Ham & Brie Sandwich, Houses & Homes

By Amy

Gamache pulled up a chair, grabbed a baguette filled with thick sliced maple cured ham, brie and arugula and took a beer.

I had a really hard time choosing what to make this week. Quite a bit of coffee, tea, and café au lait is drunk in Bury Your Dead and The Nature of the Beast… and I seem to be gravitating towards those lately. I didn’t think it would be fair to go back to making coffee and tea since I’m already moved in and have a functional kitchen. I’m not sure I’d be forgiven for that at this point.

I ended up choosing a sandwich.

I rarely buy ham. Hardly ever, really. I love brie, though. I love arugula… although I ended up using baby spinach instead. It was a delicious sandwich, written after visiting a new friend in her delightful house.

“I’m just over at Augustin Reunaud’s home.” He hesitated. “You wouldn’t want to come, would you? It’s not far from where you are.”
“I’d love to see it.”
“Bring your reading glasses and a sandwich. And a couple of beers.”
[…]… pausing to check the address he’d been given, unconvinced he had it right.But no. there it was. 9 ¾ rue Ste-Ursule. He shook his head. 9 ¾.
It would figure that Augustin Renaud would live there. He lived a marginal life, why not in a fractional home?

That is one of my absolute FAVORITE lines in the books. Marginal life. Fractional home. Isn`t that a brilliant piece of writing?

Houses have personalities.

Some are very authentic and unique and make bold statements. Some are discrete and unassuming, but contain surprising depths and hidden corners. Some are nice to look at, but can be uncomfortable, formal, and intimidating. Some are homey and seem to welcome you like a familiar and warm embrace. Some are conventional and almost interchangeable.

Houses have personalities.

Homes tend to reflect their owners.

I don’t think those statements are the same.  

Houses have personalities. They do; regardless of the people who inhabit them. Their architecture and layout, location, lighting, view, and surroundings contribute to that. Home buyers unconsciously tap into that and sometimes cannot quite explain why they like this and not that house. There is something that is built into the house that goes beyond the structure, materials, and paint scheme. 

There’s something impalpable that speaks to us and says: sturdy, reliable, conformist, quirky, relaxing, safe, comfortable, private, open, trustworthy… and any other traits we look for in homes – and people.

And then there’s the part that we bring with us. When we make a house a home, wherever the home is and regardless of the traits the house brings with it, we make it our own. It slowly starts to reflect us, the owners. Some things are intentional – the things we choose to hang on our walls, the furniture we buy, the colors we choose. They are an attempt to surround ourselves with things that make us comfortable, bring us joy, fulfill our needs, feed our desires, and please us. Others are almost an accident. The best homes are “lived in”, but everyone “lives in” a house differently. Even that reflects us.

This isn’t the first time we’ve talked about homes and how they reflect their owners. We blogged about Hanna’s cookies and the Parra home: HERE. The Parra home was an opportunity to revisit first impressions and contrast expectation with reality and realize that people aren’t “just” what they seem. They are usually more and layered and can contain multitudes within them. They can be, like their homes, a study of contrasts and the conciliation and union of things that perhaps, in another context or to another person, would clash.

And we talked about Jane in our very first post: HERE. Jane was an extreme example. She was a welcoming and warm woman. She knew everyone in town, had taught most of those middle-aged and younger, and was well loved and respected in the community. However, no one, not even her closest friends, were allowed past her kitchen. Her home was revealing. Her art was literally on the walls.

If these walls could speak. Her walls did. They told a story. An incredible story. A story she hadn’t been willing to share.

He’d been in homes of every description in his thirty years of investigating crime. Hovels, glass and marble trophy homes, caves even. He’d seen hideous conditions, and uncovered hideous things and yet he was constantly surprised by how people lived.But Augustin Renaud’s home was exactly as Armand Gamache had imagined it would be. Small, cluttered, papers, journals, books piled everywhere. It was certainly a fire hazard, and yet the Chief had to admit he felt more at home here than in the glass and marble wonders.

I am between homes.

While I feel like I am “at home”, this house isn’t quite our home yet. The house is still revealing itself to us and we’re still figuring out how we get along and whether or not this will be an intimate long term relationship or if we will seek some other structure. While it is a nice house, it’s still bare and not quite “us” yet. It still has unrecognizable smells and mysterious creaks that we’re unfamiliar with.

It's funny that I only really realized that this week when visiting new friends.

The minute we parked in front of their house, my son said, “Is it the triangle house?”

It was.

What a great house! Even better: a wonderful home.

The house was surprising and fun and creative and open and warm and welcoming. It was simple and honest and full of little details that the family probably takes for granted, but were wonderful to us. It was functional and practical – but whimsical and magical. Just being there made me feel like I could potentially be more creative than I actually am. It made me feel like the coolest kid at school had invited me over to their home and whispered that the Narnia Wardrobe was in their spare room.

It didn’t feel like my home. But I felt “at home”.

Have you ever felt that? Have you ever walked into a place and felt like it was a place where you could safely be yourself? Have you ever felt like you belonged?

My son and I weren’t the only ones. When I mentioned how much I loved the house, the family told me about how they’d bought it. It was fascinating to hear their story and confirm that they too understood the house’s personality and realized it was a good fit.

When I went home, I reassessed. I feel at home in my current abode. The house and I haven’t quite forged a deep relationship, though.

The home we visited this week was inspiring. It has awakened dreams of a new home. A place where we not only feel at home, but where the walls speak – and when they do, it resonates with our own view of the world and of ourselves. Their home reminded me that houses have personalities. And maybe, just maybe, we’ll find a house that reflects ours.

I’m hopeful.

And grateful.

Ham and Brie Sandwich

As usual I used what I had and adapted the recipe. All I bought was some ham. Since I’m not a huge fan, I used a thin sliced ham, not a thick slice as the scene described. The brie was herb brie with a hint of garlic and I toasted the sourdough with some olive oil in a skillet. I added some mustard. That works, right? Because… it seemed to need a little extra taste and color.

What’s your favorite sandwich? Do you even have one?

All quotes are from Bury Your Dead.