It’s so nice to be accepted into another fam­ily, and to be able to live the way they do for a bit. You get a taste of some­one else’s life and habits. That’s when a trip is more than just a visit to a dif­fer­ent place, and becomes an experience.

And on our last day in Rochefort-en-Terre, there were still things to do and dishes to eat.

cleaning mussels

Cleaning the mus­sels for steam­ing in white wine and onions. This is how Frédéric won Misun’s heart.

curled kitty

This is not a small chair made for a kitty. This is a human-sized chair with a large kitty in it.

steamed mussels

 

quatre-quarts

Quatre-quarts is the French ver­sion of pound cake. It means “four quar­ters”, which refer to the por­tions of egg, sugar, flour, and but­ter used. In this ver­sion from the Breton region, noth­ing else is added, which makes it per­fect for spread­ing jam or honey.

feet by the fire

I spent a lot of time doing this.

beef bourguignon

My first taste of authen­tic beef bour­guignon, orig­i­nally a peasant’s dish, slow-cooked with red wine to ten­der­ize the meat. It was SO GOOD. My saliva glands are swelling just from look­ing at the picture.

kouign amann

Kouign-amann is another cake that’s authen­tic to the Breton region. It was tra­di­tion­ally made by flat­ten­ing any left­over dough from cook­ing, adding sugar, then but­ter­ing one side. The dough would then be folded in half, and one side was but­tered again, and this con­tin­ued until it became the shape of a cake. When baked, the sugar caramelizes and makes the cake a mix­ture of crunchy and soft. No won­der the name lit­er­ally means “but­ter cake” in the Breton dialect.

There’s only a some­what mild taste (which is why it goes per­fect with ice cream), but it’s extremely heavy.

cutting sausage

The thing that threw me off about this sausage is that it’s not very salty. The taste is very mild, and mainly fat. The skin was also quite tough.

Skype

Be home soon.

Savage Coast

Before leav­ing, we headed out to La Côte Sauvage (the “Savage Coast”), known for the huge waves that pound the stones on shore. This was by far the most chal­leng­ing shoot­ing con­di­tion I’ve ever been in. The winds whipped any shal­low water into a froth, which meant it was not only impos­si­ble to hold the cam­era steady, but I was fre­quently pelted by large waves of foam. A storm had just moved in, and cov­ered the area in dark clouds, cov­er­ing a lot of impor­tant light. The fine spray from the huge crashes was relent­less, and ended up cov­er­ing all my equip­ment and clothes. I couldn’t change lenses, out of fear that I’d get my sen­sor dirty; it was hard enough clean­ing the water off the glass of my lens.

It was all worth it though. You truly feel like you’re in the mid­dle of untamed nature here, cer­tainly some­thing that isn’t always pos­si­ble to expe­ri­ence even if you live far out in the country.

Côte Sauvage 1

 

Frédéric

Shot inspired by Caspar David Friedrich’s paint­ing, Wanderer above the Sea of Fog.

Côte Sauvage 2

 

standing on the beach

 

The town of Rochefort-en-Terre

The sun was bright and the air was clear for a few hours, and this was the only oppor­tu­nity in three days we had to go out to see the town with­out a tor­ren­tial down­pour ready to soak us in two min­utes. The sleepy lit­tle vil­lage is actu­ally quite an active tourist spot dur­ing the peak peri­ods, famous for it’s crêpes (in this town of six restau­rants, appar­ently five of them a crêt­peries). That’s when the roads are so crowded that they block all traf­fic, but on the off-season it’s very quiet and peaceful.

downtown Rochefort-en-Terre

 

country house

 

Morgane in the rain

Morgane says, “I don’t need a coat. I won’t get sick. Seeeeeeeeee?”

chateau de rochefort en terre

Château de Rochefort-en-Terre

corner store

Christmas lights up already.

sheep

A flock of sheep lit­er­ally across the road from the villa.

side road

 

small church

A chapel on a hill.

statue

Rochefort-en-Terre has been a bat­tle­ground in sev­eral conflicts.

touching seeds

 

old buildings

 

old church

 

rain gutter

A very old rain gut­ter. How rare would some­thing like this be in North America? There were also car­toon­ish faces embed­ded in some of the bricks of a few houses, por­traits of the owner and his wife from long ago.

pastry-wagon

Dear Mr. Proprietor, please wheel your pas­try wagon 20 feet to my house.

Europe 2010 travel diaries