Skip to main content

Call of the wild in wine country 2017/09/22 Dijon, Burgundy

Brame des cerfs / Bell of deer
The landscape has a feminine silhouette, a small rise between dark, curving thighs. The air is sweet and cold. Silence is punctuated by the high, round sound of owls and the deep bell of the deer. The stag with the deepest, strongest bell will be chosen by the does. Bellows, roars and staccato grunts sound from near and far. Brame, bell, mating call. Stars centred over the valley take the form of a running deer. One of the stars drifts away to the right... a satellite. Still the star deer was running, and the Milky Way spilling light into the falling night.

//Bourgignon//
Travelling mostly among strangers since August, it's special to be welcomed by a dear friend in her family home. Besides my dad, Sophie was my only visitor from Europe to Sydney, so it's a joy to return the favour and visit her in France.

Untitled

On my first day S. proudly showed me around her town of Dijon. Owls are recurring emblem, reputed to bring creative inspiration. Many of the buildings in the historic centre date back to the peak of the Duchy of Burgundy – around 1450. The palatial city council houses a museum of religious and royal art from this medieval period of great wealth. Here we visited the tomb of the Dukes, featuring life-sized sculptures of two Dukes and a Duchess lying supine. White lions at their feet symbolise resurrection. Angels with golden wings stand at their heads. Their marble biers are supported by an army of 'pleurants' – crying monks.

When our feet were sore from walking, we did yoga on the roof of the family's beautiful apartment building. Its tall, antique windows open over a lush, circular park with a fountain. Ornate furniture and other family heirlooms crowd the former home of Grand-mere. This is elegant apartment living, complete with a courtyard, attic and stone wine cellar.

Even in this city centre home, a strong connection with the land is held through French cuisine. Mere D. collects tree flowers to deep fry, sloes for jam, preserves the meat of wild boar in terrines. She can even do a clever thing with dandelions. 'Dandelion' comes from the French 'dent de lion' – 'lion's tooth'. The recipe for the flower jelly requires removal of all the golden petals... quite a meditation. The serrated leaves are good for salad. Pere D. cooks pears from his mothers garden in a black currant liqueur, ages local wines in the cellar.

On our day tour of the vineyards I picked some grapes to offer to Bacchus/Dionysus the god of wine and dancing. The region is rich in world-famous wines, and a network of abbeys and convents maintain centuries old traditions of gourmet cheeses and other delicious produce. Their distinctive flavours give the local cuisine its complexity. One such dish is 'Chicken Gaston Gerard' – a recipe named after a mayor who allegedly invented it. To serve 6 people, use a whole bottle of Macon wine to boil a chicken, then smother it in a thick sauce of Comte cheese and strong Dijon mustard before browning the dish in the oven. With such fine food, wine from the cellar and other local delights, I was utterly spoiled in the home of my friend. Merci mille fois famille D!
Untitled
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Physical poetry – Contact Improv in Madrid

On my first visit to Madrid, I wrote about exploring Lavapies Tabacalera by day – sophisticated art installations in warehouse galleries. On this second visit to Madrid, I discovered the Tabacalera studios by night – a living, breathing art community. Cuban flautist and poet Liz stayed in touch after our chance meeting in Lisbon, and joined me for this contact improvisation adventure. Tabacaleras are former tobacco factories, given over to the arts by many Spanish municipalities. Passing through the unmarked portal into this furnace of creativity, I quickly felt relaxed and at home. Liz said she had never seen anything like it it. To get the dance studio, we traversed a cavernous room of giant murals into a corridor of spectacular street art, past booming reggae and African DJ dens, out into the yard. A few oil drum fires burned, and people gathered around to keep warm, under the gaze of Albert Einstein. If only he could see his two-metre high portrait, spray painted on old wo
2 comments
Read more

From seaweed to bananas – Contact Improv in Dublin

The dancers were sitting in a circle when I arrived. A stranger, I was greeted with words of welcome and invited to join the end of a class by Yaeli. We danced as seaweed buffeted by waves, brushed by fish... first anchored on rocks, then taking flight into the water. This seaweed dance was one of my best trio experiences, taking turns with David and Fergus in the roles of weed or wave or fish. A friendly jam followed, including dances with Isabel and Jacob.  When the jam was over, we said goodbye with hugs. I felt great... welcomed to the community, emotionally and physically invigorated. I walked to my bus stop with a smile on my face. Though bus rides are usually tedious and smelly in the damp Dublin winter, I smiled the whole way. I got off and walked the few hundred metres home in the freezing rain. Soon I was home with hot tea, a hot bath, and downy bed – a happy body, drifting into dreams. Going bananas at the Lab The offer to share dance skills came at a dance
Post a Comment
Read more

Poetry meets music and dance 2017/11/12 Lisbon

After a few days of catching up on chores, I took a stroll and lost myself in the laneways south of Graca. I emerged at the Mirador of Portos do Sol about 12 noon. It's a large, public, paved area, with views over the city to the ocean-blue estuary. There was a crowd: a TV crew shooting a talking head segment, buskers, a few African hawkers selling jewellery to tourists. The buskers were a 3-piece band … drums, strings and vocals, playing reggae in the sunshine. I started grooving and danced solo for a few tunes – the sea breeze and the distant, sparkling waves danced with me.   I noticed a woman quietly appreciating the music and enquired if she was also a visitor in Lisbon. I learned that Liz was from Cuba, today exploring Lisbon for the first time. She had flown to Lisbon from Angola one day before, on her way to start a new life in Madrid. It was easy for us to chat because she is fluent in Spanish as well as Portuguese, so I invited her to join me for lunch.  The band we
1 comment
Read more