Bonjour Champêtre! a new French word for you; a new chapter for me.
A Field Guide to the kitchens, houses, gardens, markets, road trips, art, and my own French dreams... at Camont.
champêtre [ʃɑ̃pɛtʀ]
adjective: country; rural; rustic; countryside; pastoral
Etymology: Inherited from Old French champestre, from Latin campestrem.
Decades flow past an open kitchen door at a small but rambling stone farmhouse in rural France. I watch the tractors roll by, another year on their way to protest their plight to the French government. I stay put for another season of planting a potager surrounded by the fertile fields that blanket the Garonne River Valley. Up and over the escarpments, rolling hills drop slowly south and west toward the snow-covered peaks of the Pyrenees, far enough away to seem distant, close enough to see on a clear day.
It is a landscape and domestic scenes from a thousand French paintings in museums around the world. I live here, in one, and I want to share this world with you. “Champêtre” is a walk into my small French country life. Starting this month, I leave the lovely past behind—my serialized memoir “Finding France” is archived here, to embrace the what’s next?
I welcome you to explore the new and old stories I write, the food from my kitchen, the garden in all its charming disarray, and the ordered almanac of the French seasons that dictate when we order firewood, plant the new Pêche de Vignes tree, prune the flowering cherries, sweep the tiles with lavender branches, take down the heavy winter curtains, and air the feathered duvets. Consider this an invitation to read, cook along, like, share, subscribe, and dream a little of your life as it might appear in these French dreams.
Champêtre: a Field Guide to French Country Living X Laurie Anderson
There comes a moment when your work seems done—the last cassoulet baked, and the guest beds go unmade. And the time to rest arrives. Except your brain doesn’t agree. Instead, I spend waking hours wondering how to make a new life from the remnants of the old. It's like upcycling an overcoat from a much-loved ballgown. As if I ever owned a ballgown! Although I did sleep in a guest room in a grand house in New Orleans with a closet full of them once.
So what to take from that multi-textured past and what to leave behind? This is what the still-creating artist Laurie Anderson must have felt when interviewed in the NY Times about doing a retrospective in a museum in New York. 1
When the Hirshhorn Museum told Laurie Anderson that it wanted to put on a big, lavish retrospective of her work, she said no. For one thing, she was busy. She has been busy now for roughly 50 years…
in the late 1970s, I saw Laurie Anderson perform in a small gallery on Capitol Hill in Seattle. I was in my mid-twenties, working next door in a puppet theatre studio and absorbing all the arts I could- opera, foreign movies, art galleries, theatre. That one evening stayed with me, the force and audacity of her performing live in a gallery with a violin and tape bow. I knew it was important somehow but didn’t know what to make of it. It wasn’t a painting or a sculpture. It wasn’t a play. I just knew it was necessary. But it wouldn’t be until I read that NY Times article as I turned 70 that I appreciated the sheer energy and stamina that would propel Laurie Anderson through her next 50 years. And beyond. I wanted in.
A quick look back.
So let’s catch up. How well do you know me? I am now 72, a twice-married and twice-divorced single woman who came of age in the Roaring Woman 1970s, staying single and childless by choice, with travel and adventure running through my veins. Tall and strong, I learned to captain an antique barge across Europe, drive an overland truck across the sands of the Sahara, and to butcher pigs on my neighbors' French farms. I created a European Culinary Adventure touring company that became an avocational cooking school where I adopted my godmotherly apron to nurture and teach a new generation of young cooks, farmers, chefs, and butchers.
After all these years of teaching in person in my Kitchen-at-Camont (1990-2020), it was natural to take a post-Covid break. Over the next two quieter years, I produced over 70 videos for online courses in my rural kitchen, mostly alone, but even that cooking and teaching phase was ready to end. I was spent. I wanted to focus on writing. I wanted to embrace the newly found quieter times in this privileged French country setting. At last, I had Camont to myself. Almost.
Last September (2023), I began publishing my life-of-learning-to-cook stories and recipes, “Finding France: a Memoir in Small Bites 3” on Substack. I finally learned to trust my gut feelings as a writer as well as a cook. And I am focusing on that now.
At the same time, over the last three years, I transformed my 5-bedroom farmhouse complex (18th-century pigeonnier, piggery, and barn) into a creative residency for writers and artists of all genres. The Relais de Camont provides me with a means to maintain the property for many to use and to breathe new life into these old stones while continuing the decades of hospitality here as a solid foundation. Since then, I have welcomed several dozen novelists, cookbook authors, photographers, chefs, film producers, painters, poets, textile artists, and non-fiction writers; this is where I sit now, writing and hosting others also seeking creative solitude, quiet, and inspiration in the French countryside.
What’s next? What’s in a name? Choosing Champêtre.
It helps me name a new work, like assigning an era (like the Pleistocene or High Middle Ages) to my work. Like all good stories, it creates a frame—a beginning, a middle, and an end. I have talked about “Finding France” for years, and now I am going to Champêtre!
I chose the French word champêtre for this next phase of my work because I have wanted to use it somehow for years—really decades—for a shop, a painting, or an address. Champs—like in the Champs Élysées, the Elysian Fields. Champ as in Champagne from the fields. Champ coming from campagne, of the country. Imagine a mariage champêtre—a country wedding with a bouquet champêtre of daisies, bluets, and red poppies, the French tricolor flag. The word charm could be overlapped, and cottage-core comes to mind.
Mostly, I love the little eyebrow-like accent— the circumflêx.
So, renaming my new work, which is still published under The Camont Journals heading here, I find myself rebooting with a scary amount of positive energy. I am a part of a generation who isn’t ready to quit working. After restoring, living, and working here for 35 years, I am prepared to start a newish project that, while deliberately smaller in scale, is a product of my life-long experience of traveling and living here in France. “Champêtre” is where I will cross-pollinate all my French lessons: cooking, gardening, restoring, decorating, photography, painting, and especially writing— under one pastoral and rustic tiled roof.
Consider “Champêtre—a small French country life,” a hand-held field guide to life on a cottage scale. No, not a chateau. Think smaller: a potted and pocket potager garden rather than acres of parks, parterres, and orchards; a solitary country lane leading nowhere; a cozy library studio with a writing desk tucked into a corner; a dim country kitchen with a well-washed wooden table; just one ground floor bedroom for me that opens onto a back terrace and rose and lavender hillside; and, of course, a place for my wooly pup, Chica, to sleep near me and the wood stove. Paradis! That’s in the half of the Barn where I live now; the rest of the farmhouse complex is now dedicated to the creative residents as the Relais de Camont—four bedrooms, a new painting studio, the original kitchen, a brocante shop, a cozy sitting room, and the teaching kitchen. It's like a playhouse gone mad; you, too, can do what you want here.
How Champêtre works!
The Camont Journals will continue to be published once a month for free subscribers. You can read it in your email inbox or on the Substack app, along with Notes, Chats, and other cool features. Not sure how the app works? Drop me a line. I have a short tutorial I can share with you.
Champêtre’s special field guide features are for paid subscribers and Club Camont members. If you have a problem paying for now, drop me a line, and I’ll happily extend a gift subscription. For the last three years, most of my posts have been free to everyone. I am now focusing on dedicated paying writing work and will send weekly writings (usually on Fridays) to paying readers only. These are some of the chapter headings:
Chez Vous- defining a space in the countryside, there is no South of France-it’s about micro-regions!
Old Stones- the French houses we love and why they make us cry
Potager & Pots- my new way of micro-gardening, one square at a time
Ma Cuisine- my favorite recipes and kitchen tips, of course!
French Market Etiquette- shopping as an art form.
Maiden France Vintage- all the old things we love—pottery, kitchen tools, barware, tableware, furniture, and linens—that make a home so French.
L’Artisans- the French makers who keep the art in l’art de vivre—potters, painters, butchers, cheesemakers, weavers, textile designers, gilders, jewelry designers, chocolatiers, and so many more.
à La Carte RoadTrips: Take a morning drive or an overnight jaunt to discover those hidden places for les petites vacances.
French Dreams- the art and color of painting and photographing France, its intimate rooms and gardens, and its open landscapes. For me, long before France, there were museums.
Archives & Recipe Files- coming soon, an index to all recipes featured in the Camotn Journals, downloadable as PDFs to print.
The Relais de Camont will also continue to be featured in The Camont Journals. I’ll share the stories of the creative spirits who come to work here. They're infinitely interesting!
All this for just 50€ a year! Make the choice now and join in from the beginning.
While I carve a smaller footprint now, one which will become the focus on the Frenchiest of French lifestyles—food, gardening, art, design, and slow living, I will share the journey. Join me in discovering and restoring my new living space at Camont via this field guide to the French countryside, Champêtre, on my Instagram feed, substack, and videos. I invite you to dream along and map the life you want to live next. Consider me less a Guru and more a Good Neighbor. Peek over my fence anytime and see what I am planting, pruning, painting, and cooking in my kitchen in the French countryside. Stop in for a cup of coffee and cake.
So please continue to subscribe, support, like, and share! Look for the banner “Champêtre/Champêtre!” on every post and email. Once a month, The Camont Journals will offer a roundup or a peek into what is happening that month, free to all subscribers. After that, the weekly Champêtre posts will be earmarked for paid subscribers. I can’t wait to share all the small and darling treasures of living a “Vie Champêtre” in France!
What a fabulous new name! I plan to subscribe soon, as I am moving to France in late October! Ready for the next adventure to begin. Bon Chance to you and Me!
Is there an upgrade button somewhere so that I can change my subscription to paid?