A Place to Think

One of my favorite places in Tours is a small square off the the main road, Rue Nationale. 

The square has small trees and white roses growing on one side, a fountain and benches that face the ruined facade of a renaissance style building.  Only one wall of the building remains; the stones are quite worn, one edge is jagged like a jigsaw puzzle, and ivy is bursting out of the glassless windows.

I don't know if the square has a name or not, but the fountain in the center is called the Fountain of Lovers.  A tile in front of it encourages people to go to the fountain together to make a wish "for the here and now."

Sitting in front of it makes me think about time, about my here and now and my future.  I have so much future; the wall has so much past.  I wonder if it's possible for any person to wear ruin and incompleteness as well as this leftover wall.

Une amante,
Maria

Tarte Tatin

One of the host mothers in Tours offers a cooking class, so I took her up on it.  We made the magnificent Tarte Tatin.

Here's the recipe we used, though all of the conversions are a bit strange since it was given to us in kg, g ˚C, etc.

Ingredients:

• puff pastry
• ~3 lbs apples - we used 6/7 medium sized apples
• ~2 cups granulated sugar

1. Peel the apples and cut into halves (epulcher is the French word for "peel" - great word, non?)
2. Combine sugar with a little water in saucepan; heat until it becomes caramel
3. Pour melted caramel into a tart mold making sure that the bottom of the mold is covered with caramel
4. Place apples halves in the mold in concentric circles from the edge in; this can be done after the caramel has dried
5. Cover the apples with the sheet of puff pastry, tucking it in so that the tart will have sides; sprinkle (saupoudrer) the puff pastry with vanilla flavored sugar - I don't know if that exists in the U.S.
6. Cook for 25 minutes at 392˚ F 
7. Take the tart out of the oven, place a serving dish on top of the mold, then flip both over to remove your Tarte Tatin
8. Serve with creme fraiche seasoned to your liking with sugar and cinnamon

Tarte Tatin was originally a happy accident.  One of the sisters Tatin, who owned a hotel together, started making an apple pie, but left the apples in the hot butter and sugar too long.  So she put pastry on the bottom, flipped the whole thing over and faked it!

Apple love,
Maria

Artsy Fartsy

Today was the first gray, rainy day of many, I'm sure.  It was a perfect day for a visit to the Musée des Beaux Arts.  Our tour guide was Jean-Paul, a wildly-gesturing whirligig of a Frenchman.

Jean-Paul : man, myth, legend

If he had spoken with a little more enthusiasm, I think his mustache would have taken off and carried him, helicopter-like, through an open window into the great blue yonder.

Donc, je vous présente un ode à Jean-Paul :

Also in the Musée, a four-hundred-year-old wooden fireplace.  Think about it.

I was incredibly stirred by the work of Olivier Debré.

Gros bisoux,
Maria

Heard around Tours

It's funny how music takes you somewhere else.  I keep visiting home through the sound waves.

1. Steve Miller Band floating through the open windows of a car on a hot day.
2. Weezer in an add for La Banque Postale
3. The Jackson 5 being blasted by two guys in a mechanic's van; one threw me an imaginary fishing line to reel me in.
4. The Beatles providing the background music for the enormous annual market called La Broderie. 

 A lot of bars play American music, but somehow I'm not pulling up anything very specific...

Rock on,
Maria

Castles Are Fun

Are knights allowed to smile?

Visited Langeais, ye olde medieval castle par excellence.

L'Abbaye de Fountevraud

Also visited the Abbaye de Fontevraud, which really caught my imagination.  It was built in the early 12th century and controlled many other abbeys in Europe.  Fontevraud was also a prison from the time of Napoleon until the 60s.

The roof of the kitchen is magnificent.  Nuns who went crazy were locked in the dungeon.  Eleanor of Aquitaine and Richard the Lion-Hearted are buried in the church.

Dungeons are full of shadows.

I thought about how many thousands of lives have overlapped there, how many hands and feet and breathes preceded mine.

I stole lavender from the little garden. 

Swimming the sidestroke through history,
Maria

Chez moi, pour l'instant

A Tour of Tours

Let me set the scene: Tours is a small patchwork of white, grey-roofed houses, rivers (Loire and Cher), and handkerchief-size parks.  I'm taking prep classes at the Institut de Touraine, where one of my classrooms has the sky and swallows painted on the ceiling.

I've been wandering quite a bit and have found, to my delight, that I have a sense of direction.  I love walking with no destination, no rush to be someplace.

There is a park of extraordinary beauty near my host family's house.  Les français of all shapes and ages throng to the park, which may change as the school year begins.  I can't help watching the children with their mothers.  A favorite moment a couple of days ago: I overheard a little boy tell his mom he wanted to go home, and she replied, "To do what? There's nothing to do at home!"

The local nighttime hangout on the banks of the river, simply called La Guinguette, has live music most nights and is packed full of all sorts of people.  Place Plumereau, the main square in Old Tours, bustles and pulses with life into the wee hours of the morning.

The logo for the city is a turret with a rainbow coming out of it. 

Sugar and spice,
Maria