cheese is moist and spreadable, like our cream cheese and the blue cheese here spread on a piece of fresh bread is really quite an experience.

Next up: Fouchtra Vieux, or Ol' Fouchtra

When I saw this cheese at market, I thought to myself, "It looks like they rolled that cheese in dirt!" So I bought a piece. Upon looking at it closer, I think they really did, here look at it closer


You can actually see the grains of dirt or whatever it is that they rolled it in. When we asked some French people what it was, they simply responded that it was the «moisissure» or mold that grows on it, but I ain't never seen mold like that! Anyway, it is really delicious and when they have cheese here, you're supposed to eat it from most creamy to most sharp and this lies in the middle somewhere.

Next on the list is Raclette


Raclette is used as a melting cheese and usually poured over potatoes, but it is pretty versatile and creamy. Oddly enough, the cheese is cut into squares, but the little Raclette melting pans they have are triangular so that you have to cut a little bit off of each square to fit it in there.

Next is possibly the king of French Cheeses:


Brie

And this is no ordinary Brie, this is the Brie de Meaux, the real Brie that, yes, is actually illegal to mass market in the U.S. because of how they treat the milk. This Cheese is alive. It smells like broccoli shouldn't but somehow you want to eat it anyway and I even had to cut off a slice after taking this picture. The first house I entered in France I thought I smelled old dirty diapers, but now that I know what I'm smelling, I realize they must have had a pretty expensive arsenal of Cheese.

And now for a change in Animal byproduct: Le Chevre (that's "goat" for you Anglophones out there)

Always seen in this form and with the white rind, Chevre is a very eatable cheese. It isn't as much like feta as you'd expect since that is what American's know of goat's cheese. It's somehow creamy and sharp at the same time and I personally have a hard time knowing when to eat it with other cheeses since it is so easy to eat and yet so powerful at the same time.

The reason that the French even find importance in the order of their cheeses is that if you were to eat say the Brie de Meaux then a Camembert, you wouldn't taste the Camembert at all. By finding the perfect order of cheeses, you find a kind of cheese Zen, if you will.

Lastly, I'll show you what happens when good cheese goes bad



This cheese was left in our fridge and we forgot all about it. It was a pretty incredible goat cheese mixed with herbs de provence. Don't worry, the large ovular object on it is an olive garnish. We're actually pretty sure that the green stuff doesn't go deep and that we can cut it off and enjoy the cheese again!

The next one we're not sure about:



Amber thinks it may have been a bleu at one point, but I don't know, I think it looks too much like banana pudding. And just to let you know, I was able to pull the wrapping off of several other of these cheeses, but this one... WHEW! It reminded me of the smell when I had to clean my Cocker Spaniel's ears, but hey, I might try it out anyway.





*Editorial Note* After talking with another person here more about the Roquefort cheese, I found out that what makes Roquefort cheese real "Roquefort" is that it is made in the region of Roquefort and from sheep's milk. It is as with wine, an AOC cheese, meaning that it has certain regulations about its production and you could find another cheese that tastes exactly like it made in the exact same way, but if not from Roquefort, it is sadly just blue sheep's cheese. Kind of like California's sparkling white wine cannot be called Champagne.

"Flying Solo"

What a week! Bob and Sheri left for Texas early Thursday morning (Oct. 22, I think) at which point we had about 8 people here, I think. The following Sunday, we went from 8 to 26, and all this past week, we've been feeding 26 people, three times a day! Here's what our daily schedule looked like:

6:00am -- wake up, get dressed
6:15 -- coffee must be turned on by this point (it takes about 45 minutes to make 5 liters of coffee)
7:00 -- Finish guys arrive for breakfast. We had to have ham, cheese, bread, boiled eggs, coffee, tea, milk, orange juice, butter, jelly, cereal, and plates/silverwear set out for them to help themselves. Starting at this point, we just had to make sure things stayed full... we usually used 4-5 liters of orange juice per day.
7:15 -- Amber starts desserts for the day while Charles tends to breakfast refills and dishes. If the lunch dessert took a long time, I'd just make that one and have to wait till the afternoon to make the dinner dessert. I often had dessert ready to go before 8:30 in the morning!
8:00 - 8:30 -- French guys arrive for breakfast. They're more talkative in the morning :) and I think they eat more bread.
8:30 -- We double-check that all the ingredients for the day are at hand
9:00 -- our last customers come to eat breakfast and Marie-Yvonne and Barnard arrive to help
9:00 - 11:30 -- the four of us cook lunch, set the table, and keep up with dishes

11:30 -- quick lunch (we eat leftovers)
12:00 - 12:30 -- Finnish lunch (just the main dish and coffee; they only have a 30 minute lunch break!)
12:15 - 1:15 -- French lunch: entrée, plat, cheese, dessert, coffee
1:20 - 4:00ish -- dishes, cleaning up (the French always put bread on the table rather than their plates, so we spend a lot of time cleaning up bread crumbs), re-setting the tables, finishing dinner
4:00ish -- coffee with Marie-Yvonne and Barnard... we'd usually eat any leftover dessert items at this point. :) Then we'd check the ingredients for the next few days and see whether or not Charles and I needed to go shopping that afternoon or early the next morning. Mondays are veggie pick-up days, Thursdays are meat. We also order bread every day for the next morning.
4:30ish -- Marie-Yvonne and Barnard leave. Charles and I either nap, run to the grocery store, or finish up things for dinner.
6:30pm -- Charles and I return to the kitchen to do final dinner prep: check water pitchers, make bread baskets, prepare serving dishes, make coffee, etc.
8:00pm -- dinner starts. It usually lasts -- much to the dismay of some of our Finnish clients -- over 2 hours. On Friday, I left at about 11:30pm and Charles stayed till 12:30... that was unusual, though. We usually get back to our chalet at about 10:30. Some nights we ate dinner and some nights we didn't.
One or two nights, Charles entertained the guests with music while I caught up on dishes. They loved his Cajun songs!


We've had long days, but we've had a great time. We sort of found our "rhythm," and we've laughed a LOT with Marie-Yvonne and Barnard. They are SUCH fantastic people! They've been so patient with us as we learned our kitchen vocabulary in French-- they'd ask us were something was, and we'd just stare at them. Haha! This week has really been good for our language learning! It was hard, though... by the end of the week, we were waking up with sore feet, tired backs, and legs that didn't want to carry us anymore. Saturday we were definitely ready for a break.

Saturday and Sunday Marie-Yvonne and Barnard stayed at home because all of the recipes were ours and because half of our customers (the French ones) left Friday evening.

Friday was room cleaning day. We asked the clients to bring their sheets with them to breakfast Friday morning, if they didn't mind, and we ended up with mountains of dirty sheets!
We had a lot of help with the rooms, though! Anne and Madame Adams came to do the bathrooms, which was a HUGE help! Unfortunately, I forgot to remind them do to the chalets, so I had to clean 3 bathrooms (wah). Bob and Sheri were so good to us to organize help, plan out the menus, order veggies for us for Mondays, and even ask the Boulanger (bread maker) to deliver for us!
Saturday, we still had to do all three meals, but Sunday, we had only breakfast! It was wonderful! We spent the day going to market, drinking coffee, browsing for new cheeses to try, doing laundry, and working in our future apartment. We now have clean floors, a desk, a dresser, kitchen chairs, and dishes!

Sunday night, Charles cooked up some of the mushrooms that grow all over the property. They're delicious!

This week, Monday was going to be Marie-Yvonne and Barnard's last day helping us. Bob and Sheri were scheduled to come back Monday evening and wanted to dive back into work Tuesday morning. However, they fly standby and all flights are currently full. Sooooo they'll be back Thursday evening instead. When we timidly brought this up with Marie-Yvonne and Barnard, they're response was, "oh, no problem!" and they'll be continuing to help us this week. :) However, this week, instead of 26, we have only 17... which doesn't sound like a big difference, but it seems like a walk in the park after last week! Today, for example, we had everything except the icing for the cake and the potatoes done by 2:00pm, which gave us time for a leisurely coffee and an afternoon trip to the grocery store.

Keep us all in your prayers, though, especially Bob, Sheri, Kristin, Isaac, and the kids as they travel back from the US. Thanks for keeping up with us!

News from the French countryside

Well, we have not been very predictable with our blog here, but at last, an attempt to add something for you all to enjoy.
We finally finished the retaining wall and Bob and Sheri are gone to Dallas for their son's wedding. It's pretty exciting here with no one but each other with whom to speak fluent English. One of the regulars, Fred, told me last week that he hears a drastic improvement in our accents already and said that we have exceptional accents for Americans. I can hear a lot more of the French as well now even if I don't understand completely the sense of the words. But there was one man at Dîner last night who knew a bit of English and he shared it with us, "No speak Englich."

We have a sizable group of Finnish men here, but only two speak English at all and they are conversant, but not exactly fluent.
On that subject, Finnish is quite an interesting language. It's amazing that any country could make sense of the letters produced from pounding ones fists on the keyboard, but then, they fill in the spaces with sound you'd make while falling down the stairs. For the ignoramuses who don't know (and ignoramus is defined here as anyone who doesn't know something I didn't know 3 days ago), Finnish is an Asiatic language that has no comparison grammatically or phonetically to any European/Romance Language. For that matter, it lies completely outside of the Indo-European parent language progeny. Whereas, in most European languages, if you don't know the word in the language, you can spell your word and it is 75% of the time a cognate word and the other party could figure out what you mean. In Finnish, if you want to say, "Would you like more eggs?" you have to say, "Haluatko kanan munnat?" and then to ask, "Is it good?" "Onko hyvä?"
"Hyvää" is about the only word I've been able to memorize and hear from them. I means, "Good." "Hyväämentä" means, "Good Morning." when I asked one named, Kimmo, if "mentä" meant "morning," he gave me a funny look and responded, "If you say, 'Morning' and I say, 'What "-ning" mean?' what you say to that? ...She is a Chinese Lady and I doesn't know how she got in there!"
Finnish people (at least the ones I've met) have a lot of fun and know how to joke without getting dirty.
I asked if they did any kind of Internet networking like facebook or something and the best English speaker, Sammi, responded, "I have no friends. I lost book, but have still the face."
Another time, we were all about to go to bed and Sammi and Kimmo were having a smoke on the porch of their chalet as Amber and I passed by on the way to ours. It was after 11 pm and BLACK. Sammi pointed to the sky and said, "like Finnish sunrise. Darker at noon."
I communicate with the others by pointing and giving them a thumbs up if I like something such as Tapani's pictures of the moose he killed in Northern Finland and Tapsa's Harley. I asked Tapani if he lived near the Arctic Circle in Northern Finland and he responded that he didn't because that was at least 100 km (62.137 mi) away.

For your enjoyment, I'll also put a video of the celebrated actors of Finland: Pirkka-Pekka Petelius & Aake Kalliala





The Finnish may not speak English the best, but I have had my share of linguistic blunders here as well. The French language is organized in such a way that changing one syllable can change the entire sentence. We were at that traditional dance a couple of weeks ago and I introduced myself after Amber and said, "Je suis sa épouse." instead of the correct "Je suis son épouse" which I changed my intended meaning of "I am her husband." to "I am her wife."
Also, as I mentioned sometimes it works to just use the English word with a French accent and they understand, but other times it can phonetically mean something completely different. For example a man came to Le Colorado where we are and I ask «Avez-vous vos (and I forgot the word «Chambre» here and replaced it with the English equivalent "Room," but with a French accent which sound exactly like the French word «Rhume») room?» but the poor man heard the French word, what being French and all and therefore I asked him, "Do you have a cold?"
The third problem I have with French right now is that I have a built in vocabulary of Cajun French words that are indeed French words, but usually crass and vulgar by today's standard of proper French. For instance, Amber and I were trying to get somewhere in Paris and I had a detailed map that showed me several streams, but I couldn't figure out which one was the one right in front of me. So I asked a passerby, "what is the name of that stream down there?" and tried to make it easier by pointing, but the man responded in a choler, "I don't understand the sense of what you just said!?" "That STREAM down there!?" I repeated and he ran away. Well, it ends up that one of the popular words for a stream in Louisiana sounds amazingly like a terrible word to the French and I was asking him the name of that #@*! down there.

Well, what do you do? I've started to tell people that I'm just going to leave my Cajun words in Louisiana.

In other news, there are edible mushrooms by the dozens growing here and I'm learning how to cook them like a true "Français."

Until next time....

Learning Lots!

Wow! It's been a long time since we've updated our blog! Sorry about that... we've had some problems with the Internet, and we've been keeping busy here! We're getting to know the Misegades and the way they do things, we're getting to know the "regulars" here as well as the occasional guests and even some new people... and we're getting to know Égletons. Here's a sign that we thought was really funny. It points to Soudeilles (a town) and "Other Directions." We were the only ones laughing, but that's ok. :)
We're enjoying the food... I got brave one night and made crêpes. They were pretty tasty! I also found a recipe online for Anaïs to make pancakes. She was SO excited!!! She *loves* pancakes. :)
This is a picture of a small part of open market. It happens on Sundays when weather permits, I think. They have all kinds of local produce, cheeses, honey, sausage, clothes, etc etc etc. It's a great place to try new things and talk to people about what they're selling... most of the time, they made it!
This man makes some mean boudin and andouille!
So Sunday during open market, we went to get some fresh bread. There we ran into a friend of the Misegades, Sabine. She was so excited to hear that Charles is Cajun! She asked if we would be interested in hearing some local music and learning some dances. She said she'd love to also learn about Cajun music and dancing. We said absolutely, that would be right up our alley! So Monday night, we went to the dance lesson. Charles played with the two accordionists, and I danced -- for 2 and 1/2 hours! We had a blast! :) I thought I'd get to take pictures, but I got pulled into dancing, so this is the only photo I have. We also went, that Friday night, to a rehearsal of a group that plays traditional music from this area. It was really interesting! We got invited to come back to their next practice and play with them. We're really excited at the opportunities this gives us both in music and in building new relationships.
I'm really loving my camera that my parents gave me for my birthday... This is a picture taken early in the morning, from right in front of the house we're staying in for now. It's colder than it looks, though! This morning, it was -6 degrees Celsius (I think that's around 22F). Charles on a Sunday afternoon :)Me and my new friend, Anaïs. She's a passionate young Christian girl studying to get a Bible certificate. She loves to talk about the Lord, and talking with her is really helping my French!
Charles and Bob, hard at work on a wall they built to be a future retaining wall for a future swimming pool. This wall has been a lot of hard work for Charles and Bob, as well as Christian, who comes every Wednesday. When Christian is there, they speak only in French, and this has been a big help to Charles' French. He keeps up conversation very well. (We also speak French at dinner.)
Now we're preparing for the week and a half that Bob and Sheri won't be here. We've been planning menus and stocking up on food supplies. A few of their friends will be here to help us, which is good, because there will be between 20 and 30 people to feed every day -- potentially 3 times each day, even. Charles and Bob have been doing some dinner music some evenings. They're quite a pair! I've been really enjoying the women's Bible study -- both the study and the ladies who attend it. I'm able to follow it and even share my thoughts sometimes, but I still speak quite slowly.

The weather is colder than we expected. We found out about a thrift shop kind of place in Égletons, though, so we might see about getting some gloves. The Misegades have given us their spare coats. They're taking very good care of us! They also gave us this weekend off since the next two weekends we'll be going full speed without them here. So we're going to spend Saturday in Tulle, we think, and browse some music stores and maybe attend a gospel concert we read about in the paper. Anyway, keep us in your prayers and keep us posted on what's going on with you! We miss y'all!

Bienvenue à Égletons (Welcome to Egletons)

Well, here we are in Egletons, France, and it’s hard to describe precisely the feeling of beginning to settle in to a new place. The weather has been beautiful. It’s chilly in the mornings and evenings, but sunny and warm in the afternoons. We have heard that it’s often quite rainy here, so we are soaking up the sunshine while it lasts.

Charles and I get up every morning between 7 and 8am. We wake up in chalet #3 here at Le Colorado and have breakfast together: yogurt and/or toast, coffee (of course), and sometimes orange juice. Then Charles heads out to work with Bob and Nolan (Bob’s son-in-law). Right now, they’re working on building a retaining wall for a future swimming pool. They hope to get all the concrete set in so that it can dry before the cooler weather. I clean the house, clean rooms of clients who have recently left, go on errands with Sheri or Kristin (the Misegades’ daughter), or have quiet time by myself. I cook, and the two of us usually have a fairly leisurely lunch together. In the afternoons, Charles goes back to work with the guys, and I help cook dinner for the clients or clean or hang out with Kristin and her three lovely children: Kailin (almost 5), Sophia (3), and Ryan (8 months). Charles and I try to go on walks when we have time. It’s a beautiful area for walking – even the weeds are pretty. For dinner, Charles and I often eat with the guests in order to get to know them and to practice our French. After a meal lasting up to 2½ hours, we come back to our chalet, watch a French video (language tool from Dr. Garside), maybe an episode of the Office, and fall asleep.

Communicating continues to be a little bit awkward. Today, on an errand with Kristin in Tulle, I met her friend Audrey. All I said was “Bonjour,” and she looked at Kristin and said, “She’s not French either, huh?” It’s not a rude thing to say here, it’s just an observation. Still… from one word, she knew I was American. It’s an odd feeling, trying to hide my nationality. But American tourists have earned such a reputation for being brash, rude, and ignorant of things that are culturally or politically sensitive that I try hard not to fall into the stereotype. I’ve not felt any animosity, though. Especially out here in rural France, we’re well accepted and people are very friendly.

Charles and I have very much enjoyed trying out our French on the customers here. With two of the “regulars,” Tony and Fred, we’ve been able to talk about politics, music, our dreams, religion, death, etc. Sometimes, with Charles’ Cajun accent, I end up acting as translator, but we’re both learning a lot. We also sometimes end up helping them a little bit with their English. Anyway, they’re great guys: friendly, interesting, and patient.

We’ve also started meeting people from around town. Charles met the guys who work at the hardware store, and I’ve met the lady who launders the sheets and the ladies at the grocery store. We’ve also met some of our neighbors, one of whom is a die-hard fan of American Western movies. He loves to wear his cowboy hat, bandana, and chaps.

Something that’s really lit a fire under me to work on my French is the women’s Bible study. It’s every Thursday afternoon at 3pm (9am Eastern Standard time), and it consists of about 7 ladies who meet at Sheri Misegades’ house. They’re all really wonderful, sweet, Christian ladies who enjoy discussing the Bible. I am able to follow the discussion fairly easily (provided my brain is in “French mode,”) but sharing my own thoughts is difficult. I was finally able to share a little bit this past Thursday, but I felt that I halted the fast pace of the discussion. They were all very sweet about it and understood me fine, but I was a little discouraged. All the more reason to keep studying, right?

Anyway, here are a few pictures to give you an idea of the scenery. :) For more photos, see our facebook pages.

Here's Charles in front of a castle not far from where we live. It's one of France's newer castles, from the 16th century. (Charles says it still has that "new castle" smell.)

From left to right: Kristin, Sophia, Bob, Kailin, and Sheri. This was taken during church on Sunday morning at Kristin and Nolan's house.
The big bosses: Bob n' Sheri. :)
Our current residence:

a couple houses in Egletons

picture I love of the nearby city of Tulle
Limousine cow
Our future apartment
Sorry the pictures are in a weird order. I haven't figured out blogger like Charles has. Anyway, thank you for keeping up with us! We'll keep you posted as we continue to get settled here.