Wesley walks on the wild side

Wesley in his basket,  photo by June

Hi This is my friend Wesley.  He is June's big boy... Persian and some Mainecoon, we think. He has the biggest eyes I have ever seen in a kitty head and his paws are huge too. 

 Wesley and June just recently transferred to a new residence for summertime... where Wesley can go outside with his halter and "have a go" at being a mountain lion.   And he gets to explore a beautiful terrace.  Here is one of his new walks. 

Wesley   Photo by June

And here is the beautiful terrace:

Terrace in Cap Ferrat,  photo by Mary M Payne

Apartment view overlooking Villefranche-sur-mer    photo by Mary M Payne

Photo by Mary M Payne

Photo by Mary M Payne

 I had a wonderful visit here in Cap Ferrat with June and the big boy.   From here one can see why Cap Ferrat is one of the most sought after addresses in the world.   It's quite enough at this time of year to just to sit forever and gaze out to sea. 

 June and I went for a swim in the sea, ate lunch under the shade of a parasol in a small cove, watched the "beautiful people" sun bathe and shopped in the adjacent boutique.  We are both aware that we are blessed to be living in this beautiful spot.... but is Wesley?   

Actually,  I think he wants to know why he doesn't live in this new apartment year round.  A quality cat (as Wesley knows he is),  understands a quality lodging when he sees it. 

Wesley Big Eyes.  Photo by Mary M Payne

Plantain Banana Bread

Plantain/Banana Bread photo by Mary M Payne

Our Muslims ( about 10 % of French population) just finished the ritual of  Ramadan.     This is not something I realized until I tried to offer a treat to the workers who are doing a construction project on the house across the street.

  The new owner is Egyptian, and very kindly gives us fresh eggs from his eight hens and zucchini with the blossoms still attached (Yum).  He also has his boys take items to the "dechetterie" when they are headed there anyway with their truck. 

 If we try to repay the workers they refuse payment.  Muslims believe in giving service without expecting compensation.  

  So, I thought I would offer a treat instead.   But during Ramadan Muslims cannot accept food or drink before sundown for the length of the festival... which extended this year from June 6 to July 5th. 

 I found this out the hard way.   I made a Plantain/ Banana Bread and offered it to the young men across the street.    And I was caught off guard when they told me that it was Ramadan.   I didn't even stop to offer to bring it to them anyway to take home. 

 Instead, I rushed home and "googled" Ramadan. And this is some of what I found out: 

 Although Ramadan is always on the same day of the Islamic calendar, the date on the Gregorian calendar varies from year to year, since the Gregorian calendar is a solar calendar and the Islamic calendar is a lunar calendar. This difference means Ramadan moves in the Gregorian calendar approximately 11 days every year. The date of Ramadan may also vary from country to country depending on whether the moon has been sighted or not.  Interesting. 

 So now, I am waiting for the men to get back to work to try another gesture of good will.... but all is quiet on the western front so I am offering this recipe to you instead.

  It happened that monsieur offered me two plantains with which to concoct something.    I am not overly fond of sautéd or flambéd bananas or cooked plantains so I had the idea to mix them with bananas and make a couple of loaves of cake bread. 

Ripe banana and ripe plantain ready to make into bread.  photo mary m payne

These days we know that if you have the thought, so has someone else, and the experience will be recorded somewhere online, perhaps in someone's blog or video.  

  Thus I found several recipes.  Here is the outline of the one I tweaked ( and I am looking again but not finding the original author). 

Plantain Banana Bread
2 small ripe bananas
2 Large almost black plantains 
½ cup of brown sugar ( can find in bio store in France)
¼ cup ( 4 T.) of unsalted butter, melted
1 egg beaten
1 tsp. of pure vanilla extract
¼ cup of Greek yogurt
1 ½ cups whole wheat flour ( I used combo of buckwheat and spelt)
¼ tsp. of salt
1 ½ tsp. of ground cinnamon
1 ¼ tsp. baking soda
Steps:
1. preheat oven to 350 F. ( no. 5 in french oven)
2. butter two 9x5 inch bread pan. 
3. Using a fork or potato masher , mash the plantains and bananas with the brown sugar in a large bowl. 
4. Add melted butter, whisked egg, vanilla, and yogurt.  Stir. 
5. In a separate bowl, combine dry ingredients.
6. Add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients and stir until well-incorporated.  Do not over-stir. 
7.  Add nuts, raisins, seeds, dried cranberries, dates, shredded coconut or other add-ins . 
 I used coconut, pumpkin seeds, and chopped dates. 
8.  Bake one hour or until toothpick comes out clean. ( a few crumbs on it are ok)  My oven is calibrated so that I think I left it in for 20 minutes only. 
9.  Dig in. 

 A word about Buckwheat: You can keep this recipe the same no matter if you use buckwheat flour.  If you haven't tried Buckwheat ( sarrasin) I suggest you do as it is more nutritious than white flour or ( in my opinion) even whole wheat flour.  Buckwheat is in fact a seed not a wheat so if you are gluten free, it is an excellent choice.  Even if you are not, your body deserves to have different tastes and nutritive choices.  Spelt (epeautre) and Buckwheat flour together produce delicious results.

 I like my breakfast breads as un-cake-like and as rustic as possible so I always go for a combo flour and less sugar. 

In many homes these days the smell of healthy home baking is absent.  My mother was a great baker although she used "healthy" ingredients to the detriment sometimes of appearance and taste. For example, she put in so little sugar or honey that we called her cookies: "bread-lettes".  

But because of Elsa, my sister and I both bake and prepare home cooking, and some of my brothers do too. We know how much it means to our peeps and we enjoy it. 

  Why not bring back healthy home baking with this Banana/Plantain recipe. You will have done a small service to yourself and those in your circle.  

 And you don't have to eat it all yourself.  You can always give it away. Just make sure the family gets one too. 

Big Love vs Big Enemy

Well, you've heard of Big Love.   Here in our garden corner there resides Big Love in its second year of blooming.  

  

Rose Mallow, Swamp Mallow, Kopper King ....whatever name you call this Hibiscus, this big beauty is the largest flower that I have in my garden.

 In fact, it may be the most impressive and biggest single blossom I have seen, slightly larger than a sunflower.  One flower on a Hibiscus stem of 8 or 10 blossoms is the size of a dinner plate. 

 I love its coloration.... the pink center on a delicate white background paired with coppery "rouge verdate" leaves.

Mallow Rose Hibiscus, Photo by Mary M Payne

Stand of Mallow Rose Hibiscus   photo by Mary M Payne

My garden corner featuring Kopper King Hibiscus stalks Photo by Mary M Payne

Close up of buds on the Rose Mallow  photo by Mary M Payne

And it's blooming is a sweet compensation for the massive battle that is going on behind it while Monsieur and I fight the big fight of removing an invasive bamboo.  Big Battle.  Big Enemy. 

  At our relatively old age when most people are calling a gardener,  Monsieur and I are tackling this intrusive plants with picks and shovels and sheer will power.

Bamboo Rhizome  photo by Mary M Payne

 We have already removed about 12 meters of roots and rhizomes to find that we have just gotten a glimpse of the power of this plant. 

 Although some bamboo species are well behaved  (clumping bamboo), our invader is an aggressive creeper or "running bamboo" that can easily take over an entire yard.  It's rhizomes (roots) can spread 12 inches a day and operate stealthily underground for months before surfacing with a complete system of rock-hard runners.  These cleverly place themselves under the root systems of other plants...in our case a stand of Pyracanthas more than 25 years old.  

Last year I cut down several shoots not realizing what was taking place "below stairs."  In the neighbor's yard from which it escaped there is a stand of 25 meter bamboo, fine for the scale of their yard but not so good for ours.     I thought it was enough to cut down the new shoots but I was mis-informed.   

Bamboo roots that underscored the wall,  photo by Mary M Payne

 One needs to remove the whole root system or the enemy will increase in strength and more shoots will appear.  Since we don't use herbicides in our yard, only hand tools will work.    With the pick and shovel we also use a hand trowel to remove loose soil so we can see what direction the root is going so we get the whole thing.  It is slow work. 

In our case, the bamboo has grown carefully in several lines against the retaining wall so that chunks of cement have to be chipped off with a sledge hammer in order to remove the runners.   From there the plant has sent out new runners and with them shoots of about a meter high are now cropping up among the flowers. 

The odd thing is that I feel quite proud of sweating and struggling in the name of what I want... beauty and order.  I am just grateful that we are able to do the work ourselves....health-wise, that is.   

But while we labor and sweat we look over at our Rose Mallow and confirm that although a garden is a lot of work, it brings many subtle pleasures. 

  People give meaning to all kinds of activities as disparate as collecting curling stones or carving the tip of a tiny pencil. 

  So Hey,  Among other things, I give meaning to beauty and harmony and to the adage of " Never give up".

 Dear Enemy : I'll get you , I will....   

Julia

We had some fun visitors this week....from my side of the family.  

 With everyone's life going on so far away, it doesn't happen often..... so we were pleased to be on the list of stops for a trip through Europe for my niece Sarah, her husband Joel, and her first child Julia.   

Julia enchanted us all....

What is it about a really curious, captivating child to bring delight to the hearts of us old folks?  I now better understand all of my friends who are grandparents with their photo books on the ready.  Here's mine. 

Julia and her papa with Aunt Mo's pink glasses,  photo MaryMPayne

 There is something sacred to being a witness as life's mysteries unfold minute by minute for a newly minted human.  

Julia tries on Aunt Mo's shoes  photo by marympayne

Everything is new to a baby.  Everything is worth a try.  Most things are miraculous or awe inspiring but only for an instant until the baby can get its little hands on it ....think of bubbles, balloons, eyeglasses, river rocks, gelato, hats, cat, bellybuttons.

Julia drinks her milk at Hotel de Paris Monaco, with Mama Sarah

Julia plays peek-a-boo near the Palace in Monaco  photo by Marympayne

Julia enthuses over Monsieur's picture gallery  photo by marympayne

Watermelon pjs   photo by marympayne

Why did we throw the penny in the hole?  Julia and Joel at the wishing well at Villa Rothschild.  

And then there are the endless games of peek-a-boo, or the baby's reliving of an amusing moment.  I think babies are fond of jokes and laughter as well as getting their own way.  Meltdowns can be just as effective in controlling us poor adults.

Monsieur and I are still re-living many incidents and prized moments we spent with Julia and her parents..... all of us tethered to the intimate drama, tears and laughter of Julia "discovers", Julia "welcomes" or Julia "rejects", as this almost-two year-old greets the world.   

Medea

On Tuesday last I had the good fortune to attend the dressed rehearsal of Medea at the Operá in Nice.  The dressed rehearsal, according to my friend, the first chair cello in the National Orchestra of Nice, is always the "opening night" for the musicians and players.  They know that they have their friends in the audience and are playing to a packed house. 

 The dressed rehearsal is not stopped unless there is a glaring emergency.     Regardless that this has not happened for over twenty years,  we were warned that the singers may not sing in full voice and that the opera might be stopped at any point. 

Tuesday night nothing stopped the process for us....( unless you count the coke bottle that rolled off the stage nearly "beaning" the violas).   As the Greek gods must have been attending, the coke bottle luckily landed between two musicians.   Also, the champagne cork for the party scene hit my friend (the cellist) in the head but she kept on playing.  (Yes, real champagne....this is France after all.)   And as far as I could tell, the singers were using " full voice". 

This production of Medea is quite a stretch from the original play by Euripides.  This opera, Medea, was written by Luigi Cherubini and first produced in Paris in 1797.   It is sung in Italian and here it is subtitled in French. 

The fascination begins in the first scene as Creon's palace is unexpectedly a modern office building of which he is the CEO.  The chorus are the office workers at their computer stations.   The two kids of Jasen and Medea do nothing but play with the computer and their cell phones.  Typique. 

 And refreshingly different for those of us who don't see much opera, was that all the leads were both young and attractive.  The singers for Medea and Glauce are both beautiful women with excellent physiques and exceptional voices.  Gone are the days of the portly middle-aged diva being cast as the ingenue. 

 I may become an opera fan after all.

Watching the subtitles is fascinating when you are familiar with the original story but are not a native French speaker.  The name Hymen kept coming up in the subtitles above our heads.  I have just found out that it is a reference to the "god of marriage", who was an essential part of an ancient Greek wedding ceremony.  The word, hymen, as its is used today undoubtedly has common roots with the god...if you stretch your imagination. 

  The program notes we reviewed Tuesday night gave us only the original story set in Corinth and we had to interpret the modern setting as best we could.  Actually it was not difficult and made the play both slightly comical and more interesting than the original might have been. 

 Luckily, as in the original opera,  I was glad to see that Medea dispatches her children off-stage.  That would have been tough to take, as the two boys that play the kids in this piece are completely unselfconscious and perfect for the parts.    

There is some mystery of how the wedding dress is poisoned.  In this version, instead of dying in flames from putting on the dress, Glauce is killed with a pistol.   In fact there are many surprises in store for you that I will not reveal .... but I am sure that they will keep you riveted. 

But regardless if the dress does not ignite, we have  flames aplenty.  In fact by the finalé the whole stage is alight.  This choice is quite remarkable as the Nice Opera House is known to have already burned down once.  In 1881 during a performance of Lucia of Lamamoor, a gas leak occurred and the Operá burned to the ground.   

 But Tuesday night our adored Pompiers were on hand.   I know this because after the performance we were escorted by our hostess through the bowels of the Operá where I saw two handsome fellows wearing the well known navy blue uniform with it's thin red band across the chest....the fire department of Nice.  On their  polo shirts "sécurité de incendie" was written for all to see. 

If you have a chance, I would recommend this quirky rendition of Medea.   Nicola Beller Carbone interprets Medea in enchanting and powerful voice.  Guy Montavon, the stage director, has taken some daring risks that have paid off.   Further, George Petron is the talented musical director of this piece and Anne-Marie Woods captures the modern sensibility of the costumes with bravado and a touch of humor. 

 Finally, Berthold Warnecke, the dramaturge, has given us a fresh look at an old story.   If you are not too much of a classicist (or an opera snob with your rotten tomatoes in hand) I would say you will be intrigued.  Opening night is tomorrow, Friday the 13th.  hmmm. 

Florida Palmetto Weevil

     The other day Monsieur and I were surprised to find a big red beetle in the middle of our hallway.  Since we often leave the back door to the garden open, this did not greatly surprise me.  A quick search on google confirmed that this was the dreaded Florida Red Weevil that we had recently heard so much about.  Monsieur put him out and grabbed this pic of the beast before he flew off. 

Rhynchophorus cruentatus Fabricius,  Photo by Mary M Payne

He (or she) turned out to be the largest weevil in North America and is called the palmetto weevil, Rhynchophorus cruentatus Fabricius. The palmetto weevil is native to Florida and until recently was the only species of palm weevil in the continental United States. Once, the palmetto weevil was considered a minor pest, attacking only severely wounded and dying trees. Now however, it is  known to be a pest of stressed nursery and transplanted palms as well as apparently healthy Canary Island date (Phoenix canariensis Hortorum ex Chabaud), Bismarck (Bismarckia nobilis Hildebrandt & H. Wendl.) and Latan (Latania spp.) palms.

 I understand that the adults of this species display various color variations. They can also be quite variable in overall size.  

This female beetle is now bad news also for the Mediterranean area ( PACA) from Marseille to Nice whose owners of palms noticed too late that their trees were under attack from imported insects.   The pest arrived to our area in 2006 and it was found that this parasite lays its eggs in the heart of the tree and the larvae feast on the tree until it is dead.  Here the weevil is called "le charancon rouge" and millions of households have been warned by letter from the city.  In theVar alone, 8,200 trees have been treated or removed.  It is being called a "massacre" by those involved. 

The best way to treat an ailing tree is by injecting an insecticide made by the giant multinational Swiss company, Syngenta.  The problem is that because Syngeta holds a monopoly on the product so they have insisted that their own personnel treat the affected trees affectively pushing the price form 30 euros per treatment up to 250 euros a tree.  This price is preventing many households from taking action and there is now a petition on line to protest the high price of the treatment:    collectif méditerranéen pour la sauvegarde des palmiers,  
Over 7000 signatures have been collected. 

 According to our own tree cutter and palm tree expert, Daniel Donadey,  artisan "elagueur" ( tel. 04 93 72 81 13) there have been 2000 trees who have died in Nice and surrounds.   He has already taken down at least 3 in my neighborhood and other tree cutters have removed another three.   I also  see from my terrace two palms that have been treated and are starting to regrow.  Huzzah.


Here is a photo of a tree on my street that has been killed by the red weevil larvae and not yet been removed. 

Palm tree killed by "Florida Red Weevil" in Nice , France   Photo by Mary M Payne

It is a sad state of affairs for the affected trees but believe it or not there are still quite a few other variations of palms here that appear quite healthy and so the signature tree of The Cote d'azur seems intact for the moment. 

 Still I'm no longer a fan of the huge red insect.  But as Monsieur says, "he's just trying to make a living".

Sweet Potato Fries

Sweet Potato "Fries".  Photo by Mary M Payne

 I haven't posted a recipe for a long time but you can bet that I am often finding and experimenting with new dishes.  There is nothing worse than a food rut. 

  And if one is not going to eat industrial food then one had better love being in the kitchen.... concocting and tweaking new ideas that will satisfy the emotional needs as well as the body's needs.  

You also have to admit that there is nothing like home cooking for that little extra enthusiasm and care infused into it.  A machine really can't do that.  Thank goodness robots aren't there yet.  

So today I made sweet potato "frites" which are really not fried at all, but baked.   I found the recipe in Food Matters: The Recipe Book by James Colquhoun and Larentine ten Bosch. 

These sweet potatoes will make a nice side dish or snack.  I added the ¼ t of turmeric and ½ t. of ground cumin found in the recipe as my experiment as these are seldom used flavors for me. 

Basically, the recipe asks that one peels and cuts the sweet potatoes into large "fries". Then with a large bowl or paper bag, you coat them in olive or coconut oil along with the spices (except the salt). 

Next we spread the pieces on a baking tray so that they don't touch and put them in the oven for 20-35 minutes at # 5, 180 degrees C. or 350 F.   First we sprinkle with sea salt. 

 I am not sure you can ever get the crispiness of a potato that's been scalded in hot fat when you bake it.   I had to turn up the heat for the last 10 minutes or so since they weren't getting crispy.  I may have to use higher heat to begin with to see if I can achieve more of a crispy outside before the inside bakes entirely.   But the flavor is good. 

The sweet potato has a lower glycemic index than a regular potato meaning your blood sugar won't spike. Other perks for using sweet potatoes are that they are  full of beta-carotene and vitamin C.   Turmeric contains bioactive compounds with powerful medicinal properties and cumin is high in anti-oxidents.   

 But none of this will do me any good if the people I feed don't like the taste. 

  The fun for me is to see if I can get Monsieur, the connoisseur, to enjoy my dishes.  If he likes the dish, I am pretty sure I've got a winner.  

 So far, he is praising the "fries". 

 Today we will have them with a tasty green salad, some venison filet and a glass of fine French regional wine, "bien sûr .