Daniele's Mother

Oh, the stories I could tell about Daniele's mom. Probably my favorite is when we were visiting many years ago when they were still in Grassac. The house was pretty much out in the middle of nowhere which adequately describes Grassac. Jeanine raised different fouls for eating and there was always a story with them. She went out, one day, and killed a big rooster for dinner. After de-pluming and gutting it, she asked me to cut it up into pieces. No problem. I've done it a jillion times before. So, I took it into the kitchen and began cutting it up into serving sized pieces. After I'd cut it up, I'd run it under the tap water to get the dirt and grime from the chicken coop off of it. As I was in the middle of washing a piece, I heard this cry of near horror. She was talking in a panic to me and saying, "What are you doing?!" I told her that I was washing off the rooster. She then told me that I was washing off the flavor. O.K., so I kind of looked at her with this "whadda ya mean?" look and then told her that I'd be happy to take her piece back out to the chicken coop and roll it around for a while. Well, she declined and later, after dinner, she came up to me and told me, kind of sheepishly, that it didn't taste any different. I probably had a "no kidding" look on my face. Funny thing, though, is that she has never asked me to cut up a chicken since.

During that same trip, she cooked a rabbit. Now you need to understand that she is an old fashioned country girl and nothing goes to waste. So we are sitting at the table eating our rabbit and I kept looking at her because the piece she was eating looked kind of strange. It was kind of large and like roundish in shape. I started to ask her what piece she had when suddenly she turned it and then I saw the teeth. She had been gnawing on the head. I kind of just rolled my eyes and carried on with whatever piece I had.

Such is life around "Mme Fontaine." If it isn't one thing it is another and it always catches you off guard. I guess that is what it makes it fun to be around her.