FOIE MARKET, RIEUX-MINERVOIS WITH PICS

TRIGGER WARNING: A Foie Market is where a French family goes to buy their special holiday foods if they're looking for the good stuff fresh from the producers - the Christmas goose, the duck breasts, the foie gras. I've taken pictures of it all. That means that there will be pictures of dead animals and their body parts. Be warned.

As you can imagine, the French go all out for their holiday meals. Christmas and New Year bring out the best. There are any number of foods that might grace a French family's table at December's end. Smoked salmon. Caviar. Lobster. But you can be almost certain of three things. There will be oysters. Supermarkets feature displays of oysters packed in special little wooden crates for a couple of weeks leading up to the holidays. There will be a bird - goose, duck, capon, pintade (guinea-fowl), even turkey. And there will be foie gras. And if you want your bird and your foie gras to come fresh from the producer, you go to a foie marché. 

Our favorite foie marché is in the rural village of Rieux-Minervois, about a half-hour drive to the west and north of us. In the big, drafty salle polyvalente (village hall or community room), folks shop shoulder to shoulder for their favorite holiday comestibles, in particular their foie gras in all of its incarnations - raw and uncooked, ready to slice and serve, stuffed into smoked duck breasts. For those of us who enjoy foie gras, it's a heady experience. 

And since these are poultry farmers meeting their public at the height of their season, every conceivable poultry product is on display. You can not only buy the whole, fresh bird. You can buy all of its parts - necks, breasts, legs and thighs, carcasses for stock, fat trimmings for rendering or for making cracklings called fritons. And there are the variations - smoked, dried, confit.

Of course, since it's a French market, there's other stuff to buy. Cheese. Sausages and smoked meats. Olives. Baked goods including spiced bread for the holidays.

So, enjoy the pics. And check out my blog page about French life HERE. I notice that the last several posts there have been about our walks around the village. Keep scrolling down for info on healthcare, car repairs, and the like.

We start with a picture of cheese to prepare the faint of heart for what is to come.

For the first time, we found stands set up outside the hall.

Packed. From the way that some stands looked, there had already been lots of shopping by 10:30 when we arrived.

The French call then macarons, not macaroons. Meringue-based, sugary, with almond flavoring, and colorful.

Foie gras!

The French do duck in all of its configurations

ALL of its configurations...

Christmas geese. Already picked over.

Spice bread.

The French are particular about lots of things, including beans.

Olives. Of course.

Charcuterie. Of course.

Duck fat. Of course?

Carcasses for stock.

Lots of carcasses.

And oysters to eat starting at 9:00am. Because, France.

 

WHO BELONGS IN MY POLITICAL PARTY?

My politically conservative friends are convinced that I'm a masked, rock-throwing Antifa at heart. 

Why?

I believe that the gun lobby has perverted common sense when it comes to the reasonable control of firearms in the same way that the fossil fuel industry is trying to pervert our understanding of climate change. And I believe that both lobbies will eventually be understood to have the same wanton disregard for human life as we now know that the tobacco lobby had.

I believe that what goes on of a sexual nature behind closed doors is nobody's business except for the intellectually capable, of age, freely consenting adults in the room. And I believe that if you choose to participate in commerce in the public marketplace, your opinion of that sexual activity is just as irrelevant to your business as is race, religion, or ethnicity.

I believe that men in blue suits, white shirts, and red ties in state capitals do not have the right to tell a woman, her doctor, and anyone else that she chooses to consult what to say and do concerning her healthcare. And I believe that a woman's healthcare includes her reproductive healthcare.

I believe that the right to protest peacefully is a sacred American right. And I believe that carrying a flag onto a playing field for profit in a manner that is specifically forbidden by the US Flag Code is more fundamentally anti-American than taking a knee to protest racial injustice while that flag is being improperly displayed.

I do not believe that corporations are people or that money equals speech. I just don't. 

My politically progressive friends are convinced that I'm a corporatist stooge, a Reagan Republican in disguise

Why?

I believe that a flat tax can be both fair and progressive. And I believe that because I've done the math and can demonstrate that it is so.

I believe that BlackLivesMatter was doomed from the beginning to being labeled exclusive and racist. And I believe that if you have to take time from the struggle to explain to your allies why Black is inclusive of Brown, Red, and Yellow, you've obviously misnamed your movement.

I believe that MeToo has become a witch hunt that has abandoned the principles of due process and the presumption of innocence. And I believe that, although men are undeniably pigs, a witch hunt is morally repugnant regardless of the righteous intentions of the hunters.

I believe that only the privileged have the luxury to talk about privilege. And I believe that, if you took the time to ask, you would learn that White Privilege does not automatically extend to overweight, poor white women with bad teeth and a Southern accent. With props to Lenny Bruce, if Albert Einstein had a Southern accent, they would never have built The Bomb.

I don't believe that if you are White, you are by definition racist. I just don't.

Who belongs in my political party?

You belong in my political party if you believe that two plus two equal four and not some number approximating four. In other words, you belong in my political party if you believe in math and science.

You belong in my political party if you can talk to people with opposing political views without raising your voice or calling names. In other words, you belong in my political party if you have the ability to participate in civil discourse on topics that you hold dear with persons who don't believe as you believe.

You belong in my political party if you understand that the perfect is the enemy of the good. In other words, you belong in my political party if you know that perfection only exists in the mind of God and that you ain't God. 

Eugene Wesley Roddenberry is God.

HOTEL TRIAS & RESTAURANT, PALAMOS, SPAIN: RESTAURANT REVIEW

During our stop at the Grau wine and liquor store in Palafrugell, Spain, we asked one of the attendants to recommend a place for lunch. He suggested continuing on to the coast, to the town of Palamos, for lunch at the Hotel Trias.

After about a ten minute drive into the heart of Palamos, we parked in a public lot, walked to the Med, and scurried into the Hotel Trias just as it began to shower. The posted menu looked promising but the restaurant didn't open until 1pm, about a half hour after we arrived. I braved the sprinkles to take a few pictures of the promenade that followed the shore line across the street. Broad and tree-lined, I could imagine that, in season, vacationers and holiday-house owners would pack the walkways and the tents set up by the restaurants that faced the water along the way.

We waited in the hotel's small bar until the lights went on in the restaurant across the reception area and chose seating by windows with a view of the harbor. The dining room was quite large, necessary to accommodate the hotel's guests in season, I would guess, but by the end of our meal only about one-quarter full on a wet and chill early December day. It's a comfortable if semi-formal space - white linens, crystal, and a uniformed maitre'd - as opposed to the guests, somewhat more semi than formal.

We were presented with two menus, one that just described the menu of the day, the second with all options. We chose to order from the former. Three choices each for starter, main, and dessert. The ladies chose white beans with clams to start and the rabbit for their main. I had onion soup and veal. The beans were a fine choice for a damp, chill day even if the clams were a bit chewy. The onion soup was not the French version, more broth and less onion, but the egg was a different touch and the cheesy toasts worked well. As the picture below shows, Cathey couldn't wait to cut into her slow-cooked rabbit. Liz found her portion a somewhat bony but both agreed that the preparation was proper. My veal was of a nice size, covered with Parmesan shavings, and was tasty if chewy as well. Such is French beef. Good frites.

For dessert, the girls had what the menu called pudding. Not quite flan. A small, simple sweet. I expected some heat with my bananas in chocolate sauce but both the bananas and the chocolate arrived cold. Not a problem, though. Good Spanish chocolate.

With a bottle of rosé, the bill came to under 38€, less than 13€ apiece. Well worth the freight. We had the impression driving and walking through town that several restaurants were closed for the season. That was fine with us. Hotel Trias met our needs. Nothing too adventurous or creative. No square plates or superfluous squeeze-bottle dollops of sauce. Just good, cheap eats.

You can read my other restaurant reviews, mostly closer to home in the south of France, HERE.

VINS I LICORS GRAU: LARGEST WINE BOUTIQUE IN EUROPE

One of the regular sporting activities that those of us living in the south of France enjoy is the semi-annual Run to Spain. Most everybody takes part. It's not a track meet, though. It's a shopping run. We go because some items are cheaper in Spain, substantially so. (I buy Cathey's favorite perfume there because it sells for less than in the duty-free shops, much less than in the local French parfumerie. But don't tell Cathey that. It'll be our little secret.) Some items simply are not available locally - a reasonable selection of Spanish wines, a bottle of brandy to feed the Christmas cake. And so, off we go Spain.

Just across the border sits La Jonquera, a small Catalonian town whose name is now attached to a massive array of opportunities to spend euros - department stores and specialty shops, garden centers, liquor stores, tobacconists, groceries and butchers. You want it? You can buy it somewhere along the main drag heading south out of the old town.

We usually make our winter run into Spain after resting up from Thanksgiving but before Christmas craziness hits La Jonquera full force. We decided to fly past the outlets first this time and head farther south, just east of Girona, to Palafrugell, a small town on the Costa Brava that has the distinction of being home to the largest wine boutique in Europe, vins i licors Grau.

Grau is family-owned, founded in 1951 by Miquel Grau i Lluís as a tavern and wine cellar delivering bulk wine. Children and grandchildren have joined the business, moving and building and expanding to the massive enterprise that it is today. To give you an idea of the size of the establishment, imagine the biggest liquor store in Texas. It's called Spec's. The flagship store is in Houston. Grau is twice as big.

The feature is the wine. Shelves and shelves and shelves of Spanish wine. Liz was so overwhelmed by the opportunity to purchase fine reds of every stripe that she flat forgot to check out the whites and rosés. A wall of dry sherries backed by a wall of sweet. Champagne and cognac and liqueurs and more. And let's not forget the liquor. Every stupid flavor of vodka that Absolut produces. Fine scotch. Small batch whiskey. A playground for the discriminating purchaser of hooch imported from around the world.

One caution. If you are looking for a run-of-the-mill spirit, that bottle of Torres brandy not for drinking but for spicing up holiday baked goods, the groceries at La Jonquera are actually cheaper. The same goes for lesser bourbons like Four Roses. But Grau can't be beat for its selection of wines and for the broad range of fine sippin' whiskey on the shelves.

The corporate website HERE tells the whole story with better pictures than the ones that I've attached below. To visit their online catalogue - not by any means a complete listing of what is available at the store - click HERE.

To learn more about our adventures in France, from walking tours to observations on life as an expat, click HERE.