PRIMARY RESOURCES FOR MOVING TO FRANCE? HINT: NOT FACEBOOK

I was planning on writing something frivolous this week. Maybe commenting on changing the name of Lake Ontario to Lake Obama. Or wondering whether Reblochon, Cantal or Bleu d’Auvergne will taste different because the milk cows will be allowed to eat a higher percentage of imported fodder. (Stick around if that sounds weird. I'll explain at the end of this post.) That was the plan. Then, I read a Facebook post from an American family considering moving to France. A question was asked. What will they need to do in order to satisfy the requirements for a visa? 

Advice solicited. Advice received. Stupid, contradictory advice given as though being read from the Gospel.

As I read those comments, I remembered how our own journey began. In 1999, when we first considered moving outside of the USofA in retirement, Facebook wasn't a thing. Zuck was a teenager, a poor nerdy teenager having trouble hooking up. I had to actually do real research. In the intervening years, Facebook has indeed become a thing. Zuck is no longer a teenager, no longer poor, and I would guess would have no trouble hooking up. Still a nerd, looks like to me. But I digress. Facebook has become a morass of AI-generated garbage, a battleground for keyboard warriors, a font of content seeking to monetize engagement. There are a gazillion sites touting their connection to Americans in France, English speakers in France, English speakers in every department in France and every city in France, driving in France, investing in France, living in France, dying in France. Unfiltered. Wild West. 

Save Facebook for shits and giggles after you get a handle on things from research in the real world.

What did my research uncover? How did I mobilize resources to accomplish the move? I have been reluctant to name names. I have preferred to give generalized advice. But that previously-mentioned post on Facebook changed my mind. Some stuff needs to be said. I'll be relatively brief and to the point. Do your due diligence.

Start with the website of the French embassy in the United States. The English version is not the easiest to navigate, the answers to the question of obtaining a visa are not clearly laid out in bulleted form. But you'll be sent to https://france-visas.gouv.fr where you'll find FAQs, checklists, and the actual online form that you can fill out without submitting to get comfy with the process. Go to the source. Always go to the source.

I will now demonstrate that I may be opinionated, but I am also flexible. I came across Allison Lounes on Facebook. (Imagine that.) I have found her to be on point most of the time, with only the occasional nit to pick around the edges. I would certainly trust her when it comes to decisions around relatively uncomplicated visa questions. Here's her website. https://www.yourfranceformation.com/ffv/. 

For more complicated matters that require multiple areas of expertise beyond visas and some serious hand holding to go with it, friends swear by French Connection HCB. https://frenchconnectionshcb.com/ They sorted problems across multiple countries, schengen and otherwise.

Two publications of interest have served us well. International Living helped us settle on the Languedoc (now Occitanie) as a desirable retirement location. https://internationalliving.com/ While here, we subscribe to The Conexxion. https://www.connexionfrance.com/ English language news and guides that used to be very Brit centric but now recognizes that they have an American audience.

Finally, two real estate sites. With a huge database of properties searchable by price and by region, I still subscribe to notices from French-Property.com just to keep up with the market. https://www.french-property.com/ Poke around the site. Lots of info arranged around adverts because, after all, it's a real estate site. And then there's Freddy Rueda. I've bought and sold two houses from Freddy who specializes in the expat market. His agents all speak English and are all very accommodating. It says something that the agent who sold us the house that we bought in 2004 was still with Freddy and showed a house that we were selling in 2022. https://realestateoccitanie.com/

I hope that this helps. Questions in the comments will be answered as best I can.

Cows. As promised. Certain French cheeses, such as the ones mentioned above, have rules as strict as French wines. (For instance, up to 10% of the juice of the grapes making up wine in Bordeaux can come from outside of Bordeaux and the wine can still be labeled Bordeaux wine.) What the cows eat effects how the cheeses taste. Of course it does. So a high percentage of the feed for cows in the protected cheese areas must come from within those areas. Because of recent droughts, if the dairies would not be allowed to increase the percentage of imported fodder allowed, cheese production would have to be curtailed. So accommodations have been made. We'll see if there are hoots and hollers if the taste changes.

BUYING A CAR IN FRANCE: UPDATED

 As you may have recently learned, I consider cars to be disposable drivetrains. That is, if the body of a car does not show signs of rust or major previous body work, everything else is replaceable. Even the motor. Especially the motor. I routinely have purchased cars with well above 100,000 miles on the clock. If the rest of the vehicle, from the body to the tires and brakes to the transmission to the suspension, if all is in good order and recently serviced, it is not beyond the realm of possibility that the motor will blow for some reason beyond my responsibility. While some might call it throwing good money after bad, I have always worked with good, competent mechanics. I have replaced a couple of motors under such circumstances with bench-tested used power plants with perfectly satisfactory results - continued, relatively bug free motoring at a cost substantially under that of starting over. 

Coming to France, I was entering unknown territory.  Twelve years ago, the most reliable cars using the most economical fuel were European made and diesel powered. In France, Renault, Peugeot, and Citroën. At the time, I had never owned a diesel and I had no preference. A friend took me to a road on the southern border of Beziers known for its long stretch of used car dealerships. Shady reputations. Comes with the used car territory. After a couple of stops with no joy, we found a small lot that featured a couple of promising cars, in particular a clean looking Citroën Xantia, a stylish sedan with back seats that folded flat to create decent storage. With the owner watching, I did my dance. Popped the hood. Started it up and let it idle while I walked around and poked and prodded for rust or filler. I put a rag over the exhaust and it almost stalled. No leaks. No little drops of oil under the motor after idling for enough minutes to get hot and to concern the salesman. Time to drive it. Front end felt solid at speed. Didn't pull under hard braking. 5-speed shifter a little loose but not a concern. After 15 years and 130,000 kilometers on the clock, to be expected. So I bought. 2500€ with new timing belt. Inspection good for two years.

My Xantia gave me four good years and was running just fine when the AC gave up. You need AC here. New AC parts were just no longer available for a system that old and used parts wouldn't work. So I went looking again. This time on leboncoin, the French equivalent of craigslist without the personal ads for traveling companions and nude models. Over the years, I had discovered an interesting class of European MPVs that I wanted to try. Smaller than a minivan, taller than a station wagon, modular seating. Both Renault and Citroën had good-looking models. Nothing shaking in the lots that I had visited prior. Two parking lot meetings with private owners were a waste. A Renault Scenic in the side lot of a garage in an industrial park looked hard used. But behind it, shoved into the weeds at the back of the lot, blocked in behind rows of cars on both sides, a bright red Renault Megane station wagon caught my eye. I asked if it could be pulled out. It could. I did my dance. I drove it. I made an offer throwing in the Xantia. And for 3000€, I drove it away, drove it all the way to Spain from right off the lot.

I wasn't quite through with the Xantia yet though. A parking ticket came in the mail two years later. Apparently, the garage hadn't complete the process of taking my name off the registration before they resold. The town cop and a local lawyer shrugged in a very French way, suggested that paying the fine would be less of a hassle than contesting it, and told me how to separate myself from the Xantia online if I had the paperwork. I did. Advice that I took. 

Ruby gave us eight good years. (What else would you name a bright red car? You name all your cars, don't you?) Then, after a pleasant dinner with friends in a town not far from us, a wild boar decided to cross the road in front of us, one assumes to get to the other side. Pow! By the time that I stopped and got out to take a look, the boar was gone. So was about 1,000€ gone from my wallet to the local body shop. And so was my entire front end suspension gone, according to the inspection agent about a year and a half later. (French cars are inspected by businesses dedicated to the task every two years. Independent. Very strict.) I argued that I had been driving down the expressway at 130kph - about 81mph - without a shimmy or a shake, even under hard braking. Solid as a rock. But you can't argue with the inspectors in France. You either do the work prescribed or you are illegal. To pass the re-inspection would have cost more than Ruby was worth. Back to the drawing board. Back to leboncoin. 

 

I considered electric or hybrids, but used vehicles in my price range had the range of a bobsled on dry land. And France was discouraging the manufacture of new diesels for environmental reasons. What to do? The answer came to me late one night. I really did like my old Renault, they still made the same model with the same motor. Screw the environment. I started looking and immediately found several Renault Megane station wagons in our price range, about 4,000€ give or take, clustered in used car dealerships not far from us. I made three appointments, one after the other. At my first stop, I once again did my dance. Very clean in and out. Complete mechanical history. New cambelt. Drove like a dream. I didn't waste time. Canceled the next two appointments and bought on the spot. Seven years newer than Ruby, a bit wider, a bit heavier, a bit more civilized. After several thousand kilometers, about 5% less gas mileage, probably due to the extra weight and seven years of improving the exhaust system. Comfy and utilitarian and a decent sound system too. The French call the color marron, also the term for a chestnut. I suggested the name Marnie. Cathey suggested Coco(a). Guess.

I made certain that all necessary paperwork was complete this time. Ruby's carte gris (title) voided. Application for the new carte gris submitted. There's no separate registration document in France. The title stays in the car and is handed over in a traffic stop with your license.

One last thought. An all-electric Megane is available at about 35,000€. Recharge cost minimal. Even at the ridiculous current price of diesel thanks to the war against Iraq that America won several weeks ago, I can drive Coco for the next eight years, purchase price and gas included, for one-third that price. 

So far, so good. If I have to buy again, I'll post again. Fingers crossed.

FRANCE: THE BEST SINGLE BIT OF ADVICE

 

Lots of folks are throwing content onto the interweb about moving to France. Rightly so. A small but growing segment of American society is considering the benefits of packing up and leaving the USofA, and those benefits can be substantial. From nomad content creators to retirees on fixed incomes, countries on just about every continent provide a more satisfying lifestyle at a more affordable cost than is available to them at home. It's a simple question of the math. From the quality and cost of groceries to housing costs to healthcare costs and outcomes to cultural opportunities, the USofA has been dropping down the list of desirable, affordable options year after year. Yes, it don't come easy...he said, channeling Ringo. (It's a song, for the children in the group. And Ringo is the name of one of The Beatles. And The Beatles were...oh, never mind...) Not easy, but doable. And it's getting done.

About 125,000 Americans are resident in France, not by any means the largest expat community in France, but still one of the largest American expat communities in the world once you get past Mexico, Canada and the UK. We live in a rural community of about 1,600 souls in the south of France without any particular geographical or touristic attraction and a couple of dozen Americans either live in the village permanently or spend considerable vacation time in property that they own here. In cities like Paris and Bordeaux and Marseilles, large and thriving American communities exist, sometimes to the consternation of long-term expats who would prefer that Americans be less insistent on broadcasting their heritage. 

For those of you considering making the move to France, there are books and books and magazine articles and books and books and newsletters and consultants and books and books. By all means, do your due diligence. I spent 15 years studying before we moved and we've lived here for 12 years. I've made many mistakes and continue making mistakes. But I have found the one piece of advice that is the most important. Two words. Get Frenchified.

Get Frenchified? What the hell does that mean?

To be Frenchified is to mimic being native French. You won't succeed, but you should try. I first used the term in connection with my car, a trusty Renault diesel-powered wagon that was 13 years old when I bought it and that ran faithfully for 8 years and 100,000 kilometers thereafter. I would be driving it today if I hadn't had a late-night conversation with a wild boar. I was initially attracted to the Renault's perfect-looking body. In my view, cars are disposable drivetrains. That is, if the body is solid and rust free, pretty much everything else is replaceable. In short order after purchase, driving down one of the narrow village streets designed more for horse carts than motorized vehicles, I swiped the corner of a garden wall taking a turn. I was mortified until I began taking serious notice of the cars parked adjacent to mine. Each, even the newest of them, had a scratch or a ding or a dent. They had been Frenchified. Now my Renault had been properly Frenchified too.

What does being Frenchified mean in a discussion about moving to France? 

Learn the language. You don't have to be fluent, but it's a Romance language. It's just not that hard to learn the basics. Learn your address and phone number in French. We carry little cards with us that have our names and address and phone numbers and email addresses. We give them out to avoid confusion if we must. But rattling off your address and phone number is a necessary part of daily life in France.

Say Good Morning. Please and Thank You would be nice. You don't have to do the cheek-kissing thing. But everybody gets a Bonjour. Your waitress. The shopkeeper. EVERYBODY.

Drive European. A Renault. A VW is acceptable. Even a Dacia will do. (A Romanian maker but owned by Renault.) Ford has a European presence. Don't. Just don't.

Get a French bank account. Get a French phone number. Read a French newspaper. Listen to Radio Classique. If you must, watch France 24 - English-language TV news - instead of CNN or BBC.

Learn the basics of football (soccer) and rugby and pétanque. The Western Europeans aren't sending armies after each other any more, but they do meet regularly in more structured, and usually less fatal competitions. Your favorite bar will extend hours and/or open on days normally closed to accommodate fans during major competitions. And if you are serious about becoming Frenchified, you will definitely have a favorite bar.

You will never be mistaken for native French. Cathey and I, dressed from head to toe in clothing bought in France, without uttering a single word in any language, are consistently greeted with an English Hello as soon as we walk through a shop door. Can't be helped. We've done everything that we can to get Frenchified. We've mostly succeeded. The effort is as important as the result.  

FRANCE: STUFF YOU MIGHT NOT FIND IN THE HANDBOOKS

There's the stuff that you know. There's stuff that you don't know. There's stuff that you know that you don't know. And there's stuff that you don't know that you don't know. (For the children in the audience, I'm channeling a guy named Donald Rumsfeld. He may have been the Yogi Berra of government in his time. If you don't know why this all relates to a guy named Yogi Berra, who by the way is not really a yogi, I'm afraid that I can't help you.) When it comes to life in France, particularly life in the rural south, there's lots that you don't know that you don't know. Stuff the guidebooks generally don't tell you.

THE SALES (LES SOLDES)

I'm not talking about everyday, run-of-the-mill sales. Buy two, get one free. Buy one, get 50% off the second. That sort of sale is fairly common in French groceries and other retail establishments. No. I'm talking about THE SALES, the existence of which a surprising number of our local expats are unaware. What are THE SALES?

 

Twice every year, for a few weeks around January and July, THE SALES occur. The dates are published. The rules are rigid and relatively simple. Stores can discount only goods that are already in stock. Stores cannot discount goods that are purchased specifically for the sales. In other words, THE SALES are meant to truly be clearance sales and are regulated as such. Discounts can be as high as 70%. This year, I bought 3 heavyweight polos, 100% cotton and tagged at over 20€, for about 8€ apiece. And a 22€ cotton Henley at half price. And a pair of Puma leather trainers for 19€.

 

As you can imagine, the stores are packed. It's not Black Friday crazy, but it's serious shopping.  

 

VO MOVIES

Version Originale. It means that the movie is shown as it was originally filmed, in the original language. Given how many movies in French multiplexes are English language productions, it's a good idea to check for the VO label on the schedule if you are not fully vernacular fluent. We screwed up the night that we went to see Bohemian Rhapsody. It made for weird viewing.

 

FERMETURE EXCEPTIONNELLE 

You have an appointment with your hairdresser. You walk up at the appointed hour only to find that the door is locked. A small handwritten note is taped to the window. Fermeture exceptionnelle pour cause de maladie. (Unscheduled closing due to illness.) If you are a regular customer well-known to your stylist, maybe you have received a text. Maybe not.

 

You've been out of town for a couple of weeks. You return on a Sunday night. You head for the only bakery in your little village on Monday morning only to find that it's closed. For 10 days, the sign says. No explanation. But you know that the young couple who have recently bought the bakery have two small children in school and school is out for the summer. Simply stated, their family time is more important to them than the proceeds from the sale of your morning pastry. They've arranged for the butcher to sell baked goods brought in from a neighboring village in their absence, but the butcher is closed every Monday. You're out of luck.

 

Fermeture Exceptionnelle. Illness. Kids on vacation. Family crisis. Burst water pipe. Broken mirror on Friday the 13th. The supermarkets might keep to their printed schedules. Your local shopkeepers and tradesmen have a different sensibility. Drives some people crazy. And truly, closings are not quite as whimsical as I make them sound. But peace of mind, family, and friends matter more to the rural French than punching a clock, particularly a clock of their own making. I have heard Anglos say that the French are not entrepreneurial for this reason. Perhaps not, but they are human.

 

 

PLEASE DON'T EAT THE DAISIES

Slightly misleading title. I'm not talking about eating the daisies. I'm talking about picking them.

 

You're taking a hike through rural France along a vineyard with grapes that look about ripe. You stop and pick one grape to taste. One grape without the permission of the owner of the vineyard. You are a felon. One grape. Even after the harvest is done, when the tractors are all in their sheds, gleaning without permission is illegal. 

 

That's grapes. Wildflowers? Always illegal in nature reserves and other protected areas. Wild orchids are among a list of protected species that are always illegal to pick as well. And technically, without the landowner's permission, picking a handful of flowering weeds is illegal too.

 

However...

 

If you don't pull up a wildflower by the roots, and if you only gather a handful, and if you are not picking for commercial purposes, you're probably OK. But be advised. Those wild asparagus, those blackberries that look so plump and juicy may be growing next to a vineyard that has been sprayed by a chemical that you don't want to ingest. Just sayin'...

 

STICK AROUND

I'll do this again soon. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WORDS OF THE DAY: DYSTOPIA, REALITY AND NARRATIVE

I made my living writing. I'm writing at this very moment. Words matter to me. Words matter.

DYSTOPIA 

Nuclear war, climate catastrophe, unbridled overpopulation, all make for absorbing reading and engrossing cinema. Think of the Mad Max series of movies or The Book of Eli or Blade Runner. Think of books like The Hunger Games or The Stand or A Canticle for Leibowitz, so compelling that many such books have been adapted for the big screen. The dystopian worlds in these works are characterized by struggles to obtain the simple necessities of life - food, water, clean air. Governments, such as they exist, are fascist and whimsically cruel. These are futures to be feared. 

 

These are futures that are here, in the present. 

 

COVID, SARS, Ebola, Measles, cyclospora infected lettuce, necrotizing fasciitis (flesh-eating bacteria), all in the news right now, as we speak. 

 

Super El Niño, drought throughout Europe, fires in Spain and France and the USofA and Canada, downtown Miami flooding at high tide, the wetlands in southern Louisiana getting wetter, Pacific Islands at risk of disappearing, all in the news right now, as we speak.

 

Around the world, 3,000,000 children die annually from starvation and malnutrition-related causes while 20% of all world food production goes to waste. Even though most of the loss is from household waste, there would be enough wasted between the farms, the shippers, the wholesalers, and the retailers to feed all of the hungry children AND adults in the world. Coca Cola can find its way to every corner of the globe. Food cannot.

 

So, a dystopian world is science fiction? Ain't necessarily so.  

 

REALITY 

When discussing a self-evident fact, I'm known to say that 2+2=4 and not some number approximating 4. Of course, a case can be made that, in a world whose inhabitants have three fingers, 2+2=11.

 

Try this one out. "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend." That quote comes from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. A journalist interviewing the distinguished US Senator played by James Stewart learns that the Senator's reputation was based on a lie, the lie that he was the one who shot Valance (Lee Marvin) when it was actually the John Wayne character Tom Doniphon who did the shooting. The journalist doesn't print the interview.

 

And finally in Orwell's 1984, O'Brien holds up four fingers, asks Winston how many fingers he sees, and tortures Winston until Winston sees as many fingers as O'Brien - and the Party - want him to see.  

 

Of course 2+2=4 unless you specify a different numerical base system. Anything else is trickery. Even if the journalist decides not to print the true story as told by Stewart, Wayne was actually the one who killed Marvin. It's on film. And no matter how a tortured mind perceives reality, four fingers are four fingers. So I believe in a form of objective reality. I don't care if electrons are actually some form of field or are vibrating strings or are bits of salt cod. The desk upon which my computer lies is substantial - made of wood and sufficiently solid that my my computer doesn't sink into it. If you can prove to me that we live in a simulation, that none of my life has been the lived experience of an evolved Earth-bound human one chromosome pair away from a bonobo, I might be persuaded to think differently.

 

That having been said, I concede that narrative can at the very least color reality, can create a form of reality that can disguise itself as truth. We are learning that truth every day.

 

NARRATIVE 

Alternate facts create false narratives.

 

The Reflecting Pool was vandalized, specifically by activist Democrats. Repeated and repeated and repeated. There are pictures. Until there weren't. Case dismissed. Sometimes, false narratives are relatively easy to debunk.

 

Some false narratives persist in spite of a complete lack of evidence. Democrats are rightly worried that significant attempts by the Trump administration might succeed in suppressing voter participation during the coming mid-term elections. Such attempts are based on repeated assertions that voter fraud is widespread and led to Joe Biden's fraudulent election victory in 2020. It makes little difference that Trump's own Attorney General reported that a DOJ investigation could find no proof that significant voter fraud took place, certainly not enough to sway the results. That has not stopped the ceaseless repetition of the claim to the point that only one-third of Americans trust that the coming mid-terms will be conducted fairly, some expecting fraud, some worried about suppression. 

 

Here's where I lose some friends.

 

Some false narratives survive because pushback is ineffective or, as in the case that I'm about to cite, non-existent.

 

In October of 2023, Hamas soldiers entered Israel, killed 1,200 Israelis and others, the vast majority unarmed civilians, and returned to Gaza with 250 hostages, more than one-third of whom died in captivity. Commentary took two paths simultaneously. The killings and hostage taking were condemned. At the same time, the acts were seen as resistance rather than terrorism. The narrative became: What did the apartheid country that is Israel expect?  

 

The narrative that was not put forth seriously by anyone, even by Israel, was that Hamas had declared war. My assumption is that Israel didn't feel the need. Hamas had been firing 1,000 rockets, mortar shells, RPGs and other ordinance annually at civilian targets in Israel since its election in 2014. Israel and Hamas were already at war. What made this different was that Israel decided to take the war into Gaza instead of allowing the war to be fought primarily on its own territory. 

 

It didn't take long for the word genocide to enter the conversation. Eventually, genocide became the accepted description. And without pushback, and given 80,000 Palestinian Arab deaths, what else could it be? The answer is that it could be exactly what it is. Urban warfare.

 

The harsh reality of urban warfare is that 3 noncombatants die for every combatant. As the Allies pushed east from Normandy, they killed 1,000,000 German soldiers. 3,000,000 civilians died. Men, women and children. That ratio held true for the Allied push north through Italy. I'm not talking about the industrial-level murder that the Nazis perpetrated. I'm talking about civilians caught in the middle of bombing runs, artillery fire, and urban street fighting. 3 noncombatants for every combatant.

 

The Palestinian Arabs report 80,000 Gazans dead without distinguishing soldiers from civilians. The Israelis report up to 20,000 Hamas soldiers killed. 3 noncombatants to each combatant.

 

Genocide? Urban warfare. 

TONGCOCO: RESTAURANT HOT TAKE

 

Pop-up beach restaurants come in all shapes and sizes. Two distinctly different examples of the genre sit within meters of each other on Serignan Plage. We've visited Latino Beach several times. It's as close to a full service restaurant as these pop-ups come, and as well-appointed as a restaurant packed up in a container for most of the year can be. Apparently, I've never written a review. I'll correct that next time that we visit. 

This week, we visited Tongcoco - just Coco as we learned it. Different vibe. Looser. More bar than restaurant. And with the same wonderful view and beach access, for sure. But just a touch more folksy and less formal. And family friendly too.

The menu is limited, mostly tapas and salads and a sandwich or two. But portions are reasonably generous and served hot. I had wings and frites. Tasty and a full meal. The girls had salads. I have to say, the garlic shrimp were kinda bland. The French are not known for hot spices. We asked for help and were given a small cup of sauce piquant that the French use on pizzas along with a bit of hot mustard. Did the trick. 

With cold beers for me and various softer drinks for the girls, we spent a leisurely two hours, shaded with a bit of an onshore breeze, for about 20€ per person. We'll return. 

 

VEGGIE SHOPPING IN FRANCE: ACTUAL REGISTER TICKET

I've discussed the cost of living in France often enough on these pages. In general. And in general, we've been surprised at the affordability of a fulfilling lifestyle here in the south of France. I'm not talking about simply existing, keeping our heads down, eating three squares a day, and keeping the cats fed and healthy. No. I'm talking going out to eat reasonably often to restaurants that are way beyond fast food burgers and fries, going to concerts with ticket prices ranging from a passed hat for free-will donations to national/international artists charging $50 a ticket and more, going to the beach and sipping a cold one while watching the tide roll in. Yes, we watch our bank account and occasionally have to hitch up our belts when the car needs work or the the dentist decides that an implant is the solution. But that word 'fulfilling' comes to mind - a life in retirement beyond mere existence that you imagine you deserve after a lifetime of work.

Part of the affordability question centers on groceries. I've played around the edges before. Let's do a deep dive. Let's talk veggies. Grand Frais is a grocery chain throughout France that specializes in fruits and vegetables from around the world but with an emphasis on local produce. Understand that in Europe, local produce has a slightly different meaning than in the USofA. Back home, you can certainly buy locally grown fruits and veggies in season in many parts of the country, but odds are that for most of the year, California and Florida producers are as likely to represented on your table as the farmer in the dell. In France, with Spain as a neighbor in one direction, Italy in the other, and North Africa a short ferry ride to the south, 'local' is a relative term.

The actual grocery receipt for a shop at Grand Frais is shown below. Lots of stuff beyond veggies - pasta and rice and yogurt and such. We'll get to meat and poultry soon. Grams and euros have been converted to pounds and dollars at the current rate. Keep in mind, these prices are for the best, freshest produce that you can buy.

Carrots: $1.04 per pound

Limes: $2.60 per pound

Celery: $1.30 per pound

Green Beans: $2.07 per pound

Cherry Tomatoes: $1.30 per pound

Batavia Lettuce: $1.30 a head

Fresh Coriander, Parsley et al: $1.13 per bunch 

 

Now for some miscellany. 

 

8 Brioche Burger Buns: $3.41

Red Label Free Range Eggs: $5.25 a dozen

Premium Feta: $0.44 per ounce