Write to Your Heart's Content

Who still puts pen to paper nowadays? To those of you nodding a 'Not me', glancing away, or rolling those eyes like I'm out of touch, let it be known: the technological panacea may not apply to our personal communications after all. Time to dust off your stationery pads and replace those dried-out pens. I'm going to show you why this should be done.

Best Wishes from my hometown, via Delcampe

Our handwritten prowesses and the availability of stationery of all styles and denominations (fancy, formal, sober, classical, feminine - you name it), have been seriously put to the test by technological advances that have made it easier and quicker to communicate in our personal affairs the messages, announcements, invitations, RSVPs, thank you notes, letters and the likes. You can even send electronic postcards. Choose a template, tweak it or customise it if you wish to express some form of individuality and creativity, type up a few words and click 'send'.

Here's the catch. Notice how I put 'some form' in italic in the paragraph above. You have no reason to feel smug because no matter the fanciness and advanced level of the graphics, typeface - and/ or interface - the communication will remain purely electronic and robotic. Carrying sentiments in a personnal communication of the sort is doomed to be diluted, lost in the proverbial translation.

Souvenir from my hometown (ibid.)

As much as you try to make it personal and personable, the very essence of the personal touch is missing because the personal finds its perfection in the time, effort and dedication that were put into the making of the letter. This might involve the quirks of the handwritten prose (or poetry for that matter) that makes it uniquely you, the movement of the sentence being carried out by the way you form your characters, and the pauses that make the sentences come alive, breathe. The handwritten carries a letter. The electronic does not. The handwritten makes a letter individual and unique. It is an act of creativity all to itself. The handwritten letter is a one-to-one communication that reflects the commitment of the writer to the recipient. However no matter how much you tweak and customise an electronic file, you will not be able to recreate that individuality, that uniqueness.

Now think about paper, card, envelope, stamp, stick-on embellishments. A letter is physical: it is not just about word content, it involves the type of material it is written on and this too summons feelings: the choice and quality of the paper, its finish, its size and colour, the way it was folded, how the pen glided upon it - or maybe scratched it. How the ink got absorbed into the paper, the blots, the smears, the marks, the fades, the imperfections... Now look at the paper, touch and feel it. What's its condition? Is it soft, delicate, flimsy, thin, thick, embossed, filigreed, crinkled, aged? Does it feel ordinary? Expensive? What is the handwriting like? Neat, perky, flourished, eccentric, messy, illegible, tired? How about the spelling? There is no doubt that a letter carries a lot of meaning. It has more to say than words themselves. It is clear that a letter comes alive when it is handwritten.

ibid.

I remember vividly to this day how during my very first job in a small translation office in England, I used to sneakily type up a letter to my grandma on my fancy Mac computer whenever I had some 'free time' at work. I would then mail the letter to her that very same evening. However what I was doing by means of efficiency, expediency and practicality while genuinely aiming for a letter to my grandma, she would sadly feel that efficiency, expediency and practicality of mine when she opened my letter, and that kind of killed the spirit and purpose of my letters to her. My good intentions were a mixed bag, maybe because as a keen and yet traditional letter-writer, she held the belief that unless handwritten, a letter shall never claim to be that personal and committed.

I agree that a personal letter takes time to write and you have to be in the mood to do it. Yet if you consider it a time-consuming piece of work (a chore even), and look at ways to devise it with efficiency, expediency and practicality in mind, maybe you should reconsider sending that letter at all - or opt for a less ambitious communication: a postcard.

ibid.

No matter what, I believe in rekindling the habit of letter/ card writing. I started the year by sending out a few pretty cards to some family members who I had lost touch with, and to Marie L., a 98-year-old lady friend of my grandma's who I have been visiting lately, wishing them a Happy New Year, enquiring about them and updating them on some personal news. That is a way to show you genuinely care and it will give them - and you - a boost!

Buzz of the Summer Gone

Living in Corsica, one thing I clearly noticed this Summer - the first Summer I have spent on my grandma's property up in the mountains in approx. 25 years - is the scarce number of pollinators compared to 25 years ago. There was no scientific study on my part; I just pitched my remembrance of those bygone Summers vs. 2016, as flawed an indicator as this might be. As a child and teen coming to the island for the Summer holiday with my family, we would come across a healthy number of bees, wasps, bumble bees, butterflies and other winged creatures in our surroundings, without looking for them. The place was literally buzzing!

Sometimes you would get half a dozen wasps joining us for lunch (a hazardous gatecrashing that would meet its comeuppance, let us it be known!), and you had pollinators and all means of flying insects buzzing around us when we were relaxing on the terrace. Admittedly we had natural pollinator magnets close by, namely a huge bougainvillea and a lush peach tree (now both gone), but even if you ventured outside of the confines of grandma's property, you would come across pollinators without looking for them.

Summer 2016, my first Summer back in the old family holiday house after about 25 years, I was really able to gauge the stark difference in population numbers. What struck me most was the scarcity of honey bees - and alarmingly every single one of them I spotted on the terrace (a paltry dozen in the space of four months), were either dead or dying! Night-time wasn't faring better, as the moths I came across were few and far between compared to 25 years ago! The moths were also very small (the length of a thumbnail) for the vast majority (90%), and rather bland in colour (plain taupe or light grey) and insignificant in looks. What happened to those flamboyant, geometrical moths of my childhood?

WHY THE DECLINE?

Pollinators worldwide are in serious trouble, and I am able to witness it firsthand on my tiny isle without any scientific measurement systems. Pesticides, insecticides (including the notorious neonicotinoids), herbicides and other agribusiness by-products from intensive farming are directly responsible for pollinator decline. In addition to pollution, you have other factors like degraded natural habitats of meadows, prairies, pastures and marshes, the systematic mowing of road verges - underrated buffer zones that act like mini-ecosystems and whose wildflowers (if any left) play a role in feeding pollinators. In the last 25 years, the earth population has increased by 2 billion people, and the galloping demographics coupled to our consumerist ways are tipping the earth's ecology to the point of no return.

"This much is clear: we ignore bees at our own peril. What happens to them will eventually happen to us." - Joel Sartore, photographer, National Geographic

Here in Corsica, the local environmental agencies implement the insecticide-spraying of our resort towns, shorelines and wetlands a couple of times every Summer, late afternoon, supposedly to kill off mosquitoes, but the controversial insecticides are harmful to bees, moths and butterflies. Of course the agencies will not admit to it, while the islanders tend not to question the controversial ecological agenda that is being played out on different levels by the government and corporate interests, leaving our wildlife at the mercy of uncertainty and unsafety.

Queen Rusty-patched Bumble Bee, Madison, Wisconsin by Clay Bolt Nature Photography

THE CASE FOR THE RUSTY-PATCHED BUMBLE BEE

Across the Atlantic, award-winning natural history and conservation photographer Clay Bolt - a bee enthusiast - took matters in his own hands when he found out about the near-disappearance of the rusty-patched bumble bee (Bombus affinis), a native northeastern bumble bee whose very existence, on top of the dangers listed in our above section, has been further compromised by commercially-reared bees imported from Europe (and used for the pollination of greenhouse crops) which infected the rusty-patched bumble bee with fungal pathogens when coming into contact. The sharp decline of the bumble bee is staggering: 90% of its historic range since the mid-1990s!

Female Worker, Rusty-patched Bumble Bee, Madison, Wisconsin by ibid.

Clay set out to document the fate of the rusty-patched bumble bee, not only by way of investigation but also by raising awareness. He joined forces with The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation on their petition to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, and Environmental Protection Agency in order to save the bumble bee, first by getting it listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

Meanwhile his 19-minute documentary, A Ghost in the Making: Searching for the Rusty-patched Bumble Bee, is reaping nationwide and international recognition, having been shortlisted by four film festivals. The best award it garnered though was for the USFWS to finally agree (3 years 8 months after the petition was launched) to propose ESA protection to the rusty-patched!

The Xerces Society

"Pollinators are critical components of our environment and essential to our food security—providing the indispensable service of pollination to more than 85 percent of flowering plants and contributing to one in three bites of the food that we eat. Bumble bees are among the most widely recognized and well understood group of native pollinators in North America and contribute to the pollination of food crops such as squash, melon, blueberry, cranberry, clover, greenhouse tomato and greenhouse pepper, as well as numerous wildflowers." - The Xerces Society

FULL-BLOWN MECHANICALLY-CONTROLLED DARWINISM?

Some might argue that federal protection is too little too late, and that the USFWS and EPA are part of the problem they created in the first place - I agree. On his journey, Clay came to question whether saving one species rather than another made any sense. You cannot just save the one species by disregarding the wider environment because all species are interconnected. If one species is endangered, it is as a result of imbalance in the environment that is also impacting other species. Only a holistic approach can save the world, yet at this point we are too far gone down the path of ecological destruction for a holistic approach to be made possible. We humans are the problem to the decline and disappearance of fauna (and flora).

Male Rusty-patched Bumble Bee resting on Joe Pye Weed, Madison, Wisconsin by ibid.

So what can be done when our world has become what I would describe as full-blown mechanically-controlled Darwinism? How do we disentangle our economic models from the exploitation of nature's resources? How do we reverse the changes and grant nature its power back? If we cannot stop the process, does it mean we should just give up? No. What we can do is salvage what we can, review our consumer habits in order to slow down the process that way. Sounds lackadaisy but indeed all we are left with is damage control. Individually we can take matters in our own hands like Clay did, and it is up to us how we choose to do it. We can, for instance, make our garden, terrace or balcony pollinator-friendly. Go organic and encourage others to do so, shun pesticides and anything GMO-based. 

A Ghost In The Making: Searching for the Rusty-patched Bumble Bee 
from Day's Edge Productions on Vimeo.
Further Resources:

• Honey, Please Bee Lovely! by La Baguette Magique
• Monsanto: Deadly by Name, Evil by Nature by ibid.
• The Raw Deal by ibid.
• Clay Bolt Nature Photography and his bee-specific website, Beautiful North American Bees
• #RustyPatched Bumble Bee by A Ghost in the Making: Searching for the Rusty-Patched Bumble Bee
• Bumble Bees: Rusty-Patched Bumble Bee (Bombus affinis) by The Xerces Society
• Rusty-Patched Bumble Bee Threatened with Extinction by ibid.
• U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Proposes ESA Protection for the Rusty-Patched Bumble Bee by ibid.
• The Rusty-Patched Bumbled Bee: The Story of a Declining Pollinator by ibid.
• Fact Sheet: The Rusty-Patched Bumble Bee by USFWS

Important Dates!

Spring and Summer yield seasonal produce that truly is hard to resist even if you are moderately interested in fruit and veg. Strawberries will always find a way to your heart, while those greens and tomatoes conjured up together in a salad are so refreshing, they are almost a tabletop necessity when the heat is on and a garden party beckons!

Three's not a crowd!

However Autumn (or Fall as it is commonly known in North America) and Winter may not be met with the same excitement. Yet in those heavy-duty root vegetables, rustic pumpkins, plump cabbages, rosy-cheeked orchard apples, and nuts of every variety and calibre, our bodies find the comfort food, the sustenance and the stodge they need to keep us warm and functional, and not fall into hibernation! And if you are my mum, add persimmons and dates to the list.

I must admit that I never was a fan of the latter two but I never gave up on them, to the extent that they are now a part of my Autumnal fruit bowl too, for added enchantment. This year I have reached a new milestone with those fresh dates, as three different types of them are cohabiting in the fruit bowl right now: Barhi, Medjool and Jujube! Save the date(s), I did it! Those Barhi and Medjools I got yesterday are from Israel. The Jujubes might be from Corsica, I'm not sure.

Sticky, gooey, yummy!

I have to pinch myself sometimes at the sight of these semi-exotic delicacies, yet by the same token remind myself that I live closer to Tunisia - a major date producer and exporter of middle-eastern produce - than to Paris! It is thus only natural that our market stalls and fresh produce aisles shall reflect the geographical proximity, which is a joy!

If you are not too keen on dates, chance is you haven't tried fresh dates. Those are the daddy! They are plump, juicy, sun-kissed, gooey, tasty, nutritious, generous and ready to lend themselves to those killer baklava and other sweet and sticky moist cakes with a middle eastern inclination! Give the shoulder to the thin dates tightly corseted into puny little plastic trays. They are the equivalent of factory-farmed food: unloved, they gave up the ghost way before their time and thus are dry and bland.

Eat as is!

All dates do not come from palm trees. I mentioned the jujubes in a post a while back, in reference to mémé (my grandma), who ate all sorts of unusual fruit while growing up in Corsica: medlars, mulberries, carobs, and the oddly-named  jujubes! The jujubier trees were introduced in Corsica in the 19th century from China, and their fruit (jujube) is also known as Chinese date. This forgotten date is making a come-back locally (in Corsica), no less so than in a mainstream fashion (i.e. down the supermarket aisle, and by the crate-load).

In matters of taste, it's a bizarro bite because not all dates taste of dates! Fresh jujube faintly tastes of apple, with a consistency to match, hence its French nickname of pomme surette (tart apple): an unusual taste for an unusual name! Fresh barhi - my favourite - tastes best when just ripe, in its off-white/ pale yellow robe and slightly giving to the touch as its skin starts to crackle. It tastes divinely of melt-in-the-mouth oven-baked/ caramelised apple, and will lend itself beautifully to the most amazing tarts and pies! The overripe barhi (brown and squidgy) however tastes like fermented apple, almost cider... Medjool doesn't taste of apple: it tastes of a fleshy date - with gusto!

Whichever date it is, enjoy it unadulterated. There are however other ways of 'dating' the date... by dressing it, blitzing it, and/ or baking it! I am well tempted by those three scrumptious recipes:-

Date, Banana & Coconut Smoothie by Tuulia

Mango Tahini Date Cereal Bars by Love Me, Feed Me

Pear, Date and Coconut Cake by Hummingbird High

Spring Eulogy - Illustrated by My Mum

As a visual tribute to Spring - my favourite season of the year - I had planned a photographic article that would collate together a few items from my vast photographic collection of wildflowers taken over the last five years in Corsica. But when yesterday I rediscovered my mum's illustration portfolio as the 15-year-old budding artist she was then, I knew straight away which visuals I would rather use for my post!

I scanned my mum's illustrations and selected those two as a representation of Spring renaissance and insouciance. Mum and I had despaired lately that her portfolio might have ended up scrapped inadvertently by the builders when they cleared boxes out of my grandma's house prior to tackling structural work... But delightfully the precious drawings resurfaced just as I had given up on them!

Mum used watercolour, pencil and ink for her illustrations, and de-facto Canson paper, from the eponymous renowned French artist paper institution that has been in existence since 1557! I too was a Canson convert from the moment I started mainstream education and then art school classes every Wednesday.

My mum was a bit of an artist. As a teenager, she wanted to become a 'script girl' (script supervisor) for motion films, while caressing secret dreams of movie stardom. She sat in photobooths, moody and pouty and downright funny, and under auspicious climes her photogenic features would have caught the eye of a film-maker or casting director. She once attended a casting call, oblivious to the fact that it was scheduled on April Fool's Day, need we say more... I hearsay that she had some male friends on the beatnik side of life with guitar to boot, and when that cool dude with the sweeping fringe and duffle coat walked up to my grandma asking her permission to take her teenage daughter to some party, grandma went 'Huuuh?' followed by a vociferous 'No way!'.

Shortly afterwards, my mum met my dad. Although he was no sultry Kerouac type, he played guitar and harmonica pretty well and his repertoire span Django Reinhardt to Bob Dylan, via Charlie Parker, Little Richard and 'Saint Louis Blues'. Although she never became a 'career' artist, my mum has sought to incorporate creative elements into her life, despite not being overtly lauded or encouraged. I am sure she still has those script girl dreams at night.

Mousse au Chocolat

Let's demystify the chocolate mousse as a tricky fussy sweet, based on the vague assumption that all of French baking requires skill. Besides, the scores of recipe variants out there mislead the authentic method. Firstly, is the mousse that difficult a dessert to make? Well, just ask my ten-year-old self, this is how old I was when I whipped up my first mousse - with a little help from my grandma. This aside, I am about to demonstrate to you how unfussy this dessert really is. But most of all, the key to the success of this recipe relies on the quality and freshness of the ingredients, especially in terms of chocolate and eggs, and not to rush through the prep. Then Bob's your uncle and in no time will that mousse be added to your to-impress repertoire!

Serves: 4
Preparation: 20 mins
Cooking: 4 mins

• 200g bar of good quality dark cooking chocolate (minimum 65% cocoa content)
• 50g organic salted butter
• 4 free range organic medium eggs 
• 4 tsp caster sugar
• pinch of salt

Melt the chocolate in a bain marie. To do so, snap the chocolate bar into small pieces that you place in a small saucepan or heatproof glass bowl (Pyrex). Then fill a kettle with water and bring it to the boil. Place a big saucepan on the cooker. Pour enough of the boiling water into the big saucepan so that the bottom of the smaller pan containing the chocolate pieces (or the heatproof glass bowl) rests comfortably just over the hot water line (i.e. without touching it). Turn on the cooker on low, and leave the chocolate to melt, without tampering with it. Keep an eye on the boiling water so that it doesn't splutter unexpectedly or start boiling away out of control, as all is needed is a gentle simmer for the chocolate to gently melt.

The chocolate sauce

Once the chocolate has melted, turn off the heat and take the small pan (or glass bowl) off the big saucepan of hot water. Leave to cool for a couple of minutes, but no longer than that otherwise the chocolate will start hardening. Add the butter to the melted lukewarm chocolate and mix together with a wooden spoon. Leave to cool further while you deal with the eggs.

Separate the 4 whites from the 4 yolks into two separate bowls. Add a pinch of salt to the whites and beat up with the electric whisk until stiff.

Add the caster sugar to the yolks and beat up with the electric whisk until the preparation has paled down in colour and fluffled up.

Add the yolks and sugar mix into the chocolate sauce and blend delicately with the spoon. Then slowly and light-handedly add the whisked whites into the sauce, one spoonful at a time, making sure not to crush the whites into the preparation. The mousse consistency is airy and bubbly. Think a softer (and nicer!) version of the Aero bar! Place in the fridge for at least a couple of hours.

Serve on its own, or even better with homemade English Custard, a couple of tablespoons of Bitter Orange Marmelade to taste and a selection of your favourite Macaroons.

March 2012 - Five Random Faves (Part 5)

Fave #5: Accessorise that outfit and bling it cheap with TopShop!

I'm just back from London where I've enjoyed a 9-day break mostly devoted to shopping, sightseeing and lie-ins in the morning, nothing too strenuous and no guilt trips. But eh, isn't what vacations are meant to be?

I have to admit that my love affair with Topshop (if we ever could call it this way) had somewhat started cooling off a decade ago, with the advent of more exciting branded chains up the high street and department stores upping the ante in keeping with the fickleness of fashion.

This time around down Oxford Street, I would have probably given TopShop a miss if it wasn't for my friend Isabelle who enticed me in. Although I personally wasn't much impressed with the actual clothes fashion that took me back to my teeny-weeny years in the 80s (who would have known these shapeless oversize stripped tops would ever be back in fashion?), the ground floor was entirely devoted to accessories: handbags, vintage bags and scarves (the latter the kind of imitation "carré Hermès" that my grandma used to wear), plus jewellery (mainly fancy, vintage-inspired and ethnic), and a cupcake bar down the centre, because couture - either fake or real - is never further than a cupcake away these days!

Fit for purpose? You bet.

It would have been easy to feel the need to splurge, but I stayed good. I only bought one item of jewellery (see top picture), a wooden assemblage in eye-catching yellow with icon-like figurines glued on top. Quirky clean fun for a fiver, I couldn't go wrong, and no doubt this will get me noticed (flash that wrist Nat, and again and again!). Wink, wink...

From Home to Rubble in Sixty Years (Part 2)

Maison Bonavita belonged to a man of the world, Paul, a relative of my grandma on her maternal side, who had made it as a high-flying civil servant, no less than Chief Administrator of the French Colonies, based in Madagascar until his retirement. As I have intimated much earlier in this blog, my ancestors on my maternal side were truly citizens of the world and Corsica their stopover homebase between travels.

So how come did Maison Bonavita's glorious existence end so unceremoniously, I hear you think? Paul passed away in the 1950s. Mémé's mum inherited the property but died soon after. Then Claire, mémé's paternal auntie, took the responsibility to look after the house, as mémé and her brother (my great uncle) lived away. Claire was getting elderly and frail, yet single-handedly endeavoured to keep an eye on the property despite living off-site. The house was even advertised as rent-free to whoever would be interested to live there, but no-one expressed an interest, and this sealed its fate.

Unsurprisingly like other village houses, Maison Bonavita got broken into. Remember, it was off the beaten track and therefore easy to break into, undisturbed. When Claire and her brother (my great-grandad) passed away a few years later, the property had become an open sesame to the local builders, tradesmen, antiques dealers, reclamation yard dismantlers, residents, visitors, holidaymakers, people we knew, people we knew less, people we thought we knew, and people we didn't know, in fact anyone with a compulsion (and a reason so they'd say) to snatch, break, steal, unscrew, detach, tear, smash, pull anything they could lay their hands on, and not necessarily with a purpose in mind. Just for the darn sake of it.

The looting started off with interior fittings: shelving, cellar barrels, a wooden coffer, coving, shutters, doors, windows, staircase, railings, tiling. And then it became structural: steps, fireplaces, roof slates and beams... It took less than 20 years to turn it into a state of ruin, while the Winter rains, scorching Summer heat, the natural ravages of time and persistent assaults from the wild vegetation didn't help the cause either.

My parents and grandma did try to sell the property three decades ago, before it achieved its sorry state, in fact when the house was still standing solidly. A couple of selling opportunities presented themselves but in the cold light of day the sale never materialised. Meanwhile we couldn't possibly afford the upkeep and even so, it would mean 11 months of the year when the house would lay vacant and subject to further vandalism.

My dad put 'No Entry' signs up, boarded up the cellar entrances, we cleared the surroundings, made it known around us that the house was still under ownership (meaning: Keep Off!), but these hardly deterred any 'visitors'. In fact by the following Summer, when we returned to the property, the boards and sign had been ripped up, a clear statement to us that they didn't care about our warnings and the looting would carry on regardless! Oh boy, which it did...

To steal is to show no care, respect nor consideration for the actual property and its owners. Perpetrators, in their tunnel vision, might see it as only a door, a couple of stones, a plinth, a dozen terracota tiles, but these are acts of trespass, vandalism and looting, they are illegal and punishable, pure and simple... Thing is, someone just needs to get caught red-handed by the gendarmerie, or someone just needs to name and shame, with solid back-up evidence. But in Corsica like in Southern Italy la loi du silence (the law of silence) is a principle by which honest members of the public are 'encouraged' to give wrong-doers protection, out of fear and intimidation.

I cannot help but shiver at the potentially destructive results that unbridled, uncontrolled architectural salvage (let's call it looting) has on these seemingly abandonned, closed properties, not just in Corsica but elsewhere in the world. Maybe potential buyers should be less gullible and more willing to question the origins of some of those original features that end up online or down the high street or back street...

Today there is no much left of Maison Bonavita and if we are considering to put it back up for sale, it is as a bid for the future and dignity it deserves as a restored family home, through sympathetic renovation and TLC. This is our last shot to save this property from its wipe-out destination. Maison Bonavita has a name and a glorious past, now it needs the future it so rightly deserves. It is a Kevin McCloud's Grand Designs in the making, and the potential of this property is truly, most definitely awesome!

For further enquiries on Maison Bonavita with a view to purchase, please contact the author in confidence (only genuine requests please): nathalie@baguetteblog.com

From Home to Rubble in Sixty Years (Part 1)

This article is about architectural decay/ abnegation achieved through the devastating effects of a combination of organised and opportunistic pillage, subjected to and illustrated by one of my grandma's properties.

I thought I'd share some of my knowledge and thoughts about this Corsican house with you, and how since it became uninhabited in the 1950s, my family, and then myself, have personally, painfully and powerlessly witnessed its escalating demise. The least I thought I could do was to pay tribute to this property, Maison Bonavita, and vent a few home truths in the process, in true La Baguette Magique style...

Maison Bonavita certainly was no ordinary Corsican home, with its mid-19th century style and modern comfort that gave the cold shoulder to any rustic preconceptions. It stood slightly aside from the nearest hamlet, on the hillside with commanding views to die for. In those days (and this still does apply nowadays to an extent), bourgeois houses and mansions always stood on elevations, with a vantage point.

Further up the path two American palazzi dating back to the same time period can still be found (one of which now derelict). American palazzi were so named in reference to those 19th century Corsican emigrants (mainly from the Cap Corse 'micro-région') who had made a fortune in Puerto Rico as coffee plantation owners and returned to Corsica (either permanently or temporarily) to build ostentatious mansions and necropolises flaunting their new wealth.

Our rural gentry retreat was what we'd call a maison bourgeoise, a status home of sorts compared to earlier, more rustic stocky constructions found in Corsican villages, often characterised by exposed stonework. Maison Bonavita's internal and external stonemasonry had been carefully rendered through to achieve that modern sleek finish. The rooms were spacious and ceilings higher than traditional Corsican rural dwellings.

The house was made up of two conjoined buildings linked up by a solid slate-floored entrance porch which you accessed via a ravishing curved paved staircase (which I do proudly remember), a work of art in itself that would cost a pretty penny to commission today! I am told that in the Summer, a specially-commissioned awning held by purpose-built wooden posts would be stretched across the porch, as a sun-screen/ parasol. Pictured above is what is left today of the once-glorious staircase area...

According to mémé, Maison Bonavita boasted two reception rooms. The house was tastefully decorated, as testified by the original ornate painted plasterwork, some fragments still visible today amongst the rubble as all the floors and ceilings have now regretfully caved in. The furniture was also rather refined - I am told - and contrary to the typical rural Corsican dwellings, this house not only had internal and external wooden shutters, it also had curtains, a penchant for civilised urban home interiors.

The house displayed countless attentions to detail in their minutiae, a proud yet sober display of architectural elegance, a sense of proportion and knowledgeable use of noble materials, in contrast with our modern-day Corsican properties which are hastily and cheaply put together!

Immediately underneath the porch stood a small standalone ground-level cellar. From personal recollection, I would say that the house had at least a total of four standalone ground-level cellars, one of which still equipped to this day with a rectangular stone basin used for wine-making. There was also a built-in bread-oven by the kitchen, to the rear of the property.

Finally Maison Bonavita was flanked by garden terraces landscaped with olive trees (still present). Yet one can easily imagine fragrant rose bushes and delicate lilies mingling to the more Mediterranean flora, in cottage garden style. (to be continued)

Little Treasures (Part 2)

I have built up quite an impressive collection of mish-mash pieces along the years as an idled pastime, not as an avid collector as such, never really taking this seriously, only pocketing my find if and when I came across it, take it home, clean it and keep it. I would show it to mémé (who found it quite amusing that I'd pick what her ancestors and the likes had thrown out as junk!).

Vintage square and hanging heart brooch, by Kate Hamilton-Hunter, available from Lasso The Moon

I wish I could showcase a broader representation of my collection to you but the bulk of it is locked away (ha-ha not in a bank vault!) in a cellar (god knows why it ended down there) that is not easily accessible, but the day I lay my hands on those beauties again I will exhibit them for the whole blogworld to see!

My yet-to-materialise idea was to create a mural, a mosaic if you like with all the pieces carefully encased in plaster, or how to turn junk into art, a theme recurrent with our modern artists (not that I wish to claim any artistic pretensions).

Small heart pendant by Kate Hamilton-Hunter, available from Lasso The Moon

Imagine my delight when I came across evidence that I am not the only collector of broken pottery. While visiting the beautiful Lasso The Moon website (exquisite hand-crafted homestyle pieces that I invite you to browse at your leisure), I noticed the clever use of vintage pottery fragments (shown above) by one of their suppliers, Kate Hamilton-Hunter Studio, as a backdrop and prop to add further interest to an item of jewellery, and the complementarity between the two is spot on! Well, I might be biased but just see for yourself. What do you think?

And while on the pottery pieces idea, I struck gold once more when visiting one of my bookmarked design blogs, Absolutely Beautiful Things and discovered Harriet Damave's handpainted decorative Delftware designs used as pendants, brooches and wall-hanging ornaments that remind me loosely of our pottery fragment treasures (although Harriet's ornaments are of course created as whole pieces). Judge the effect for yourself:

Harriet Damave's handpainted Delft porcelain heart ornaments, featured on Etsy

Some people collect seaglass from the shore (and surprise, surprise I do have a few of those!). What pushes them to do that is probably unmotivated, as an idled pastime while on their beach stroll. The colourings from some of the old glass's original pearlescence or the smoothed polished finish certainly catch the eye. Some artists like American jewellery-maker Lisa Hall recycle their finds into delicate jewellery pieces. Read about the origins of the seaglass that Lisa collects, very insightful.

Silver Cluster Ring by Lisa Hall Jewelery's 'Seaglass Collection'

Interestingly Lisa doesn't solely work with actual seaglass.

So all in all, those unassuming broken bits of junk have some nice future ahead of them and I am delighted that the feeling is shared. Meanwhile if you too collect them (from wherever you are in the world), just leave me a note below and I will happily feature, on your behalf, your photographs and stories in this blog.

Little Treasures (Part 1)

What I am about to show you here are a few examples of what I call 'little treasures'. Now I will be straight from the outset and, in doing so, I might disappoint a few romantic expectations. The little treasures in question are no hypothetical family jewels, precious stones, gold coins, antique figurines, Ming Dynasty ware, muskets, coveted paintings or other items associated with mythical pirate booties, royal collections, museum displays or inheritance gains. My little treasures have no monetary value (I am pretty much sure of that) despite the fact that most pottery pieces exceed 100 years old.

So how did pottery (crockery) - as that's what it's about - end up the way it did, in smithereens? Your guess is as good as mine. In the context of yesteryear, maybe because the pottery was already chipped, cracked, unusable as such, or unwanted (a minor house clearance of sorts that could include some monstruous-looking vase inherited from an in-law or a departed grandmother's unwanted chamber pot, who knows...).

I wouldn't dare to add that some items ended up downhill and down the pits solely because they had gone out of fashion. In those days and up until post-WWII, only the affluent could justify any form of consumerism translating into the regular purchase of 'replacement' items, as often households would make do and hang on to their belongings, make them last, not replace them on a whim because they had gone out of fashion.

So apart from the unfortunate accident, those final broken pieces would result (doh!) from intentionally throwing out/ smashing a breakable object down the back yard, the side alley, across the path, just outside the house even, wherever. In the old days, waste per se was limited, compared to our modern rubbish-generating throwaway culture: no wasteful plastic packagings, styrofoam cups and the ever-so ecologically-unconscious individual unit format.

Meanwhile country folks were virtually self-sufficient, living off their land, cultures and farm animals. The only waste they actually generated apart from organic waste was those chips of pottery and glass. Everything else was recycled, reused, repurposed, from strings to bits of metal or wood. Mémé's grandma had patched up her old everyday skirt so many times that she was unable to recall the original material! This gives a whole new dimension to patchwork activity, doesn't it?

Having said that, I wouldn't want to rule out the possibility of some of these pieces resulting from house lootings, especially throughout the second part of the 20th century, when Corsican villages suffered from further human exodus, with local populations moving to town or to the French continent for work (if not much further afield), and  reluctantly leaving those old family homes 'to meet their own fate' (shut in effect for 11 months of the year, or just slowly falling into neglect and oblivion as maintenance costs proved too much to bear). I will have the opportunity to discuss this thorny issue in more detail on La Baguette Magique in the coming weeks.

We're all familiar with the saying 'Someone's junk is someone else's treasure', and these little fragments of junk are my unlikely and unassuming treasures. Starting as a child I came across these sometimes beautifully-colourful, delicately-adorned, or rather plain - depending on the catch of the day - scattered fragments of pottery, without even looking for them, plainly visible or just about visible, found while gardening or shifting some stones, in our tiny garden, on the hamlet grounds or just walking down a mountain path.

Everytime I would try to imagine what those pieces would make up if assembled together, that is if a strike of good fortune would enable me to trace all the fragments in the first place, which has never happened. Clues gave me a little insight as the motif on some pieces was the exact replica of an existing crockery collection that we owned, helping me to ascertain that the piece in question related to tableware or even sanitaryware (washbasin, washpot), for instance.

The more rustic glazed plain pieces (brown-coloured on at least one side, see above) are kitchen earthenware: coffee pot, stew pot, bowl etc. Some of those unassuming pieces fetch hundreds of years in age (sadly not hundreds of £ in value, maybe one day!). (to be continued)

The Fall of the House of Summer (Part 3)

In Northeastern France (and some Northern/ Eastern European countries) and as part of the pre-Christmas/ Advent calendar (starting on 4th Sunday before Christmas), we celebrate St-Nicolas (St-Nicholas Day, 6th December), a Saint also reputed as a gift-giver. On that day in Northern France, young children (or in certain regions like Picardie, young boys) are traditionally given a present by their parents (some may argue that the tradition is now on the wane).

Vintage St-Nicolas card from Delcampe

The St-Nicholas I am personally aware of has always been pictured as closely resembling Santa Klaus (a.k.a. Sinterklass, a 19th century folklore figure whose origins derive from St-Nicholas). As a result, the popular secular representation of Christmas has blurred St-Nicholas, Santa Klaus and Father Christmas into the the jolly bearded effigy we are familiar with.

In Reform times (16th/ 17th century) the symbol of gift-giving was 'taken' from St-Nicholas and attributed to the Nativity of Christ, more precisely to its assumed birthday, Christmas, 25th December. Yet to children's delight, St-Nicholas' gift-giving tradition has carried on!

Ste-Catherine card by S.A.G.E., printed in Italy, approx. 1986

In Northern France, Ste-Catherine's Day (25th November) celebrates unmarried girls until their 25th birthday. As a 'Catherinette' I used to receive a Ste-Catherine card from my parents and grandma (the one pictured above is one of them, in all its 1980s glory), and (usually) an item of clothing or some cash. The pre-Christmas buzz it generated would keep me going until Christmas Day!

Meanwhile the harvesting theme which we developed earlier in Part 1 is echoed by Thanksgiving Day (4th Thursday in November (US) and 2nd Monday in October (Canada), a secular pre-Christmas gratitude and present-bestowing tradition, whose origins date back to North America's pilgrim days.

We'll end our celebrations with Hannukah, the 8-night long Jewish Festival of Dedication, which falls between late November and late December.

French Seasons Greetings card, by MD Paris (made in France), approx. 1989

Phew, what a busy season Autumn is! Before you know it, you are half-way through the Advent calendar chocolates, then Winter closely followed by the glitter of Christmas descend upon you like invited guests who arrive way too early... You won't even have seen Christmas that the year packs up and a new one lands on you! Did we ever question the fact that Autumn was no cause for celebration?

P.S: The above Seasons Greetings and Ste-Catherine cards are from my personal collection.

Further Browsing:

• More about Advent (in French)

More Homely Musings:

• Home Truths About What We Call a Home
• Winter Comforts

A Vintage Provençal Cookbook (Part 1)

Introducing La Cuisinière Provençale by J.-B. Reboul (P. Ruat publisher, 396 pages), more than a recipe book, it is a potted history of bygone culinary tradition that used to belong to mémé's auntie Claire. In other words, a family heirloom - an antique item in its own right - that is also a piece of gastronomical testimony evidencing a bygone way of life. Strangely enough, there is no date anywhere in the book, so by taking an educated (and conservative) guess, I reckon this is at least 100 years old.

This book is about Provençale cuisine and probably as close to the truth as you can get. Starting with a few general observations, bread seems to be a key-component to soups and accompaniement to other dishes, comparatively to today's bread-shy culture. The Provençale flavour pervades throughout, with Mediterranean fish, olive oil, garlic, capers and herbs living up to the Provençal stereotype. The game dishes demonstrate that hunting played an important part in society. While mutton, pork, etc. were more likely to originate from your own stock or that of the local farm than from the butcher's (unless of course you were a town-dweller).

The second section of the book deals with food preservation (key at the time, when refrigeration was no option): tinned food, pickles, desiccation, marmalades, jams, fruit and plant syrups (including mallow root and violet flowers), candied fruit and fruit spirit (including the old-fashioned Ratafia and the fennel seed-based Anisette).

The compilation of 811 recipes are short and to the point, yet clear enough for a cook to follow, without getting lost in an array of details and cookery jargon (although a lexicon is provided at the end). Let us pause for a second and put the book in its context: although I would be tempted to say that the book's audience was likely to be individuals who could read and manage a household, and possibly students in home economics, some of its recipes (the less common ones, shall we say) could also have been directed at cooks on the payroll who may have been told by their masters to follow a recipe that they had no prior knowledge of, referring them to the book.

The book structure, divided into chapters, is straightforward, starting with hearty - mostly meaty - stodgy soups, some of which erring on the unpalatable: Potage Purée de Navets au Lait (a milk-based turnip soup served on bread slices), Garbure aux Marrons (boiled chestnuts served in their stock, over bread slices and finished in the oven), Aigo Boulido (literally: boiled water, to which olive oil and an egg yolk are added, before the bread). Other surprises and oddities await the modern reader at every page.

Advice is also provided along, for instance on how to achieve the perfect Pot-au-Feu (hotpot), with patience and no strong flames. And we find out that a true Bouillabaisse (fish soup) commands at least 7 or 8 guests due to the fact it needs to contain as many different varieties of fish as possible, in order to achieve the required richness of taste. The book gives much importance to fish dishes (but not just to sea fish), braised, grilled, baked, stuffed, etc. Frogs and snails end the fish chapter (likely to reinforce the French reputation abroad as frog and snail eaters!). (to be continued)

The Quest for a Streamlined Corsica (Part 3)

The Fading of Local Knowledge: My grandma and her generation of villagers were rich sources of local information. Their passing away is - to paraphrase an Arab proverb - likened to a burning library. It helped that my grandma, until her very last day, had an acute memory and was clear-headed about who was who in the village, their next-of-kin and ancestors, who owned which bit of land, who did what for a living back in 1932, local traditions and customs, beliefs and myths, crafts and other manual skills etc. She brimmed with anecdotes, some very witty and funny, which she vividly recounted on late evenings for our pleasure.

Most of her knowledge had been passed down to her by her elders and family friends, and she had built her knowledge from there. Village society at the time was united (despite the odd feud), neither fragmented, nor individualistic and certainly not indifferent like modern society has turned out to be. Back then everyone knew everyone and took a real interest in who and what surrounded them in the microcosm of the village. People made their own evening entertainment by going round houses/ inviting relatives and neighbours around, for a chat about life and storytelling. Back then, books and newspapers were rare, radio a definite luxury, theatre and cinema mostly confined to the towns, and TV's foray into the home didn't become widespread until the 1960s.



Mémé and my mum (Nice, July 1957)

Land Planning: For this section, I will take us back to that 'little slice of suburb in the sun' allegory. No disrespect to home-owners who have bought into the dream, but we need more public concertation and the issuance of stricter architectural guidelines dos and don'ts that will help harmonise style across the suburbs, without that impression of a disjointed mish-mash sprawl...

Under its various denominations (POS, PLU, PADDUC, Loi Littoral et al), land planning at large appears bureaucratic, complicated, illogic in places and mostly misunderstood by Joe Public. Too many legalities, too many amendments, too many personal interests at stake, too many loopholes and too many exceptions to the rules lead to incomprehension, unpopularity and distrust. Another case of 'who's right, who's wrong?' How about make good use of our top public servants' time and (re)write a plan that will be unified, unbiased, forward-thinking, easy to update and clear enough to be understood and interpreted by all. That will be the naive in me hoping!

Off the Bend: Road improvements have always been a welcome necessity in Corsica, to ease communication between secluded, hard-to-reach villages. However in the last ten years, when roads have been widened, dynamited à-gogo, bends softened, even obliterated altogether, corners might have been cut in the process - so to speak, i.e. by playing down the impact that such drastic redefinition would have.

The fact that whole rock chunks were blasted has weakened the structure of certain cliff faces to the point of compromising exposed soil with every heavy rainfall and strong wind, which is particularly apparent in the Cape where parts of the redesigned coastal road have caved in. Costly repairs have stabilised the damage, yet being more respectful of the local geology and typography may have helped avoid the problem in the first place, with the defacto acceptance that Corsica's mountainous terrain implies that those bends and curves simply come with the territory...

Techno-Flops: Already touched upon here, I'll keep it short and sweet with one simple question: how can you smoothly run an internet business, or even a straightforward weblog, from the villages when low voltage or even power cuts incapacitate technology?

Conclusion: The making of the future is rooted in today's work in progress and is built on the foundations of today and yesterday as today's past. We need to make sure that those foundations are solid enough for the future to hold, take root and become in turn tomorrow's present. Corsica benefits from a fabulous potential, but before putting the hard hat on, we need to pause and consider whether we should head for the port or back inland, where the story of Corsica began, ease the past into the future with financial collateral and labour resources. Then redefine our vision of tourism, balance out work and leisure industries, aim for a society where inhabitants, workers and visitors alike can each find their feet, their place and a purpose in the grand scheme of things. A place for all. Failing that, just call me an idealist...

Further browsing: Domaine de Murtoli, a successful eco-tourism compromise between past and present.