A la bolognaise

It’s incredible what a difference a year makes.

A year ago, I was in Paziols, but the similarities end there.

A year ago, Alex and I weren’t together. A year ago, I was still in school. A year ago, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life.

Well… I guess I still don’t. But I’m working on it. I’m not in a hurry.

That’s what the South does to you: something I had forgotten since I knew it so well a year ago, when so much of my time was still spent back and forth on the train to Cannes for weekends at the beach and nights out in my favorite Irish pub–a pub so incredible with staff that were such good friends that I thought nothing of riding the train five hours just to be able to sit at the bar and have a pint.

But I’m not in Cannes, or even in Provence. I am in the South–in Paziols. Third time’s the charm, or so they say, but everything about my life in Paziols–the three summers I’ve spent living in this old house and watching it change and evolve before my eyes–has been charming: the third year is just that… one more year of being here, in what Anne-Marie has always told us to call our “home” in France.

And it does feel like a home–after so long of not having one, I had forgotten what it feels like to be so completely right in a place: not just in an apartment, like in Paris, or in a town you know like the back of your hand, like our summer house in Westhampton, but a place that has everything: a town, a house, a built-in family.

I do the cooking here now that Patricia is gone, and that makes this feel even more like my house, as I put together menus and call on the kids as though they were my own siblings to help me wash vegetables and chop tomatoes and carry platters laden with salads and potatoes and meat to the table where the rest of them sit waiting. It’s nothing like any camp experience I had when growing up: they all know, even after having been here for less than 48 hours, that we’re a family, that this is their home too.

A year ago, it wasn’t like this–not really. It may have been because it was still so new for all of us, even the staff. It may have been because the group we have this year is chomping at the bit to be let out into the green pastures of vines that sprawl on all sides, to ask constantly, “Comment dit-on…” How do you say…

How do you say what it is I want to say? Even I don’t know, and I’ve been mulling it over for days as I sleep beneath an opened window and listen to crickets chirp and wait for the midnight crow of the rooster who’s either confused or running on his own schedule, as the South tends to do.

They love it. I can tell they do. I could tell from the moment I listened in on their conversation at the airport–three girls who had never met before, talking about how great it would be when they were fluent. They reminded me of myself, and that, in and of itself, made me smile.

I don’t know why this is so different from what it was a year ago. A year ago, none of this was real for me, but this year, it couldn’t be more real.

Spaghetti à la bolognaise (serves 20)

2 Tbsp. butter
2 Tbsp. olive oil
2 onions
2 carrots
2 stalks of celery
200 g. lardons
1.8 kilo ground beef
430 g. tomato coulis
765 g. canned whole tomatoes
1 glass wine
2 cups milk

Mince the carrots, onion and celery. Melt the oil and butter together in a skillet and slowly cook the vegetables over medium heat until tender. Season generously with salt.

Push the vegetables to the side and add the lardons. Cook until golden.

Pull the vegetables back into the middle of the skillet and mix with the lardons. Push the mixture back to the sides of the slillet and add the meat in small amounts, browning well before pushing it to the side as well.

Prepare a large stock pot with a lid. When the skillet grows too full, scoop the vegetables and meat out with a slotted spoon and keep warm in the stock pot. Continue frying the meat in the skillet and transferring it, as need be, to the pot. When all the meat is cooked, remove the skillet from the heat and place the stock pot over a low flame.

Add the wine and the milk, and bring to a boil. Add the tomatoes and mix to combine. Reduce the flame back to low and cover. Cook for 2-4 hours, stirring occasionally. Season with more salt as needed and serve with spaghetti. Keeps well in the fridge to serve hungry campers for lunch.