226. Step forward 2016

31st January. We went to see "45 Years" this afternoon at Biarritz.. Reading the reviews (The Guardian, the New York Times and TIME) after having seen the film had me wondering if I'd seen the same film as the critics. Say no more.

I was down at the beach at Anglet again this morning - and as I approached it I could hear a constant basso profundo roar (similar to an airliner during its take-off roll). My first sight of the sea took my breath away.. it was high tide with an on-shore wind and the waves were molto spettacolare.. I wouldn't have liked to have been out in the Bay of Biscay in a yacht.. or indeed any kind of boat.

I thought I'd wind up January with a visit to a favourite restaurant of ours.. it's La Ferme Ostalapia, at Ahetze (just outside Biarritz). It's set in an old farmhouse, with an interesting menu (spoilt for choice) and the atmosphere is stylish yet relaxed. Highly recommended.  

Fortunately for you, it was featured in a programme by TV presenter Julie Andrieu. Don't worry if your French isn't up to it - just enjoy the scenery. (I'll draw a veil over the group's singing of "Hegoak" as they ascend La Rhune..) When a group of Basques get together, it's never long before Hegoak is dusted off! 

Take a look and see for yourself:

Here's Julie having a first flight in a paramotor.. This is something that's been on my "to do" list for some time.. There's a school in nearby Saint Pée sur Nivelles..

28th January. I forgot to mention that the final piece of Christmas pudding disappeared on Sunday.. I might have mentioned before that, for me, the rich taste of this peculiarly Anglo-Saxon Christmas ingredient evokes so many nostalgic memories of Christmasses past. In keeping with tradition, it was dutifully flamed (with a drop of whisky) and savoured. Lips were smacked.. and smacked again! Another 11 months to wait before your correspondent sees its like again!<sob!>

   

24th January. Ever wondered how to say such useful phrases in Basque such as "Please speak more slowly" or (good luck with needing this next one!☺) "This lady will pay for everything"? Look here. Actually, there is a phrase in Basque for that last one - "Emakume honek guztia ordainduko du"..

The forecast for today is for 23°C (73°F).. Apologies to readers in and around Washington DC. We went to Saint-Jean-de-Luz in the afternoon - it was like summer.. the car was indicating 24°.. there were people swimming and all the usual parking spaces were occupied. The town was crowded with people and the cafés were bursting at the seams. As welcome as the heat was, I find it worrying.. what's happening?

This clip I found shows Saint-Jean-de-Luz as it was earlier today.. and funnily enough, the clifftops were exactly where we were.. I think this was filmed later in the afternoon.

18th January. A favourite TV programme of ours is "Les escapades de Petitrenaud” (France 5) and yesterday's edition was set in Cahors, in the Lot, and it had our mouths watering! The programme is presented by Jean-Luc Petitrenaud (yes, I agree, he is a bit precious!) and it featured Le Balandre* - a family-run restaurant (6 generations) which is now firmly pencilled in on our "to visit" list. * Now 'Bistrot 1911'..

And here's Jean-Luc Petitrenaud in the Pays Basque:

   

12th January. The other day I mentioned that we were subject to the occasional violent winter storm here. Last night, I was awakened in the wee small hours by what sounded like a bomb going off directly above the house as a thunderstorm blew in from the sea. I lay there for a few minutes listening to the crash and rumble of thunder mixed in with the west wind shrieking around the house, rattling the shutters as a deluge of water lashed down on the roof. I was glad we'd had the roof seen to not long ago - we replaced all the tiles, flashing and gutters. And so back to sleep!☺

11th January. I won't pretend to have been a massive fan of his work but here are two of his songs that I liked. He was an original.. and there are precious few of those around today. David Bowie RIP

Here he is with "Heroes" version français.. and an organ tribute here.

I came across this next one by accident.. it was always a favourite of mine.. It's the Edwin Hawkins Singers with their great no-holds-barred gospel version of "Oh Happy Day" from 1969. 1969! 47 years ago.. (how did that happen?)

  

The chattering classes have picked up on the black pudding story ('flavour of the month' news story) mentioned below and are now running with the ball.. (more here and here) Over the last few years, I think a major imbalance has grown up between the amount of rolling news media coverage we have versus the amount of news available to fill it.

I'm told that the forecast for the week after next weekend is for sub zero cold..

9th January. Up early this morning and down to the river for the first time in 4 months. I went out in a double sculler and pushed myself a bit to see if I'd have any after-effects around the base of my thumbs.. (I've had a nagging twinge there for months) We did 14km more or less non-stop. If there had been, then that would have been the end of my rowing days. Fortunately, there was no reaction and so next week I'll pay my subs for the remainder of the year. I have to admit to being relieved to see the clubhouse again! (added later: Creaking a bit this evening!)

It was a misty morning on the river with no more than 100 yards visibility - plus we had to keep an eye open for the occasional dead tree that was stuck in the river bed. Colliding with one of these is not fun. The low sun was directly behind us in our wake and it dazzled like liquid gold.

I came across some photos taken by a drone (not today) above the Nive.. The Nive is one of the most beautiful rivers I've ever rowed on - with the added bonus of the Pyrenees as a backdrop.. It's right up there with the Dee at Chester. I think it's worth clicking on these photos to see them at their best.

Ladies VIII

A "yolette"

A "pair oar" in the foreground

8th January. In case anyone imagines that it's all one jolly round of lotus-eating down here, in winter we are often at the wet end of violent storms that blow in from the Golfe de Gascogne (Bay of Biscay). At times like that, I like to get down to the coast to watch things as they unfurl..

Just a few kilometers south of Saint-Jean-de-Luz, an underwater reef causes this monster wave known as Belharra to be thrown up..

Meanwhile, here's a view of what it means to be Basque from "l'autre côté"..(across the border)

7th January. I see that black pudding (left) is now being touted by the chattering classes in the UK media as a "superfood".. I've long been a black pudding fan but all this "flavour of the month" hype leaves me cold.

The equivalent here is boudin noir - aka a dark-hued blood sausage (above). I can't speak for the rest of France but I find the boudin noir in the Pays Basque to be less appetising than its Lancashire (UK) counterpart. There's something about the consistency and texture of the Basque variety that makes me suspect that it contains more blood and less cereal than its Lancashire equivalent that, according to Wiki, "is generally made from pork fat or beef suet, pork blood and a relatively high proportion of oatmeal, in some recipes mixed with grits (oat groats) and sometimes even barley groats." We've had boudin noir several times in the Pays Basque but there's something about its high "wobble factor" (a technical term, m'lud) that I find off-putting. By contrast, your correspondent finds the firmer Lancashire variety infinitely preferable. I suppose it all depends on what you are used to.

All this talk of the boudin noir leads us neatly on to the boudin blanc - a completely different animal entirely. France being France, each region has its own local variation on the theme - as here:

Avranches: Onions, lard, chicken breast, cream, bread crumbs, pork, eggs, salt, pepper. 

(Avranches is in the Manche department, Normandy, on the Mont St-Michel Bay)

Castres, Tarn: Half lean pork, half egg panade flavoured with herbs, wrapped in caul, baked in oven.

Catalan or Pyrénées: Greyish white, added eggs and a good deal of herbs

Classic (made throughout France): White lean meat from pork and veal or chicken, pork fat, milk, eggs, sometimes truffles, in pork intestines, 5 to 6 inches (12 to 15 cm) long.

Havre and Normandy style: Light yellow, lots of pork fat with no lean, very fatty, often milk, eggs, bread crumbs, a starch of some kind or rice flour

Mazamet, Tarn: Half pork rind and half panade mixture based on egg, poached in water.

Rethel, Ardennes: Lean meat, pork fat, milk, eggs, no starch or bread crumbs. Has IGP status since October 2001. A "boudin blanc" festival is held each April in Rethel.

Richelieu (made throughout France): Chicken. Sometimes truffles. rich, formed into balls, wrapped in caul fat.

South-West: Pork, breadcrumbs, starch, eggs, a good deal of herbs, beef intestines. about 1½ inches in diameter.

Watch it being made.. (look away if you're of a nervous disposition!☺)

Of course, where there's a great food product in France, it's a fair bet that a Confrérie won't be far behind.. Enter la Confrérie des Compagnons du Boudin Blanc..

Montauzer at Biarritz

Montauzer, Bayonne

The best local exponent of the boudin blanc (in my opinion) is Maison Montauzer. There's a shop in the centre of Bayonne and also a stand at the indoor market at Biarritz.

Former President Sarkozy

Here's former President Nicolas Sarkozy enjoying himself (left) at the small Montauzer shop in Bayonne with MAM. For reasons that are unclear to me, the boudin blanc is only available at Montauzer around Christmas time. We had some on Christmas Eve served with sautéed apple.. (recipe here) A simple dish but one that's incredibly tasty.. maybe because Monsieur Montauzer adds some black truffle to his boudins. Yes, you can find 'industrial' boudin blanc in the supermarkets all through the year, but those of Maison Montauzer are worth waiting for. This dish is one of the gastronomic highlights of the year as far as your scribe is concerned.

4th January 2016. First of all, a Happy New Year / Bonne année / Urte berri on to all my reader(s).. I'm about to commit my New Year's resolutions to print. To be honest, my list has a familiar look about it!

1. Improve my French..

2. Practice my banjo..

3. Use my bike more.

4. Keep my desk tidy (or failing that - tidier)
5. Improve my French..
(file these under 'Fiction')

15. Antiques and another thick head..

We had a very pleasant day out a couple of weekends ago. We set off just after 9am to go to Pau (looking for an old armoire – or wardrobe). We took the motorway and soon ran into morning mist but as we neared Pau it lifted. The countryside looked beautiful and once again I regretted not having a camera to hand. As we went over the top of one hill, the landscape ahead was hidden in low early morning mist with the tree tops standing clear in the sunlight. The folds in the landscape looked like an endless procession of blue waves rolling towards us… they receded and faded into a blue haze with telephone wires gleaming silver in the morning sun. Magic.

Pau is one of those places that had its heyday back in the twenties and thirties when, before the advent of civil aviation, the rich used to rumble down there in their Bentleys or Hispano-Suizas for the winter sun. Pau also used to host a Grand Prix that was run around the streets of the town back in the era of the state-funded German works teams – Mercedes Benz and Auto Union – in the thirties. It's hard to believe that the Pau's narrow streets once echoed to the shriek of these supercharged Art Deco symbols of Nazi Germany - but they did. I firmly believe that this was the Golden Era of motor racing when Europe's top drivers struggled to keep these powerful monsters on the track - and all without any of the driver aids that today's F1 drivers are used to. Traction control was called the accelerator in those days - and 'downforce' was provided by the car's weight! The prodigious power of these cars pushed the tyres of the day to their limits.

Looking south from Pau

It had this “lost in time” feel. The road into the town centre took us through some fairly run-down areas but once we’d parked, we found our way to the old town and there the picture changed markedly.

Place Royale

The town is built on the edge of a flat-topped hill that looks south with a splendid panoramic view of the Pyrenees. Naturally enough, the chic part of Pau is on this side.. and there were some lovely old buildings and stylish apartment blocks here as well plus an old restored castle that had formerly been occupied by Henry IV. The style of building in Pau is totally different to that in the Basque country – no big white houses with overhanging roofs – here, the roofs were more steeply pitched with flat tiles - as opposed to the pantiles that are the norm on and near the coast. Henry IV was the king who, according to legend, promised to put a chicken in every pot. We found the Place Royale (above), a square that couldn’t have been in any other country but France. It was bordered by elegant old apartment buildings in pale stone, all with shuttered windows and the square itself was lined with clipped trees in rows that surrounded a raked light gravel centre with a statue of King Henry IV. In one of life's strange intersections of history, Mary Todd Lincoln, the widow of the assassinated US president Abraham Lincoln, lived in this square for a few years (believed to be from 1876 to 1880). 

After a light lunch we wandered through the square to a viewpoint looking south. The flower borders were full of colourful flowers (chrysanthemums according to Madame) and there were palm trees all around. There was a free funicular railway that ran hordes of pensioners (ie, people over 60)(like me) down to the bottom and back if they felt in need of more excitement than could be found in a cup of hot chocolate.. We wandered along the edge of the hill in the warm sunshine till we found a card shop. After we’d bought some cards we just sat in the sun and soaked up the sunshine.

We had a look in a few antique shops for armoires but they wanted crazy money for them. As luck would have it, there happened to be an antique fair on that very weekend – and free admittance.. There were some OK armoires there but they weren’t sufficiently well made to prise any excess funds from the vaults…

One last thing we noticed was an English estate agent had set up here with all the adverts in the window in English and French.

By this time we’d had enough excitement (!) for one day and so we set off for home. As it was the end of the month we went downstairs to pay Mme D the rent for the month and she invited us down for a drink.. (Uh-oh!)

She put out some ham on crusty bread for us while M’sieur D took hold of the whisky bottle in a firm grip. Can he pour them…! I think I had 2 of his US Marine Corps-size whiskies (equivalent to a Jereboam!). Mme D said that the ham came from her own pigs. In fact, I’d heard the odd grunting from a sty and she confirmed that they kept 2 pigs at the moment. They’re both over 200kgs each (about 450lbs or so) and they’re both due for the chop in a month… At this point Monsieur D went into graphic detail about how the job would be done. Suffice to say, it takes them about 3 days to fully finish butchering the animals. The annual killing of the pig is embedded in Basque tradition. Neighbours combine to help each other in the cold winter months and turn the day into a festive celebration. With a few drinks of course. (Pictures here - warning: many are gory)

He said that each ham (ie, leg) weighs in at around 22 kgs or almost 50lbs.. They salt the legs to turn them into ham, the blood is used to make black pudding, they make sausages from the head and… well, you don’t want me to go on, do you..?! But they use everything except the squeal.. It does sound a bit cruel to us townies but it's the harsh reality of farm living. It happens every day at an abattoir near you – except there, the numbers are measured in hundreds or thousands.