Autumn in Paris

Monday we took the train from Pamiers to Toulouse, and then from Toulouse to Paris. The apartment we're rented is on Ile St. Louis and overlooks the Seine. It's the tall narrow one on the extreme right.

Even though it's on the second floor (and remember, the second floor is the third floor in North American parlance) it's still 62 steps. Winding, curving, steep, well-polished stairs lead to the front door which opens into a 27 square metre apartment. About 280 square feet in non-metric. It's a small space but the owners have done a clever job with white furniture, mirrors and see-through chairs of making it look far larger than it is. 

From the window we can see the dome of the Pantheon and, if we lean out over the tiny balcony and risk plummeting on to the road below, a small vertical sliver of Notre Dame. Across the bridge that's directly in front of us is, what we've come to realize, the Tour d'Argent, the oldest restaurant in Paris.

Fête de la Noisette -- the "mosh pit" dance

Over the years, we've attended four or five hazelnut festival lunches so, by now, we know the routine. There's the waving-your-paper-napkin-in-the-air song, the waving-your-hands-in-the-air song, the various initiation ceremonies and, yes, fully fledged members of the confrérie do dress up as hazelnuts. Perhaps most spectacular of all, there's the "mosh pit" dance--I don't know what else to call it. 

At some point in the afternoon, a number of people sit on the floor, legs spread, in a long row. Then those who want to, or those whom sufficient wine has convinced it would be a good idea, line up and, one by one, hurl themselves face forward over the line. 

Standing either side, others take hold of the hurlee's arms and legs and gently ferry him (or her) above the line of floorbound participants who hold up their arms to speed the hurlee's passage. 

This year, Peter did it for the first time. 

Fête de la Noisette -- stalls and exhibits

The hazelnut festival isn't just an enormous Sunday lunch, it's also a chance for local producers, growers and everyone else concerned with food to get together. 

One stall sold round, crunch-crusted country loaves, as well as others made with hazelnuts. Elsewhere you could fill your basket with homemade jams, local honey in every colour from a pale, clear yellow to a thick, opaque gold, foie gras, confit de canard, wines and the local liqueur called Hypocras (said to be based on a medieval recipe). Imprinted with the Cathar cross, this cake was new to me. 

The charts of human innards were part of a display showing what an old-time school looked like in this region. Wood desks, complete with ink-wells, had names and initials carved into them. On the wall was a chart showing what happened if you abused your body with too much fatty food and alcohol. Ahem. 

Fête de la Noisette--the lunch

The annual lunch that celebrates the hazelnut is one of the high points of September. As communal meals go, this is a record-breaker in terms of size of crowd, and amount of food and wine consumed.

This year 320 people sat down in les halles in Lavelanet and 50 more had to be turned away. As always, the first course was a large slice of foie gras, this year served with pain d'épices and a fig confit. Wine flowed. The young man at the top of this post came around the tables offering seconds. Seconds of foie gras...aren't those words to haunt your dreams?

Next, volunteers deposited cassoulets on the table. As is traditional, we all lined up outside to get servings of meat off the grill, pork this year. Wine continued to flow. After that came cheese and finally dessert. Replacing the usual hazelnut based tarte was a multi-layer cake served, as is traditional, with bottles of blanquette de Limoux and hazelnut liqueur. That's my good friend, Corinne Barthez, serving coffee. 

Cassoulet night

Earlier this week, I volunteered to make a cassoulet for the final farewell dinner before friends go home, and Peter and I take the train to Paris. 

Make that two cassoulets because there were ten of us. 

Thursday, I soaked a kilo of white beans and Friday morning I cooked them with parsley and thyme from the garden. Then, after lunch, I got serious. First I chopped two carrots, two onions, two celery sticks and six garlic cloves, not coarsely, not finely but somewhere in between. After I'd sautéed these in olive oil for a few minutes, I threw in two or three chopped tomatoes (one large and two small). Once everything had softened slightly, I mixed the veggies with the beans. These all fitted in the big copper pot--just. 

Leek leaves went around bay leaves, thyme and parsley, and were tied into two tidy little bundles with the string from the enormous roll--butcher's string I think--that I bought at last Sunday's vide grenier. I buried these in the beans, added chunks of semi-sel pork belly, chicken stock and water, and cooked it all for about two hours until the "soupiness" disappeared but there was still lots of juice. 

Pale sausages and flabby duck skin aren't favourites with anyone. I cut a big coil of saucisse fraîche into manageable lengths and browned them in the frying pan. Friends Wes and Antonya had contributed three big jars of duck confit. I fished the legs out of their yellowy fat (oh yes, I saved it) and browned the legs in the oven which also got rid of excess fat which I also poured into the big glass jar. 

Now, it was time to put it all together using the copper pot and the large pottery cassole. A layer of sausages on the bottom, then the bean mixture, a shake of salt and pepper, and repeat. Finally, I semi-submerged the duck confit chunks. 

Our oven couldn't hold it all so we carefully put the two pots on planks of wood in the rear of the Clio and drove them over to the gîte that would be the site of the evening's revelry. The oven there would only accommodate one pot so the second went across the impasse into the kitchen at the Impasse du Temple, the B and B where some friends were staying. We sprinkled dried bread crumbs on both cassoulets. An hour or so later, dark gold, crispy and bubbling, they came out of the oven and went on the table. See photo of the two cassoulets, empty plates and expectant expressions.

A Late Blooming Sunflower

Several weeks ago, just to the left of a rose bush, I noticed a small seedling that looked as if it might be a sunflower so we left it alone and it grew and grew. At the weekend we got our first glimpse of its bright yellow petals and today, it's in full bloom. 

Meanwhile, around the village, the fields are crowded with brown, dry and drooping sunflowers waiting to be harvested and made into oil--including this field just across from the chateau de Léran.

Note re the transhumance posts of which there are four.

I have tried and tried but I can't make these appear in the right order. So here's what you have to do: scroll down to Part 1, then scroll upwards to Part 2 and so on until you arrive back here at the beginning with your reward--another sheep picture. But this time in close-up.