LAURA CALDER: A Place At My Table

The grapes in the garden are sweet and perfect right now. We arrived last night to a bone-dry Burgundy, and I’m not talking about a wine. The Serein river that normally flows through Chablis, where we stopped for lunch en route, was but a dirt road. The normally brimming moat around the Château de Missery has barely a puddle at its base, where the few remaining fish, half buried in mud, gasp for breath, doubtless awaiting the dreaded moment when they’ll be plucked out by hovering herons for lunch.

Feather duster or magic wand? August could not have ended any more unexpectedly. Rather than gearing up to go charging into la rentrée, like everybody else, I’ve been housebound with a virus that robbed me of appetite and voice for nigh on two weeks, and boy have the results been marvellous! For inspiration in how to make life delightful every day, subscribe to LAURA CALDER: A Breath of French Air. For a start, despite not being able to exercise because I could hardly breathe, it has been slimming.

A Breath of French Air is in fact barely breathing at all this week. Neither is it eating (no appetite), or speaking (no voice). But let’s not whine, because, in a way, being knocked flat by some version or other of the plague is its own form of almost spa-like interlude. It’s the body saying, “I don’t care if you think there’s time for a hiatus or not, I’m taking one and there’s nothing you can do about it!” Collapse.

Half of you are doubtless on a beach right now (I hope so). I’m nowhere near one, unless you count Paris Plage, but there’s no way I’m sticking so much as a toe in the Seine, no matter how clean they claim it is. Nevertheless, in the spirit of beach season, I thought I’d share with you a little read I produced years ago and recently unearthed. When it’s not mortifying, it’s rather amusing to come across thoughts written by our younger selves.

Back in Paris, slightly spaced. Mes amis, May I blame jet lag? First of all, it’s August, not July, but nobody caught that in today’s Letter from Laura. Secondly, the recipe for the corn chowder in today’s Letter from Laura for AUGUST appears not to have attached itself to the post. Apologies through the roof, and here it is: Zzzzzz, Laura If anyone finds any lost marbles here, they’re probably mine.

(August 6, Paris 3e, 6:30 a.m.) Shhh…. The city is dead quiet. I have all the windows open and a cup of coffee by my side and there’s not a sound, not a bird. I’ve just lit a candle scented with orange flower water from Provence and it’s catching the breeze, replanting my senses in France after over a month in Canada. Thank you for supporting LAURA CALDER: A Breath of French Air because, for one thing, I could not otherwise have retested the corn chowder recipe coming up.

The bittersweet journey back to Paris has begun. Under a full buck moon, we said good-bye-for-now to family, friends and our slice of peaceful paradise on the river. After eight hours on the road, we spent last night in Quebec City. Happy diners outside Ouroboros To find a safe place to exhale in this mad world and for regular posts about food, life, France, and more, SUBSCRIBE TO A BREATH OF FRENCH AIR.

July, in my experience, has never had a particularly distinct identity. It has simply been lumped into that season we call “summer,” the best part of which, frankly, I’ve always thought to be August, especially when it comes to food. However, this year, I’m required to wrap up holidays early for various reasons, and so July feels different.

“We had callers,” is how my grandmother used to put it, meaning not that the phone had been ringing off the hook but that people had dropped in for a visit. They were always unannounced, of course, as was the custom back then, hence the ever-ready kettles, the full canisters of tea, and the plentiful stashes of things like pound cakes, gingersnaps, and thumbprint cookies in every house up and down the road.

One of the joys of coming home to Canada on summer holidays is having plenty of space to stretch out and cook in a kitchen that, in Paris, would feel like an entire apartment. I also love having access to all my books, including some that have been in this house since before I showed up in it. The Fannie Farmer Cookbook is one of them, and it has been in active use all my life.