Frog legs at Gérard's house

This is the promised "frog leg" post. Last night, Isabelle made a pineapple upside down cake and we headed over to Gérard's house to eat frog legs with him and his wife, Mireille.

This is how the poor little froggies start out...I really can't believe how much meat there is on a little frog leg. It's a pretty sad sight, but I'm glad I didn't have to see them alive...

Before Mireille cooked them she put them in a bag with flour so that they would all be finely coated.

Then she fried them in a pan of oil.

Here are the little fried legs all done. Mireille then mixed them with some sort of citron flavored sauce.

The men relaxed in the living room while Mireille worked on the food. 

Gérard and Mireille seem to have traveled to every country imaginable and had many objects in their living room that they had brought back from their trips. 

I'm glad this little specimen was dead in a box and not skittering around in the house. 

They even had a little stuffed crocodile. Isn't that wild?  

Gérard and Isabelle can't wait for their frog legs!

Finally dinner was ready and we sat down to eat the frog legs.  For anyone who is wondering, they tasted pretty good and were something of a hybrid between chicken and fish. 

I couldn't help taking a picture of the cheese course because of the cute little mouse, knife-holder. 

Gérard loves the US and Harley Davidson. Here is a selection of his mugs that we used for tea after dinner. US flag and jeans, Elvis, Harley-Davidson, and the Rolling Stones. 

We topped it all off with Isabelle's pineapple upside down cake and vanilla ice-cream. 

Chestnut party and dinner with Gérard

After our day in the mountains, we headed to the next town over to visit Yann's biker friend, Gérard. They ride Harley Davidsons together.  We came for the small town's chestnut festival in the sideyard of the church. There was all you can eat roasted chestnuts and chestnut flavored wine. A lot of people from the town came out for it and stood around talking and eating chestnuts until the sun was disappearing and the street lights were turning on. 

They were busy the whole time cutting the tops of the chestnuts off and roasting them.

Here I am with Yann and Gérard.

Everyone was engaged in busy conversation as they cracked the shells of their chestnuts.

So many people in one little place!

We wanted a little break from all the talking, so Isabelle and I went out front of the church to where one of the locals had tethered his horse. He and I became fast friends.

After we had eaten more chestnuts than any normal human-being should, we headed back to Gérard's house for dinner. His wife had cooked a wonderful traditional French meal for us.  This meal included Boudin and head cheese.  Those are two things I hadn't ever imagine that I would like, but they really weren't too bad. I actually liked how the Boudin tasted, but I'm not sure if I'll ever get over it being pig-blood-sausage...we'll see.

Afterwards, I played violin for them until 11pm. Gérard requested Amazing Grace (and I was told that he cried) as well as John Denver, Rocky Mountain Roads.

Yann enjoyed pretending that he was playing violin too!

When Gérard and his wife heard that I had never tasted frog legs it was decided that we would return to their house (this time in Aix-en-Provence) on Thursday to have frog legs for dinner. That'll be tonight, so stay tuned for a blog post on my reaction to frog legs!

Ardèche: land of the chestnuts

Last weekend I had the wonderful opportunity to visit the region of Ardèche.

Isabelle's step-father lives in the mountains of Ardèche in very small town.  I didn't realize that we were heading out for the whole week-end until Yann asked me if my bag was packed and ready! Since I just had my big suitcase, he lent me a smaller bag and I threw a few things in for the weekend.
We got there in time for dinner, which turned out to include the regional specialty, chestnuts. The region is known for their chestnuts, which they roast and eat in the fall.

The next morning, we got up and headed out into the mountains to see the area. There aren't many that remain, but this is an example of the thatched roofs that were common in this area.

Up close, you can see how rough the materials are for the roof.

The saucissons secs that are made in the mountains are supposed to be the best in the area because of the way the cows are raised up there.

We stopped at a small boucherie to buy meat and sausage for the family. Every time Isabelle and Yann come up to Ardèche to see Claude, they stop and stock up on some of their favorites that they find in the boucherie there.

The roads in these small mountain towns are so small that in one place they had to cut out part of the wall to make a street wide enough for cars! As long as we're on the subject of the width of the roads, I must say that driving in the mountains was slightly terrifying. Claude was fond of driving very quickly around hairpin turns with rock walls on one side and a sheer drop on the other side! To make matters worse, it was mushroom season and there were lots of cars parked along the road. I survived though! :)

From there we moved on to the top of one of the mountains.  This particular mountain is the source of the Loire!

I was surprised to see that the longest river in France is so tiny at it's source. To be fair, I suppose most rivers start this way, but it's not really something you think of much since you never see them, except for when they are large and powerful.

That cool stone trough is a nice way for the Loire to start off, but this humble PVC pipe is the real origin of the river. I wonder how long it takes for this water I saw to reach the Atlantic?

There was a little shop in this old building to make the spot. The roof was one of those old stone ones. You can see on the left that there was someone fixing it while we were there. He was up there with his daughter for a while. Nothing like being up on a roof!

Inside the shop, there were many regional products for sale including this chestnut liquor. They make the chestnuts here into everything from candied chestnuts to chestnut spread for your bread.

Isabelle enjoyed our little stop at the origin of the Loire!

Behind the shop was the peak of the mountain. It is called Le Mont Gerbier de Joncs. A good number of people were climbing to the top and I would have happily scrambled up there too, but we didn't have enough time. Maybe sometime we'll go back and go all the way up!

After our excellent lunch at a little restaurant in the middle of nowhere, Isabelle and I walked around to see the farm country on the plateau.

The sky was gray and foreboding to one side and blue and cheery to the other.

I'm pretty sure we were trespassing to take this photo, but it was just so pretty that we couldn't help it...shh don't tell anyone.

On our way back home, we stopped by the ruins of a Cistercian abbey called l'Abbaye de Mazan.

Not much remains of the place since the townspeople took the stone to build houses when it was abandoned. All the same, it was possible to see how majestic it had been at one time.

I think there were big flagstones on the ground, but I believe those were all toted away by the villagers as well.

I love the trail of the airplane in the sky over this creek by the abbey. When I was little I called those trails left by airplanes  "skyscrapers" because I thought they were scraping the sky.

Can I just stay here forever?

Cézanne's Favorite Mountain, Sainte-Victoire

Yesterday we took a little hike up Sainte-Victoire, a mountain nearby Aix.  Cézanne lived here and he painted this mountain.

This is Alexis, my second cousin, before we left. No, we didn't go on the scooter...

This is Sainte-Victoire, our goal for the afternoon. 

We wanted to reach the cross at the top!

We had to cross this dam first before hiking up to the mountain. (See it in the background?) I was told that if this dam broke, all of Aix would be flooded.

There were two dams with the big one above and then a small pool with another one following it.

The lake behind the dam was an exquisite blue color.  Sainte-Victoire is in the distance to the right.

My traveling companions, Alexis and Yann, stopped to put on extra jackets to keep them warm in the driving wind. There is a wind here in the south called the Mistral, which is strong and cold and comes from the north. It was 100 km/hr yesterday!

It seemed so far away, but it took less than an hour to get most of the way there.

Is we walked, I had to keep running to keep up with Alexis and Yann since I stopped again and again to take one more photo of the beautiful view.

I love the little plants that grow in the rocky soil here.

There is a smaller mountain range that connects with Sainte-Victoire.  The easiest way to get up to the cross was to reach the top of the small mountain range and work our way over to the peak.  Yann and I finally reached the crest of the range, but we were forced to turn around and climb back down since the wind was so strong. I literally thought that I was going to be picked up and thrown off the mountain if I went any further.  To my surprise, it was a little difficult to even descend because the wind was pushing as back so strongly. That's my first experience with the Mistral in the south!

Before we descended I was able to take a picture of the lake on the other side of the mountain.

Here's proof that I made it up there. We'll be going back another time hopefully to actually go all the way to the cross.

Here you can see that we were not significantly lower in elevation than the cross. Without the wind, it wouldn't have been to hard to get over there.

On our way back down.

I wouldn't have minded sitting on that little bench to enjoy the view.

Me with Alexis....

...and me with Yann.

One last look at the lake before leaving. Until we meet again!