Hello Moulins
To get the lay of the land I’ve made short excursions on foot.
And spent the rest of my time recuperating and arranging my stuff in my room. There were crucial things to get that couldn’t or shouldn’t be packed, like fresh ground coffee and half and half, and basic hunger to satisfy. My hostess is quite lackadaisical about her policies, so that the option to purchase meals here is based on when she might feel like it. However she said she’d doesn’t need to charge me, so there is that. Laisse tomber. My new attitude.
Being quite famished on the second evening after my arrival, and not wanting to cross the bridge and pay for an indifferent meal, I decided to just try the brasserie that is sort of incorporated into the large supermarket that sits alone on the left bank of the Allier, the river in today’s feature photo. The giant metal box looks funny sitting there by itself, but is incredibly convenient too, as it is about a block and a half from where I’m staying.
In the photo, you see the river from “my” bank, with the old bridge into Moulins, which makes up the skyline. A factoid is that this river, the Allier, is the last of the free-flowing large rivers in France. It and its watershed, which make up the old Bourbonnais region, is a rather forgotten area, in spite of being a mountain-fed river in a wide and fertile valley. As I believe I mentioned in a post from a little over a year ago, this region has committed the multiple sins of 1) being the original homeland of the Bourbon Dynasty, 2) being the region where the collaborationist Vichy government was located, and 3) having succored and launched the unrepentant orphan, Coco Chanel. With such an erasure from the international consciousness, I’m just hanging out here with the hicks and hayseeds who don’t have much money, and pinch and save to make ends meet. A bit like the place I grew up.
In the brasserie, they told me that the kitchen was closed, but yes, I could still have a glass of wine. Ok, but—no, no bread, it’s closed. Drinking without food is not illegal here, obviously. Then I got the brainstorm to ask if I could go buy something in the supermarket and bring it out to have with my wine. Sure thing. He even insisted on bringing me a knife.
I won’t go on to describe the bread and cheese, nor the selection in the supermarket, because this is not a food blog. It is working people’s food, and goods. Common and inexpensive, and those things on the table are both of those things here. But the clothes and homegoods are pretty dreadful.
I sat in a corner, overlooking the town and river and local juvenile delinquents. The other party was a table of four, then five, then six, then it kind of split off into a general Friday evening gathering of neighboring farmers, from the looks of them. All men, with lined faces burned dark and reddish from hours outside. Classic rednecks. They were smoking and talking and drinking beer, and though it was in French, which we think of as sounding sophisticated, the laughter was just the same as the good old boys at home, down at the sports bar. No screens here, however. And then they did something very un-American and burst into song.
When a new guy would join, whom they probably had known for years, if not their whole lives, he would have to shake hands with each man around the table. Then he’d go in and give the two air kisses to the waitress. They were very curious about me, and eventually I spoke with them, and when I left it was all waves and “See you later”s.
My room is comfortable, and looks out on a very typical view for this area.
No, there is no clothes dryer, as electricity is very expensive. In the winter they hang the laundry inside. My hostess has tomatoes and strawberries and squash growing, and there is a pie cherry tree up by the house, next to the old well. On another walk in this area, which I’m told used to be all homes of market gardeners, I noticed that the ubiquitous fruit tree left in every yard is a cherry tree. Not an apple, as I’m rather used to seeing.
Every morning I hear the tentative peeps of birds, which tells me it is getting light. I can’t really tell, because the window has old, iron shutters that I fold over it every night for privacy and better sleeping. It is very quiet. In fact, in the five days I’ve been here, I have not once heard a loud motor on any vehicle–except a tractor that came up the street as I explored the old market garden area around this house. After the sun is truly up, there is another bird that has a rich, rather complicated song that varies based on…oh who can say? It is very charming, though he only regales us for a couple of minutes and that is it. The garden has lots of flowers, and I found I expected a hummingbird, but I’ve not seen one. Do they not live here? Oh, lord! The Priest of Google says “Hummingbirds do not occur in Europe.”
The patio off the kitchen is a very pleasant place to sit, and the jasmine against the wall smells lovely. Though often very basic, I saw that if a house has a large tree or a shady corner, there is a table and chairs. Just sitting and talking seems to be a key pastime, and in this climate it is pleasant and cheap.
This morning was the farmer’s market, and I walked up soon after it opened. A couple of doors down I looked into someone’s yard and smiled. French cats also know how to go receive frequencies from outer space by sitting in an anointed spot and pretending that they are invisible.
At the market I got some sheep’s milk cheese, a half of a roasted “farmer’s chicken,” and a classic seasonal product from the center of France. I was able to speak with the farm woman at the stand about these white asparagus, and she gave me detailed instructions on how to prepare them, and how to choose them. The bigger they are, the less fibrous, surprisingly. When I first was in the Loire Valley, as a 25-year-old wife and mother, my French was not good enough to get an explanation, and they were a failure. Today I followed the instructions quite faithfully, adding butter and black pepper, and they were, as she said, formidable.
