Dancing Cabbage

Tartiflette photo from www.cuisineaz.com

After the long warm evenings of summer have passed, we move into a different time of year where activities are very different as well. Instead of long BBQ evenings with friends, other outdoor activities or concerts in the glorious Romaesque churches that abound here, we move into the season of club events, annual general meetings, livened up with wine and food at the end, “salons”, exhibitions and fundraising dinners.

At our taichi AGM we managed to have about 15 minutes of discussion and voting and then 2 hours worth of wine, food and dancing, that seems to be the right balance to me.

Choucroute photo from www.seriouseats.com

The Tourist Office in St-Gengoux-le-National on the other hand had an extraordinary GM to discuss its future, now that the local government has taken over control of the office. A very lively, but mostly off-topic, debate was had by all then the vote was cast. Contrary to northern European logic, the majority voted to merge with another association and to do something that was not entirely clear to me, but if they are happy that way, so be it. All the arguing and discussions took over 2 hours which didn’t leave us an enormous amount of time to enjoy the very good wine on offer and to have farewell chats with those we have worked with over the last 10 or so years.

After the “salon” of Zen in Sennecey-le-Grand and “salon” of well being in Cluny there was an exhibition of the Cluny photo club which was of a very high standard. The club was touting for new members, so we signed up and have started going to their meetings. We missed out on the light painting night and the mushroom excursion but we are looking forward to next club outings to practise a bit of photography with the group.

Aligot photo from www.marieclaire.fr

And last but not least there are numerous dinners offering autumn/winter delights such as tartiflette which is potatoes cooked in the oven with lardons and onions topped off with Reblochon a special cheese from the French Alps (Savoy) region baked to crispy perfection, aligot an Auvergne delight of melted Tomme (a cheese from the Auvergne), butter, cream and garlic blended into mashed potato, a gooey, elasticy mix of yum often served with just bread, but you can also serve it with sausages. Not to mention Boeuf Bourginon not always that well done and rather a cliché, but what the heck it’s named after our region. Often these meals are an excuse to eat and drink well into the night with the obligatory dancing in between courses so that you do not feel as though you are just pigging out.

Dancing choucroute available in Cluny?

But the best event we have seen advertised this year is the Cluny rugby club’s annual choucroute evening - choucroute being a speciality from the Alsace of sauerkraut topped with heaps and heaps of sausages and chunks of gammon and other meats.

I have a slight suspicion that someone has reworded the poster this year making it sound a little more special than normal. It tickled my sense of humour and if it were to be true, it would be almost worth the 18 Euros to see the choucroute dancing to the Madison - I suspect though that the lump of acidic, fermented cabbage will stubbornly sit on the plate, so I don’t think I’ll be going.