Great news: the nine hours of jet lag have finally subsided! We fell asleep at midnight last night and woke up at 8am. Now that that’s out of the way, we can devote 100% of our energy to the real reasons we’re here: eating food and looking at old stuff.
Yesterday, in an effort to appease Cat and her never-ending quest to not cook and eat every meal at home, we went on a little stroll downtown Toulouse and had lunch outside the marché de Carmes.
Of course we’re having wine with lunch.
On the food front, ingredients here are better. Of course the wine and cheese are cheap, plentiful, and delicious – that’s to be expected. The thing is, everything here tastes better! Soft boiled eggs are eggier. Butter is unpasteurized and delicious. Much like their human counterparts, French chickens are about half the size of American chickens and obviously spend more time outside.
I believe this rotisserie belonged to my grandmother.
There’s nothing like the sound of this rotisserie clicking away as it slowly turns, and the smell of the chicken roasting, to bring me back to my childhood. Thanks, Mom, for this most excellent Proustian trigger that puts madeleines and tea to shame! French chickens are a fair bit tougher and less fatty than the caged soulless chickens we’re unfortunately used to, so I brined this one for a day and stuffed it with shallots and a lemon before roasting. It was awesome.
This post is my first effort to make this blog about something other than jokes. I plan on posting a recipe or two soon, so comment with your favorite French dish you’d like to see us make! This weekend we’re heading to the medieval walled city of Carcassonne to get our old stuff fix, so stay tuned.
Micah and I have the game Carcassonne which we refer to as the divorce game because I was raised by hippy parents playing games where everyone wins (except the Army Corp of Engineers, they’re a misguided bunch) and it’s seems possible in Carcassonne that everyone could have enough grain and enough farm land to live happily ever after. Micah comes off as all nice and then, bam, totally blocks the road connecting your farm with your village and starvation/armed take over ensues. He was not raised by hippies. I’m sure the actual town of Carcassonne will be much kinder to your relationship.
HAHAHAHAHAH I have actually played Carcassone and it FIGURES that you would want everyone to build peaceful farms and villages. Here is something that will not surprise you about me: my feeling about the game Carcassone was that it could have been more aggressive. Like Risk!!! :)
Cat is looking very French, maybe a scarf or sassy beret.