March, 2013

Our Sunday morning walk to the cathedral in the background

Cider mania

 Chateau Kermezen

It is February so it is bottle the cider month. As per our tradition here, every year we are invited by friends to their castle to bottle a 1000 or so bottles of hard cider. We are never here in November when the pressing of the apples occurs, but we make up for it with the bottling. It’s a great time with the fellas, debating and solving the world’s problems, comparing rotten politics on both sides of the pond and offering our own presidents as gifts to each other. ["We will give you Obama" "No, you keep him, we will give you Hollande"] followed by a lot of scratching and spitting....

 Don't let the wheelbarrow throw you. 
Michel is up to serious business.

The fermenting cider is stored in oak casks until the bottling, but about 45 gallons (180L) remains in the bottom of the casks with all the sediment which has settled. This undrinkable soup is carefully drawn and taken to a distiller to convert it into a sort of moonshine apple brandy called Calvados. Although the setup and process is totally legal, it is an operation that belongs somewhere between the 'Dukes of Hazard' and Gomer Pile in the Kentucky back wood hollows. The gizmo looks like it came off the set of the movie 'Deliverance'. 

In about an hour you leave with the finished product, absolute firewater, now merely 10% of the original volume. Brandy lovers tell me that it is simply delicious, sprinkling on superlatives like an Italian waiter working a pepper mill.

Earlier, I wasn’t kidding about the castle part. Our friends own 'Chateau Kermezen' in the photo at the top, a no fooling around castle built on the foundation of an 8^th century 'manoir', with some of the remnants still remaining today. The castle itself was renovated in the 17^th century, and the same family has lived in it for the past 400 years. It doesn’t have a moat, but it does have a defensive outer wall complete with turrets with long vertical arrow slits to keep the mongrel hordes at bay. The interior has flagstone floors worn from the centuries of traffic, and fireplaces large enough to easily walk into without bending your head.

Of course, their considerable property houses a separate chapel in which generations of family members are interred, as well as a number of out buildings as it was also used as a farm. It is in one of these that our little cider operation takes place. The 'they' I am referring to, are Count Michel and Countess Marie-Madeleine de Kermel, legally titled nobility but as down home and casual as can be. I guess being titled is something I have in common with them. Under the best of circumstances I have been called “Mister”. Then again, after 3 decades in prison I have often been called much, much worse.

Life in the village

We had barely arrived when my buddy Loic invited me to go fishing with him. Not being a fan of the critters on my plate doesn’t mean I can’t go out and have fun, while sharing my spoils with those burdened with a less developed palate… so off we went. I didn’t realize that the 'fishing' we were to undertake had nothing to do with rods or water for that matter, but more of scouring the ocean bottom with small rakes at low tide looking for mollusks. 

 Loic's idea of fishing
Remember! Click on any picture once for far more detail.

Those are the little clam like looking things that burrow barely below the surface. Because of the incredibly high and low tides here, the area in the photo you see us …eh… “fishing” is under 30 feet (10M) of water twice a day at high tide. I was far more impressed by the lunar landscape that is the bottom of the sea in this area, realizing that in just a few hours you would need to scuba dive to the areas where I was walking nonchalantly. 

We have picked up where we left off months ago when we were here last, making the rounds having and being invited to one dinner party after another. 4 months here may be a long time but with February school breaks when families congregate or go skiing and our own yearly travels to some part of Europe, time flies and before you know it, it is late May and we are packing up and heading to the Bee.

 Janice spoiling friends with her 'Çoq-au-Vin' recipe

Dinner parties are quite different here as they tend to be fairly formal. People dress up and the meals are rarely less than 4 courses, often more. You have to pace yourself because they usually tend to end very late. Practice and a back brace help. To keep up with the natives, wearing your big boy drinking pants is mandatory.

Janice has resumed her painting classes with full guns ablaze. She spends 12 hours a week in the studio, then countless hours tweaking at home. Unlike in California where her painting skills were applied to the many walls in the house, (“pretend that you are painting the Sistine chapel honey, only make it one uniform color all over the wall…”) here she is painting art that has been commissioned by our kids. (“Paint me a landscape mom, not flowers”) To say that she is having a blast is an understatement.

Me? I am having the time of my life filling out our yearly tax forms. I worry every time I hear talk of tax simplification. I can see a day where they will have it simplified to a one page tax form with only two lines. Line one: “How much income did you have in the past year?” Line two: “Send it in”.

All in all, we have laid rather low in our first month here, Janice with a good bout of Bronchitis (2 rounds of antibiotics) and I in advanced healing mode. This is likely to be the last time I have anything to say about my knee as the great news for me is that there isn’t enough news left worth talking about. It’s been 2 months since the surgery, and the pain I had in the past 8 months including the first month after surgery is long gone. The discomfort I felt the second month is also hasta-la-vista so I am left scrambling to find something to complain about. There are always the fail-safe subjects of taxes and Brokeback Mountain liberals ;)  

Seriously, 15 years ago I underwent 18 months of excruciating back pain before I was diagnosed with an issue that was corrected with a little surgery. At the rate I was going, I really thought I would have to medically retire and spend the rest of my days in a wheel chair. Not quite what I had in mind for my mother’s little boy. When I recovered, I felt that I had a new lease on life and I have sent that surgeon a thank you card every year since.

When this knee thing happened, I underwent one procedure after another to no avail and I began to feel the same way. Was I hearing the sucking sound as I was beginning to circle the drain, I wondered?  Now, I can clearly see the direction this recovery is going and although still a little weak and somewhat fragile, I hardly limp anymore and my knee is slowly getting stronger. Far from being on check-out status, I have concluded that this is only the first step in my being built into a bionic man. A clear sign that I am destined to live forever! 

MR. Christopher

It has been a while since I have reported on our grandson Christopher. Born with Spina Bifida, he is wheelchair bound and continues to be unable to sit up on his own or swallow. At first blush he would seem to have as much chance of having a good life as is likely of winning the big one with a $2.00 Powerball ticket.

Now 6 years old, this little boy has made nary any progress in his physical condition but has come leaps and bounds in his personality and mental development. This kid ain’t no wallflower. He attends public school with his nurse and has developed a real passion for sports and car racing. He doesn’t just ‘watch’, he can rattle off player’s names and their individual statistics like a franchise owner. 

After being selected by the ‘Make-a-wish’ foundation, the family spent a VIP week at Disneyland. The publicity lead to other offers for various events, car races and games, including going out to the pitcher’s mound in his motorized wheelchair to help ‘throw’ the ceremonial first pitch. 

Christopher’s first sprint car race was toward the end of last summer when the World of Outlaws STP Sprint Car Series arrived to the West Coast. He attended the Outlaws’ finale at Skagit Speedway in Alger, Wash., where he was placed in the pace truck for most of the evening. Recently, he (and his entire family and two nurses) were invited for a week of racing during the NASCAR weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway which took place just a few days ago.

Christopher with "Miss...eh...who cares!" 
"She'll do", Christopher says.

They were provided with a suite of luxury rooms and he spent a week in the racing pits, rubbing elbows with the drivers and mechanics and bagging those racing babes like a pro. For the race itself, they were invited to join the owners and the big dogs in the sky box. If you stick with this kid, like all his groupies and hanger on’s, you will go places and be treated like you are somebody! 

You go, little man. Life’s opportunities are as many as October leaves on the ground after a windstorm, so grab them all! We are sure proud of you.

Traveling to Europe? Read on.

Not going? Then skip this.

If you are traveling to Europe anytime in the near future, you might want to be aware that you could be in for a nasty surprise if you use your credit card. As in, it won’t be accepted. I am not talking about the fact that they could deny you because of ‘unusual spending patterns’. That is, if you have typically been charging like a madwoman (no honey, I am not talking about you) in North America, and suddenly you charge something in London, Paris or Rome, their fraud alerts are activated and they can deny the purchase. 

This can be avoided by calling them before you leave, and notifying them that you will be traveling from X to Y time period in Z foreign country. By the way, most card companies charge an additional 3% fee for using the card outside your home country.

No, I am talking about the fact that credit cards in Europe are technologically more advanced as they use the EMV (Europay International Master Card and Visa) system. This means the cards are imbedded with a chip as seen above, in addition to the magnetic strip on the back, preventing your card from being scanned and replicated by hackers and thieves. These cards  are often (but not always) the only ones that are now accepted in Europe. If you are hell bent on learning all the specifics of ‘creating dynamic chip authentication for transactions’ you can read all about it HERE.

The card companies in North America are reluctant to switch over to them because of the costs, so they keep reissuing the old style which are as cutting edge as rotary dial phones. Heads up! If you call your card company ahead of time and request a card with a chip, they will issue you one. You can thank yourself for reading The Epistle all the way through and saving your vacation later.