Quinoa, Peach, Balsamic Chicken, Chickpeas, Feta

I went home this summer.

I also went to New York, where I was born, but that’s not what I mean.

It’s hard, sometimes, as someone without roots, as someone who has uprooted themselves and been uprooted so many times, to know what home means. So many times I’ve thought I knew, only to realize once that home disappears and the sense of home remains that maybe that wasn’t home after all.

When I talk about home, here, now, about going home, I mean Paziols. And yes, experience lends me to believe that some day, this concept of home will change, that I’ll have a new concept of home, some other idea.

But as we trundled up the road to that familiar house on that familiar road, as I opened the window just a crack and let the sound of cicadas transform from surprising to white noise to the rhythm of everything once again, I couldn’t imagine how it could ever be different. How this piece of the South of France with its dry, grassy air and its stark blue skies and its odd, ominous winds over the Pyrenees could ever feel like anything but home. For years, now, departures from Paziols have been bittersweet. “Maybe this is my last year,” I think to myself, every year. Maybe. But it never is. With each summer comes the promise of one more trip down south, to the town that no one has ever heard of, no one but us. Maybe that makes it sweeter; I never think about that when I’m there. This was the first year I went to Paziols without the promise of 20-some-odd charges running back and forth along the empty road towards the river. The first year that dinner was cooked for six and not for 36. The first year that when we said to ourselves, “Should we go down to the river for a swim?” I could actually come. It was slow, languorously slow. It scared me, but it shouldn’t have. I’m the sort of person who needs something to do every minute of every day, a purpose driving me towards the end of the afternoon. And yet in Paziols, for seven days, I had nothing to do but be, and I loved every moment of it. It is strange, as a city girl, born and raised, to know that in August I can pick the black grapes on the side of the road and bite through their thick skins to explosions of sweet purple juice. To know where the blackberry brambles are, and how to tell which almonds are bitter and which are sweet. It’s strange to be able to intuit how to get to the waterfall hidden behind hills and trees, along unfamiliar paths that all wind and twist together behind rows of savage grapevines, when I can hardly navigate my way around Paris most days. The countryside does something different to me, and I love who I am when I’m there. I love what Paziols turns me into. I’ll admit, some moments I looked up, half expecting to see gaggles of little heads, to say, “Ferme bien la porte !” when I heard footsteps coming up the stairs. But most of the time, the new pace felt entirely natural, as though this was what Paziols was always meant to be. As though it had been waiting for me to discover it in this way, to discover what it was to stumble upon a fresh fig tree and know, instinctively, what a ripe fig looked like, even though the Country Boy, who grew up picking fruit off trees, didn’t.   We walked — early in the morning, late in the afternoon. We went on adventures to places we’d been and places we never had. We lazed by the side of the river, reading books and letting minnows nibble at the dead skin on our toes. We took the car to drive to places that used to be an hour’s walk, and we walked in places that we’d never given ourselves the time to get to know. I swam in the river, and I didn’t worry about anyone drowning. Leaving was just as hard as it always is, harder, maybe. I allow myself to get carried away, sometimes, by endings. It’s just so hard to say goodbye, especially when you don’t know when your next hello is. And while I know that goodbye in Paziols nearly always feels like this, it doesn’t make it any easier to say goodbye. I can logic my way out of pretty much every emotion, but goodbye is one that I just can’t.   So goodbye to these views of rolling hills and mountains, of grapevines and platane trees and old stone houses that are barely big enough for one. Goodbye to hidden waterfalls, to moss-covered riverbeds, to excursions in search of a view and stumbling upon one you weren’t looking for.     Hello and goodbye to the Pic de Bugarach; we attempted an ascent and never made it high enough, but I still feel that I got close enough to understand, maybe, why when the world thought it was ending on the 21st of December, it was never going to end here. Goodbye to Queribus, a crumbling chateau on a mountain peak that has become an old friend.

Goodbye to a million beautiful views, every way you turn.  

A bientôt. A l’année prochaine, j’espère. Until then.

Quinoa, Peach, Balsamic Chicken, Chickpeas, Feta

Serves 2

2 chicken breasts
3 Tbsp. balsamic vinegar
1/2 cup quinoa (I used a red quinoa and bulgur blend)
1 Tbsp. olive oil, divided
1 Tbsp. red wine vinegar
1 16 ounce can chickpeas
1 peach
2 ounces feta
10 basil leaves

Place the chicken breasts in a dish. Cover with the balsamic vinegar. Allow to marinate while you cook the quinoa, turning every few minutes.

Cook the quinoa according to package directions. When cooked, toss with 2 tsp. of the olive oil and the red wine vinegar. Cover and set in the fridge to cool slightly.

Heat the remaining olive oil over medium heat. Add the chicken breasts, reserving the remaining balsamic vinegar. Cook for about 5 minutes per side, until cooked through. Remove the chicken from the pan and set aside to cool. Remove the pan from the heat and drizzle in the remaining marinade. Allow to reduce in the residual heat, then set aside.

Cut the peach into slices. Cut the basil into a chiffonade. Drain and rinse the chickpeas. Crumble the feta.

Remove the quinoa mixture from the fridge. It should be slightly warm but no longer hot. Add the chickpeas, peach slices, basil chiffonade and crumbled feta. Toss to combine.

Cube the chicken and return to the pan of balsamic reduction. Coat the chicken cubes with the reduction. Add the chicken to the quinoa mixture and toss lightly to combine.

Serve.