Le Franco Phoney

Between guzzling glasses of bubbly last weekend in the Champagne region, I visited the lovely Faux de Verzy – a forest of twisted beech trees that have a really magical quality about them. We visited the forest late in the day, making photography difficult (as if my skills aren’t already hampered enough!). Slow-growing and twisted due to a genetic problem, these trees slowly propagate a bit like strawberry plants, with branches touching the ground, rooting, and eventually producing a new twisted trunk. Apparently, some of the trees are more than 1,000 years old, but I have no way of knowing if this is true. The word ‘faux‘ in this case refers to the Latin word for ‘beech’, but faux has many meanings, and another of them is a scythe for cutting grass. Our local friend acting as our tour guide mentioned this as the low light dimmed further and we found ourselves lost in a spooky forest. Blair Witch Project quotes started from various members of our party. It’s not typically what you want to hear when you’re thinking about using your mobile phone as a flash light since the sun has already set. We found the car thanks to our tour guide’s mobile phone with GPS, much to everyone’s relief. Go during the day.

When an English lady called Miranda got in touch to see if I’d be interested in a writers’ retreat just ten minutes from my house, I was hesitant. Okay, I’m a writer and it would give me a break from domestic life to get stuck into some fiction, but I already live in a beautiful part of the world so would it really make that much difference? I went to find out, and I can confidently say that it was worth every cent.

I was greeted by Miranda and Chris from Chalet La Giettaz just on the other side of the Col des Aravis which is the doorway to the Savoie region (La Clusaz is Haute Savoie). I met the lady who was going to crack the whip all weekend, Bidisha, and the three other writers over a tasty, relaxed dinner. As you may gather from this photo, Bidisha is not a harsh person, and the most fierce whip-cracking involved her insisting that we go on a walk to clear our heads on Sunday despite some resistance. I suspect one student may say that the whip only really came out when Bidisha demanded that each student submit 6,000 words of text prior to the weekend for her to critique. Bidisha provided some great feedback and the opportunity to ask questions about the publishing industry and finding an agent.

That might seem trite to someone living in London, but I’m surrounded by French people who speak mostly of snow, sports and cows, so the weekend was really valuable for me to learn about the British publishing industry (where I plan to get published) and writing fiction. Although I can’t say that the idyllic mountain scenery of La Giettaz motivated me to write any more than the idyllic mountain scenery out my window in St Jean de Sixt, the retreat really was a retreat, and the Brits around me seemed suitably satisfied with the views and peacefulness to aid their writing. The retreat enabled me to write for hours, which I’d  fail to do at home (partly thanks to the attention demanded by my cat Bruno and his cream-nagging, small-animal-regurgitating ways), and Bidisha has motivated me to get back to polishing this novel before another year passes me by. Watch this space.

A French reader of my blog sent me these photos of a roundabout where he lives, based on my previous posts about ornate French roundabouts. He said: “April, I thought you’d like to see my local roundabout since you write about French roundabouts on your blog. I’m sure you can find something funny to write about it if you decide to put it on your blog.”

Actually, I’m so impressed with this roundabout that I don’t know if I can find anything funny to write about it! What’s not to love about this roundabout? It’s in Morbier, which is why there’s a giant Morbier cheese (appropriately with a section cut out of it to show the layer of ash that runs through the centre), and although I don’t understand why there’s a grandfather clock in the middle of this roundabout, I do appreciate that it’s made mostly of plants. How can this be? How cool is this clock? It looks like it has a coffin lining of satin which is a little freaky, but this roundabout really illustrates just how well the French do roundabouts. Not only does it have a decorative clock and cheese, but it’s also very informative. It tells you what time it is, and it tells you where you are (Haut Jura, as it says on the right). It’s also a friendly roundabout, as it says “Bienvenue” (“Welcome”) on the left. Does a better roundabout exist? I challenge you to find one.

If you’d like to see a bigger version of the roundabout, click on the photo.

I’ve been in the north of France this week and I’ve noticed something about French food. Yes, it’s acclaimed as carefully crafted cuisine, created by chefs who take great pride in their work, but there is at least one exception and I believe I’ve found it. Melted cheese is, in fact, at the heart of French cuisine! Please hear me out before you protest.

I live in Haute Savoie, and prior to that, Savoie. Fondue Savoyarde is on most, if not all, local menus in both regions. Although the Swiss and the Savoyardes still dispute who has the best fondue and where it originated, I think everyone would agree that Savoie and Haute Savoie are the leading departments for cheese in France.

But wait: what about Nord-Pas-de-Calais? It’s nowhere near any mountains and it’s by the sea. You’d think restaurateurs would scoff at cheese in favour of delicious and abundant seafood. Seafood is indeed always on the menu, but so is cheese — melted. It’s a bowl of warm cheese with some bread swimming in it. You can choose whether or not a slice of ham and an egg is added. This dish is in competition with fondue for several reasons. First of all, it’s melted cheese with bread and meat, except everything has already been dunked into the cheese for you. Secondly, although the French have made it theirs (as the Swiss would also argue about fondue), it was originally a British dish. Which dish? Welsh rarebit!

If you’re not familiar with Welsh rarebit, it’s basically cheese on toast with a few things added to the cheese, like Worcestershire sauce and beer. The French dish, Welsh, is served with Worcestershire sauce, and from what I can tell, the cheese they use (something called ‘Chester’, which tastes a lot like Cheddar to me), beer is also added to the cheese before it’s ladeled onto a lonely slice of baguette sitting at the bottom of a big bowl.

Known by my friends as the Queen of Fondue, I was somewhat surprised when the Welsh beat me. The one pictured was my lunch, and I felt sick for most of the afternoon despite not finishing it off. This is by far the most stodgy meal I’ve eaten. It beats fry-ups and it beats the Austrian kaiserschmarren (huge steamed dumpling covered in custard). After my meal of melted cheese, dinner was a salad, and even that was a struggle. And there I was thinking that French cuisine was renouned for its refined chefs’ attention to detail. No problem for me though: stodge is great!

The year of 2009 has so far been good, if not a little odd. For example, I saw this car wedged in some trees after it skidded off the road backwards. This happened in the afternoon when the roads were completely dry from sunshine all day. The car is from this area (the 74 in the number plate gives it away), as was the car in my front yard one morning last year and the one in the creek opposite at 2am one morning. Maybe they’re just bad drivers here.

Meanwhile, in the snow park on Monday, I saw a snowblader land in a heap after trying a small kicker. He didn’t move in time and the next jumping blader then landed on his mate. They were then landed on by a third blader. Where is their common sense? Most of us check that a mate has landed safely and cleared the area before we take the jump. A kid barely old enough to be on skis somehow dropped off the huge red kicker in the park, much to the disgust of some La Clusaz team dude who was training teenagers how to do big tricks off it. Everyone had to wait while this kid zigzag-snowploughed down the landing zone, while his mother apologised profusely to the La Clusaz team dude who just shook his head.

Over in La Balme, the cool kids were trying out next year’s snowboard range. Their presence meant that bling came to La Clusaz. I missed the public testing day without realising, and was told I could not enter or try any boards. However, I know a ski technician who was allowed in, so together, we shared inverted camber snowboards, double inverted camber snowboards, and a few other boards too. While I waited for him at the gate with my own snowboard, a man asked me if I liked my board. I said I wasn’t sure as I had just bought it off a friend, and he said “Oh, it’s just that I’m the head of Rome snowboards in France, so I always like to ask people if they like their Rome boards.” Actually, I wish I could now tell him that I do quite like the board.

At the end of the day when the testing was over, the man at the gate let me in. However, my snowboard—a 2007/08 model—was not allowed. I had to leave it at the gate. Did he think I was planning on dumping it? What on earth was that about?

La Clusaz is now returning to normal with the bling snowboard tests over and this week’s bladers all too tired to keep going or injured from doing stupid things. This means I can write part two of my thoughts on French bakeries very soon. Tasty.

Another road-trip related post. I’ve made it across central France and have arrived on the West coast. The drive over was fun, although slightly dangerous, thanks to a game that my friend Jen tricked me into playing. Sometimes, this game seems next to impossible and it’s downright frustrating. I can’t resist playing it.

It’s the number plate game! In France, there are 95 departments: each department (region) has a number (see the map here – I’m in 74). French post codes and number plates reflect the region. So, for instance, my postcode starts with 74, and the local number plates also contain 74 as the last two digits, separated from the rest of the numbers and letters. The number plate game is simple. The game starts when you spot a number plate ending in 01. You then look for 02. I spent about a week seeing 02s but no 01s which was really frustrating. Finally, success! I saw one 01 and started watching out for 02s. Nothing. For two weeks, I searched. I saw 03 to 07 in one day alone: the number plate game was taunting me. I finally saw 02 and 03, then got stuck on 04 for the rest of winter 2007. I still find myself far too interested in car number plates when I really should be watching the road as I’m now stuck on 47.

This all started when I was sitting in Jen’s car and she said “21!”. “What are you talking about?” I asked, and so she explained the game to me. I thought, “Well, if Jen came out in late November and she’s already up to 21 by mid-January, it must be pretty easy.” Jen revealed yesterday that she actually started her count last May. And that was during a road trip where she drove through loads of departments.

Other numbers I’ve been stuck on include: 9; 19; 26. Luckily, Jen educated me on department 20: it doesn’t exist. Instead, the French island of Corsica has two regions: 2A and 2B, which are separate to the department of 02. Confused yet? Try the number plate game and this will all make sense.