Photo: Relaxing at le week-end with friends, in a nearby town
Our fellow (retired) expat friend Monty called his daughter in California one day to tell her they would be on vacation, and she said, “How can you tell?”
Funny, but it’s a good question in a way. When you’re (mostly) retired and living the good life in France, how do you structure your days so it feels like, well, Life, instead of a big lump of time?
It’s interesting to me that for most every retired person I know here, life still has a ‘week-end’, even though it may not fall on the traditional days. Our weeks are structured like this: Saturday happens to be market day (and café sitting, and lunch…). On Sunday, toute le monde goes to the vide greniers, the village garage sales, to hunt for bargains–not just for fun, by the way, you can find most anything, and really save some money. Wednesday is ‘École Nicole’, our French conversation class at the château. The days in between are left for whatever retirement projects one has chosen to follow, which is often bricolage (handyman stuff), as everyone seems to be doing up an old French farmhouse. For me the pursuits are writing, gardening, travel, and volunteer work.
This schedule does not allow for one important week-end element in our family and maybe yours, a day or a morning my friend Sandi calls “Sacred Sunday”. She’s referring to that one decadent morning of the week when you allow yourself to lollygag about in bed with the Sunday paper, followed by a decadent breakfast, then maybe off to a late morning church service.
Since we’re off early on Sundays to the flea markets, and since church isn’t an option (our village church has two services a year), we’ve decided to designate a week-day morning as Sacred Sunday. Which brings us to the point of this story: breakfast! One of the great pleasures of le week-end anywhere is a leisurely, old-fashioned breakfast.
For us this means a French omelette, bacon for my resident carnivore, fresh fruit, a double expresso and maybe a Mimosa, and some sort of wonderful bread, like homemade biscuits or scones. But it’s got to be easy on the cook, too. So for that I offer up a favorite treat for breakfast or brunch, Cinnamon Rolls Toute de Suite.
Since these are simply a variation on southern biscuits, you can stir these up in a french minute. There’s no yeast or rising time, no kneading.
By the way, these are perfect to serve to company as well. Make them ahead of time, bake them, and throw them in the freezer. When it’s show-time, thaw them and re-heat on a cookie sheet at 300 (150C), glaze them, and you’re done. Betcha can’t eat just two!
RECIPE: Orange Cinnamon Rolls Toute de Suite
Makes a dozen rolls
Preheat oven to 400 (200 C)
- 1 recipe Southern Biscuits (see blog of 12/10/2010)
- ½ cup dark brown sugar
- Cinnamon
- Raisins and/or chopped nuts (optional)
- confectioner's sugar
- zest and juice of one orange
Sprinkle a few drops of water on your counter and put down some plastic wrap, then flour it lightly. Pat the dough into a rectangle, then gently roll it out into a larger rectangle. It should be about 1/2" thick. With your fingers crumble the brown sugar evenly over the dough then pat it in gently. Sprinkle with raisins or nuts if you like. Sprinkle it all liberally with cinnamon. Roll it up, using the plastic wrap to pull it up as you go.
Cut into slices with a sharp knife and gently place on cookie sheet. At this point they will have collapsed into long skinny slices. Not to worry, when they’re in place you can easily smush them around into a circle, and pat them down gently a bit. Bake for 12 -18 minutes, until light golden brown.
Make a glaze by stirring the zest and a little orange juice into confectioner’s sugar. Or for a vanilla glaze, use milk instead, with a touch of vanilla extract.
In the comments this week, and a few from last week: I agree, Caterina, it's a "poor life without pets." Fern says "you can never have too many cat pictures", and here is one more, a cat-in-the-box, sent from gibilly. More cat reads from readers: Kathy recommends the Lilian Jackson Braun cat sleuth series (such as The Cat Who Wasn't There
More Favorite Reads, for le week-end: I've just read a fabulous excerpt from La Seduction: How the French Play the Game of Life
Unless otherwise attributed, all POSTS, PHOTOS and RECIPES on this blog copyright ©2010 Lynn McBride. All Rights Reserved.
12 thoughts on “‘Le Week-end’ in the French Countryside”
I can’t wait to try these cinnamon rolls, Lynn. One thing I miss while in France, however, is going out for breakfast. At home in the States “le week-end” means going out for a big breakfast. It seems impossible to go out for breakfast in France. I see in Dijon that some natives will stop at the boulangerie for breadstuffs and then take that to the salon de thé to eat with morning tea. But I do miss going out for a full breakfast. We have found one large hotel in town that started offering Sunday brunch last year. But its menu is of inconsistent quality each week. If I were ambitious enough (or knowledgeable enough) I’d start a restaurant there that served real American breakfasts in the morning and Mexican food the rest of the day (another thing I miss while in France).
I love the photo, what is the name of the town? The cinnamon rolls look yummy!
Julie, SO true! The French do the ‘continental’ breakfast, but not the big one–like the famous English Breakfast. I think you’d make a fortune if you opened a breakfast restaurant here! A big brunch, however, is catching on in Paris, maybe someday it will make it to the countryside. Which is why we do the big breakfast at home. However, nothing wrong with munching on a brioche at a cafe with the morning cafe au lait—not a bad thing either. For our Mexican fix, we have to drive to Lyon.
And to Eileen: I was afraid someone was going to ask that question! I took the photo a couple of years ago. None of us can remember! I think it was somewhere in the Brionnais, just west of here. We’re going to put our heads together again, as it was a most charming village!
I am soooooooooo there- Lovely living style! Those cinnamon buns look so delicious!
Crazy as this may sound, I prefer a marvelous brunch, right in between breakfast and lunch, perfection. Love the photos Lynn (as usual) and I love your wonderful food. I myself will not be attempting this, BUT maybe my husband who is the original lover of all breads.
Hi Lynn!
These look a little like BoJangle’s BoBerry Biscuits, which are made with blueberries! I’m going to try them…they look yummy! Actually, we ate chocolate chip cookies almost every morning while we were in Paris…they had a bakery just outside our hotel, and the chocolate chip cookies with a glass of milk were to die for…also, we loved the croissants! Both were perfect for “breakfast on the go!” When you are in sightseeing mode, you grab things on the run…never mind the calories!! LOL! Have a great weekend!
Carol Hjort
Maybe a neighboring town has a church ?
Oh, my! When we are on the canal, breakfast is yesterday’s fat cereal grain bread slices (or baguette)fried in butter with a fried egg and melted cheese on top. Then an hour or so down or upstream to the next village. Moor up, walk or bike in to the boulangerie for a croissant and that day’s fresh bread (maybe still warm!). Then to the salon de thé for cafe americaine and to munch. Now that is le week-end EVERY day!
Linda, the system in the countryside is different than we’re used to. So many small villages have churches here, all Romanesque and wonderful, but too small to support a parish. Plus, all Catholic, so there’s a shortage of priests. So they rotate services among the villages. Bigger towns have weekly services of course. The French are not avid church-goers anyway. We’re not Catholic so we go only occasionally. But we can see a church from our bedroom window, so a little evening prayer from the bedroom is easy!
There IS a go-out-for-breakfast option in Aix en Provence, which we treat ourselves to every once in a while – Le Pain Quotidien, where we sit at the long communal table, perusing the journaux while we sip our cafés and slather our croissants and hearty bread with spreads of dark chocolate, apricot, honey, white chocolate, pear butter, and other delights. Eggs are an option too, but I always fill up with the breads and chocolate – decadent!
Speaking of “week ends,” I was very amused by a comment made in the PBS series,”Downton Abbey” by Maggie Smith who played a privileged English dowager. At one point when the family was gathered around the formal dinner table, the grand lady questioned, “what IS a week-end?” She had no idea of the concept because her whole life was one of doing just what she wanted all the time. Come to think of it, that would not be so wonderful. We all need ebb and flow to our days and nothing can replace the wonderful “Friday night feeling.” (if you can remember that, Lynn!) I am closer to retiring now than a year ago but who knows if I will actually do it next year? I adore my job and I would sorely miss the wonderful observations made by 5 year olds.
Here I have to include what one boy, Ricardo, said to me on the first day of school last August. He said, “Ms. Caterina, I know everything!” And…he was not too far off, he has turned out to be very smart. I would not want to miss knowing him for anything! The adventure continues….
Bonjour Lynn,
Ali just sent me the link to your blog and I’ve enjoyed reading several of your stories. I happened
to click on this one in particular and recognized the ex-pats sitting at the table which brought back so many wonderful memories of our trip. I am so grateful for your contribution to my experience. I will look forward to reading your next blog and trying some of your recipes. Connie