More finds at the Pamiers flea market

We drove to Pamiers this morning through a mist so thick and wet that most cars had their headlights and windscreen wipers on. When we got there, we saw that many of the stallholders had covered their wares with plastic sheets. It was too chilly to eat our pains aux raisins outside so we squeezed into a café on the main square and drank our crèmes elbow to elbow with everyone else. Eventually the sun burned through and the thermometer shot up but not to the high teens (Celsius) that it's been for the past couple of days. 

As usual, what was for sale ran the gamut from these 1930s soda syphons to spanners and children's clothes.

Our buys today included a saw for pruning roses and hedges, a DVD (although we still need a player) a classic tweed overcoat which I was sold by a very persistent vendeuse, a small folk art house to hang on the wall or, as you can see, stand on the stairs, and a china mold for foie gras. The woman who I bought both these from--for a total of three euros--did add that the mold could hold other foods besides foie gras.

Breaking buying resolutions at the Pamiers flea market.

Because the shelf over the sink is jammed with them from one end to the other. Because the kitchen cupboards and the sideboard are crammed with tottering piles of mismatched crockery. Because I really should know when to stop. I've placed an embargo on buying any more quaint old tins or one-of-a-kind plates or saucers. However attractive they are.

    But...we are on the lookout for plenty of other stuff. A carved something-or-other for the post at the bottom of the staircase (an oversized hazelnut or walnut would be ideal). Vintage bedside tables. Something to stand in the bathroom to hold bottles and jars. And, as they say in the advertising business, "much, much more."

   All of which was a reasonable excuse to head off to Pamiers on a glorious Sunday morning when the frost lay on the fields and the Pyrenees looked sculpted out of solid ice. 

    Once, some months ago, we found that the usual flea market had been pre-empted by a troupe of majorettes. But not today. By ten o'clock, when we arrived, the main square was already packed with buyers, sellers, dogs and an inquisitive ferret on a leash. Good karma flowed. You just knew this was going to be a successful rooting through the cast-offs of others. 

    Our first find was an old wooden shuttle (that's the thing that looks like a miniature canoe), a remnant of the textile industry that used to flourish in this region. The woman who sold it to us said some people use them to hold pens and pencils. In a moment of lunacy, I'd envisaged it holding a row of tea-lights until Peter pointed out that, being made of wood, the shuttle might go up in flames. 

    In a box under the same stall, I came on a rolling pin. Not sure if you can make out the words inscribed on it but they translate as "reserved for domestic quarrels." What I initially thought were red wine stains may be blood. I couldn't resist two small plates with a stencilled pattern of oranges. Only a euro each. 

    Major finds often hide in the cartons under each stall. Seeing me dithering over a pile of saucers, their owner smartly picked out the ones I'd been looking at--one with blue flowers, six with red daisies--and offered them to me for a euro the lot. This was after she'd sold me a tin of buttons for the same price. 

    In yet another box, this time filled with books, I came on Middleton's All the Year Round Gardening Guide (another one euro purchase). Reading through it later, I've discovered it was written during the war as an aid to digging for victory.

    Meanwhile Peter picked up a rather splendid vase, a souvenir of Mirepoix, a steal at 1.20 euros. And that was it. Apart from two pairs of gloves and a kilo of walnuts.

    

A Brown-ish Lunchtime in Pamiers

Not for the first time we left Léran later than we'd planned and found ourselves in Pamiers just as everything was closing. 

On the same side street as Le Patio, the little bistro we ate lunch at, we were enchanted by a window display showing a petit déjeuner, mostly in shades of brown, right down to the pot of Bonne Maman chestnut jam. 

A food store? Guess again. In fact, the shop sold fabrics for patchwork. 

So lunch. Steak frites and the choice of cheese or dessert. I cannot resist iles flottantes, a standard "pudding" in these parts. Every one I've had has been different. This meringue was almost marshmallow-y--a meringue with some serious substance to it. Milk, eggs, vanilla and sugar are the only ingredients. A good dessert to keep in mind if I have to drum something up in a hurry and don't have time to go to the supermarché. 

Original Chocolate Sin

Shouldn't it be called "faux gras"? This disk on the left is made of solid chocolate--chocolate ganache coated with white chocolate. Below, a troupe of drum majorettes wearing smart leather boots the pale green of new spring onions.

The link is that we saw both this morning in Pamiers, a town a half hour away. We knew about the foie gras made by this little chocolate shop. I visit its window frequently but have yet to get up the

nerve to go inside knowing that I would leave in a chocolate-induced coma. 

We weren't expecting the majorettes. Instead, we were geared up for the weekly Sunday morning flea market, mais non. Instead, tables and chairs filled the square and the stage at the end was bouncing with brass bands and majorettes. Either they had several costume changes--the common element being very short, twirly skirts and spangles--or there were several majorette troupes. 

Just your average Sunday morning in France...