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.

Hanna's Cookies & Second Impressions

by Amy

“[Hanna] placed a cup of tea in front of Agent Lacoste. A white plate piled with cookies was also put on the spotless table.

Lacoste thanked her and took one. It was soft and warm and tasted of raisin and oatmeal, with a hint of brown sugar and cinnamon. It tasted of home.”

I think I misread this scene the first time around. I didn’t pay attention to the word “oatmeal”. I got caught up in the brown sugar and cinnamon and the taste of home. Somehow, in my mind, I pictured my favorite homemade cookies:  Pumpkin Chocolate Chips. They smell and taste like home to me. So I seem to have read it like this:

Amy thanked her and took one. It was soft and warm and tasted of pumpkin and chocolate, with a hint of brown sugar and cinnamon. It tasted of home.

I think I literally tasted the pumpkin cookies when I was reading. I’d already baked, eaten, and pondered on what I was going to write in the post before I wrote out the quote and realized that I’d made the “wrong” ones! I do love oatmeal cookies, but I usually add chocolate chips as well as (or instead of) raisins. I even have my favorite oatmeal cookie recipe which is perfect because it’s one of those “pour everything into a bowl, mix, and bake for 10 minutes” recipes. Don’t you love those?

I hope you’ll forgive my creative license. Or should I call it absurdly deviated interpretation of the text?

I think these cookies are startling because of their contrast to Lacoste’s impression of sterile angularity. The house didn’t, at first glance, look like a home. Hanna Parra's warm smile (and warm cookies), Roar’s contained temper, and Havoc’s charm prove that it is, in fact, more than concrete and glass. It is a place full of passion and emotions where this family feels comfortable and at home. While the building may be intimidating, I think the cookies are proof that first impressions aren't always right.

“Lacoste got out of the car and stared, amazed. Facing her was a block of concrete and glass. It seemed so out of place, like finding a tent pitched on Fifth Avenue. It didn’t belong. As she walked toward it she realized something else. The house intimidated her and she wondered why. Her own tastes ran to traditional but not stuffy. She loved exposed brick and beams, but hated clutter, though she’d given up all semblance of being a house-proud after the kids came. These days it was a triumph if she walked across a room and didn’t step on something that squeaked.

This place was certainly a triumph. But was it a home?”

It’s foreign. It’s different. It’s alien and out of place. It’s strange and, sometimes, difficult to read.

The house doesn’t blend into its surrounding. It’s not that the architecture is aggressive. It seems out of place, but the agents later come to understand that it was built as a huge window to best contemplate and appreciate the place this family had chosen to settle down in. It is, in fact, a testament to the fact that they appreciate their surroundings to the extent that they built a home that would showcase its beauty.

This scene, to me, is a lesson in first impressions. Lacoste is one of the most open and tolerant characters in the books. She’s thoughtful and doesn’t usually make rash judgments. If it were Beauvoir, we might expect him to be somewhat prejudiced and even derisive – he frequently is towards the Canadian Anglos - the Czech are probably beyond his comfort zone (Hanna Parra even accuses him of profiling in a later conversation although that wasn’t his intention).  As a younger man he sometimes seemed to perceive himself as superior to others – in particular those who were different from himself. I think it's a sign of his deep rooted insecurity. He matured – the hard way – and has become a very different man. But we’ll get back to Beauvoir some other time. This scene is about Lacoste.

“The door was opened by a robust middle-aged woman who spoke very good, though perhaps slightly precise, French. Lascoste was surprised and realized she’d been expecting angular people to live in this angular house.

“Madame Parra?” Agent Lacoste held up her identification. The woman nodded, smiled warmly and stepped back for them to enter.

“Entrez. It’s about what happened at Olivier’s,” said Hanna Parra.

“Oui,” Lacoste bent to take off her muddy boots. It always seemed so awkward and undignified. The world famous homicide team of the Sûreté du Québec interviewing suspects in their stockinged feet.

Madame Parra didn’t tell her not to. But she did give her slippers from a wooden box by the door, jumbled full of old footwear. Again, this surprised Lacoste, who’d expected everything to be neat and tidy. And rigid.”

Lacoste perceives differences and feels intimidated. She compares this triumph of a house with her own messy, loving home. She wonders at what kind of people would choose to live in a place like this and expects them to be angular, rigid, unbending.

The beauty in Lacoste’s character is that she’s always willing to rethink her perceptions. It takes very little for her to reassess her initial ideas and question her first impressions. Very very little. A smile, slippers, tea, and a cookie. She is able to overlook appearances – represented by the house – and see these people for who they are. Or at least to permit herself to be surprised.

“She noticed the teacup had a smiling and waving snowman in a red suit. Bonhomme Carnaval. A character from the annual Quebec City winter carnival. She took a sip. It was strong and sweet.

Like Hanna herself, Lacoste suspected.”

What I love most about this scene is that Louise Penny reminds us of the kind of people it takes to create a diverse community or a heterogeneous group of friends. In a small town like Three Pines, everyone is an outsider and a foreigner until they are welcomed. Three Pines is composed of a wonderful assortment of people. They embrace odd and strange and colorful and secretive and loud and thoughtful and hurt and helpful. The Parras may be more foreign, in a traditional sense, than the Gilberts, for instance. But, to Three Pines, the Parras have already become part of the patchwork that makes up their community.

In a later scene this is explained by Gabri. When he goes to apologize to the Gilberts he also justifies the town’s behavior towards them by making it clear that there is room for diversity and for newcomers, but not for competition and division. The town is wary of the Gilberts (initially), just as they were of CC Poitiers. There is acceptance of all sorts of people. The town is less tolerant of those who undermine or underestimate their own.

I can certainly empathize with the Parras (having frequently been an outsider and a foreigner in various places throughout my life), and I am grateful for all of the Lacostes and Gabris and Claras – and even Ruths - I’ve encountered. They have made me feel welcome.

I hope I, like Lacoste, do the same to those who choose to join us. The new child in my son’s class. The neighbor who moved in upstairs. The new colleague who joins our team at the hospital… And also the “odd” friends who have different tastes in architecture, music, fashion, politics, and books… but who challenge me because they remind me that odd is a subjective quality.

And last, but not least, there’s Havoc. 

One of my absolute favorite bits of Louise Penny’s writing (it makes me smile every time) is Lacoste’s inner dialogue when she meets Havoc.

After a few more yells a short, stocky young man appeared. His face was flushed from hard work and his curly dark hair was tousled. He smiled and Lacoste knew the other waiters at the bistro hadn’t stood a chance with the girls. This boy would take them all. He also stole a sliver of her heart, and she quickly did the figures. She was twenty-eight, he was twenty-one. In twenty-five years that wouldn’t matter so much, although her husband and children might disagree.

Isn’t that brilliant?! I love how Louise pens it. I’m assuming I’m not the only one who can relate to Lacoste’s losing a sliver of her heart. Of course, real-life people have to compete with fictional characters who frequently take over entire chunks of my heart. Beauvoir is one of them, my the way.

I haven’t forgotten the pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. I said they taste like home. And by home, I mean here. My home away from home. A little town we’ve frequently vacationed in and that bears some resemblance to Three Pines in its mountains and size and isolation and delicious bread from a café down the street. I first ate these cookies here and whenever I make them in my real home (often enough) I am transported to this place and these mountains and the trails I run here to make up for the cookies I inevitably eat too many of.

Chewy Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:

½ cup butter

¾ cup brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

6 TBS pumpkin puree

1 and ½ cups flour

¼ spoon salt

½ tea spoon baking powder

1 ½ teaspoon cinnamon

½ teaspoon nutmeg

½ teaspoon ginger

½ cup dark mint chocolate chips

Almond slices (optional)

Cashew nuts (optional)
Raisins (optional)

Blend melted butter and sugar. Add vanilla and pumpkin.

Mix dry ingredients.

Add wet to dry ingredients and mix well. Add chocolate.

Leave in refrigerator for at least 30 minutes – at this point I sometimes freeze the dough.

Bake at 350oF for 10 minutes. You want to pull them out of the oven when they’re still soft and look almost undercooked. That way they’re chewy. Perfection!