Egypt

As we walked between tombs in the Valley of the Kings just west of Luxor, we passed a young woman wearing a Santa hat. It was only then that I realized that it was Christmas day. Not being aware of the date or the holiday is one of the aspects that underscores this vacation to Egypt. The loss of orientation is not simply the luxury of vacation and forgetting the day, it comes from the cultural slap upside the head – and my head is still spinning.
 My head is still spinning because we left the quiet life of Vaison la Romaine and have come to the second largest city in the world. And the third world. And the home of 5,000 years of documented history. And the place where the dust raised in the desert and in the streets of the cities never gets washed off of leaves or buildings because it never rains. And where the smog can be so thick you can’t see the pyramids. And where the first “wake up” call is the Moslem call to prayers at 5:30 AM. And where the calls to prayer come from so many minarets in so many mosques that they compete for your attention. And where city services have failed to keep pace with population and that means, among other things, garbage is not collected. And where the pollution from plastic – be it plastic water bottles or plastic bags – is overwhelming. And where I feel safer than I do in most cities in the US…

At the same time, my head is spinning because it is amazing to view the temples and pyramids, fortresses and early mosques and try to fathom the skill, craftsmanship and engineering required for their construction. For example, red granite was quarried in Aswan in the south of Egypt and then transported on the Nile to the sites where it would be used as coffins or sarcophagi or as a statue or obelisk or as part of a wall… One of the obelisks from Luxor (Karnak) is at the center of the Place de la Concorde in Paris. Another obelisk – “Cleopatra’s Needle” – stands in Central Park (New York) both transported from Egypt via modern ships (I think)… Our guide told us that some of the pieces weighed more than 200 tons. What kind of boats did they have 4,000 years ago to carry such weights? And then once at the destination, where did they have to go to rent a crane to lift it into place? The pyramids, the Sphinx, and the burial tombs and the elaborate drawings and carvings therein have been preserved well though the relics and icons did not fare as well due to centuries of looting. Archeologists and Egyptologists continue to uncover more sites…

My head is spinning because I thought that France was the “scarf capitol” of the world. After seeing the creative ways women here wear scarves, I am beginning to think that Egypt seems closer to the scarf fashion epi-center. The majority of Moslem women – the majority of women here – have their heads covered. They create fashion statements with the scarves that they wear. Most younger women wear multiple scarves which are always beautiful and well-coordinated with their other garments.

Whether in Cairo or in Luxor, internet connections are readily available and that makes my head spin too. Skype, e-mail, Google work here as well as in France or in the US. Technological advances in communication cross the divides faster than air mail. We were talking about movies and learned that within 24 hours of the release of a movie in the states, bootleg copies are available in the markets here. When I stop being dizzy from spinning, I return to a state of amazement. Awesome vacation. Awesome world.

HAPPY...

We are going to Cairo for the holidays. We have heard that the reindeer there look more like camels than caribou but they will help guide us in delivering our sincere holiday wishes to everyone.

Joyeux Noël

Merry Christmas

Happy Hanukah

Happy Solstice

Bonne Année

May 2010 be filled with peace and love.

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Fresh is best!

Everything tastes better here.

It is not the preparation – though the way the French prepare foods does make for great flavors – it is the quality of the food items. Everything: apples, beets, chicken, cod, turkey, zucchini.

I attribute the better flavors to several things.

• The food in the market is fresh, most often locally grown.
• The food is raised using few chemicals.
• The animals are raised using fewer hormones.

Fresh and local seem to be the keys to the good flavors here. In one very important sense, the French never forgot what community-supported-agriculture proponents are promoting at markets in the states: Buy local.

We have seen the ads and signs reminding people to buy their Christmas turkeys and we have heard that the supermarkets macy have only a short supply because the long distance truck drivers want better pay and thus may strike/boycott the turkey delivery system. The other thing we heard is that the turkeys here will be more like those sold in the US which I interpret as more white meat, less flavor. Savourez la vie! Taste life (and good flavors)!

As cookbook author and French food expert Patricia Wells writes in The Provence Cookbook, “I live more than half of each year here, much of it spent touring markets, shops, restaurants, farms, in search of the freshest and finest of the season… Vendors laugh as I gasp when I see the first-of-season fresh white shell beans – cocos blancs – a signal that I can add Provençal vegetable soup, or pistou, to my weekly repertoire.” (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2004, p. xiii.) Also visit Patricia Well’s website at: http://www.patriciawells.com/.

Thanksgiving

After leaving our dear friend Mary Beth at the TGV (fast train station) at “0 dark thirty” this morning, we drove east toward the sunrise and Vaison la Romaine. As the skies lightened, the most notable aspect of the horizon was the snow on all of the major mountains. What we experienced as rain on Sunday fell as snow in the higher elevations.

What a beautiful sight. It matched the beauty of some of the other sites we saw during MB’s visit (a French friend calls her “EMBAY” to fit the French pronunciation of the initials.) On Saturday we walked along roads at the foot of Mt. Ventoux past the four rock structures called “les demoiselles coiffées” (the women wearing hats). We walked past olive groves where the olives were black and ready to be picked. We met a man who had a sighthound and, during the conversation with him, we found out that he knew about Scottish deerhounds but he spent most of his time telling us about the Egyptian lineage of his sighthound.

Sunday, we went to the market in Isle sur la Sorgue. It started raining, so we left the beautiful town and its market and headed back north toward Vaison la Romaine. We stopped to taste wine at the Wine cooperative in Beaumes de Venise where Ellen and MB (EMBAY) enjoyed the presentation of the young man serving the wine—and the translation by the old guy with them--as much as the wine tasting. We took back roads over the Dentelles mountains and had spectacular views of distant horizons, valleys and vineyards.

MB (EMBAY) had come to join us for Thanksgiving. She almost didn’t make it. On the Sunday before her Monday departure, she discovered that her passport had expired. Luckily, there is a Department of State office in Chicago. With all due speed in one day MB was able to complete her renewal application, get speedy photos, and plead her case with the requisite amount of charm and groveling to leave the passport office the same day with a renewed passport and a great sigh of relief. She made it to her flight and we met her at the TGV station the next afternoon.

We had a delicious Thanksgiving dinner: rabbit in mustard sauce, home-made stuffing with fresh sage, sweet potatoes, green beans and a fresh winter squash/pumpkin pie made by Ellen that was better than any canned-pumpkin generated pie of previous years. We were thankful for the good food, the good fortune of enjoying it in France with good friends, and EMBAY’s success at the passport office.

We were also thankful for friends, both enduring friends and new friends including our new neighbor who lives across the street from the apartment. She joined us for “apero” (cocktails) while EMBAY was here and invited us to a wonderful dinner on Saturday evening.

Every morning, EMBAY shouted: “I am in France!” – a sentiment that we are fortunate to feel and enjoy everyday.

Our good friends, Margaret and Phil, took us to the opening of the truffle market in Richerenches. The small village is the center of the truffle trade in Provence. I read that it is considered to be the most important truffle market in France.

When we got out of the car, it felt like we had stepped into a Marcel Pagnol movie set. (Marcel Pagnol was a French film maker from Marseille. He directed “the trilogy” of French films: Marius, Fanny and Caesar. Hollywood made Fanny from a compilation of the trilogy with Charles Boyer, Maurice Chevalier and Leslie Caron.) Even the street music – from two men who played concertina, violin, piccolo and tin whistle (not all at the same time) - was reminiscent of the music from Pagnol’s films.

The people at the truffle market seemed to be extras from a Pagnol film. Old, unshaven men with berets and work jackets that they have worn for farming, herding, car repairs, and hunting since the jackets were new – generations ago. Several men had the remains of a cigarette stuck to their lips so well attached that they were able to continue their animated conversations without losing the cigarette.

The day started with a procession of men and women wearing long black capes, Camargue-style (large brim) black felt hats and gold medallions hung from gold ribbons around their necks. One man carried his truffle-hunting dog with him during the procession. (The dog had its own gold sash.) They walked from the town square and then preceded around the town ending at a platform stage set up in front of the mayor’s office. The procession reminded me of church processions without the incense – unless cigarette smoke is a modern replacement for incense. All of the black-caped parade marchers with their black hats and gold sashes joined the leaders of the truffle market on stage who offered their best wishes to the truffle hunters (trufflers) and to the truffle merchants. (Ellen got some great pictures of the events and as soon as I can figure out how to get them off of her phone/camera, I will post them.)

After the well-wishing ended, the two young children in the procession cut the ribbon to open the market officially. Meanwhile, on the other side of the main street, men and a few women were already elbow-deep in the truffle trade. The trufflers brought their “black diamonds” in bags/boxes/sacks to the merchants to see what price they would get. The merchants had scales set up in the trunks of their cars or on the beds of their pick-up trucks. Most of the vehicles were well-worn old farm vehicles, but in the middle of the row was a brand new, shiny, sporty, black Mercedes. The man behind the steering wheel wore a suit and tie. His colleague, standing at the trunk, wore a black leather jacket (truffle merchants from Paris ?). The merchants looked over the contents, inspected a few, smelled them and then offered a price. The truffler could accept the price – at which point the contents were weighed – or reject the price and go to another merchant/car trunk/truck bed to see if s/he could do better. If the merchant and the truffler agreed on the price, the truffler would move from the back of the vehicle to the front where a second person, often sitting in the driver’s seat, would pay for the truffles. It was all very orderly but reminded me of descriptions of drug buys in the states.

“…seventy-five-year-old Pébeyre Sr. was on his way home from the Wednesday truffle market in Richerenches, in Provence, when his car was forced into a field by a big BMW. No sooner had he gotten back on the road when another car pulled in front, blocking his passage. Six thieves piled out and, while Pébeyre’s wife watched in horror, forced him out of the car. They made him open the trunk, then fled with 150 pounds of truffles worth thirty-eight thousand dollars.” (Sanders, M. From here you can’t see Paris: seasons of a French village and its restaurant. New York: Perennial, 2003, p. 204)

At around noon, Margaret, Phil, Ellen and I joined hundreds of others at the “salle de fêtes” (community hall) where the village was serving a truffle lunch in a church-basement-style room of long tables with very narrow aisles between the rows of tables. We had truffle omelets, bread, salad with goat cheese, ice cream and coffee. (Red table wine complemented the meal.) We enjoyed the foods but, even more, we enjoyed meeting the people to our left and right. There were three couples from les Baux (50 miles to the south) seated beside Ellen and Phil. The couples seated by Margaret and me were locals from Richerenches.

We got back to Vaison in time to go to the English-language film (London River) showing at the theater and then to enjoy “Bouillabaisse” that Margaret had made. We returned to our little apartment at the end of the evening, tired but happy to be part of this little corner of Provence.

Great wines, great times

I have written a lot about Gigondas and told many the story of the exchange we had while tasting Gigondas at one of the local vineyards. During the tasting, I explained to the woman who was running the degustation that when French friends asked why we bought an apartment in Vaison la Romaine, I would say “Gigondas” and the French would nod approvingly. When I tried to use the same answer in the United States, most people looked confused as they didn’t know about Gigondas. The woman at the vineyard asked about the apartment and if we were living there full-time. I explained that we had just bought the apartment. She asked what I thought we would do when we lived there. I replied that I was going to have to visit the vineyard everyday to make sure that their wines were still good. She laughed and then gave us and our friends, Marge and Charley, another glass of wine.

Gigondas and the other red wines of Côtes du Rhône have a spicy/peppery finish that I really enjoy. France produces many fine wines, but the wines of the Rhône valley are my favorites.

We have had a wonderful time discovering and learning about different wines. Our most recent trip took us to Domaine Rouge-Bleu just west of Cairanne. We knew about this vineyard both from “French Word A Day” (http://french-word-a-day.com/) and from the experience of caring for the Golden Retrievers, Braise and Smokey, who live there.

Since our neighbors wanted to go to a vineyard to taste wine and Ellen wanted to see the dogs again, we combined the two and visited Domaine Rouge-Bleu (http://www.rouge-bleu.com/). Kristin and Jean-Marc Espinasse are wonderful hosts and Jean-Marc is making very fine wine. Jean-Marc gave a very thorough explanation of wine making to us (though Ellen spent most of her time playing with Smokey.) We knew (from FWaD) that they had just finished bottling their 2008 wines and we got to be the first buyer of the 2008 vintage! We plan to enjoy these wines over the next few days including serving them with whatever meal we create for American “Thanksgiving.”

By the way, I failed to mention that Denise and Paul have set up their own blog to share their around the world trip with others. Their blog address is: http://www.trailofempires.blogspot.com/.

Be a tourist in your own town

Our next-door neighbors just left for Paris and the next leg of their around-the-world trip. Thanks to their visit, I got to become a “tourist in my own town” and took Denise and Paul to see the Roman ruins and other local sites.

     Paul – who has an amazing knowledge of history – had questions about everything. He was trying to integrate the bits and pieces we saw about Vaison la Romaine into his knowledge of ancient history and medieval history. I had few answers but we found some of the answers in the Tourist Guide Vaison la Romaine published by Editions AIO (http://www.aio.fr/).
     Sometime in the 4th century BC, a Celtic tribe called Voconti made the town their capital and called it Vasio.
     “In 124 and 123 BC the Romans conducted two military campaigns in Gaul. The Ligurians, Vocontii and Sullivians were successively vanquished. Since the Vocontii had facilitated pacification of the region, Julius Caesar rewarded them by granting their capital the title of “Federate City,” ally of the Roman people…” (Tourist Guide Vaison la Romaine)
     I wonder if the Sullivians and the Sullivans are related…