Local for the locals

Market poster from the Carcassonne.org website
Market poster from the Carcassonne.org website

Carcassonne has no lack of farms surrounding the city nor markets to showcase their produce. Three days a week there’s an open air market on the main town square with Saturday attracting at least 50 vendors and thousands of customers who, like us, come on foot while lots of others drive in from the suburbs. Just in the last week or so you might have read the posts about rubbing elbows with the Mayor at an evening local producers market or last Saturday’s wine fair at the local agricultural high school. This week we were up deep inside the castle’s double walls for yet another festival highlighting locally made food and drink. Continue reading “Local for the locals”

New routines

Colorful olives in the market
Colorful olives in the market

When we lived in Atlanta it was seldom necessary to set an alarm unless we had to get up especially early. We just always awoke in plenty of time to get ready for work. In the weeks immediately preceding our move to France, the stress to get everything finished meant we slept very little, so on most days we were wide awake long before we needed to be. Now that we live in France, we’ve had to set the alarm clock if we’ve known that a package is going to be delivered early or needed to get to an appointment before lunchtime. Continue reading “New routines”

Required to acquire…no longer

Fresh bread at the market
Fresh bread at the market

Downsizing has long been a part of our vocabulary starting nearly 30 years ago when Bill moved up to Chicago. I already had an apartment full of furniture, as did he, so when the moving van arrived from Dallas and we jammed all of our things together, some things had to go. It took a couple more moves, first to the West coast and then to the East, before we bought our first house together and downsizing took a back seat to consumption. That lasted a few years and then came the move to Atlanta and it was all going to change…so we thought. Continue reading “Required to acquire…no longer”

Let them eat meat

Empty freezer
This freezer used to be full.

Marie Antoinette is credited, perhaps erroneously, with suggesting that if the starving peasants had no bread they should eat cake instead. Since we’re trying to use up all of the remaining food in our house these days there’s neither bread nor cake left but there’s still plenty of meat. You can have steaks of many varieties and thicknesses, chops, a roast, ham slices, salmon fillets, chicken breasts, and even an 18-pound turkey. No carbs, just all protein ready for a quick weight loss diet. Bring on the bacon! Continue reading “Let them eat meat”

‘Tis the season

No, it’s not Christmas yet; in fact, it’s still summer but this title refers to being in-season as in what fruits and vegetables are available from farms nearby now. One of the advantages of living in France, or in Europe in general, is the availability of markets that feature locally-grown produce. When we were in Normandy, northern France, this past May, it was cauliflower harvest time … Continue reading ‘Tis the season