Maison Tranquille Blog

  My November is picking up a French accent, though the ingredients are coming from closer to home. I have been reading about three things: La Toussaint, a little squash called potimarron, and the arrival of Beaujolais Nouveau. One is about remembrance, one has sent me into the kitchen, and one has led to a wine purchase. November 1 is La Toussaint, All Saints’ Day, in France. Families visit cemeteries and place chrysanthemums on the graves of loved ones. Strictly speaking, the day set aside for remembering the departed is All Souls’ Day, November 2. But Toussaint is the public holiday, so that is when most families make their visits. Here, chrysanthemums sit on porches beside the pumpkins. In France, the same autumn flower belongs to remembrance. I find it interesting that a flower we both know, blooming at the same time of year, can carry such a different story. Then there is the potimarron. It is a small winter squash whose flavor is often compared to chestnuts. The name sa...

  I bought five pounds of persimmons on Amazon because I heard you could predict the winter weather by looking inside a seed. There are more practical ways to check the forecast, but this one came with fruit. According to the tradition, you split a persimmon seed lengthwise and look at the little white shape inside. A spoon means snow to shovel. A knife means cutting cold. A fork suggests a milder winter. Quite a responsibility for a fruit seed. Then, on our Sunday Cousins Zoom call, my cousin began talking about persimmons in south Arkansas. They had cut open a seed and found a spoon. By that reckoning, we will be shoveling snow this winter. She sent me a photograph, so I have evidence of the spoon, if not yet of the snow. I remembered eating persimmons in Australia, but I seldom see them in our local supermarkets. I associated them with somewhere far away. Meanwhile, my cousin had them in south Arkansas, and Travis had grown up with two persimmon trees in his pasture. He said the...

We’ve finally had a little chilly weather in Arkansas, enough to make a sweater useful and to convince us that fall has arrived. Experience tells us, though, not to put the summer clothes away just yet. All my life I’ve heard “Indian summer” used for the warm days that return after the weather turns cold. Recently I came across another name for them: St. Luke’s Little Summer. It’s an old English name for a spell of mild, sunny weather around St. Luke’s feast day, October 18. It’s a brief return of warmth after the first cool days of autumn, before winter settles in. For centuries, rural Europeans marked the year by saints’ days rather than calendar dates. These seasonal encores took their names from whichever feast day they fell near. Fine weather around September 29 belonged to St. Michael. A warm spell around November 11 became St. Martin’s Summer, the best known of them all. Shakespeare used the phrase in Henry VI, Part 1: “Expect Saint Martin’s summer, halcyon days.” The French cal...