Small reprieves of coffee and birdsong

The Last week in animals!

A small dog dozing in a wagon, by the beach, half covered by a blanket, the sun warming its old grazing muzzle.

This little brown bird, landing on the feeder with its mouth full of paper or tissue for a nest, conflicted for a bit before dropping it to gobble up birdseed: we've all been there.

A duck couple in a little mulched area of urban shrubbery, beside one of the busiest Portland streets.* Another duck couple, identical, in a video sent to me from Isaac, who filmed them paddling around a canal in Paris, France. 

THIS week in animals!

So many birds, brown ones and starlings and that one dove and chickadees, robins, possibly a hummingbird, purple finches and a goldfinch and my catbirds and more.

Things I Found Online!

I don't think I want to go to here.

No lie, just look at those two.

Hmm I'll go to Lowe's I guess

He's not wrong

LOL

*At least there were no babies, like that time on the highway heading to Ikea.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire

Achingly gorgeous:

tragic love; the female gaze:

the way art consoles

Le Père de mes Enfants

Startling and sad,
Lovely to look at and so
Beautifully acted.

midnight in paris

yearning for the past,
the beauty of paris, and
sweet owen wilson

un prophète

like the godfather

with corsicans and muslims

in a french prison

une femme est une femme

anna karina,
singing, fighting, being french,
wanting a baby.

weekend

my mom and dad drove up for the weekend, which was marked by hurricanish weather on saturday and then a perfectly beautiful sunny cool maine late summer day on sunday. we met miss gliss at arabica on saturday afternoon to bid her adieu before she heads off to lille, france for a year.
























my parents treated us to delicious pizzas at bonobo saturday night. below, boo tried on bean's new ira glasses*:
























bean and boo both had very tiny crème brûlées for dessert, and i am now officially inspired to buy myself a little kitchen blowtorch.
























we went for a lovely long eastern prom walk on sunday and had iced coffee from bard (i am now holding all iced coffee to the 1369 standard, and bard's didn't quite make the grade, though it wasn't bad). some time over the course of the weekend, bean finished her owl sweater.
























she doesn't get her knitting ability from her mother. this is a gorgeous cabled sweater (the first sweater she's attempted) in a soft undyed wool. she will be completely finished when she sews tiny buttons on to be the owls' eyes.


























*that's my name for them, anyway. i think anyone who wears them looks a bit like ira glass.

le popotame était allergique à la magie

remember capucine, the cutest little girl in france? well, now she's collaborating on these t-shirts, the sales of which will benefit "edurelief, in order to help kids in mongolia to buy books for school." i want one, don't you?!

cutest little girl in france

Once upon a time... from Capucha on Vimeo.

tell no one

m is the afs liason for a french exchange student named nathalie, which means that he is her contact person for any issues that come up with her host family, her school, or really anything else she feels like talking about. he'll meet up with her at least once a month. last night, m, boo, and i took nathalie to the movies to see un film francais. we figured it might be a nice break for her to listen to some people speaking her own language for a couple of hours, and i think it really was! when the movie was over, she said, "oh! i am in france now!" nathalie is a really sweet girl, and although i know she doesn't feel like she has a great grasp of english, she communicates very well. it is such a strange parallel to having bean living out a similar situation in germany. one thing nathalie emphasized is just how physically and mentally exhausting it is to speak and listen to english all day long in school -- she's pretty much ready to go to sleep when she comes home in the afternoon.

oh, and the movie was good, too -- a little tidy at the end for my taste, but plenty of great suspenseful twists along the way.

the story of a cassoulet

i've veganized a basic cassoulet recipe, and it is pretty delicious (since i'm improvising and not working from a recipe, it comes out slightly different every time i make it -- more and less scrumptious, but always very tasty). here's how to do it:


buy yourself a package of tofurkey italian sausage, slice it up, and saute it in olive oil until it's brown all over.





















real cassoulet has all kinds of animal parts in it, so you can add as many fake meats as you so desire -- i used some chicken-style seitan, also browned up in olive oil.




















next, chop/dice a medium onion and two big carrots, and saute them too (adding more olive oil if you need it). if there were celery in there, we'd call this a mirepoix, like back in old paree. no, actually on top chef. and you could add celery if you wanted to!





















add to this almost-mirepoix (after onion gets translucent) two cans of white beans and a tablespoon or two of fresh thyme. also salt and pepper to taste. and then some chopped garlic, the more the merrier. finally, add tomatoes in some form (i used about a cup and a half of chopped canned tomatoes, but i think i like this better with some saucier version, like crushed tomatoes or even tomato paste), and one to two cups of liquid (i used part red wine, part veggie broth). cook this up for a while, until it tastes great.





















put everything in a casserole dish, like so:




















it helps if you have a loyal dog by your side (totally fooled by the fake meat):





















bread crumbs on top (i made them fresh in my food processor -- you can also mix them with chopped fresh parsley):





















bake it at 350 degrees for about 20-30 minutes, until nicely browned and bubbly. yum. sometimes it comes out a little too dry. it's at its most delicious when it's all saucy and creamy, which is why i think i prefer the smooshier tomatoes. also, don't be afraid to have some liquid in there when you put everything in the casserole dish. yum. serve with crusty bread or maybe a dark green vegetable or glasses of water. did i already say yum?

weird coincidence...

that i quoted that magnetic fields song, below, not knowing that marcel marceau died?!

when i read the obituary, i couldn't help doing that mime thing in my mind, where a smile turns into a frown (or vice versa) as one's hand passes in front of one's face. kind of like this.

allez-y piane-piane

which means something along the lines of "easy does it," according to french word-a-day. i just like the way it sounds.

we took bean's blackbelt friend, jukado, to cambridge with us this weekend. mom was busy working for much of the time (on-call massage therapist at the hyatt, where she had, among others, a sweet japanese client who requested a ninety minute long foot massage), but we walked around boston and cambridge and met up with my dad here and there. we ate some great food, drank some iced coffee drinks, browsed in many bookstores, perused the cool stuff at black ink, tried on clothes at urban outfitters, and admired the fancy stereo equipment at b&o (boo's favorite). on sunday afternoon, bean and her "meat" essay were the highlights of a boston vegetarian society event, which had poignant moments punctuated by christopher guest moments. i'll say no more about that, but if you see bean, ask her to do her very special parker posey imitation. afterwards, we got to feast at grasshopper, one of our favorite feasting grounds.

the weather has been so cool, so autumnal -- my favorite kind, but it does kind of bring the summer to a sudden, screeching halt. there are still summery things i want to do! bean and boo don't start school until september 6th, so we've still got more than two full weeks of freedom.

quebec

arret! and let me tell you about my trip to la ville de quebec with bean, dancer lady and artemis (check out more pictures on flickr). we drove north to canada on sunday morning, mostly alongside the gorgeous kennebec river, through tiny maine towns and past rolling hills and piney-smelling pine trees. when we got to canada (after being very briefly detained at the border because dancer did not have a letter from artemis's father stating that he was aware that his child was being taken out of the country), tout le monde a parle francais!!

(oh, mama d, did i say that right? i mean, besides the missing accents?)

part of the reason we took the trip was so that bean and artemis could practice speaking french, and they definitely got to do that. we all four made valiant attempts to communicate in the native tongue, although we were almost instantly revealed as americans as soon as someone responded to our queries or restaurant orders in rapid french. "huh?" we'd say. or the expression on our faces would say. or, if we were quick on our feet, we'd say, "um, parlez-vous anglais?" most of them did, although a couple did not (i.e. the guy in the book store who clearly loved gnomes as much as dancer lady).

we stayed in a really great youth hostel in old quebec, inside the fortification walls which surround that part of the city.
























we drank excellent coffee at charming cafes*, ate delicious pastries and chocolates, walked miles of hills and staircases, browsed in souvenir shops, bookstores, record shops, and clothing stores. we went to the choco-musee and la musee de la civilisation (bean and i loved an exhibit on le cinema du quebec, where we got to watch a bunch of film clips, including one from nanook of the north). we also went to the oldest grocery store in north america and a great health food store right across the street from it. people in quebec in general were reserved and perhaps a little leery of english-speaking tourists comme nous, with the exception of our waiter, alexandre, at le petit chateau creperie, and the guy at the t-shirt shop, both very friendly. oh, also the guy at the bookstore who didn't speak english, and the guy at the fancy tea house. the city itself was unbelievably exotic -- quite european, even medieval in places, with one charming scene after another, a lovely flowing river, many gallic-looking inhabitants. it definitely felt like a tourist town, though, not quite real.

i almost forgot the highlight of our trip: after a long, long walk through decidedly non-touristy areas of the city, we located a cinema, wherein we watched (en francais) les bratz. all i can say is, chouette!

on the way home, i saw my first moose, calmly crossing the road (far) in front of us. it felt momentous.

the trip left me wanting to stay at more hostels; in our hostel's lobby, we gazed at a map of the many, many hostels in canada, and the cross-canada railway connecting them all. next up (i'm not sure when): montreal.



*the first time we went to chez temporel, it qualified as charming. it's widely known (based on my extensive research) to have the best croissants and coffee in the city. we were delighted with both. however, the second day we happened to be walking past and decided to go in again, since there was an available table right beside the window, opening onto the sidewalk. the waitress essentially ordered us to go upstairs. we said, oh no, we'd like to sit here by the window, and she said (imagine a snooty french accent), "oh, non non, you must go upstairs, it will be better. there is a bigger oven. you will get better service." she wouldn't let us sit in the (nearly empty) downstairs! she didn't want us to be seen -- she wanted to tuck us away in the hidden, upstairs, tourist area! so we bid her "au revoir," and went on our way.

je t'aime

bean and i went to see paris je t'aime at the movies with dancer lady and artemis a few days ago, and it was wonderful -- 18 short films about paris. we're preparing for our quebecois adventure this coming weekend!


this lady is really scared of clowns. watch the whole thing, and tell me if you don't feel a little bit sorry for "mr. giggles."

the latest from my dreamworld: last night the most boring dream ever, that i was spraying ramekins with cooking spray. when i woke up, there was a weird bird outside the window making a sound like...cooking spray.

beaucoup de tartes

i think that's how you'd say it. if not, i know my friend mama d will tell me les mots corrects. anyway, tonight was le 2nd jour de cuisine francais (yikes, i'm nearing the end of my comfort zone in french here). bean, artemis, and i made a tomato tart, a salad with vinaigrette, vegan vichyssoise, and for dessert a tarte tatin avec des peches. that's a total of deux tartes, by the way. trois, counting yesterday.

yeesh, i must be tired. i had a dream full of characters last night: our friends mitchell and landis were showing me their new house, which was contemporary (a mod box shape), but made out of "ancient stones." they gave me "mitchell's book" to read on a very old couch, but pages kept falling out of it. there were lots of photographs in it. then i was viewing the new house of james and liza cagney (james works at videoport and taught boo's film class at camp). it was a mansion -- i was amazed. "but, how..?" i queried, and james replied, "i got one of those hawaii home loans." i thought, i'd better look into those. then i was with homestar david, who was all excited about his new altruistic project, signing up a long list of people for fancy cable tv packages ("the lighthouse package, with hbo!") as a surprise. i didn't know how to break it to him that these people would all be receiving monthly bills for their fancy cable. then he wrote a bunch of instructions on my forearm, but i couldn't read any of them.


*this post has been hastily edited for frenchy correctness.

délicieux

we had a plan that we'd immerse ourselves in french culture this summer, along with a regular schedule of rosetta stone french lessons, so that bean's entry into french three this fall (from french one) will be easy. we have kept up fairly well with the ongoing godard film festival, but she and i had also made a pact to cook as many french foods as we could. vegan french foods, that is, not a simple task.

however, tonight we made a wildly successful meal, both french and vegan (though once again i have no photographic evidence): oven roasted ratatouille with garlic-basil aioli and a standard bakery baguette, and for dessert, tarte tatin with soy whip. yum. and we have many more amazing recipes up our sleeves. oh, and we listened to chanteurs.org during dinner, which is described on i-tunes as "french songs since 1890 of the dead artists."

it was so hot today that i couldn't muster up the energy to do anything until after five o' clock. although mid-day m, boo and i dragged ourselves to the nick to see the simpsons movie, which was great fun. it left me with one overwhelming question, though: what happened to the pig?