Why We Love Us

a Little Coeur d'Alene

Part 2, 3, 4, and 5

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

Why We Love Us

A Little Coeur d'Alene

JBelle/Notes From The 'Kan EWA

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

Today's Vase

JBelle/Notes From The 'Kan EWA

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

My buddy Raymond Pert has quite a piece up at his place. (Editor's Note: scroll down to Sunday Scribbling: Solace) Now Raymond is a guy I don't know, have never met and don't have much in common with--except that we both grew up in North Idaho at the same time. He from a different community than me but yet we share enough similar vignettes of childhood that when he talks, I can hear the truth. I hear the truth of my childhood and how I grew up and about the people that were there and how it tasted, smelled and sounded. I never miss his blog and do miss his blog when he's not around because it's authentic. Raymond is authentic and not always funny, philosophical, contemplative, nor positive. But he is authentic and does a damned fine job of being authentic. This is a piece I did early on in my blogging tenure and it speaks to our cultural heritage as children of North Idaho. Do NOT neglect to click on the picture to enlarge it. The real beauty is in the details.

Enjoy. And please don't be afraid to come back.


JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

JBelle/Notes From The 'Kan EWA Hollyhocks

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

The Garden This Morning

JBelle/Notes From The 'Kan EWA

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

AFTER THE FIRE

JBelle/Notes From The 'Kan EWA /Park Road City of Spokane Valley

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

The Provence Parties

Day 2

Well. Joe Montana pulled it off. He found Herbes de Provence at ... Safeway. I popped open the lid to finish up the tapenade and got a huge whiff of lavender, rosemary and tarragon. Brought back all those sunny days of exploring winding, crooked streets; the hills, the caves, the bulls, the horses; the vivid colors; and the smell of fresh food expertly prepared in a simple fashion. Oh, that Provence.



Our menu worked well for us and was a huge hit with our guests. We used place mats and plates for last night's run but anticipate we'll use the tablecloths tomorrow as we have a crowd coming. The Chows wonder if we can't rig up a table on sawhorses on the front porch and cover it with one of our new splendid Provencal tablecloths and fill the table with dishes, glasses and flowers. They think we can drag the chairs from around the house and garden to complete the table and then light a few candles. I think we'll put them along the window sills of the house. Could turn out just right. We gotta do our pork with cherries justice. We made the new grocery list and will peruse the garden for newly blooming roses. I like to have people over in batches and then put everything away and get back to digging in the dirt and reading. That's a life. Still no pictures. Just can't get any ones I like. Ignorance is bliss, I guess.



JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

The Provence Parties

Day 1

The Chows are scurrying around this morning as we are having people in tonight. When you are me, people expect certain things out of you. What they want out of me has changed over the years, Thank God, and these days my friends want to know about other parts of the world. The Chows on the other hand don't expect a damn thing out of me except that I come home to them and we have brunch together. And scratch. They want scratch. So anyway, we're working up a little Provencal dinner here for tonight. The Christ Child is shipping a box of things from New York that I could bring back from France to New York on the airplane but not from New York to Seattle without incurring grievous additional baggage fees. In this shipment from France via New York is my supply of Herb de Provence which can be tricky to get here in the US but is an essential ingredient of Provencal cooking. The Chows continue to dial the area merchants in hopes one of them will come through for us but if they don't I am fully prepared to take Costco Italian seasoning, add fresh tarragon and lavendar from the gardens here and keeping moving. You gotta get dinner on the table.



So we'll begin on the front porch, regrettably with gin and tonics as there for sure is no pastis available here in The 'Kan EWA. We will have tapenade, though. We are brewing up a mighty batch and our initial taste trial runs are giving us high assurance. To round out our first course, we will have walnuts from Gascony and cherries from Greenbluff.



Next we'll have the baby greens dressed with a mustard/tarragon oil and vinegar around the coffee table in the living room. I will serve the greens with a thick slice of beefsteak tomato and top with Basque goat cheese. I am going to slice the goat cheese in rounds and warm the top under the broiler and pop it on the tomato, atop the greens. I am going to fry pieces of fresh bread in olive oil and garlic and will finish with a few of these largist croutons and flecks of garlic. I ate enough of this salad in June to be a foremost expert on it and I can tell you definitively, it's a rough decision: eat it? or roll in it?



We are not having potatoes. I am still in penance for a potato moment in Gascony. On the lunch menu in Les Eyzies one afternoon was a plate of green beans, mushrooms and potatoes. I ordered it in a second. The beans were steamed and finished to perfection with tiny bits of ham; the mushrooms sauteed to an aphrodisiac state with what is probably a dizzying array of herbs and spices and the potatoes were cut in rounds and prepared in an innocent, unpretentious fashion consistent with the cooking and ways of the Basque. Although they were absolutely nothing special to the eye and had no bits of onion or bacon in them, they were quite tasty. Just plain potatoes, maybe steamed and then sauteed with olive oil? HA. Went back to the room and googled the potatoes as they were described in the menu and discovered that they are sliced and baked in handsful of goose fat. Yup. You want exquisite food? Throw goose fat at it. But our little Northwoods diet here of bark and berries doesn't accommodate fat so good, let alone goose fat. And apparently, that day, I ate enough for 3 years.



So we will have asparagus grilled with olive oil and sea salt from the Camargue, served with aioli that the Chows made last night. mmmm. mmmm. The main event will be a pork roast served with cherry salsa. Pure south of France cooking, except for that gin. They drink wine there but if you want to order gin, it will cost something like $30 per cocktail. And they're not even a Muslim country!



So we're off to get that blueberry ice cream cracking and get out the dishes and such. Stay tuned for pictures. Maybe we can get some up as we go along today. And if you are coming for dinner on Sunday, this is really unfair of you to come in here and sneak a peak at the menu. Anyway. I can't wait to see you. I have so much to tell you!



JBelle

Bellemaison

The 'Kan EWA

Spent one of those sublime weekends in Seattle. Walked along the rocky shore of Alki Point, wandered the sidewalks in the sun, sipped mojitos up off the Ave.


Talked to the finest guys.

Stumbled upon a Hindu wedding.

Paused to say a prayer at the altar.

Loved seeing people out with their kids.



Annnnd in an amazing moment, walked right into the middle of The Fire Festival in Pioneer Square.








JBelle

On Location

Seattle, Washington

Special birthday in the family today. They come sooooo fast. I wish I could give The Birthday Girl a really special present. But she doesn't want it. I want to give her the benefit of all my errors. My egregious screw ups, my omissions, my naive wanderings, my fouls, my indulgences, my stubborn refusals, all the lost time. All of it. I wish I could give her my learnings, my lessons from a lifetime of mistakes. But she doesn't want 'em. Apparently she wants to make her own mistakes and gather her own learnings. Life is so unfair sometimes! Happy Birthday, Peed. I hope this next year is the best year of your whole life.


JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

Back in the USA. Spent the evening of July 4 on a boat that sailed down the Hudson River and anchored in the East River so we could watch the fireworks. Sailed past the site of Castle Clinton where my people came through from Prussia. They went to Iowa and then Nebraska, where they were in business inside of being in this country six months. I come from a long line of survivors and women that are tough and adventurous. Courageous, too, I guess. I thought about them a lot that night, watching the fireworks, and thought about my parents. This country meant so much to them.

As to me, while I love this country, each and every state, it is being an American that means so much to me. And that has only come to me in the last ten years as I have been able to travel internationally, see other countries and cultures and then, understand fully what it means to be an American. And I am deeply proud to say I*am*an*American.

There is one thing I love above all the best of traveling internationally and that is this: JFK Airport in New York. Know why? When you go through Customs there, they stamp your passport and say 'Welcome Home'. They don't do that in Los Angeles, San Francisco or Seattle or even Washington D.C. In New York at JFK, they say 'Welcome Home'. I always, always get tears and find myself overcome . I love to come home to the USA. I love being an American.


JBelle
Bellemaison
The Kan 'EWA

The Duck, Duck Goose, Goose Tour

with The Wild Irishman

France 2008

Gascony and Provence are so distinct from each other--like California to Oregon, I guess and it has been the experience of a lifetime to be here with the Christ Child.


























It was chilling to watch the bulls on range in the Camarogue in Provence and observe the striking resemblance to the bulls on the walls of the pre-historic caves in Gascony's Montignac. As we walked the passageways of the French Vatican in Avignon, we could feel the presence of the Catholic Church, past and present. When we roamed the streets of Arles, looking for that definitive shot, we knew we would see Van Gogh at a table in a cafe around the next corner. Such a timeless, sensual, spiritual and special experience this has been. Such a rich and humbling thing to be here with the roadtrip buddy of a lifetime, the Christ Child. He and I have been going on road together since back in the day and somehow this feels definitive. But I am sure, as I always tell him, the best is yet to come.

JBelle
On Location
Sarlat, France

The Duck, Duck Goose, Goose Tour

with The Wild Irishman

France 2008

Canoed the Drodogne River yesterday. Looks just like home. Except around the eddy are homes like this:

And utterly adorable towns like this:

It was a lazy, lazy river and a marvelous day.

JBelle

On Location

Sarlat, France

The Duck, Duck Goose, Goose Tour

with The Wild Irishman

France 2008

I could go everyday for year and still not get enough. It’s a subtle experience, yet all the pieces are there if you are a devoted student and go with appreciation for the four corners of it all. A Disneyland experience it is not. Still, you drive up into the woods and enter through what could be described as a well maintained mine shaft. One thing I didn’t know about Lascaux is that is it a subterranean cave and it was discovered when a tree uprooted in a storm, leaving a hole, that a dog fell into, that four boys found, when they tried to find their dog. They threw rocks down into the hole where the dog disappeared, heard the rocks falling downhill, knew there was a cave. They returned several days later, with a knife and torches and would make the hole larger and then slide down the cave floor into ringside seats for the first showing of ‘Cro-Magnon Man’ in 17,000 years. The first human beings inside the cave in over a dozen millennia literally fell into a prehistoric peloton of bison, stags, ibex, horses and bulls. So this completely appeals to my raised-in-North-Idaho-childhood self, where we roamed the woods and the hills, floated the rivers and swam the lakes, explored with unabated curiosity and courage and never, ever got tired of the endless summer that was our Idaho. This is Lascaux. The find of a childhood.

The art is as it’s described: dazzling. big. colorful. The created perspective is startling. After spending a week with Joe McNally talking incessantly about light and depth of field, I like to think I had a better experience today than I would have two weeks ago.. Life is sheer serendipity sometimes, c’est non? As McNally would say, ya gotta light up tha front without blowin' up tha back. So I was utterly flabbergasted to see how they used the contours of the rock and the size of the animals in relation to each other to make a deep and wide panorama, like looking up at the starry heavens in the Big Sky on hot August night. What I didn’t know about the art is that it’s layered; there are up to four colored sets of animals, layered over each other in exquisite fashion, not unlike fused glass. And once your eye calibrates to the darkness, you see each layer without being prompted. It’s spine-tingling.

What’s not described is that people will bring their very small children. The children will cry and whine because they are scared or bored. It’s a short tour. Only 45 minutes. The art was probably fashioned by men. I tell myself that these young parents just don’t know any better and when those children are 20 they will say to each other what the hell were we thinking? I tell myself I will go back tomorrow and get another 45 minute tour. And go back the next day and then again whenever I can until I get enough. And I tell myself that virtually every artist in the Renaissance was male and that most of their patrons were male.

It’s still too big and too wide to fully absorb. I will continue to think and read about the caves at Lascaux for a very long time. And in the meantime, if anyone suggests that this is not an experience where you feel the earth move under your feet, I’ll just smile and say to myself, if you actually get a chance to go, you better hold on--because you just might fall down a prehistoric rabbit hole on one of the most thrilling rides of your life.

JBelle
On Location
Montignac, France

The Duck, Duck Goose, Goose Tour

with The Wild Irishman

France 2008

Today's the day. We will explore the caves of Cro-Magnon Man. Last night before dinner we ran a scouting route over the area and there were surprises. Like this: who would have guessed that if you blink your eyes you think you are near the Cataldo Mission or on the north fork of the Coeur d'Alene River? No kidding. I'm a little smug this morning, knowing that the place on this earth where earliest man was known to live and create art looks exactly like home. Funny what springs your righteousness. North Idaho is my pride and prejudice and this morning, I walk with the Coeur d'Alenes, despite being in the mountains of southwest France.


JBelle
On Location
Near Lascaux, France

The Duck, Duck Goose, Goose Tour

with The Wild Irishman

France 2008

I loved the animals of Provence; here are some of my favorites.




in the raised flowerbed outside the meeting room















at St-Paul Clinique












in the fountain of the hotel courtyard












on the Camarogue

in a cage on a windowsill on the shaded street

JBelle

On Location

Sarlat, France

The Duck, Duck Goose, Goose Tour

with The Wild Irishman

France 2008

I reread my last post and want to drop back for a moment. First, I should not presume to speak for Joe McNally; you can read his book where he succintly lays out The Tao of Joe for you. 'The Moment It Clicks' is available on Amazon.com and at JoeMcNally.com. It's a great read; see for yourself what he says about lighting, framing and positioning your shot. I'd like to amend my original comments to say that Joe is old-school. If you light it just right, keep moving to play the angles and push your camera to the edge, PhotoShop will be unable to add one thing to maximize the visual impact of your image. Joe McNally above all is a respectful person and I regret I may have represented him as scornful of PhotoShop. He is not. But don't take my word for it; buy the book and read his story. Here is one more shot of somebody I talked to at St-Paul Clinique, who like me, is waiting for a break through. Click on the image for full disclosure.

JBelle
On Location
Sarlat, France

The Duck, Duck Goose, Goose Tour

with The Wild Irishman

France 2008

One thing I wanted to pop in to note and annotate is this: in the McNally School of Photography, thou shalt not use PhotoShop. Only one of these pictures has been color enhanced; I bet you can tell that the shot of Fontieille was punched up. It was the only one I had and it looked like it was covered in ash. So I fixed it so you could see what my new hometown will look like. McNally says real photographers don't PhotoShop. He teaches you how to take these pictures and utilize existing light. Told you I was a E/V comp ho.

JBelle
On Location
Arles, France

The Duck, Duck Goose, Goose Tour

with The Wild Irishman

France 2008

This is Arles, France on a typical week night in June. It is splendid indeed.





























































JBelle
On Location
Arles, France