19th May 2012. Thunder and lightning overnight here, followed by the welcome hiss of rain. Of course, the dog was quick to take advantage of the situation by jumping up on the bed and shivering in time with each rumble of thunder..
I found this video this morning.. it's Manfred Radius, a glider pilot in the US, who carries out spectacular displays at night trailing sparks from fireworks mounted on his wingtips - all accompanied by classical music. Stirring stuff! (I couldn't place the beautiful music at first - but to put you out of your misery it's the Intermezzo from Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana)
20th May 2012. I was walking the pooch this morning along the beach at Anglet when there was the sudden unmistakable roar of military jet engines. Looking south towards Biarritz, I spotted seven Alpha Jets of the Patrouille de France arrowing across the coast in a relaxed 'gaggle' out into the bay at low level (~200') before heading north under threatening grey skies - looking for all the world like predatory sharks as they returned to their base after taking part in a weekend airshow at Saint-Jean-de-Luz..
Rugby is the sport down here in the South West. The fact that it was successfully implanted here owes much to one Harry Owen Roe, a Welshman who came here to Bayonne on a rugby tour over 100 years ago and liked it. (Think he might have met someone!) There's a lot more about Harry Owen Roe here. He was clearly held in such high regard that the town even named the street that runs down the side of the Aviron 'garage' Rue Harry Owen Roe after him!
Football is definitely a minority sport here and driving through the countryside it's surprising just how many rugby goal posts you see. Here's a clip from TVPI, the local TV channel, that gives an idea of the passion and enthusiasm for the game in the south west and the Pays Basque in particular:
Finally, in case you've been wondering what Pipérade is all about, it's a classic Basque dish and it has to be one of the world's tastiest. Sparing no expense, here's a chef from Carrefour to show you how it's made. This is a really simple dish to prepare and as I said before, it's delicious. So, no excuses for not trying it out!
NB: Try to use the freshest of eggs and Bayonne ham sliced as thinly as possible.
20th February 2010. In previous posts I've mentioned a few Basque dishes, notably the Gâteau basque, but I think I should apologise in advance to the Confrérie du gâteau basque for what I'm about to say about their revered cake.. (I should add that this is all tongue-in-cheek!)
At the 2009 Fete du Gâteau basque in Cambo (below), the judges were photographed filling out Next Of Kin forms before trying to speed-eat eight Gâteaux basques* against the clock (although I could be wrong here..) No, they were really suggesting alternative uses for the cake in the middle.. (I heard later that the winning suggestion was "Boat Anchor.." with "Base for garden umbrella" cominga close second)
(Note from Management: 1 Gâteau basque, but 2 Gâteaux basques)
There's even a museum dedicated to the gâteau basque.. Try as I might, I just can't imagine a museum for Dairy Cream Sponges or Custard Slices in the UK - but that's all part of the magic of France. Gâteaux basques come in two main varieties (and an HGV licence is needed for both!) with either a black cherry or a crème pâtissière filling. Madame usually buys the cakes (I'm only allowed to buy them when there's a 'k' in the month) and I've never really been that enamoured with the black cherry variety of Gâteau basque.. finding them a bit heavy going, rather like a flywheel in cake form.
Last Sunday, I was off out to buy a couple of baguettes from the baker in the centre of town when I had a sudden hankering to try a Gâteau basque with a crème pâtissière filling. I found one at a pâtisserie (I've been "hedumacated" not to buy cakes at bakers) and brought that home. It was chalk & cheese compared to the black cherry variety. Of course, Madame wasn't too keen but, as far as I'm concerned, it's the one I prefer.
So, back to Basque specialities. A feature of Basque cooking is that the colours of the Basque flag - red and green - often feature in the dishes (usually red & green peppers). I think my first lip-smacking experience was at La Buvette des Halles, a small café that had just opened in the centre of St Jean de Luz adjacent to the covered market (that sells meat, poultry, fish & all types of sea food, fruit & veg and cheese). After the market had finished for the morning and while all the detritus was being swept up, we saw a chap quickly setting up tables and chairs. His kitchen was inside the market building and his fish-orientated menu featured much that had come straight from the market - so without further ado we sat down at a table in the shade of the platanes.
I still remember what we had that first time - Madame had a tomato* and mozzarella salad and I had 9 oysters, then we both had grilled sardines (we didn't know then that they'd been cooked on a plancha) accompanied by a pichet of cold rosé. Everything was fresh and full of taste. Coffee, a Café Creme cigarillo and the bill followed - 105 francs - which at the time was only ~£11. If we could have pressed the rewind button and had it all again we would have! Delicious - and in such a simple setting - and as a bonus, it was ideal for people watching. It was his first year in business and we've been back every year (bar a couple) since then.
* Tomatoes are a no-go item for me..
His menu is a véritable (as they like to say here) catalogue of Basque cuisine - he serves all of the following staples of the Basque kitchen: Ttoro, Pipérade, Omelette au piment doux, Axoa d'espelette & Poulet basquaiseand probably a few more that I've forgotten. Plus a few standards like sardines, grilled tuna, dressed crab, oysters, moules, entrecôte steak or confit de canard. For freshness of taste (and price) I don't think he can be beaten. It's one of our favourite places when it gets a bit warmer. Recommended: Light lunch? Go for the sardines. Feeling peckish? Tuna with pipérade will slow you down a bit..
I remember after our first holiday down in the Pays Basque we were keen to try sardines on our barbecue when we returned home. After they all fell through the grill and smoked out the neighbourhood we realised that frozen ones just won't do! And you need a plancha..
Here's the late Keith Floyd attempting to make a Pipérade in a Basque lady's kitchen in St Jean de Luz and getting it all so wrong. (Imagine the reaction if a Frenchman was ensconced in a Yorkshire kitchen attempting to demonstrate for the viewers - and the lady of the house - 'owze famoos pudding de York-sheer was made..) I think he escaped very lightly! Don't misunderstand me.. I had a lot of time for Keith Floyd.. it took some nerve to do what he did here. Can't imagine the saintly Delia trying that!)
22nd February 2010. 15C this morning. I went to Dancharia in Spain to fill the car up with diesel.. It's crept up to a tad over 1€/litre (~88p) - presumably in the light of the Total refinery dispute in N France which threatens to disrupt the supply of petrol to the country. While I was there, I picked up a few odds and ends and had an extra virgin cold pressed hot chocolate.. (as you do).
23rd February 2010. A few months ago, we were asked by A - an old friend of J-M in Tours - if we’d like to go for a flight with him one day from the Basque Aero Club at Biarritz airport.. A is a semi-retired fighter pilot (French Air Force) and he's a flying instructor at the Aero Club. Biarritz Airport is not that busy and the main operators who use it are Air France, RyanAir or EasyJet. Occasionally a biz jet flies in. We were there once waiting to board a RyanAir flight to the UK when I sensed that there was something going on. I noticed a posse of gendarmerie motorcyclists discreetly standing by with a few heavy-looking characters talking into their cuffs. An Airbus landed and, as it taxied in, a small tricolourcould be seen fluttering from the flight deck window. It taxied up to the terminal and shut down in quick time while a stairway was hurriedly wheeled into place. There were a few impressive looking 'suits' nervously waiting below.. A minute later the door opened and there was El Presidente Sarkozy himself.. with MAM* two steps behind him.
Anyway, on the day we flew with A, all was blissfully peaceful and quiet. We opened the hangar doors and pushed out the (very) small aircraft (a Robin DR 400 120) that we were going to commit aviation in and, after a few external checks, we strapped ourselves in, quickly ran through a short checklist, called the tower to ask for start clearance and then started up. All very simple and minimalist! Once the engine and oil temperatures were showing the correct values, we called for taxy clearance and then we were off taxying around (above) to the threshold of the active runway. Then, following a quick look around, A released the brakes and opened the throttle and we were off down the runway - all 7,382ft of it.
We climbed out over Biarritz before turning north over the sea to follow the coastline. At around this point, A turned to me and said "You have control.." (at that point I could sense Madame watching me like a hawk from the rear seat!) and we continued flying north along the beaches at Anglet before he told me to turn onto an easterly heading to fly up the northern banks of the Adour. I'm reminded (not by my performance of course!) of the classic comment written on a student pilot's report. It went: "Once Bloggs climbs into an aircraft, he starts a chain of events over which he has no further control.." Ouch!
It was a day when I would normally have been rowing and down below I could see a couple of 'yolettes' (fours) outlined like pond skimmers against the silvery Adour.
The rowing club lies just above the second bridge up on the pic above on the left hand bank. At this point we turned right hand down a bit (technical aviation term) towards the Pyrenees and suddenly my mind map of how the Pays Basque fitted together suddenly took on an extra dimension as the landscape unfolded before us.
Saint-Jean-de-Luz
After St Jean de Luz we landed back at Biarritz, refuelled the aircraft and then taxied around to the hangar and locked it all away again. Great fun.. and I wish I could afford to do it more often. Many thanks to A for his kind gesture.. the Pays Basque looks just as good from the air.
To wind up with, here's the pooch enjoying himself on a blustery day at our local beach a day or two ago. The clip won't win any awards I know - I was really just testing out my new camera.
I was just saying to Madame the other day that so far we’ve seen no reference to the approach of Christmas in any of the shops – no towering displays of marzipan or jars of mincemeat or John Lennon singing “So this is Christmas”.. or Easter eggs in Woolworths. (now - unbelievably - closed for good in the UK I heard)
So imagine my surprise this morning when I heard on the radio the unmistakeable sound of 'Jingle Bells'…! It made me think – well here we are with less than 2 months to go to Christmas and still no Christmas Lights.. The French just don’t have a clue do they.. (irony!) I would guarantee that, for the last few weeks, supermarkets back home will already have been fully set up with dedicated aisles for such traditional English Christmas essentials as German Stollen bread, French marzipan, Belgian chocolates, Turkish delight, Italian panettone cakes and the like (we contribute the spuds!).. and deep freezes full of turkeys the size of small boulders.. One afternoon we went into Bayonne to a “Depôt Vente”. This is where you can take things to sell – mainly furniture.. The Depôt Vente sets the price and then takes a percentage of the proceeds. We went there looking to see what they had in the way of armoires. There were some in stock and while they were certainly cheaper than we’d seen in antique shops, it was fairly clear why. I think these are the kind of places that you need to drop in every week to see the new stock as it arrives - except that, like stuffing mushrooms, life is just too short for some things.
After this, it was starting to feel like evening so we came back. Madame had bought some chestnuts so we had these roasted with a cup of tea (living dangerously!).
For the French holiday on 1st November, we planned on going to Les Aldudes - a village buried in the Basque mountain country that straddles the entrance of a valley that, while it runs deep into Spain, is still French. The valley's chief claim to fame is that it produces arguably the best Jambon de Bayonne in the area. And, of course, many of the other products that the Basque cuisine is famous for.
There is a saying that some lofty Parisian food critics are fond of quoting that the only implement needed in a kitchen in the South West is - a tin opener! While this was meant as a clever put-down, nevertheless I think it does hit on a truth. Much of the great products of the South West can be preserved.. Think of confit de canard, foie gras, haricot beans in graisse d’oie (goose fat), rillettes, cassoulet and pipérade (though personally I have some doubts about this last one) et al... There isn't much that can't be put in a can or a jar - but it's none the worse for that. It's possible to buy all these products via mail order too!
Post visit report: Well, we had a great day out today high up in the Pyrenees.. First of all, the weather was supposed to be 3C in the morning warming up to 12C in the afternoon. Anyway, we set off and as we climbed up and up the skies cleared and we were gradually able to see the start of the high Pyrenees in the distance – the mountains near us were only about 2-3,000‘ high – further east, I think they go up to about 9,000’ or even higher. As we climbed, the full extent of the Pyrenees started to unfold in front of us.. and just when we thought we’d seen one high mountain, in the distance behind it, we’d see another even higher one - and in the blue misty distance behind that one, another one..
Les Aldudes
.. and yet another one beyond that. And all the time, the valley sides were getting steeper and steeper as we wound our way ever-upwards.. It was difficult to keep one eye on the driving with all this magnificent mountain scenery around us and at one moment, I thought I saw the pale outline of a snow-covered white peak that was higher than the rest, way way off in the distance and I thought, surely not, a snow covered peak so early in the season but on the regional news when we returned home they featured it too. First snow of the year in the Pyrenees..
Stirring mountain scenery and it was difficult to keep my eyes on the road as the country opened up before us. We ran up the valley on an old single track smuggler’s road that climbed up towards Spain and near the top we pulled over to eat our lunch.. I opened my window and looked out across the expanse of a great deep valley – white farmhouses with red roofs were dotted across the valley floor. It was through rugged border country like this that the men and women of the wartime Comet Line (organised by 24 year old Andrée De Jongh, a brave Belgian woman) famously helped Allied airmen to escape down from the Low Countries, through the occupied zone in France, across the Pyrenees into neutral Spain and home via British-controlled Gibraltar. In fact, in Sare, a Basque village close to the border, I recently discovered a newly placed memorial (below) to Victor Ithurria, a highly decorated and legendary figure who served in the SAS with great distinction during WWII before being killed on 25th August 1944..
I saw some large birds flying around in circles and I realised I was watching vultures (griffon vultures..) circling around
in the air currents.. As I watched, I saw one furl its wings and dive
down to the ground, followed by another, and another. Soon, there must have
been 20-30 of them down there. Whatever was down there under a tree was getting
a good pecking. Another British pensioner who won’t stop for a snooze after
lunch again! We first saw them here a few years ago when we were up high in the
mountains.. I remember thinking at the time, if I didn’t know better I’d swear
they were vultures. When we got back to the hotel, they told us that, yes,
there were quite a few vultures up in the hills.. Certainly makes you think
twice about falling asleep in the sun after a good lunch..
We next came to a small village, ie, about 5 houses together, and one of them was a hotel with a restaurant. Out of interest we stopped to look at the lunch menu… it was £8 for a 4 course lunch…! (these are 1960 prices!) Next time we go up there, we might just try it. Anyway, we continued higher up the valley and soon we came to the border. There was no border as such – just a garage and a smoky café.. (smoking still being allowed indoors in Spain)
The countryside looked spectacularly good in its burnt copper autumn colours under a cloudless deep blue sky. After this, we went to St Jean Pied de Port. This is a very old town in the heart of the Pyrenees where Madame’s father’s family originated.
It’s on the pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela in northern Spain. People still come from all over the world to walk the route. It was getting really warm now and after blocking various pavements for a while we found a tea shop and sat outside in the sun. Madame couldn’t believe that she was still wearing her sunglasses on 1st November..!
Main street of St Jean Pied de Port
Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port
At the moment, there’s still that holiday feel to life down here because we’re still "camping out" in the gîte with a minimum of our belongings. I just have the one English book and that’s “Out of Africa” - which I’ve read twice since we’ve been here - as all our books are in storage. As a compulsive reader, forgetting to pack a box of books in the van was a major mistake.
This is "Tarantella" by Hilaire Belloc.. (try reading it aloud)
Do you remember an Inn, Miranda?
Do you remember an Inn?
And the tedding and the spreading
Of the straw for a bedding,
And the fleas that tease in the High Pyrenees,
And the wine that tasted of tar?
And the cheers and the jeers of the young muleteers
(Under the vine of the dark veranda?)
Do you remember an Inn, Miranda,
Do you remember an Inn?
And the cheers and the jeers of the young muleteers
