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Happy Independence Day, everyone!

Notes to self on traveling to the South of France at the last-minute:
Makes sure that the fly-by-night online company you book your tickets through is actually capable of issuing tickets with less than 48 hours notice;
Don't use a cellphone to call customer service, because the hold times are about 250 minutes;
Make sure that the airline you fly has actually flown to France before;
Smile a lot, because once you finally locate the gypsy queues for the brand-new airline at JFK, your French isn't good enough to explain why you have a reservation but not a ticket;
Bring plenty of cash, because they don't take credit cards;
Make sure your cellphone works, because when the plane lands two hours late and you miss your train, you're going to need it.

Cheryl suddenly decided that because kindergarten for Nico had ended Friday and the summer season hasn't started yet, she had to go to France on Monday to check out the vineyard, farmhouse and town her family will be moving to after Chez Sophie closes in Saratoga in September. In spite of the aforementioned delays and her pitiable French, she got there in one piece. And spent three days toasting in the Mediterranean sun and toasting with the very kind Canadian family who was in residence this week at La Ferme du Vieux Chateau.

Because of the time change and delayed flights and missed trains, she arrived in time for dinner in the courtyard of the 14th-century Ferme du Vieux Chateau Tuesday night, prepared by the family of the president of the Monte Lauro Vineyard project, Michael Belanger. The party was joined by Christian and Corinne, bee farmers who live near La Ferme and who have been instrumental in helping Michael, who lives in Saratoga Springs, get La Ferme ready for visitors.

Cheryl woke up early and decided to take a walk into Montaud, a very small town composed of a bakery, a school and a lot of gorgeous houses hidden behind stucco walls punctuated by huge azaleas and beds of lavender and rosemary. The rest of day was spent moving furniture, cleaning, and assessing the work that needs to be done to add additional guestrooms and build the kitchen and grand salon that Chef Paul will use for cooking classes and wine dinners. The winemaker, Jean-Pierre, came by with the gift of a huge box of apricots from his trees. He has 20 tons of apricots hanging from his branches, but the going wholesale price, about 20 cents a kilo, doesn't make it cost effective to have someone pick them, so there are some very fat happy birds living on Jean-Pierre's land. In spite of the unusually warm day, Cheryl walked up the hill to the ruins of the 10th-century Chateau de Montlaur, where she found a bunch of young Frenchmen, dressed in medieval costumes, taking pictures of each other in the battlements.

Because Paul was sitting at the hospital with a dear friend who was ill, he was late picking up the children at the babysitter's. Because of the six-hour time difference, it was nearly 5 a.m. in France when they called to tell Mommy about their day.
"Daddy was gone for four hours. No six hours. No, eight hours," 6-year-old Nico said. "Anyway, I jumped off the dock."
"I went on my belly in the water and I wasn't scared," 3-year-old Léo added proudly.

Cheryl couldn't go back to sleep, so she started pitting some of Jean-Pierre's apricots, thinking she would make a cobbler, since there was already a good jar of homemade apricot jam in the refrigerator. After she added Christian and Corinne's honey and some lime juice to the fruit, she realized she didn't have most of the ingredients needed to make a cobbler crumble or a pie crust. A couple of hours later, Christian popped by to take the farm's passenger van to a mechanic to have the air-conditioning fixed. (Apparently, there is "an American price" for work and a "French price" because the mistaken idea lingers in the Mediterranean that Americans are all rich. The strength of the Euro against the dollar turned those tables a long time ago, but old stereotypes die hard. Christian kindly runs interference for his neighbors at La Ferme to make sure they have access to the French prices for services.)

After he dropped off the van with the mechanic, Christian came back and took the time out to drive Cheryl a few doors down the road to his gite, which is a French country vacation home rented to tourists for as little as a day and a long as several months. It is luxurious, with beautiful furnishings, high-speed Internet and aswimming pool. Guests coming to visit La Ferme will be able to stay at gites like Christian's, so they can enjoy the activities of the farm and Chateau, and still sleep in luxury while the renovations are in progress. He took her to another gite in the neighborhood and introduced her to the proprietors, noting that his bees were visiting their lavender.

An hour later, Cheryl mastered her fear of the high-speed French roundabout and drove a borrowed an old Opel hatchback (the kind with a choke that you have to pull out to start) into some neighboring towns. She visited the village school that Nico and Léo will most likely be attending (and cried a little bit in the principal's office out of her sheer terror that the children will have trouble adjusting to this very different new life.) The principal, whose English is as halting as Cheryl's French, seemed a bit surprised that she would have students who don't speak French in her very small school. But she was kind, and tried to communicate to the shaky Mom that once immersed in the culture, the children would learn French far faster than their mother, who had spent the last few days realizing exactly how inadequate her own education has been.

Things we learned about French supermarkets:
Meat is incredibly expensive.
Milk comes in aseptic packages, not chilled bottles and cartons.
Sticky brown cane sugar is not a commonly used item in the south of France. But you can make something like it with demerara sugar and maple syrup.
Baking powder comes in nearly unrecognizeable little packets, not cans.
Even though Jean-Pierre can only get about 10 cents a kilo for his fabulous apricots, they charge about $4.50 a kilo for them in supermarkets.
Finally, if you flood the engine of a car because you choked it too vigorously, don't sit there with the hood up and run the battery down jiggling the starter. Get out and clumsily try to push start it yourself, and a strapping young French man will come over and tell you in sign language what you are doing wrong.
Later that night, as we were enjoying apricot cobbler and a gorgeous sunset over the valley between the farm and Pic St. Loup, Christian was melancholy for Corinne, who was still resting n the hospital after surgery. (They don't really do the outpatient thing in France.)
"This show," he said waving an arm toward the horizon. "When you are sad it make you more sad. When you are glad it make more of that too. It makes everything in your heart more."

Weekend Brunch
Our brunch Saturday and Sunday, July 4 and 5, will feature smoked beef brisket ($14); seafood kabob ($16); Cornish game hen with apricot barbecue sauce ($14); and barbecue spareibs ($14).
Appetizer specials include oysters on the halfshell ($3 a piece); Rhode Island Littleneck clams steamed in white wine, garlic and herbs ($13); a salad of mixed baby greens tossed in a red wine vinaigrette ($7); crabcake with lemon caper mayonnaise ($16) and soup of the day ($8).

The brunch specials run from 10:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. The complete menu, offered from 7 to 2 p.m., includes Continental items such as muffins, bagel, pastries, fruit, yogurt, frittata, coffee and juice; omelettes ($13 to $15); pancakes du jour ($12); the All in One, which includes 2 eggs any style, homefries, toast and sausage or bacon ($12); waffles with bacon or sausage, sweet cream butter and local maple syrup ($11); and Irish steel-cut oatmeal ($8).

Steak Tartare alert
For those of you who ask for Paul's steak tartare on a regular basis, you will not be denied this week. Paul is getting in some beautiful Prime filet mignon and will make tartare as an appetizer, served with melted foie gras terrine and sauce Bordelaise.
He's also getting red snapper, to be served roasted, with cherry tomatoes and cilantro and a drizzle of tamarind. More Alaskan Copper River Sockeye salmon is also expected. Paul didn't know Thursday night what he'd do with it, but he promised to be inventive.

Look for the discount wines
In an effort to reduce our wine cellar before we close on September 30, we printed the first list of discounted wines this week. Right now, the discounts are largely focussed on the very high-end wines on our list that haven't been moving with regularity through the recession, and a few moderately priced wines that we have large quantities of that should be drunk this year. Each time we reprint the wine list this summer, we'll add a few more discounts. As we slash and reduce, there will occasionally be wines on the list that we run out of between printings, so please be patient with us.

Cole in the House
Jazz composer Cole Broderick plays the baby grand piano from 10:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday during brunch and on Tuesday and Friday nights (barring special events that preclude live music.) He also comes in on nights he is not normally scheduled, such as Thursdays and Saturday nights, if he feels like it, and is available to play for special events at Chez Sophie for an additional fee.
Slated for release in late fall, Broderick’s forthcoming eighth CD will feature original solo piano arrangements of such Beatles’ hits as Can’t Buy Me Love, Come Together, Eleanor Rigby, In My Life, Love Me Do, Penny Lane, and Ticket To Ride. A ninth CD featuring additional solo piano arrangements of some of Broderick’s all-time favorite hits by The Beatles will be released in 2009. Cole, who won a Billboard Critic's Choice Award for his 4-CD set of jazz compositions: "Seasons in Saratoga," recently released his seventh CD "Chez Sophie Jazz." Some of the cuts of the CD can be heard at http://www.chezsophie.com/.
Copies are for sale for $16 at Chez Sophie and through Cole's secure PayPal-friendly website at http://www.colebroderick.com/sound-7.htm
You can also mail-order the CD's for an additional $4 shipping and handling. (Cole is available to play special events on piano or electric keyboard both at Chez Sophie and other venues, if you like his style.)

Artist-in-residence Joseph C. Parker
Sculptor and Chez Sophie founder Joseph C. Parker has made posters based on the postcards he used to make when we were at the diner. Six of the 16X24 posters are now on display on the back wall of the private dining room and he has brought in signed copies on glossy archival paper to sell to souvenir-loving customers.
http://www.chezsophie.com/postcards.html

Tasting Menus
The Chef's Choice seven-course tasting menu is available each night. The menus are designed based on the best and most creative dishes Chef Paul K. Parker is serving each evening. We will pair wines for you at an additional charge or you can order from our extensive wine list.
Cost: $85 to $200 per person for seven or more courses, plus tax and tip. Everyone at the table must partake in the tasting menu.
If you're feeling less impromptu, you can call ahead to arrange a special tasting menu with the number of courses and wine pairings designed to suit your capacity, dietary restrictions and budget.
Tasting menus arranged in advance will be printed on commemorative vellum scrolls personalized with the name of the host or the reason for the event.

Chez Sophie closing in Saratoga, September 30
So many people have asked questions about how they can be hosted by the Parkers when they move to the south of France this fall that that we thought we'd include a brief outline of the micro-lease concept here:

A three-year micro-lease for a single person or a couple is $2,897, with discounts for people signing up as groups, families or for business retreats.

The benefits include a case of wine a year for three years, made from your own vines and labeled with your own design; a bonus case of 2007 Monte Lauro Vineyards "Marquis de Montlaur" Fût de Chêne for the first 1,000 charter members; membership in perpetuity to the Friends of Montlaur; the chance to participate in the restoration of the Chateau de Montlaur, the harvesting and tending of the grapes, the making of the wine, and other daily activities at the farm and Chateau; substantial discounts on accommodations for the three active years of the lease at la Ferme de Vieux Chateau, surrounding B&Bs and delightful gypsy caravans on the property; similar discounts with partner vineyards around the world, as they are negotiated; access to walking, biking and equestrian trails and quick drives to Mediterranean beaches; substantial discounts on participation in regional wine dinners in the United States; rights to purchase one-year gift memberships; referral bonuses; substantial discounts on the purchase of additional wines from the vineyard and substantial discounts on the activities of Monte Lauro Vineyards, such as wine tastings, wine blending courses, cooking classes, dinners, art courses, concerts, writing courses, vineyard management courses, archaeological courses and activities and local and regional tours.

After the lease expires, you may choose to renew at the same rate as your recently expired lease, or become an inactive member of the Friends of Montlaur, entitling you in perpetuity to continue visiting and participating in the activities of the estate.

The brochures and website for the project are under reconstruction, but here are some of the documents we are currently using which have pertinent information (and very pretty pictures). The first link lays out the savings for members who choose to travel to Montaud for a week.

http://www.experience-wine.com/images/Monte%20Lauro%20Flyer%20v1PDF.pdf

http://www.experience-wine.com/images/Referral%20Program%20Brochure%20PDF.pdf

http://www.experience-wine.com/products.html
http://montelauroupdates.blogspot.com/

Notes on Nico and Léo:
It's hard for Cheryl to write about our beautiful offspring today, because she hasn't seen them since Monday morning. She has been thinking about them constantly, staking out the room in the farmhouse where they will be sleeping and the room where they will keep their toys, visiting the school they will attend in France this winter and trying to figure out how to deal with their American obsessions for peanut butter and Ovaltine in a region that doesn't have a lot of cows.

Mommy's almost ready to leave France, my darlings. Sleep well tonight, and I'll kiss you in your dreams. By the way, Happy Anniversary, Paul. I'll be home sometime in the wee hours.

Boulanger selling baguettes from the back of his truck in Montaud.	Ruins of the castle
Nico and Leo's new school.

The Parker family
at Chez Sophie
518.583.3538

Chez Sophie was founded in 1969 by sculptor Joseph Parker and his  French-born wife, the late Sophie. The business is owned today by Sophie and Joseph's son, Paul Parker, and his wife, Cheryl Clark.

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