Food, glorious food.

I want to share a little bit about the foods we are consuming here. Most of our meals are prepared at home. Our host Veronique is an experienced cook who easily combines ingredients from her garden with additions from beyond. After the first few days, she invited us to help and we are often assigned tasks to contribute to a meal. Now that the B and B is busy, she also prepares and serves the guests a four-course dinner two or three times per week.

From the garden, we get potatoes, onions, beets, lettuce, tomatoes, squash, many different herbs, and a range of berries. In addition, eggs come directly from the five chickens we feed daily. These foods are supplemented with items from the grocery and the farmer's market. Occasionally she goes directly to a farm to purchase ingredients in quantity, as we did last week to get a case of cantaloupe which were transformed into desserts...sorbet, melon balls soaked in Pineau, and slices grilled after marinating in honey.

Breads are purchased daily at either the boulangerie or Mont d'Or, a boulange paysanne, a farm-based bakery that will be the subject of a later post.

The most unusual food shopping experience happens on Friday. Each week, several vendors drive from village to village selling fresh local mussels and oysters. We are quite charmed by the mussel seller. She comes right into our driveway, blows a loud distinctive horn and voila...she dishes mussels from the back of the truck. She is pictured below looking cool after a delivery of two kilos for us and friends. Mussels and oysters are very significant "crops" in this region. Generally we eat mussels two or three times a week. I am not a big fan of oysters but so far I've exceeded my previous limited intake by several. Recently we visited a museum dedicated to the cultivation and harvesting of oysters which culminated in a chef's presentation and a tasting.

Just one note about wines. Before our arrival we imagined that many of our meals would be enjoyed with wines from Bordeaux which is not far to our south. However, this is not the case. A more local rose or white from Ile de Re are commonly served.

As you can imagine, we are eating well, discovering new flavors, and collecting favorite recipes to share with friends and family when we return home.

It's a very colorful place.

The Charente Maritime boasts its many hours of sunshine. The days are long and we've noticed that the sky is light until well past 10:00 p.m. each evening. This asset appears to be ideal for the cultivation of flowers. There is an abundance of flowering trees, shrubs, and plants everywhere we've been...in gardens, as well as along the sides of roadways, on the dunes at the beaches, and around the farm fields.  Here's a sampling of some of nature's colorful offerings.

Let the season begin!

Before I get started on the adventures and escapades of the summer, here's a bit more information about where we are. Les Grands Ormes is located in a small village in the town of Le Thou, in the French region known as Charente Maritime. Le Thou, a geographic area larger than Cooperstown, boasts a population about the same as there, 2,000. It is a farming community and possibly a "bedroom" community for commuters to the larger towns of La Rochelle and Rochefort.

Certainly it is not a travel destination, but a stay at Les Grands Ormes affords visitors easy access to a wide array of vacation activities within close proximity. Guests enjoy spending their afternoons at one of the many nearby beaches, taking excursions to lovely islands off the coast, exploring historic sites such as the citadel of Brouage, chateaux and churches, and centuries-old forts. In addition, more well-known destinations such as Cognac are only an hour's drive away.

Our host Veronique has lovingly restored her parent's home and thoughtfully designed a comfortable and peaceful retreat behind the stonewalls surrounding the grounds. She has drawn on years of experience in the catering business to create a setting that is functional, great for entertaining, and hospitable. The B & B has five guest rooms, a fabulous open-concept kitchen (in which she prepares and serves breakfast and also dinner several nights a week), a terrace and private backyard with many different spaces for conversation, relaxation, and dining, and a pool house with a salt-water pool.

Michael and I are staying in a studio in a structure that was once a storage building when the property was a farm. I will share a photo below.

The "season" is just getting underway. The guests are mostly French and other Europeans. I will share words about visitors and their interests later in the summer after we have more experience.

Thus far we have been working hard to get the grounds and house ready for guests. Now it's showtime, our first visitors arrived a few days ago. The sounds of conversation and laughter fill air as new friendships are formed, sharing unfolds, and the elixir of vacation seeps into those who partake.