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Showing posts from October, 2018

LA MAISON DE L'ECURIE, SALLELES D'AUDE: RESTAURANT REVIEW

 (If you prefer a video review, go to my YouTube channel HERE .) Restaurants in peaceful, out of the way locations with scenic, picture postcard views often fall into one of two categories. They tend to be only as good as they have to be or to be more expensive than they should be. Situated right beside the Canal de Jonction where it intersects with the Canal du Midi , La Maison de l'Ecurie (The Stable House) is indeed in a peaceful, scenic location. But it defies convention by serving food that's better than it needs to be at reasonable prices. We thoroughly enjoyed our luncheon on a warmish fall day and shall return. But we'll have to hurry. La Maison de l'Eclurie closes in early November and won't reopen until the first of March. You can't drive right up to La Maison de l'Ecurie. You turn off the main road from Mirepeisset to Salleles d'Aude onto the tow path, then park and walk for 150 meters or so to the restaurant. The terrace filled rapidly

KYCLOS, SAINT-GUILHEM-LE-DESERT: CONCERT REVIEW

The thirteenth season of the Festival Les Troubadours romanesque has come to a close. If you don't know about this fine series of concerts that takes place from May into October throughout Occitanie, mostly in churches and other ancient settings, take the time to find out about it. HERE'S a link to the website. You'll just have to wait until next year to plan your visits. And we do plan our visits. This year, 48 concerts were on the schedule in venues ranging from the Pyrenees to the other side of Montpellier. Artists came from all corners of the Med from Greece and Corsica, Occitanie and Catalonia, France and Spain. Their music can be classified as sacred and profane, polyphonic and simple, classical and folk, flamenco and world. For this penultimate concert in the series, Kyclos performed in the Abbaye de Gellone in Saint-Guilhem-le-Desert, a UNESCO World Heritage village worth visiting in its own right. On a dark October night with heavy cloud cover, you miss much

EXAMINING HEALTHCARE: SEPTEMBER 2018 RANT (ONE DAY LATE)

In a discussion about healthcare, a friend said that the European system was not socialism. Europe was composed of welfare states, of countries whose people wanted something for nothing. So I decided to look at healthcare in both the USofA and Europe to decide which system worked best, both in terms of cost and in terms of outcomes. I'm not a socialist or a communist. I'm not even a democratic socialist. I do believe that there are certain aspects of daily life that are rightly the domain of government to undertake or, at least, to heavily regulate. I believe that it is clear that for-profit companies generally care more about profit than about the environment, for instance. When air pollution turned the air of cities like Pittsburgh and Los Angeles noxious shades of brown, it took vigorous enforcement of emission standards, not voluntary action on the part of the emitters, to clear the air. There can certainly be debates about the limits of regulation. I once spoke with a