...And it's almost Christmas....

    I'm not going to waffle on about the long silence between blog posts. Just know that my New Year's resolution is to post more often. It's late afternoon on Christmas Eve, there's a cup of tea at hand, a nap in the offing, friends coming for aperos at 6:30 p.m., a table booked at the café for an hour later--and all the ingredients for the Christmas feast in the fridge, or in the making.
    I'm in the middle of foie gras preparation. It's been deveined, sprinkled with salt, pepper and some of Alain's legendary eau de vie. This morning, I wrapped it into a roll, and wrapped it in plastic. Next, I'll wrap it in cloth, poach it for 90 seconds, chill it, and rewrap it even more tightly with a second layer of cloth. This is the "torchon" method as spelled out by Michael Ruhlman. http://ruhlman.com/2011/05/how-to-make-torchon-recipe/
     Yesterday, we were on the road before 9 a.m. and at Lavelanet market soon after. What a magical drive there with thick mist covering the fields, and steaming away into invisibility as we watched.

   With the mist gone, the sky was as blue as heaven.
The town was bustling, everyone in a convivial mood as they went about collecting their Christmas orders. I'd ordered a chapon--a capon--from the butcher's so we picked that up first and took it back to the car after the moment of terror when the butcher ran his finger down the hand-written list of names and couldn't find mine...

A corner of the butcher's shop. Note the silver  Christmas candelabra on the counter, and the row of cups awarded to "best butcher..." on the top of the sausage display case. Carcasses hang behind the wooden doors to the left.

   Chapon out of the way, it was time to whizz down the length of the market to the halles--and my favourite produce stall.

    The family who run this have a farm about half an hour away. Everything they sell, they grow. Can you make out the bright pink and red stalks of the chard? We got through a few kilos of that at a meal with friends earlier this week.
    No chard needed today but Brussels sprouts, parsnips, parsley, carrots, leeks, shallots, onions and garlic...the bags were getting heavy by now. I walked back outside on this bitingly cold day, and spotted Peter queueing to buy oysters which, like foie gras, are traditional at Christmas.

  
    While he waits patiently, I want to tell you about the profusion of seafood at this time of year. Earlier this week, we drove over to Pamiers where, among other places, we trawled the Carrefour supermarket. As well as the usual fish counter, pretty impressive at any time of year, there were two huge displays of oysters in wooden boxes, and a central table covered in seaweed, and heaped with live lobsters, crabs, langoustines, mussels and clams. (Next to it was a cooler the size of a bus filled with foie gras in various forms: pale beige lobes, vacuum-packed to be prepared at home, tins of different dimensions, slices...a colossal amount.)
    The other essentials in the Christmas triumvirate are champagne and Sauternes (or some other sweet wine) to sip with your foie gras.

     A bûche de Noël --a Christmas log--is the traditional dessert. So what's it to be? The Black Forest version? The "white lady" kind with vanilla and chocolate? Or a Norwegian omelette which, for reasons unknown, is the French name for Baked Alaska. Our friend Isabelle is bringing dessert so I can't tell you what we'll be eating....
    Merry Christmas to all--and to all a good night.

A for asparagus, B for bake sale

Asparagus is now in season, green or white, sold in various qualities. We brought home a half kilo of the white variety which is now sitting on the counter waiting to be cooked and eaten with a dish of gratinéed shrimp-filled crèpes. 

For whatever reason--a warm sunny day, maybe?-- Lavelanet's market was jammed by the time we got there around 9:30 a.m. this morning.  Our first stop is often les halles which is where you find local producers. One old lady I often buy from was today selling cabbages and big bunches of lilac. You could buy wine, meat, baguettes, even bunches of cilantro (seldom seen around here) and you could pick up a homemade cake or pie from this bunch of kids who were raising funds for a school trip. We came home with some small Moroccan pastries drenched in honey.

   

Opportunities at the market.

Markets in France offer scads more than fruit and veggies. A sample of what you could have bought if you'd joined us in Lavelanet this morning.

Small tractors and large mowers--you can always get those. I've never worked out how you're supposed to get them home. Do you ride them and join all the other agricultural vehicles we see around here?

Next, takeout food. Here's the rotisserie man skewering a number of chickens. He also sells, depending on his mood, ham, pork, rabbit and quail. The pan on the left holds paella which is sold by the portion with each portion containing precisely the same amount of chicken, prawns and squid.

Elsewhere you can buy churros--we're very close to Spain--or couscous because we have lots of North African people living locally. Pizzas, I almost forgot those with a wealth of different toppings. Chinese food--nems is French for spring roll. Mussels cooked in cream. Usually a daube smelling so good you could dive right into it. If you don't want to cook, this market makes it easy.

Moving along, you can outfit yourself and your family head to toe at the market (I hoped the bra man would be there so I could take a photo but he wasn't). Current French fashion moves down to market level remarkably quickly. Here's one of the shoe stalls. These are fairly granny-ish in style but elsewhere I could have bought cute wedge 40s style sandals and smart black boots--plastic so only 10 euros. The other bargain to be had today were black jeans and blousons for three euros each. 

Beside the shoe stall, you can see the first of the new broad beans. White and green asparagus is also showing up. No fruit as yet but there are still loads of local apples around.

Millas in Lavelanet

Millas--or milla as it's sometimes spelled is an Ariègeois specialty. A mixture of cornmeal and water, it's abit like polenta. This morning, we drove into Lavelanet for a gardeners' vide grenier. The few stalls looked lonely inside the huge halles but we did buy an old fork, some vintage Christmas cards and some plants. At the entrance, a couple was stirring a huge copper pot of millas to be served later, cut in slabs and sprinkled with sugar. 

Snow on the Pyrenees and Finds at the Market

Low temperatures mean snow on the mountains. On this crystal-clear morning, the contrast was extraordinary between the razor-sharp Pyrenees and the soft Harris tweed colours of the fields and forests. 

In the halles at Lavelanet market, local producers now sell lots of winter crops. I found these utterly gorgeous cabbages, parsnips--which you don't often see in France--and two baskets of medlars which I've never seen for sale anywhere before. In hindsight I should have bought them, so I could let them ripen from now till Christmas. 

Off to the Movies

Cinema Le Casino. This is our local picture palace in Lavelanet. Fairly splendiferous, non? The close-up photo is so you can a) admire its very impressive sponge-painted exterior, and b) note the name of the current movie: Batman: Le Chevalier Noir.

Peter had been panting to see this so off we went for the first showing, 4 p.m. on a weekday. Worldwide, this is the big film right now, I'd joked about having to join a lineup that went right back to the traffic island (which is just across from the cinema). In fact, we were the only people in the very sumptuous, red-velvet-seated auditorium initially. Then, a trio of teenage girls came in and sat some rows behind. 

This was the first French movie theatre I'd been in since I was seventeen and saw a James Bond --"Je m'appelle Pond. Chums Pond"--film in Paris. So...a few notes. No savagely overpriced popcorn and Coke stand. No previews. Just straight into the main feature.