Leaving the château one day this past fall, I decided to detour by the potager and have a look at the progress of the autumn garden.
The day was hazy amber, and the only sounds were the bees, distant birdsong, and the crunch of my own shoes on the gravel. The absolute quiet and stillness is one of the charms of Balleure.
As I left the garden, I noticed the gate: definitely a handmade affair, decades old, the wooden slats honed to pale gray by wind and weather, with deep ridges like the forehead of an old farmer. It is attached to a low wall of local stone, no doubt built by Pierre’s grandfather. Instead of a latch, there is a simple system. A rusty hand-forged nail protrudes from the wall, and there is a well-worn niche in the edge of gate. The trick to opening it: one lifts the gate ever so slightly, and it swings open.
Just for an instant my heart swells.
I cannot say why this ordinary moment touches me so. Perhaps it’s the clever solution: a catch for a gate, fashioned from a single old nail. So characteristic of the French mentality in the countryside, where the concept of recycling and ‘going green’ has been a part of the fabric of life for centuries.
Perhaps it’s my passion for patina: old wood and stone, over which much weather and many hands have passed through the years, rendering them worn and beaten and beautiful.
Perhaps it’s the contrast: I’m a girl who grew up in an American suburb, where a garden gate was likely to be made of synthetic wood (Looks just like real wood! Never weathers! Choice of 10 colors with a factory baked finish that never needs painting!) and it no doubt would include a latch made of cheap metal, painted a shiny black.
Or perhaps it’s just that sudden flash of belonging, knowing a place well enough to have mastered the trick of jiggling a lock to this barn door or that, or the little lift of a gate to enter the garden. Many hands have passed over that time-smoothed gate, and one of them was mine.
RECIPE: Vegetable soup with French Butter Pesto 
Since we’re talking fall gardens, and it’s soup season, here is a soup that's wholesome and hearty– but it’s the pesto that makes it sing. You can add cooked turkey, chicken, or pork, if you like; just add with the last round of ingredients.
Serves 10
- Olive oil
- 1 large Onion, chopped
- 2 Garlic cloves, chopped
- 1 large can tomatoes, with their juice (28 oz., 800 gr)
- Chicken or vegetable broth, (homemade, canned, or from bouillon)
- White wine
- Bay leaf
- 1 stalk Celery, chopped
- 2 Leeks, white part only, washed and sliced crosswise
- about 3 large Carrots, sliced
- a generous handful of French Green beans, trimmed and halved crosswise
- 2 small yellow squash or a small zucchini, sliced
- 1 large can white beans, drained
- Juice of a small lemon
For the pesto:
- A stick of butter at room temperature
- 2 garlic cloves, pressed
- ½ cup finely grated fresh parmesan
- 1 teaspoon dried herbes de Provence
Make soup: Sauté the onion and celery in the olive oil for about 8 minutes. Add the garlic and sauté for another minute. Add the can of tomatoes, then fill can twice with broth and add to soup. Add ½ soup can of wine. Add bay leaf. Bring to boil then reduce to low simmer and cover. Simmer 30 minutes, then add carrots. Simmer 10 minutes and add leeks. Simmer until carrots are just tender, then add green beans, squash, white beans, lemon juice, and meat if using. Simmer 10 minutes, or until vegetables are tender. Float a fat dollop of pesto on top of each bowl and serve.
Make pesto: add all ingredients to a bowl and mash together well with a fork. Chill.
Did you miss last our guest post last week at Kristin Espinasse's French Word a Day? Click on the link to find it. And see our new sidebar, Favorite Reads, with books on all things French and more. You'll find Kristin's fabulous book right at the top, by the way.
Highlights from the Comments this week: Merci for all the new year wishes! New reader Judi is another village-dweller in France. And a little French practice for you from Frances, a French teacher in Georgia! Plus recipes, always welcome: leeks from Claudia and sour cream biscuits from Suzanne. Debbie shares a little remembrance of her Granny. And Cindy, I can't complain, the man does DISHES!
Unless otherwise attributed, all POSTS, PHOTOS and RECIPES on this blog copyright ©2010 Lynn McBride. All Rights Reserved.
16 thoughts on “Reflections on a French Garden Gate”
Dear Lynn,
First I must say how much I enjoy your newsletter, and look forward to a new recipe each week. I love Burgundy, which my husband and I have visited many times while living in Geneva for nearly ten years. We are now retired in the Triangle Area of North Carolina, and will return to Burgundy for a six-week stay in the spring/summer. We rented a house in Chateauneuf-en-Auxois, and look forward to a visit to Chateau Balleure and its surroundings. We are looking for a small house or an apartment we could rent to go and spend our summers in that beautiful area.
Best wishes,
Colette
Fearrington Village, N.C.
Yippee! (What’s the French word for that?) I needed a great, heartwarming soup for an Earth2 wedding client visit this weekend, and you’ve given me just what I needed. Thanks, Lynn!
Hi Colette, welcome and thanks for the nice comment. Nicole and Pierre have started something new: they are taking in vistitors at the chateau (with optional language lessons. Of course I can highly recommend it! Go to http://www.lessaveursduchateau.fr/index.html.
You are pure and simply a beautiful writer
Merci Lynn pour la recette. It is cold here in Sonoma, CA and your vegetable soup sounds perfect — I will make it this weekend. I found your blog from Kristin Espinasse’s blog and am really enjoying it.
Hi my friend, I always look forward to your posts. I, like you, love those ordinary moments of simplistic magic. They’re the best. My husband often told me “I like the way you think”.
Homemade vegetable soup is one of my favorites to make and eat, and it never has to be the same way twice ! Wishing you and yours a wonderful and Happy New Year !
Greetings from Napa Valley! I, too, found your blog from Kristin Espinasse! thank you for the recipe…I have been thinking about a nice vegetable soup recipe over the past few days.
Cheers to Barbara in Sonoma.
I’ll put my blog site below, but haven’t blogged for months! too busy with new job.
You captured beautifully how I, too, feel in France and what I love about it: the sense of being a small part of something timeless. Thank you for la nostalgie. I’ve got this little nugget of warmth that I’ll carry with me all day, a heart-warming quilt of memories from my times in France.
Je vous remercie.
Hi Lynn, from Prescott, AZ. I enjoy reading your blogs about life in France, and ask my wife to try out your yummy recipes. Thanks for sharing with us. This past August my wife and I spent a month in France, touring on two small river ships. We flew in to Paris, bussed to Normandy, got on a fiver ship and slowly cruised back to Paris. Spent time there touring, got on another smaller river ship and cruised to Nice on the southern coast. What an enjoyable trip. We would stop at villages along the way, take a tour and enjoy the local fare. The food onboard ship was wonderful, and wine was served with lunch and dinner. We traveled with Grand Circle Travel, who owns the ships, and are an excellent tour company. I wrote a brief blog of our trip, which can be read here: http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/SlimJim/ .
Keep on blogging, Lynn, and continue to enjoy your wonderful life in France and thanks again for sharing it with us, even if only vicariously…..Jim Hamm
Lynn,
I am a professional artist and have a home base in the western mountains of North Carolina. Highlands/Cashiers, which you may know being from the near coastal area!
I spend three months a year mentoring workshops in the Perigord Vert area of France, in a small village named Villars close to Brantome. Discovering your blog has been such a pleasure and I have thoroughly identified with all your news, recipes and delightful stories. Indeed it is probably the best I have read!
I am presenting a total immersion French weekend at the Old Edwards Inn in Highlands later this month and will share your site with all! Please visit their web site http://www.oldedwardsinn.com to see what is going on in this area!! My web site is http://www.janesmithers.com
Congratulations and best wishes for a Bonne Annee!!!
From my mother, Mickey:
Well, I have always had a “thing” about gates. When you and Peggy were little and we used to go to Jefferson in thecountry…there was always a discussion about who was gonna open the big farm gate for the car…Then you’d put your foot on the bottom rung and ride the gate to close it.
The gate next door has a 3″ frame on it and Cat gets on there and sleeps in the sun and Cat is over 3″ wide but he is perfectly relaxed and hanging over the side.
All gates have a different personality…my neighbor used to have a squeeky gate and I could always tell when she went out. The gate next door also has a trick…You have to push on the top and pull on the bottom to get it open. I like gates.
Lynn, I just love your “Reflections on a French Garden Gate.” I too am intrigued with old gates, and have had your feeling of wonder at how many other hands have opened and closed them. Old houses have an ambience that new spaces cannot approach, simply because of their history. I live in a house built in 1900, and there is a gate in the back yard that leads to a small courtyard. It is black iron, a rounded gate, with knobs to open and close – almost like French doors. I’ve always loved that gate, and like it to be open so that I can imagine who has come and gone.
I like that–imagining whos come and gone. I do that too.
Hi Barbara,
Sonoma sounds pretty wonderful, its cold and gray here today! Im glad you like the blog, please stay in touch.
Lynn
Having grown up in a house in New England that was 150 years old at one end and 250 years old at another, I love old wood, whether it’s a gate, a door or a floor (I love creaky old floors). I too wonder who’s passed through these doors or over these boards.
I thoroughly enjoy your blog, your writing and your recipes. As a friend said to me recently, “It’s good to be you”, and I do think it’s good to be you Lynn, and you seem to appreciate and savor all of your surroundings.
Bonne Année!
I’m late reading this post but I wanted to comment anyway because I love gates so much myself. When I travel I’m always taking photos of them. I particularly love garden gates. Out past Dijon city limits, by Lac Kir, is a large expanse of land filled with wonderful, old, unique garden gates. Residents of the dense city own small parcels of land for gardening. They pass them down through the generations. These garden parcels have both simple and elaborate fences/gates, they now sport cabanons and picnic tables and small RVs as the owners leave the heat of the city in the summer for weekends of rough camping and swimming at the lake. It’s a photographer’s dream.