La Coquette

L'amour est dans le blé

Last Thursday, I took the train two hours west of Paris to Le Mans, so I could spend time with the part of my French family who lives in the country.  Les Guerets is the dairy farm where my father was born (literally) and raised, now run in a co-société by my uncle, aunt, and cousin Etienne (more photos of the farm can be found here).  I was supposed to stay for four days, only do you know what they did to take the farm to an over the top experience?  Like here is the farm bouncing high on a trampoline waving down at all the other summer vacation possibilities?  They INSTALLED WIFI.  Whereas I used to peck like a crow at a French keyboard when I came to visit -- I used to grapple with dial up -- I am now writing this from my personal computer à moi.  So in the morning I have the capacity to read blogs downstairs in the kitchen while I eat toasted French bread with real butter.  I read the New York Times and drink coffee out of a big porcelain bowl with milk from the cow, poured out of a cool, red tin thermos while listening to funny old french songs playing on a radio station called Virgin.  “C’est comme dans un vieux rock'n'rocks” delares the chorus of a song from the 70s earlier at breakfast. (I beg you to watch that clip, please.)  What, may I ask, is a an old rock'n'rock?  Oh who cares!  Leave your irony at the door!  You’re in the country!

Inside, I have my family with all their loud joking and teasing.  And outside:

Inside I have meals prepared by my aunt.  Gosh, my aunt.  Even the simple thrown together stuff – a rice salad with corn, tomatos from the garden, and parsley -- makes my eyes roll back in my head.  We won’t even get into the rabbit with a squash and potato mousseline at lunch, or the homemade ratatouille with riz au lait a vanille for dessert we had last night. 

And outside:

So I am contacting Paris Vogue to have all my future magazines sent here.  I’m never leaving. 

Can someone call France Telecom for me?  Because the last time I moved, the act of explaining that I had moved and didn’t want their service anymore may have shaved years from my life.

*The title of this post is a reference to a popular French reality t.v. show, L'Amour est dans le pré, where farmers look for love.  It also may mark my first ever truly awesome blog post title in French.  Hey-yo!

La Ferme

Here, finally, are pictures from my visit to the farm at the beginning of the month.  (I am going to post in two batches; this is the first.)  I’ve also included some photos from when I visited last May because everything was in bloom and very pretty.  The farm is located in La Sarthe, the nearest big city being Le Mans.

A few things that distinguished this most recent visit that are not photographed:

My cousin Etienne purchased a moped on Ebay. 

My tonton Roger heard his first cuckoo bird of the year, so he put a coin in his pocket to bring good luck.  My aunt heard her first cuckoo that weekend, too, but didn’t have her wallet on her, so we’ll have to see how 2006 plays out for tata Marie-Line. 

I tasted boudin noir for the first time.  Blood sausage.  Salty!  Tastes nothing like chicken!

(p.s.  I've been meaning to thank those of you who contributed your thoughts on the CPE here.  I’ve read all of your comments and they have helped me a great deal.  Helped me stir up some good conversation when I visited my aunt and uncle, too.)

Making love to the camera just like Kate and Gemma taught her

Daughter of Daniel

This morning, reeling in caloric guilt from a weekend of my aunt's cooking, I went for a run in the village and back through the cornfields.  "Le petit tour," it's called 'round these parts.  It's funny being here, because anyone I pass, I'll say "Bonjour!  I am [Coquette], the daughter of Daniel," but they'll know exactly who I am before I open my mouth--the town has 200 citizens.  Why, it doesn't bother them one bit to keep track of Daniel and his little American family.

Taking a left at the big Jesus cross in the village center, I headed toward the cornfields.  It was just between Marthe and Bernard's vegetable garden and their horse pasture that a terrier mutt began chasing me.  And since I don't want to be known as, "Daniel's daughter, the one who swears at dogs in American," I said, "Arrête."

But with Marthe nearby in her cabbage, I was a little shy, and the whole thing lacked conviction.  By now, the dog was close enough to bite at my sneakers, so I turned around and hissed with intensity, "ARRÊTE."

I've mentioned before that my shouting in french, it isn't pretty.  This time, my "r" came out sounding like I was choking on mashed potatoes.

And what you need to know is that the dog stopped dead, cocking its head in the same wide-eyed, mouth-gaping way that french children often do when I part my lips and expel words.  It's a look that says, "Mommy, who is this alien, and what has she done to our pristine language?  My delicate french ears, THEY ARE BLEEDING."

It's called, Les Guêrets

Me, Mémé, Jeanne, Aimee, Lise, Claire, Jean, Pépé, Etienne. (Cousins not yet born--Jennifer and Louise)

The farm was:

• Light suppers--milk straight from the cow, with morsels of french bread, eaten like cereal from a bowl
• Outdoor lunches that lasted three hours
• "Summer reading" on the terrace swing during la sieste
• A heavy cloth napkin, your own, tucked into a wooden drawer for the next meal
• Climbing barn ladders
• The place my father was born
• The place my grandmother was born
• The place I visited every other summer of my childhood
• Cherry picking
• Wheelbarrow rides, pulled by a work pony
• "Telephone" with my nine cousins at the kids table
• Card games with the adults, Bouchon!, until bedtime
• Hearing our parents laughing and staying up late
• Summer of '89--Sleeping on the floor of the old nursery, the room where my father once slept
• Summer of '93--Graduating to a bed
• Making rounds to see relatives I could never remember, but who remembered me, squeezed me, and kissed me.  Wetly.
• Picnics; hiking to french marching songs, "Un Kilomètre à Pied"
• Sparklers on July 14th, instead of July 4th
• Waking up in the middle of the night to watch calves being born

Today, there's no kids table.  Today, we used paper napkins at lunch, not the country-style cloth ones (I loved the cloth ones).  Today the farm is still owned by my tonton Roger and tata Marie-Line, but someday soon, it will be run by my cousin Etienne (Jeanne's brother).  Today, I turned twenty-five at my father's (far-off-but-steadfast) home, Les Guêrets.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go climb a ladder and see some kittens.