Odds & Ends

The church bell in Meynes chimes at exactly eight minutes before the hour, and again at twenty-two minutes after the hour, every hour, all day long.

We, in the old village, where streets are too narrow to keep bins outside, have to hang our garbage bags on a high place so the dogs & cats can’t get at them before they’re collected. My neighbor and I hang ours from the railing at the bottom of our stairs.

The French government has ordered that every village in France put on a music festival, so it’s party time all over the countryside. Last week, 15 of us showed up to hear the Klezmer band, Nomadeus, which was hired by the mayor for our little festival in Meynes. They were terrific, really fine musicians, and brought tears to my eyes when they sang My Yiddishe Mama. I ran up to the stage to tell them I was the only yiddisher mama in the village, in the region, probably. They told me they’ve been to Hollywood to make a record. Meynes, mein shtetle, Meynes, is getting into the big time.

This week, the festival of the toros begins and will kick off in the tiny square in front of the church behind my house. The poster on the Mayor’s office says, “Food and drink will be offered.” Maybe they’ll fix the chimes for the occasion?

The baker & his wife have sold the bakery. Next Tuesday it’ll change hands; I’m sad & disappointed. Caryne, the baker’s wife assures me I’ll be very happy with the next baker, and will find many delightful surprises, but I’m anxious about this. Not

only are Caryne’s husband’s croissants the best in the world but, apart from the usual fine pastries you’d expect to find, he also makes special cakes. If they give me the recipe for one that I loved, called Moelleux Citron, I’ll send it next time.

On the subject of food, many of my friends in the region grow their own vegetables and keep chickens. Stephan gave me a zucchini the size of my thigh (!), and Pierre gave me a basket of eggs that were laid that day. I rushed home to poach them and eat them on top of a fresh croissant. Three stars!

As for wine, the owner of our very own Meynes Château Fornier Clausonne, M. Seydoux, who produces some of the finest reds, whites & rosés of the region, (languedoc rousillon) is also a Hollywood producer, & his company is Gaumont.

Last week I went with Stephan & Marie to the music festival in Avignon, with free music offered all over the old city. Imagine ten thousand of us dancing the cha-cha on the street in front of the Palace of the Popes, swaying to jazz on the steps of the Cloister of the Carmelite Convent, and bopping to hip-hop on the Place des Corps-Saints. We rode the carousel set up in front of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame des Doms, under the watchful eye of the golden Madonna on top of the hill.

The big subject of debate this week is the wearing of the burka in France. Sarkozi doesn’t like it. I haven’t seen any burkas around here but I see many women with headscarves in the villages of Provence. It’s funny to see a young girl wearing a double headscarf, heavy eye makeup, and a sexy mini dress.

Last, but not least, every station on French radio talks about the death of Michael Jackson. It headlines all the newspapers. He was loved by people all over the planet – including me. Adieu Michael. I’ll miss you.

More from Meynes

Everything is hunkey-dory—except for mosquitoes and spiders. I hope it’s not bed bugs that bite me in the night. I’ve bought insecticide sprays & citronella. I think it’s spiders; they cover the territory here; anything that doesn’t move is theirs.

I lasted three days without internet, five without radio. In moments of madness I sang the praises of utter silence, & the hum of my refrigerator, but now that I’ve got a radio I’m in heaven. Gotta face it: media is what I love. Mostly I listen to talk radio: intelligent interviews and discussions with artists, writers, specialists and intellectuals, and great music – rock, jazz, classic—all we listen to, plus French and other European. It’s an education.

I’m thinking now about how life will change when Michel, my host, shows up on July 1^st. with his new girlfriend and the musicians with whom he’s performing in the Festival of Avignon.

When I arrived, my next door neighbor warned me—with a twinkle in her eye—about Michel’s gang of rowdy artists who stay up all night drinking, laughing, making music and god knows what else. Michel, who’s known me since the sixties, has assured me I’ll have a good time. How can I doubt it?

It’s a big house; seven huge bedrooms, but only one on the main level adjacent to the salon, kitchen and bathroom--- and it’s mine. It’s centrally located, maybe too public, but great if no one’s around. Michel prefers one of the upstairs bedrooms, at the end of the hall, more private, and he’s got a new girlfriend.

Meanwhile, my kitchen’s going strong; cauliflower, radishes, crevettes, goat’s cheese, melons, cherries… On Monday morning I boiled the leftover prawn shells and heads with bay leaves, garlic, fennel tops, & onion, & strained it for a broth to start a vegetable soup.

On Monday, I picked up the boom-box at Nicole & Lucien’s, where I was forced to eat a fried banana split with two flavors of ice cream and hot chocolate sauce. When I came home I found a note on my table from the neighbor: something unforeseen came up and she has helped herself to three beers from my refrigerator, which she will replace. (She has the key because she cleans & looks after the place for Michel. And, they’re Michel’s beers.) This could be a good story.

Life in the French countryside is a soap opera, like ours in the big American city: Stephan, the school-teacher, has taken up acting & on his first appearance on stage tore a leg muscle. He & Marie are growing their own vegetables. Pierre has gotten full custody of his daughter, whose alcoholic mother has moved away. Nicole & Lucien believe their daughter has joined a cult, Michelle’s daughter is leaving her husband, Kim &Marie France have sold their house & moved to Morocco, ane my neighbor has put her house up for sale. The government has ordered each town in the provinces to put on music festivals this summer, and the bull fighting season starts this weekend, with displays & celebrations all over the region. There’s no end of entertainment around here.

Meynes

I never tire of Provence: old stones lit up by Van Gogh sunflower light, or starry-night moonlight, crossing the Rhone River just to get from here to there, passing a castle on the way to the market, finding a wheat field next to a vineyard, the wineries, the olive mill in the next hamlet. I can’t wait to revisit Les Baux, Arles, St. Remy en Provence, Nimes, & Avignon, the lush countryside strewn with Roman ruins and tree lined back roads through sleepy villages. This time I hope to see the lavender fields in bloom.

I’m back in the ancient stone and timber house, draped in cobwebs and covered in dust, built into the hillside of the tiny village of Meynes, where I’ll stay for a month. As soon as I stepped through the heavy wooden front door of the house I felt its history, the people who lived here in 1512, keeping cool in summer inside thick stone walls, cooking in the huge fireplace, sleeping in high-ceilinged bedrooms, clogging down the crooked cobblestone streets to the town square, or up to the church.

Today the house has a gas stove, electricity, hot water… Apart from enjoying the food, the clean air and the most delicious tap water I ever tasted, I’m here for the peace & quiet of the country. This house takes the concept far: it has no radio or TV, the CD player is broken, there’s a phone but no internet connection. The only noise comes from birds and church bells. I need a radio for music & news; I miss the news; have they fixed the 330 Airbuses? I could buy a newspaper, I guess; the tobacco shop sells them.

First thing I noticed was a scorpion in the kitchen sink. I trapped it under a bottle of dish washing liquid & ran outside just in time to catch my neighbor stepping out of her house. I said I needed her urgently. She came in and killed the beast, crushed it into pieces and wiped it up with a papertowel. Saved by the madwoman.

She helped me search for electric outlets & extension plugs; I told her I hoped we could be friendly, she apologized (again) for having been so weird (she says she’s unhappy and has gone back into psychoanalysis), and we let the past go. I’m dying to ask her if I can use her computer for my email and to look at porno sites, but I’m afraid she won’t get the joke. And wouldn’t that just ruin everything.

The mistral was blowing this morning when I went for my walk on the back roads behind the village. Apricots are falling off the trees, figs are ripening, wild raspberries are just beginning to form; they’ve planted fields of I-don’t-know-what kind of vegetables; the earth smells warm and fertile. The Hollywood YMCA treadmill is far away. On the way home I stopped by the boulangerie and talked to the baker’s wife. They’ve had a baby since last time. I bought a croissant and a small baguette.

Palau del Vidre

Palau del VIDRE – (Translation: Glass Palace. Why? Because they blow glass here. The stuff in the galleries was okay, sort of, nothing I wanted.)

Palau del Vidre is a tiny village of 2,000 in the Catalan part of France. (see Google) Very quiet place but a boom town compared to where I’m going next. The latest thing in the village is that the mayor got his wish to pave the town square with pink marble. Taxes have risen but the mayor is very happy.

Sunday: For lunch today Patricia cooked monkfish & little red fish, rougettes, with steamed potatoes & leeks; we’re drinking local wine: Jonqueres d’Oriola, Chateau de Villeclare. After the meal she brought out a platter of exquisite bite-sized pastries: tiny cream puffs, éclairs, lemon tarts, strawberry tarts, chocolate tarts, mille-feuilles... Rather than have us choose she divided each one into thirds so we could enjoy every one. For tomorrow’s breakfast, as a change from the croissants, we’ll eat the local specialty, La Fougasse Catalan, which is a flat brioche topped with pastry cream sprinkled with coarse sugar.

Were you among the 9 million people around the world who watched the French documentary film, HOME, on TV Saturday night? If not, don’t miss it. Sunday afternoon we watched D-Day ceremonies with Obama & Sarkozi at the cemetery at Caen, near Omaha Beach, & at night the Rugby finals between our home-team, Perpignan, & Clermont-Ferrand. We won! What joy in the village! Car horns blasting, singing, shouting, & flag waving in the streets until all hours.

Obama ate dinner at La Fontaine de Mars in Paris: gigot, and crème caramel for dessert.

We take drives around the beautiful countryside, the snow tipped Pyrenees all around, the sea just a stone’s throw from everywhere. The highlight, the tiny beach resort and port called Sollioure, a Catalan style St. Tropez, sort of, where the specialty is anchovies and ginger flavored sausages, which we’ve been enjoying for lunch, among Patricia’s other culinary delights.

I see that my return flight from Geneva to New York is on an Airbus 330. Sure hope they fix them before July 15^th. Packing my heavy bag for another train ride today that will take me along the coast, then up into the heart of Provence.

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Old & New in Switzerland & France

Friendship, precious & rare, has been the theme of my journey so far, and while I sometimes foolishly yearn for my familiar solitude, I’ve been basking in the warmth of old friendships, renewed, and new ones in the making.

Brigitte, whom I met in Goa, received me in her home in Geneva, wined & dined me, and opened her box of chocolate Mozart balls after each lunch & dinner until there were none. Daniel plied me with kir, ham, cheese & salami in an outdoor café near the Plainpalais, & his girlfriend, Aude, listened with wide eyes while we reminisced about the Woodstock European concert tour we produced in 1979.

Manuel, whom I first met in 1973 when he was a university student, has become the mayor of Geneva. It makes me laugh to think of it but I see he’s a serious politician in the Socialist party and wants to make a better city. There are some who don’t like what he does, but that’s the nature of the game. On one thing everyone agrees, he’s a very handsome man, tall, slender & youthful, with a great smile & twinkling eyes. Alas, I was too excited about seeing him after so many years to remember to snap a picture of us in the chic Chez Roberto’s, where he took me for dinner, and I feasted on a fabulous plate of squash raviolis with butter, sprinkled with ameretto cookie crumbs, and a good grilled fish.

I complained to Manuel about the high fares on Geneva’s buses and trams, especially the fact that seniors don’t get a break in price, as we do in L.A., and he laughed at me.

One sunny afternoon, at a lakeside restaurant, Brigitte & I enjoyed the specialty of the region, filet de perche with crisp pommes frites, and a carafe of good local white wine. The fish was delicious but the serving was small & quite costly, unlike the good old days when we got a huge platter of it, with chips, for ten bucks.

On the train to Lyon I sat next to a charming, silver-haired fellow, André, from Brittany, who carried my heavy bag onto the train, gave me his card & invited me to visit. He teaches computer technology for dictionaries, and talked about poetry & literature while the Savoyard countryside flew by the window.

In Lyon, on a two hour stopover, I enjoyed two scoops of double chocolate ice cream & good strong coffee with Madelaine & Jean Paul Rochas, old home-exchange friends whom I haven’t seen in 16 years. On the train to Perpignan, I met Sylvie, a painter from Nimes, who invited me to the bullfights in that city when I get there next week.

Patricia & Didier picked me up in Perpignan, & drove me to their house in the country where I sit now, watching the rain fall on their perfumed flower garden & enjoying the warm friendship we began a couple of years ago in Coimbatore, India, as in-mates at the Ayurvedic clinic. Didier is watching the French open, Roland Garros, on TV, & Patricia is in the kitchen preparing a recipe from her Jewish-Algerian grandmother, with roasted peppers, tomatoes & garlic, for dinner.

This morning I enjoyed my first heavenly French croissant of the journey & I’m very happy, lucky, feeling good & growing fat!