Our son, Léo, has recently finished an intense cycle of competitive exams and interviews for his next three years of further education. He wants to pursue viticulture/oenology studies in an agricultural engineering establishment, and the relevant schools are based either in Bordeaux, Toulouse or Montpellier. After visiting Toulouse, Léo made a rapid decision to strike it from his list because, although it’s an excellent school — wait for it — there was ‘no bread shop within walking distance’. WTAF? Even allowing for cultural differences (Léo is French born and bred, or bread as the case may be, and I was born in the UK), I had trouble seeing the lack of a bread shop as a major hurdle. Luc, on the other hand, found Léo’s logic to be beyond reproach.

Daily bread

Once Léo had settled on, and been offered a place at the institute in Bordeaux and we started to look for an apartment, we quickly realized that a bread shop, or boulangerie, in the immediate vicinity is one of the biggest selling points for property; estate agents’ maps feature little baguettes to indicate their locations. I became mesmorised by the baguette icons, and began to count those in central Bordeaux, but only got to 78 before going cross-eyed. Google then fed my new-found bread shop statistic obsession with the reassuring fact that Bordeaux has 277 boulangeries/patisseries for 250,000 inhabitants. In the Anglo-Saxon world, we tend to prioritise things like schools, general shops, perhaps hospitals, and other amenities. Not so in France, the baguette is all powerful!

We had a delivery from a man this morning whose first bemused question, once he’d eventually found our house at the end of the sandy track, was: ‘what do you do for bread?’. Reassured to learn that Luc made sure we had a constant supply, and delivery completed, he made his way back to civilisation in a shocked daze, shaking his head disbelievingly and muttering to himself: ‘Putain, ils n’ont même pas de boulangerie!’ (‘Fuck, they don’t even have a bread shop!’) I think the fact that, to all intents and purposes, we live in one of the few remaining boulangerie deserts in France, was a lot for the poor chap to process. I don’t think we’ll be seeing him again any time soon.

Recipe for stuffed green peppers (serves 4)

• 4 green peppers (or any other colour)
• Olive oil
• 2 tomatoes, peeled and chopped
• 2 onions, chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic, crushed
• 150g arborio rice
• 750ml chicken or vegetable stock
• 20g raisins
• 20g pine nuts
• Sprig of thyme
• 1 teaspoon coriander grains
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• Handful black olives, pitted and chopped
• 200g goat’s cheese or feta cheese, sliced
• Fresh coriander

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Prepare the peppers by cutting off the top and scooping out the seeds. Place on a roasting tray with a little olive oils and pre-roast for about 15 minutes, until softened. Gently fry the chopped tomatoes, onions and garlic in a little olive oil until soft. Add the rice and continue to fry, mixing with a spatula. Add the stock, stirring well, and then the raisins and pine nuts. Then add the thyme, seasoning and black olives, and leave to cook on a gentle heat until the liquid is absorbed. Once the rice mixture is cooked add the cheese, mixing well. Fill the emptied peppers with the mixture, adding the fresh coriander at the end. Put the tops back on the peppers, pour over a little olive oil and return to the oven for 45 minutes.

Following on from this post, I have just emerged, morally battered and bruised, from a ‘phone call during which I was flung around like a hot potato, between seven different employees of the Regional Health Agency (‘Agence Régionale de Santé’, or ARS, which is very apt). I am desperately, and unsuccessfully, trying to get an exemption for the C-19 booster, as my second vaccine caused me to need a ‘little lie down’ that went on to last four months.

Three times a charm. Or not.

The rules for exemption in France are quite simple: If you’ve had two vaccines and lived to tell the tale, then you have absolutely no excuse not to have a third. Or, if you reacted badly to the first or second jab, then they do another one to see whether you actually drop dead or not. If you do drop dead, it’s good news, because it means you’ll automatically qualify for exemption. Obviously you’ll be delighted about that. People who have had one or two vaccines in good faith, but subsequently experienced horrible, sometimes long-lasting health problems as a result, not only suffer, they are also punished and silenced. It’s dystopian. After nearly an hour of ‘phone tag, the ARS’s employees seemed to weary, and gave me another number to call, which I did; it was a suicide hotline. You couldn’t make it up!

Java had never seen cows before, so when we came across a field of ‘Aquitaine Blondes‘ who had been put out to graze on the early Spring grass near the house yesterday, she stood stock still for a while, with her head tilted to one side quizzically. She was deciding what to make of these ‘not dogs, not wild pigs, not horses’. She looked so painfully confused, that I tried to explain — in some detail — that they were quite harmless, and a little bit like the deer she sees around the house, etc. What I didn’t realize, was that the farmer was just behind us, politely waiting for me to finish my pedagogical lecture. He said, with a cheeky grin, ‘have you taught her to read yet?’ As Jack Nicolson said in A few Good Men, ‘don’t I feel like the fuckin’ asshole?’ (https://memes.yarn.co/yarn-clip/afc700f8-a576-44dd-ba43-f872ae912c42)

Recipe for Beef Wellington (serves 4)

• 1kg filet beef
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 500g puff pastry
• 2 egg yolks, beaten
• For the mushroom duxelle:
• 50g butter
• 15 medium mushrooms, finely chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic, crushed
• 1 shallot, finely chopped
• 100ml, dry white wine
• Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Melt the butter in a medium-sized frying pan and add the finely chopped mushrooms, cloves of garlic and shallots, stirring and coating with the butter. Continue to fry for about 10 minutes, until everything is well softened. Add the white wine and seasoning and cook until the moisture is absorbed (about 10 minutes). Set aside.

Preheat the oven to 200°C. Sear the beef filet in olive oil for a few seconds on all sides and set aside. Roll out the puff pastry and place the filet in the centre. Cover the beef with the mushroom duxelle and envelop in the puff pastry, making sure to seal the edges. Glaze with egg yolk and cook for 20 minutes (or more, depending on how well-cooked you like the beef).

Families that have managed to celebrate Christmas ‘normally’ seem to be in the minority this year, so I would like to spare a thought for all the people that have had a challenging time due to illness, bereavement, enforced isolation, travel restrictions, etc. Sending love to you all.

A noisy commotion broke out next to our land yesterday, with lots of shouting, barking and swearing. We found out from a friend afterwards, that a hunter, who had stopped for a picnic lunch, had had his foie gras sandwich swiped by a greedy English Setter. I’m not sure if I’m more mystified by the refined tastes of the naughty dog, or by the fact that someone would fill a sandwich with foie gras, even if it was Christmas Day.

I have been very busy lately because Léo had covid and had to isolate in the guest grange. His appetite wasn’t stinted, if anything, it increased, so I had a bit of a mini Uber Eats business running from my kitchen. Apparently my new venture meant I was too busy to notice a wasp hibernating in my trousers while getting dressed, and when I later slammed my thigh into a door, it understandably got very irate, stinging me in revenge for being woken up and concussed. So not only am I the only person I know to receive a PCR test result of ‘inconclusive’ 10 days ago, I’m also the only person I know to be walking around with an angry wasp sting in December.

Recipe for celeriac and walnut gratin (serves 6)

• 1kg celeriac, peeled and cut into large cubes
• 3 medium potatoes, peeled
• 4 cloves of garlic, crushed
• 15g butter
• 200ml double cream
• Handful of walnuts, chopped
• Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 100g, Comté, finely sliced
• Half teaspoon Espelette pepper or paprika

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Boil the celeriac and potatoes until cooked. Strain and add the garlic and butter and puree until smooth. Add the cream, walnuts and seasoning, mixing well to create a homogenous texture. Transfer to a buttered oven-proof dish and cover with the sliced cheese and Espelette pepper. Cook for 30 minutes, or until golden brown and bubbling.

Works well as a standalone dish with green salad, or as an accompaniment.

I have learnt three surprising things in the past few weeks. One: Results of recent genetic testing revealed that I have considerably more French genes than either Luc or Léo. (Which doesn’t stop everyone referring to me as ‘l’Anglaise’.) Two: Hugo, the labrador, hates violin concertos with a passion, something he made quite clear last week, when I had the audacity to listen to Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D Major. He growled in distaste and scratched frantically at the door to flee the aural offensive. And three: there exist worse-behaved dogs than Hugo and Java. In a restaurant at the beach last weekend, there was a beautifully leggy and elegant red setter casually sauntering over the table tops, checking out the plates, their contents, and their owners, as if it was the most normal thing in the world. Red setters are notoriously batshit crazy and disobedient, so now of course, I want one.

Yesterday morning, we caught sight of a friend sitting outside in the car. When, 10 minutes later, he still hadn’t moved, Luc went out to get him. Our friend explained that he’d been waiting to see smoke coming out of the chimney before coming in, as he didn’t know whether we were awake. We will know for next time: three billows means coffee!

A tyrannical parrot

Once inside, coffee in hand, he told us that when he lived on a boat in Brasil, he had a parrot. At the time he was a very heavy smoker (the friend, not the parrot; everything seems to revolve around coffee and smoke with this guy!), but knew it was time to give up when the parrot started to cough every time he saw him! That must have been some pushy parrot, because he hasn’t touched a cigarette since…

Recipe for onion and goat cheese tart (serves 4)

• 225g puff pastry
• 50g butter
• 4 medium onions, sliced
• 1 tsp sugar
• 200g goat’s cheese, sliced into rounds
• 4 sprigs of thyme
• Sea salt, freshly ground black pepper
• Olive oil

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Arrange the pastry in a baking sheet (or sheets). Melt the butter in a large frying pan and add the sliced onions, cover and fry gently for about 10 minutes, until softened. Remove the lid, add the sugar and continue to cook until golden and slightly caramelised. Spoon the onions onto the pastry, then top with the cheese and thyme, and season. Drizzle with oil and bake for 20 minutes.

A couple of days after my second C vaccine, I started to suffer from severe abdominal pain, fatigue, dizziness, low blood pressure, and breathlessness. I had trouble staying upright for any length of time. I had expected this might happen, as I had had exactly the same sort of reaction to a flu vaccine 15 years previously. Still, I had decided I would rather run the risk of another vaccine reaction than a potentially nasty case of Covid. Although most of us are very grateful vaccines exist, I think it’s dishonest, and counter-productive, to pretend they’re without, what are sometimes long-lasting, side-effects.

Apparently I need a psychiatrist

When I was still in a lot of pain two months later, I made an appointment with my gastroenterologist. My husband has always accompanied me in the past when I visited this particular doctor; perhaps I had sensed the need for a male presence in the face of latent misogyny? For this appointment though, I was alone. I had hardly had time to speak before the doctor started to fire off his absolute certainties: the problems I had been having did not come from my stomach. The implication was that they came from my head. When I finally managed to squeeze in a few words between his increasingly incoherent rants, I asked how, in that case, had the cortisone/omeprazole/paracetamol cocktail I had been taking helped with the pain. ‘Placebo effect!‘ was his categorical and loudly shouted reply. He then yelled that the endoscopy I had had three years previously had not shown a problem; I must be mistaken, making it up, or perhaps in need of a psychiatrist.

Moral harassment

I managed to escape after about twenty minutes, feeling very shaken. It was only afterwards, from the sanctuary of my car, did I realise that it’s neither normal, nor OK, to feel the need to repeat to a doctor: ‘calm down, there’s no need to be so aggressive’. Also, I am absolutely certain that the scenario would have been different, had my husband been present. But why, in 2021, should I have to be ‘escorted’ to the doctor in order to be treated decently?

I’m pretty resilient, and managed to bounce back fairly quickly after this horrible encounter. But what about someone with no emotional support, or in a precarious psychological state? How would they fare after being verbally aggressed, repeatedly questioned, shouted at, and generally humiliated by someone they had trusted to take care of them?

When my son, Léo, was 15, he had a massive growth spurt, which led to very low blood pressure and dizziness. Our doctor gave him a letter for school, which allowed for him to work from home, until the problem sorted itself out. A girl in his class, with almost identical symptoms, was not so lucky; her fainting fits were dismissed as ‘hysterical’, the lazy blanket diagnosis much used and loved by misogynists.

Medical gaslighting; women are targets.

I am certainly not alone. Googling ‘female medical gaslighting’ brings up millions of hits. I came across a study that found that women going to the Emergency Room with severe stomach pain had to wait almost 33% longer than men with exactly the same symptoms. The Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics cited research in 2001 showing that women are prescribed less pain medication than men after identical procedures, and are less likely to be admitted to hospital when complaining of chest pain. What’s more, experts say that women are underrepresented in clinical trials for new medications and vaccines, and are therefore at greater risk for adverse side effects, and less likely to be heard when suffering them.

Hysteria

Despite the fact that some doctors still seem to bandy the the term around, hysteria is actually no longer recognised as a medical condition today. Unfortunately though, the mentality that made it an acceptable diagnosis in the past is still very much alive and kicking…

One good thing to come out of the past couple of months was this bread. I wanted a yeast-free bread, as yeast had become difficult for me to digest, what with my imaginary stomach problems and all. The unique texture is the result of a reaction between the yoghurt and bicarbonate of soda that results in the formation of small bubbles of carbon dioxide within the dough. Kneading bread is very therapeutic. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

Recipe for soda bread

• 180g plain flour
• 180g einkorn flour
• 1 scant teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 1 scant teaspoon cream of tartare
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 300ml natural yoghurt

Preheat the oven to 200°C. Put the flour, bicarbonate of soda, cream of tartare, and salt into a bowl and mix well. Making a well in the centre, add the yoghurt, little by little, kneading with the hands to form a ball of dough. Continue kneading until soft and ‘stretchy’. Place the ball of dough on a baking tray, flattening slightly and cutting a cross in the centre. Sprinkle a little flour over the top, and bake for 30-35 minutes; the bread should sound hollow when tapped.

Java writes

I love the summer, when the windows are left open for the night air to cool the house. And for me to escape through, furtively. Once everyone’s in bed, I creep past Hugo on the tips of my paws, jump onto the window sill, then spring over the rosebush to freedom in the shadowy, moonlit garden.

Boars and badgers

My first stop is the wise old boar who lives quite close by. He’s always good for dispensing advice on dealing with humans. His insight is surprisingly spot-on for someone who has virtually no contact with them. I don’t stay too long because, once he gets started on a subject, he tends to harp on a bit. I’m fond of the boar and his rough-skinned ways though, and we have a lot in common: we both love mud, will eat just about anything with gusto, and hate the sound of guns. In his wisdom, he tells me that it’s a good thing hunting rifles are so noisy, as it’s a warning to hide.

Giving Bertie the Badger a wide berth (he can be very bad-tempered), I make my way through the pine trees and over the bridge to the deer that live by the river. I admire the deer for their beauty, grace, agility, and speed; we have these traits in common. They tell me about the blackberries that are ripening in the late summer sun, and the best places to find them. I can see they’ve been gorging because their muzzles are stained purple. They know all there is to know about edible plants and shrubs due to their odd eating habits; who eats roses for breakfast? Certainly not me!

Next stop: the mice and horses

My last visit is to the mice, who I find nestling in the horses’ hay. On the way I make a detour to say ‘bonsoir’ to Minou, the cat. We chat quite amicably at night, when nobody’s looking, but make a pretense of being enemies in the day; it’s what expected of us. Mice aren’t very interesting companions to be honest — they’re quite inconsequential — but I do like the way they roll. They love to party and sometimes organise an illicit rave in the kitchen at night, fueled by the crumbs left on the floor. They let me gently chew their little heads. They seem to enjoy it — I suppose it gives them a head massage, a bit of relaxation after their high jinks.

When I see that dawn is breaking, I head back home. The hedgehog, rabbits, and stone martens will have to wait for my visit another night.

This recipe uses courgettes, which I don’t see the point of, and cheese, which I love.

Recipe for courgette gratin (serves 4)

• 750g courgettes (unpeeled, sliced and lightly precooked)
• 2 shallots, finely chopped
• 2 eggs
• 200g crème fraîche
• 75g hard cheese (I used Comté)
• Seasalt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

Preheat the oven to 200°C. Arrange the precooked courgettes and finely chopped shallots in a gratin dish. Beat the eggs, gradually adding the cream, cheese, and seasoning. Pour the mixture over the courgettes and shallots and bake for 15 minutes. Delicious served alone with green salad, or as a side dish.