Sister 3 appears to have gone AWOL and I have sent her a stern email reminding of her duties. Hopefully she'll be back next week.
For a lot of people, celebration involves food. You cook a special meal, or go out to a restaurant. You allow yourself to eat dessert, have a glass of wine, swallow the contents of a chocolate box.
For us, the French, food is the occasion to celebrate. Or drink, as the case may be. So in November, when a fairly non-descript wine is bottled, we celebrate. We buy in a case or two - no more, because it won't keep. We invite a few friends over, make sure we have some decent charcuterie, cheese, and a light but friendly meal, and we celebrate. In the best possible way, just sitting around a table with a few close friends or family.
I'm not sure what it is we celebrate. Certainly not the quality of the wine. At best, it's 'sympatique'. Most of the time, it's a bit rough, or a bit sharp. But we celebrate the fact that we're wine drinkers, and producers. That our country grows the stuff, our people make it, and we love it. We celebrate the fact that we like to celebrate. We celebrate the fact that a celebration can be cheap and simple.
Now I know that in England people make a big deal of the Beaujolais too - so I never had any trouble getting my hand on it at the right time (although it was a bit pricier so I'd buy a few bottles, not a case). But in Turkey, there's none to be had. Turks do not bicycle to France in November to buy wine. They're far too sensible than that.
But what I found out a few years ago, is that you can fit in quite a few cases in a diplomatic bag! The Embassy has annual Beaujolais nouveau parties. You buy a ticket and get to drink and eat a volonte. And the best thing is that they get to fit in quite a few cheeses, hams, and saucissons in that little leather pouch!
Oh, one last thing. If you liked this post, would you mind terribly clicking on the RSS feed, here, or the Google connect buttons (top left), or by email at the bottom of this page? And if you didn't like it, you might still want to look around. There's three of us, you know, so you're (almost) bound to find something you like. And then, if you've still got time, you could share this post or stumble it, or both and get in touch with your local tv station to sing our praises. We'll love you forever
4 comments:
Lovely post. I notice one of those wine glasses is completely empty!
Yes, that would be mine. I had to drink up so I could take the photos, you see.
I'd say it's much more useful than watching televised sports... but few are asked to defend spending full days at that.
I'm sorely tempted to agree with you: drinking beaujolais is more useful than watching the football. But I wonder whether this comment was meant for Marianne's post on what the point of blogging is? lol.
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