Skiing

I choose to learn cross-country skiing rather than Alpine skiing because it is a peaceful, solitary (or intimate) activity, much more my style than Alpine skiing, which involves icy slopes crowded with ski jocks and countless trips on ski lifts. XC turned out to be a good choice. The exertion kept us warm and sweaty while the Alpine skiers complained constantly of the unusually cold weather. And it gave me an appetite for cheese like you wouldn't believe.

Cross-country skiing looks pretty easy. At least it did before my first full-fledged day through the woods on a hill-filled path. Technique and stamina are necessary. Going up a hill involves turning your toes out, bracing the ski with interior foot pressure, and stepping up the hill like a two-limbed crab. Going down a hill with skinny long skis involves every muscle in your lower body. I knew I was improving when descending a long hill didn't result in a lose of control and the inevitable crash into the snow bank. (Click here for a video of me going down a hill... and falling to the ground).

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My personal cross-country skiing instructor, relaxing while I catch up. Normally, I was the one laying in the snow.

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I only look like I know what I'm doing.

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A Trip to the Cheese Factory

We took a morning off from skiing to tour a local farm that produces Beaufort, a regional hard cheese commonly used in fondue (here for info). The tour was entirely in French, so I missed a lot, but the whole experience brought new meaning to the word "authentic." The sanitary standards would be scandalous in America: Un-pasteurized cheese being manufactured in a factory where the workers go from shoveling manure to palming cheese and there are roaming herding dogs and tour groups drinking wine and sniffing everything.

First we were lead into a cow-filled barn. The stench was nearly unbearable. The cows live indoors except in the summer, when they are taken high into the mountains to graze on the magical grass that gives Beaufort cheese its unique flavor. (Click here for a rather uneventful video of the cows).

Then we were taken to the kitchen, where a huge vat churned a vortex of pungent cheese batter. (Click here for a video.) We watched the workers and ate some Beaufort with wine. Then, all hell broke loose when the machine that makes cream malfunctioned. The hose that drains milky water refused to stay connected; several times it popped off the machine and sprayed our unwitting tour group with the substance. It drained all over the floor and filled the room with thick steam. Delightful, messy chaos. Here are some videos of madness in the cheese factory. This one shows the hose disconnecting for the third time - the pretty French woman on the right is the tour guide. This one shows the flooding.

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The giver of cheese: A cow with a noble if not boring existence.

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Calculating how many months the wall of cheese would last.

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Wine! I mean, cheese!

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New Year's: Bon Année

New Years's Eve: Pictured at right is me with my boyfriend's sister and her Scottish boyfriend. We dined nightly with them and his two young English daughters. Since the Brits didn't speak French, we were often in conversation by default.

"Have you ever seen Britney Spears?" the 11-year old asked me one night. "No, I think she lives in Hollywood," I said. "Don't you wish you lived in Hollywood?" she asked me, her blue eyes shining wistfully. Having drunk a lot of wine, I was hankering for a good diatribe, and proceeded to rant about the West Coast's inferior developmental density and general vapid attitude. The 11-year old stared at me as I digressed into general fury about the American willingness to iconicize the crap that Hollywood peddles. When I stopped, she said "I like your earrings. They're pretty."

My pathetic command of canned French pleasantries was hardly adequate preparation for total French domestic immersion. My bon jours lacked the warm melody that the French effortlessly injest into their greeting; I sounded surly and dismissive. Once, when refusing foie gras-smeared bread for the fifth time (after having accepted five times), I said "No merci" and everyone laughed. And for a solid week I thanked my boyfriend's mother for her unforgettable lunches and dinner by saying "Merci pour le bon repas." When we treated them to lunch at the end of the week, she said to me in halting English "Thanks for the good meal," which I recognized as a direct translation of what I'd been saying to her all week. It hardly seemed adequate to express gratitude for the elaborate meals she prepared, which deserved lyrical and affectionate praise.

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New Year's Eve: We ate and drank for 5 hours in three neighboring condos with a group of family friends. The three-hour dinner was cold salmon slices with lemon, roasted guinea fowl, sliced potatoes in cream, a particularly lavish cheese course, and slices of pastry cake.

Pictured at the right is one of the two dinner tables; I sat at the other table (the so-called "kids" table were the ages ranged from 6 to 37), where most everyone could speak English at some level.

A bowl of grease from the roasting pan was placed in front of me, and I asked half-seriously "Should I pass the fat?" This delighted the two college-aged French girls seated next to me. One took the bowl and offered it to the other, saying "Would you like the fat?"

There was no singing at midnight, except when I convinced my boyfriend and the Scotsman to sing "Auld Lang Syne," which no one else seemed to know the words to. Of course, we were too busy cheek-kissing each other and gulping fine French champagne to worry about singing.

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On New Year's Eve, late afternoon, we walked to the village and passed the two English girls with whom we dined nightly. They were putting the finishing touches on the obese snowman on the right, and proclaimed it with great mirth to be a sculpture of my companion.

After having coffee and watching 50 ski instructors descend the ski slope with torches before the fireworks commenced, we walked back to our room. We noted the appearance of the snowman on the left, who we correctly guessed to be a rendering of me. "Aren't you glad we made you thinner?" they asked me.

Actually, yes. For a week, I embraced the French paradox, and engaged in non-stop cheese-eating and wine-drinking along with two desserts a day, and managed to remain the same weight. Of course, cross-country skiing in the Alps will give an appetite real cause.

Every morning I walked to the bakery for fresh baguette, which I proudly asked for in French ("Je voudrais un baguette, s'il vous plait"). There is nothing more pleasurable than baguette smeared with butter and jam and a cup of coffee, but I am compelled to report that this baguette ritual is nothing more than a racket by the French bakers, who sell bread that dries out into a skeletal inedible stick of flour after a few hours. So even if you have some left over from the day before, you still have to go get a fresh loaf. In America, the bread lasts two weeks.

Other culinary highlights included savory crepes stuffed with cheese and topped with a barely-fried egg, roasted pheasant on Christmas night, and raclette, in which a half-wheel of cheese is heated under a special lamp and the melted top is periodically scrapped onto a plate and handed to a diner to be eaten with potatoes, ham, and pickled vegetables.

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Scenery

View from the hotel in Montchavin-Les Coches: The sunrise of a perfect skiing day.

The view from above the clouds.

A valley stream in Peisey-Vallandry - perfect picture except for electrical line running across. Note this is a color picture.

The same valley stream, Peisey-Vallandry.

The Nordic Ski area of Peisey-Vallandry (here)

From the Ski de Fond path of La Plagne (here)