6 October 2010
We dived back into French culture today after a 2 year hiatus when we went grocery shopping at the street market in a near-by town with Catherine. That meant asking for help in French; exploring food items that we would never see in California (the fall mushrooms are incredible); trying to figure out the cost of items (we could not believe that the produce we bought, including a huge heirloom tomato, was less than $3.30); attempting to understand what the vendors said we owed on our purchase; and figuring out payment in Euros. Our 1st purchase at the market was the rabbit pâté. We bought cheese that looked like it was 100 years old (called Salé) but it was only 2.5 years in age. We bought great stinky cheese and chewy baguettes. I’m now sure we are in France.
The weather is fantastic! Lots of clouds, including a few grey ones threatening rain; a fairly warm breeze; and nice warm sun peaking out every-so-often. Lunch today at home was wild mushroom omelets, tomato salad, a slice of rabbit pâté, and a delicious French baguette. The mushrooms we saw today would blow your mind—a testament to the shapes, colors and sizes not to any psychotropic aspects of the fungi.
We relaxed for the afternoon and then had a light supper with the Hartleys. Catherine bought some very interesting mushrooms called Lactaire—they were shallow-capped, brown mushrooms with green mottling. Very unique! The vendor said that they taste like meat—and they did have a meat-like texture. Cat drizzled them with olive oil and parsley and gently braised them in their liquid. They were great. We had rabbit puff pastry tarts from the same lady who had the rabbit pâté. She was an ancient looking lady with lots of character to her face. And she treated us with quintessential French manners and dignity. Stephen said that when he first saw her he knew she was the kind of farmer to do business with. We ended our evening meal with chewy walnut bread and the cheese purchased earlier in the day.