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Showing posts from March, 2015

RADISH LEAF SOUP - A BRIEF RECIPE

Fannie brings seasonal veggies to the church square just a few steps from our house on Wednesday and Friday mornings, fresh and locally grown, still wet with dew. We buy our lettuce from Fannie along with whatever else looks good that day. She even sold us the fresh pumpkin for our Thanksgiving pie, slicing off just as much as we needed from a big bruiser. The other day, Fannie displayed bunches of radishes. When I commented on how pretty they were, a friend of Fannie's standing nearby commented that she made soup from the greens. Yes, Fannie said. Very good. So I bought a bunch and brought them back to Cathey. She checked out several recipes and came up with her own. Cathey sauteed an onion in butter, then added the cleaned and chopped radish greens, a cubed potato, and stock. When the potatoes were finished, she pureed the lot and heated it back up with a bit of cream and salt and pepper to taste. Served with thin slices of radish as a garnish, Cathey's comment was, &qu

WE'RE AMERICAN EXPATS LIVING IN FRANCE - OFFICIALLY

I don't know the words to La Marseillaise. I don't wear a beret. And I don't eat snails. (Cathey says that she eats snails. I wouldn't know. I've been spared the sight.) But as of today, I'm about as close to being French as I'm ever going to get. On March 12th, our applications for our titres de sejour (our temporary cartes de sejour ) were approved. Cathey and I are no longer 'traveling' in France on a long-stay visa. We are now officially resident visitors. If this was the US and we were foreign nationals, we'd say that we'd been granted our green cards. I suppose that I should feel different somehow. After all, I no longer list an American address as my home address. I'm not considered a resident of any American state. I'll be turning in my American driver's license for a French one. But the fact is, since before we bought our house in Quarante, even while we still owned our holiday house in Cazouls some years ago, on t