Bouchon

A "bouchon" is a cork. Kind of like the one that comes out of a wine bottle (in fact, exactly like that!). So we've come across the occasional bouchon. A French bouchon is not all that different from an Aussie cork - but far more plentiful; due in part to the French distaste for the wonderful stelvin (ie screwcap), and in part to our goal to learn as much about French wine as possible - and there's only one true way to learn.....

We were very fortunate in sneaking a bouchon out of a bottle today for lunch - surprisingly rare, and in this case most unexpected. Em's boss Cyrille was heading to a restaurant in Craponne (a popular village it seems!!) to do a delivery of wine and asked Em to join him in the trip. We (the rest of the family) thought we'd head along too. In turns out (gee our French must be bad!) that Cyrille was having lunch there, and we joined him in what was a wonderful feast. Oh how the French do long lunches well! The Foie Gras was extraordinary, despite not being in season (who knew force feeding ducks had a season!?!?!); Em's lamb wonderful, and I tackled the local speciality Rognon - which it turned out (after I ordered it) to be kidney. It was however, pretty good - and certainly went well with the Cotes du Rhone wine :-) Em's tasting notes reveal:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cotes due Rhone 2006 B.A.E.C Jamet, Jean-Paul et Jean-Luc

Drank this wine at Lunch with Cyrille, Tom (and kids) in Craponne. The nose was very floral and fruity with red fruits (fruit rouge), strawberry and a very little touch of oak. The wine was only medium bodied but a lovely balance between the red fruit flavours and the developed and complex characters. The wine lingered on the palate and was a perfect accompaniment to the millefeuille of agneau with aubergine that I had for lunch (oooh.. and the 2 types of fois gras we had for entrée) Score 17 Price €20 on restaurant price list – Cyrille reckons €6 from the producer.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

However, a bouchon is also a plug - as in bath. You wouldn't think all that different to Australia, however we seem to have had quite a few issues. Due to our own incompetence more than any poor design, multiple forks have been sacrificed to "de-bouchoning" the bath.

Remarkably a bouchon is also special type of restaurant in Lyon - that specialises in Lyonnaise food. High in meat and fat - it is as yet unsampled by us, but apparently wondrous. We've had quite a few recommended, so will hopefully soon be embarking on this 3rd kind of bouchon with gusto.

There is however a 4th type of bouchon. We only knew of the cork and the bistro versions when we noticed the word, flashing in yellow above the motorway. While the option of a wonderful restaurant, 3km ahead doing some innovative advertising was appealing, the result instead was a traffic jam. Bouchon. As Em's (other) boss explained today - "imagine a map of Europe - there is Northern Europe, and Southern Europe (ie South of France, Spain, Portugal). All of the North comes to the South for the holidays. And then they all return. And in order to bring tourists and commerce to city, they build the motorway right through Lyon." Instead, all it brings is cars. And one big bouchon for the last week in August.

Bringing back memories of our first car trip in France, we tackled this bouchon with two kids on the edge of hunger and tiredness, but figured they'd last the 15min trip to Lyon, before a stroll, some dinner and an ice-cream would sort them out. Hannah even fell asleep 2 minutes into the journey, so our decision to go was looking justified. It's just that she woke 45min later, and we were in reality still 45min away. More (justifiably) screaming kids.

And unlike boules players vs lawn bowls players - there's nothing romantic about French bouchon. It's just like an Aussie traffic jam - just with more Peugeots and Renaults. We were concluding a wonderful day that we'd spent with Lilou and Arno with a trip to the old part of Lyon when we struck the bouchon. Given time was now against us, it was obvious a new plan was called for; luckily we were able to simply get out of our respective cars and meet to discuss the next steps.

The wonderful Lilou had been instrumental in getting us setup in France - particularly finding us our accommodation, so it was fitting that she and Arno were our first guests in our "proper" abode; having only moved this week, we are now ensconced on what will be our home for the next 10 weeks or so until we leave. Click here to check it out on Google maps. It's great to be in our final house - feels a bit more settled. It's not often rented out, so not setup perfectly, but nothing that a trip to Ikea and the local Auchan couldn't fix. And the extra space, grass, rooms and wonderful hosts more than make up for any deficiencies in things like crockery!

Cork's pretty much the same, but more prevalent. Plugs surprisingly different. Traffic jams the same the world over. One thing that has stood out as being remarkable are Hair Dressers. "Coiffeurs" are by far the most well lit, marketed, branded and obvious store in every village. There's always a few, even in a village with only 1 cafe. And while you might struggle to notice the quaint restaurant as you drive through, the coiffeur has neon signs guiding you from before you leave the freeway.

And on the subject of driving.... what is it with give way to the right? I realise it's the same as Australia, but bizarrely it appears to often apply at T-intersections?? I'm attempting to educate the French that there are better ways... 1 driver at a time. And while they freely stop on the through road to let in a car from some obscure side street due to "give way to the right", pedestrian crossings are merely reminders of Beatles album covers.

Another obvious difference is the greeting. At every store "bonjour" as you enter is mandatory. It can sometimes be a bit weird that you can't sneak into your local 7-11 equivalent for a litre of mik without personally greeting the owner, but I think it's nice. And of course leaving requires more dialogue than a Bush administration diplomat. "Merci. Au Revoir. A bientot. Bonne Journee. Ciao. Goodbye. Adios."

What was amazing - and lovely - was the greetings we received at a party we recently crashed. Our friend Tony from Sydney was in town, and he invited us to where he was staying. We didn't realise that it was their daughter's surprise 18th birthday party that night (at their place). But our hosts - Jean-Michael and Christine - were very warm and inviting. The incredible experience though was when each of the guests arrived, they would say hi to their friends, and then come over to us and say bonjour - with a kiss on each cheek. Whenever someone new would arrive, the round of cheek kissing began, and each one of them made sure to come and saw welcome. It was touching - and a sign of maturity and sincerity that I'd love our kids to have at that age.

The other event that Tony managed to organise for us while he was in town, was to watch the Bledisloe at some other friends over a couple of beers. It was a great afternoon, and lovely to meet some more friends of Tony's (and kiss some more cheeks); until of course the result. So I've decided to give Bouchon one more definition: "the loss of the Bledisloe cup and Ashes in 1 weekend". 10 years ago it was unthinkable we needed such a word.

More photos by clicking below:

Bouchon

Markets

I get markets when they serve a real purpose - which in my mind is when the goods or services would sell anyway, and the market just provide the system.

So the ASX works as a market. I get growers markets. I don't get markets at tacky tourist locations: no-one wakes up in the morning and thinks they need a mosquito coil holder built entirely of spoons and forks; or spray painted "art" of space age kangaroos crossing the harbour bridge being chased by koalas; or a cheap, incomplete Peruvian chess seat; or a broken clock; or a scarf. Yet most markets provide a place to buy and sell these - and so people do!

Hence my apprehension whenever someone in our family suggests we go to the markets. However, I can confess to being a fan of the Craponne markets. Yes, Craponne - I'm sure there's a beautiful French way of pronouncing it, however I'm sticking with the phonetic pronunciation.

Stall after stall of amazing fruit and vegetables: the strawberries (fraise) we purchased almost tasted of lollies they were so sweet; the raspberries (frambroises) melt in your mouth; tomatoes so rich and delicious that tomato paste isn't even an option in recipes. And stone-fruit that (apparently) the Queen of England gets sent directly to her. Or maybe it was the raspberries. Doesn't matter.

And it's no wonder the fruit in the markets is good - it's everywhere, and from what we've seen it's all good. Em and Hannah went on a little exploration this afternoon across the road to collect whatever the fruit were on the tree. Apricot like (although I don't actually know what fruit), they were amazing. And the blackberries that line every road in our little village (causing a few scratched ankles) are pretty good too!

Back to the market; fromage of all different varieties and flavours. Hard, soft; goat, cow; delicate, strong; incredible, amazing. Even when Abby's not eating, she'll tackle a little bit of soft French cheese. Despite being a regular addition (and sometimes at lunch a focus) of the meal, we still haven't sampled enough French cheese.

By now I was pretty impressed with markets. I was initially sceptical of the meat stalls - but even they were tempting. It's rare that I have a good thing to say about sausages, but a subsequent meal has proven that the Lyonaise saussage is indeed pretty tasty! And the "cooked chook" (I struggled with the French equivalent of this one) was amazing - better than I would hope from Portugal, the home of chicken.

And then I came across the guy standing next to 3 queen sized matresses. Why? It's this sort of vendor that gives markets a bad name. No-one (sane) wanting a matress would think: "I know, the Craponne markets have a great selection, with prices that can't be beaten." Equally, when was the last time you impulse purchased an ensemble?

Nevertheless, we'll be heading back. If not to Craponne, then to one of the other many villages throughout the region holding regular markets - possibly with more marketable township names. The food in the local supermarket is a step above the equivalent fresh food people in Australia, however it's not a patch on the markets.

The Craponne market was also a good opportunity to flex our conversational French. "Bonjour; Visa? Merci; Au Revoir" had been the extent of our conversations at supermarkets. However at markets the more fluent amongst us (Em) engaged in a reparte around the best potatoes for salads, as distinct from those for sauteing. While Em's French is more than acceptable (for what we need) and allows her to engage in mixed English / French conversations with some success, mine is (predictably) poor. Our current neighbours (English, but fluent french speakers) brought round some cooked fish for us to try for dinner - I called out some time later (rather proudly) "poisson: tres bon" and was met with "nice accent".

In addition to her pre-trip counting, Hannah can generally be coaxed into an "au revoir" or "merci". She obviously recognised that there was a different language (she thought the two loud speakers on train were probabably 1 for French, and 1 for English), however this evening when playing with Em rolled out "A bientot" unprompted. I give myself 2 more weeks at best of being the 2nd best speaker in the family.

Em remains the undisputed winner of the French langauge skills however. Today, due to the 38ish degrees, we decided to eat ice-creams in a little park; and of course there was a game of petanque / boules underway. (As an aside, why is 10 old French people, playing boules, with quite a few bottles of red wine romantic, whereas 10 old Aussie blokes, playing bowls over a few schooners of VB just not as classy?). After a while one of the players approached and launched into a French monologue. Eventually Em had to stop him, but she'd followed enough to know there was an issue with dog poo in the park - and to just be aware of the kids running around. Once it was established we were Australian, there was even a delicate cultural exchange around the proper word for dog "merde". Very impressive :-)

And more photos below (for those that missed it last time, click on the image below for even more photos!)

Markets

Arivee!

I think I saw "Arivee" on a sign at Lyon airport, and assume it's French for "we're here" or something like that. Hence it's appropriateness for the title - because we are.

Given our generally easy lifestyle - this was an epic. Abby lost it by the time we got to the Eastern Distributor, which wasn't a good sign for the 30 odd hours ahead of us. But in the end, the girls were fantastic.

Abby regressed: breastmilk and biscuits were all she would eat - with the exception at one point of a whole apple which impressed the BA stewards...;

Hannah progressed: she was a massive help; although thanks to her Mum's strange relationship with Qantas she sampled the first class lounge and wasn't sure about that sort of progress - she likes the self serve in the normal lounge!

But it worked. Somehow the flights seemed relatively painless. Of course I didn't read a book or watch any movies, so it was constant - but certainly better than anticipated.

Unlike the trip to our "Gite" (no - not some moron who doesn't seem to understand, but our house for the next 2 weeks). What should have been a challenging (new car, wrong side of the road, little sleep, unknown location, vague internet maps etc etc) 1 hour drive, turned in to a 3 hour epic. A 3 hours that both Hannah and Abby announced in their own ways, was a completely unnecessary and unwelcome conclusion to the already 37 hour journey. As Em rightly pointed out, Top Gear should do a challenge that includes two screaming kids in the back seat of the car - it certainly adds a level of atmosphere and degree of difficulty.

But 2 days on - all those issues are long forgotten. We're happily ensconced in our little house; have toured the local village - Saint Laurent De Vaux - (cute, but not a lot of retail, in fact not a lot of anything); have purchased coffee and baguettes from the nearby Vaugneray; and have tackled the supermarket (I'm sure there's French word, which I'll learn in due course). Jet lag hasn't quite disappeared from the house - but we're close, and certainly feeling a lot more human than 48 hours ago.

The countryside is magnificent. Green, rolling hills as far as the eye can see. The street we're on is just a winding road that meanders up the hill, with little houses like ours every 50 metres or so. The church bell rings somewhere in the distant at fairly odd intervals - but it's a pleasant backdrop. From the right spot on the road, you get a view over Lyon - however gazing while driving on the wrong side of the road is discouraged.

Not that life is all rosy of course: current dilemmas include whether or not to put sunnies on - thus being comfortable; or keep them off - thus being able to see the laptop screen. And I haven't even started on what wine to have with dinner....

Our biggest complaint so far is lack of accessible grass - we've got mile after mile (or is it metric here? I'm not sure) of countryside that we can see, but there's nowhere for the kids to run. We're currently all perched on the concrete outside our house, with the table and chairs set up under the umbrella on a 30 something degree afternoon. Almost idyllic.

Of course there's still that "oh shit, we're in a foreign country, for 3 months, and they really do speak French and we don't" kind of feeling. But I'm sure that will fade.

(Hannah's contribution to follow:)

HANNAH

TOM

ABBY

EMILY

And a few photos here......

Arivee!