FRENCH WORD-A-DAY

"Bird on a French Limb" (c) Kristin Espinasse. I hope the folks over at Cinema Verite don't mind my sharing this photo. I will make it up to them this year—just as soon as we are completely "un-snow-bound"... and I can get out to the local villages and photograph the French towns!
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    : disadvantaged

Update: in case you missed it—I posted a cooking video yesterday... co-starring Smokey! See it in the story column, here or at Youtube. Some of you asked what kind of video camera I use: the ultraHD camcorder, "Flip" -- I love it!
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Yesterday flew by and thank goodness for that—for we worked dehors, beside the snow, bundled behind gloves, coats and, for some, a woolen hat!

                         (bottles to be filled with Domaine Rouge-Bleu rosé...)

We were busy with another wine bottling, or mise-en-bouteilles and, what with friends here to help, we hardly felt the pain as the day whittled itself away.

                                                          Cathy and me.

Busy packing boxes with rosé wine for exportation, we might have finished in half the time... were it not for the electrical situation...

Our farm being the last on the electricity line... we had to make do with what was left of the village "juice". What with all the other freezing farmhouses ahead of ours, and snowbound families trying to keep warm inside, electric consumption was up... as extra heaters got turned on and coffee pot percolated for yet another soothing cup.

And so it was that machine power out there in the snow was stop and go—this, when it wasn't excruciatingly slow!

"Oh, a cup of coffee... wouldn't that be nice?" I entreated my husband who replied "no dice!"

       Jean-Marc--scheduling, programing, orchestrating this wine bottling

There was no question of firing up so much as a 900 watt coffee pot, not when we needed all available electricity for our bottling machines... where juices—both electric or grape—were a precious commodity... unlike cappuccino. Of this there'd be no debate!

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Steve

Ian helped us at the vineyard before heading home to Vienna.

French Vocabulary and Audio File :
Note: our Francophone kids are at school and my French husband is bottling wine again today... so you are stuck with my reading these French words of the day! Listen in Download Wav or Download MP3

Étant la dernière ferme sur la ligne d'éléctricité... on était bien défavorisé!
Being the last farm on the electricity line... we were truly disadvantaged!

défavorisé = disadvantaged
dehors =  outside
la mise-en-bouteille (f) = bottling

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La Bonne Cuisine de Madame E. Saint-Ange: The Original Companion for French Home Cooking.