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Post by breeze on Sept 1, 2020 0:45:47 GMT
Questa, it looks ideal. I hope you'll be very happy here.
There is a balcony on the front, but it seems to be at ground level in the back?
That is a clever sink in the powder room. I saw some abbreviations I don't recognize on the floor plan, so I await enlightenment. I may need to know these things someday.
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Post by breeze on Aug 31, 2020 17:22:21 GMT
Questa, this is exciting. I hope you'll show us lots of photos, both before you move in and after.
Speaking for myself, there cannot be too many photos of houses and gardens on the internet. I like to see the way people actually live. I don't care for the ones done by decorators for people with too much money. Does your new house come with a garden?
How soon can we move you in? I'm good at carrying boxes.
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Post by breeze on Aug 21, 2020 23:58:15 GMT
This is the song I put on when I need motivation to wash dishes, followed by Aretha singing Say a little prayer for you.
I thought Joe Dassin's outfit in that video looked timeless except for the giant belt buckle, but I am told that the shawl collar, the big single button on the jacket, the lacey shirt cuffs, and the cut of the jacket are dated. Just shows what I know.
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Post by breeze on Aug 6, 2020 19:36:34 GMT
Oh, oh, country ham in a biscuit is delicious.
I used to love country ham, but one time at the butcher shop that made the best country ham I asked to use the restroom and was told to go through two curing rooms on my way to the restroom. I zipped through those rooms where the hams were hanging but even so, I got an overpowering chemical taste in my mouth which lasted for hours. That was it for me.
Not long afterwards this wonderful butcher's shop closed down when the owners got cancer.
I'd like to think there's a less chemical way to cure ham.
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Post by breeze on Aug 6, 2020 19:00:03 GMT
Kimby, I envy your iris haul. Their foliage is a nice place holder even when they are out of bloom. If a garden has lots of rounded forms, a few sword shapes break up the monotony.
The first time I divided irises I did it by the book. I won't go into all of it, but there were at least half a dozen steps. I carefully planted a few patches of each color and threw the rest on the compost. My husband insisted on saving them. He put them in a wheelbarrow and dumped them in piles along the lane. A waste of time, I told him. But next year, guess where the big show of irises was.
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Post by breeze on Aug 6, 2020 18:54:34 GMT
You wrong me, kerouac. I do remember your mother was French. I was thinking you had possibly come across biscuits at school meals or maybe at a friend's dinner table. I have read that biscuits in the southern US are often accompanied by gravy. I think that's the wrong way to go. Butter, jam or honey, now you're talking. But it's a regional preference.
I once served biscuits when my uncle and aunt and my parents visited, and my uncle was delighted, but then he told us how his mother in law from Kentucky made the lightest, highest, flakiest biscuits. Which mine weren't.
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Post by breeze on Aug 6, 2020 18:27:47 GMT
bixa, I used to think those spongey little circles were divine with strawberries, and htmb, that version does seem to call for whipped cream. I remember reading Gone with the wind as a teenager while eating lots of those. But once I discovered the old-fashioned shortcake recipe, I never looked back.
kerouac, you've lived in France a long time. Don't you have any memory in the US of buttermilk biscuits or baking powder biscuits? That's what I'm going for, though baked in a round cake pan.
I've decided to call it "un gâteau pas comme les autres." It takes me hours to get a short email into shape in French, so writing up this recipe may take a while. It's intended for a couple who own a restaurant. The chef likes to try new recipes. After they'd been to New York, he surprised me with a wedge of key lime pie he'd made. He does a version of brownies (broo NEE) pas comme les autres, but then none of the French versions of brownies are much like what I'm used to.
bixa, I'll use your suggestion for calling it a traditional fruit dessert and sending a photo. Though since some of you aren't familiar with this version, maybe "traditional" is stretching it.
I think pouring milk over a fruit dessert might be a Pennsylvania thing, maybe even Pa Dutch. My mother used to serve us kids a cobbler or crisp of peaches or apple or black raspberries on nights when our dad was out. She served it right out of the oven, so pouring cold milk over it cooled it down for immediate eating. It was our favorite meal of the week.
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Post by breeze on Aug 6, 2020 16:14:41 GMT
Tarte sablée is closer to what I'd call a shortbread than a shortcake.
I"m using shortcake to mean a soft, not very sweet dough leavened with baking powder. I use the recipe from Fanny Farmer, which has a little trick to produce two layers.
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Post by breeze on Aug 6, 2020 15:27:43 GMT
I tried to explain strawberry shortcake to a French friend. Her responses: That's not a cake! Eww, you pour milk over it?! No French person would eat that!
In the US I might use the word biscuit, as in a soft biscuit dough baked in a round pan. No berries go into the cake. Each person gets a small bowl with a wedge of the shortcake, and I put a big bowl of strawberries or peach slices on the table. Each person adds fruit to their own bowl and then, yes, we pour milk over it. Sugar is optional.
The English use the word biscuit in a different way, for what we'd call a cookie in the US, and the English usage is probably what most French people would be familiar with.
I want to send the recipe to an adventurous cook and don't know how to translate the name, let alone describe the result.
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Post by breeze on Aug 6, 2020 15:04:49 GMT
htmb, by the time I got to the end of your first sentence I was nervous on your behalf, even knowing you were writing in the past tense. "Up on a boardwalk" still doesn't sound as good to me as "totally out of reach of a leaping alligator." I have always enjoyed your visits to Paynes Prairie in spite of this.
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Post by breeze on Aug 2, 2020 18:56:27 GMT
Kerouac, there's a Scopitone at le Musée de la Musique Mécanique in Dollon, and the second time we were there, this Sylvie song was played. Here's a clip about the museum, with Sylvie at around 1:00.
The first time we visited, Aux Champs Elysées came up on the Scopitone and everybody sang along loudly. I love this museum and would visit every time we're able to get to France, if it weren't for its extremely limited hours and Dollon being in the middle of nowhere.
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Post by breeze on Jun 30, 2020 19:59:07 GMT
A usually skeptical friend told us the epidemic is over in France, with just a few lingering cases. I know that the area she lives in was not hard hit. She added that there's a brilliant researcher, Didier Raoult, who she seems to think has the cure, hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin. I've read that Didier Raoult's methodology is very controversial, and the person who hyped hydroxychloroquine in the US is not someone I trust.
I seem to be more skeptical than she is, so I'm asking for a reality check here.
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Post by breeze on Jun 28, 2020 15:01:09 GMT
Lugg, how nice to see a garden without crowds. I couldn't find out who originally designed the garden, but I'm sure the current designer deserves a lot of credit for what's there now.
I just read about a purple-podded pea and now you've shown me how really purple the pods are.
The plant you asked about it salvia sclarea, clary sage, which is worth its place even after its blooms are over because the bracts are eye-catching.
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Post by breeze on Jun 26, 2020 18:53:50 GMT
Casimira, I feel for you.
We also have a garden that at one time I was fairly pleased with, but the rabbit population increased. They took over our garden and have gnawed anything with woody stems to the ground. Our flower beds are full of blank areas where there used to be shrubs or my beloved Siberian iris. Half the peony plants, the backbone of the flower garden, are discolored and shrunken. My chosen daylilies have been infiltrated with the wild orange ones. Filipendula has spread everywhere and I hate it so have been digging it up twice a week. It’s a real thug, and sneaky? My lord!
I could go on but I hope I’ve already convinced you that my garden is worse than yours.
What I’m sure you have that we don’t have here is the lush, tropical jungle look. To you, your garden might look unkempt since you know how it looks at its best. I bet visitors would find it romantically full, green, and thriving. If it has an air of mystery, so much the better.
Don’t lose heart. It sounds like the garden you love is still there, just maybe too much of it. Is it possible to follow Bixa’s suggestion of targeted pruning by a pro?
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Post by breeze on Jun 26, 2020 18:45:52 GMT
Mick and Mrs Cactus, congratulations. Forty-nine years is worth celebrating.
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Post by breeze on Jun 18, 2020 18:36:25 GMT
#257 caught my eye even as a tiny photo on my phone and it's even better at full size. The light seems to be coming through the petals.
When I see grasses in photos of my garden I kick myself for not weeding beforehand (as if I were that energetic), but in kerouac's photo they remind us of the plant's usual companions in nature, at least in France. Wild poppies in our part of the US are small and orange and I try to discourage them. Years ago I got seed from the wild and then decided I didn't like them. Hindsight would have saved me years of garden trouble, and wild poppies are the least of them.
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Post by breeze on Apr 20, 2020 15:20:47 GMT
Kimby, was this on purpose? "As we cover the bowl tightly with Satan wrap..." If so, I like it.
I've been trying to cut back on plastic use but now that grocery stores don't want you to bring your own bag, we're accumulating lots of their plastic bags.
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Post by breeze on Apr 20, 2020 15:15:48 GMT
casimira, when a cat wants your attention, it's supposed to be immediate. Cats demand prompt service! One of our cats used to knock a book or my eyeglasses to the floor when I didn't wake up at his time. And the sullen look om his face was priceless.
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Post by breeze on Apr 20, 2020 15:13:12 GMT
htmb, how did you like your visit to Pompeii?
The night before we visited Pompeii we couldn't find a campsite, so we spent the night sleeping in our car outside the walls of Pompeii.
Pompeii was the first Robert Harris book I read and I thought it was an enjoyable way to absorb some history.
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Post by breeze on Apr 18, 2020 18:58:26 GMT
Lugg, this is a great addition to your earlier report. The architecture of the region is somehow right-sized and homey, chateaux apart.
Seeing friends sitting in the sun, chatting, sharing lunch is a satisfying look back at what used to be normal.
I'm enjoying travel diaries and photos more than ever before. Who knows when we'll be able to travel safely again? And what will we find when we return to our old favorite places?
Oh stop sniffling, breeze. It's just another two weeks till you can go out for groceries again.
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Post by breeze on Mar 17, 2020 12:30:51 GMT
Patrick, thanks for that link. She is really good at snark. I've missed Nancy Banks Smith and Lucy Mangan seems to be a worthy follower.
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Post by breeze on Jan 14, 2020 3:15:58 GMT
Questa, you are so right about making things happen. It's hard to do with a group though, especially having to choose both dates and location. Here's where Anyport could use a border collie.
If it turns out to be in September somewhere in western Europe, my husband and I could perhaps join the group. We like to go to France in September and if we knew by mid-June the dates of the gathering, we could arrange our trip around it. We're kind of in a rut in France, a very satisfying rut, but it wouldn't hurt us to shake up our routine for a few days, especially with the lure of meeting some of you.
What place would the farthest-flung of you most like to visit? I was going to name the Anyporters that I think of as far-flung and realized I had positioned myself as center of the universe. Maybe I'm the one who's far-flung.
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Post by breeze on Jan 13, 2020 1:09:33 GMT
That's very nice of you, bixa. The feeling is mutual.
Questa, I'm not good at coming up with fake names. I looked at a map for this one.
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Post by breeze on Jan 12, 2020 20:07:40 GMT
A get-together in 2020 would be great even if I can't be there; I'd just enjoy reading about it and seeing photos.
My husband and I don't have a lot of leeway about where we travel and when, but just to let the Anyport planners know, we'll be in France from May 4 to June 8 2020 and would really enjoy meeting any of you during that month. We would even drive to Paris to do it, though I could also make a case for meeting in the Orne or the Mayenne. However, I remember that bjd is not a fan of the Mayenne, so that's out.
You may be surprised to hear from such an infrequent poster, but I'm a faithful daily reader. If my life ever gets more interesting, you may hear more from me.
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Post by breeze on Jan 3, 2020 14:53:44 GMT
I'm sorry to hear that firefly populations seem to be diminishing. We have them here in summer and I love the way they light up as they rise.
Once when we were on a trip, friends at home told us that it rained nearly every day for the month, so we weren't surprised to see 18" tall grass in our lawn and fields when we got back one night in June. We turned off our car lights and in the darkness all around we could see thousands of fireflies. We had that spectacle every night until my husband got everything mowed.
Did you ever get fireflies to synchronize their lighting? It can be done by flicking car headlights off and on. That's a sight to see.
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Post by breeze on Nov 6, 2019 20:26:11 GMT
Happy birthday, Kimby. I hope you celebrate in just the right way that suits you.
You picked "retired world traveler" as your ID. Are you sure you're retired from world travel? Nothing tempts you?
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Post by breeze on Oct 31, 2019 22:48:27 GMT
Some of the face painting looks almost professional. I'm sure anybody wanting to do Muertos up right could find inspiration on youtube, but executing it neatly is another matter. I like the black and white half-faces with the purple eye zone.
That little boy twirling the pole catches how exciting the day is for the littlest participants. He's really into it.
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Post by breeze on Oct 31, 2019 15:42:19 GMT
I like your thinking, bixa. Imagine the garden that anyporters could create, the wonderful meals, the conversations at dinner.
I'm sure we've all got 30k euros under our sofa cushions. I'll go check now and get back to you all when I've found my share.
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Post by breeze on Oct 31, 2019 12:50:25 GMT
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Post by breeze on Jun 24, 2019 21:04:39 GMT
Your sweetpea photo resembles a watercolor. I try to imagine the fragrance.
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