A Couple of Days in Albi

   Peter's pick for his birthday so last Thursday, we packed up the car and drove north to the city of Albi via the Black Mountains.

   Years since we were here and I'd forgotten what a stupendously lovely city this is with its red-pink brick buildings and bridges across the Tarn. 

   Dominating the view is the cathedral built by the Church to remind those around that The Church Ruled (this was after they'd slaughtered thousands of Cathars). More fortress than holy place, it's large and ominous. Every square centimetre of its interior is painted, one of the main paintings being of the Last Judgement and depicting, in rather too vivid detail, what happens if you break one of the seven main sins. When Peter bought three postcards of the fate awaiting gluttons (and another one), the young man behind the counter pointed out that the cathedral sold postcards of all the sins. We'd just picked our favourites. 

     Outside was much cheerier with beds blazing with orange and yellow flowers, and a marvellous formal garden. Signage in braille means that everyone can "see" its intricacies.  

     

A Walk on the Flat.

    Ten kilometres is nothing when it's all on the flat, the trees are in bloom, the sun is out and there's the prospect of a riverbank picnic at the end of it. 

    Not much to add to these photos except that I've never seen so many cowslips in flower, and that that exquisite village is Camon. 

Strawbs and spuds at Albi market

   Before leaving for the trip back, we bought picnic supplies at the little market at the end of the street our hotel stood on. A big chunk of crusty bread, a fresh goat cheese, a slab of pâté, some tomatoes, and a basket of meticulously arranged gariguette strawberries--the first of the season--from this little girl and her maman. 

   I couldn't resist taking a surreptitious shot of this shopper riding off with his big bag of potatoes.

The Enormous Easter Omelette

  Lately I've been a mauvaise blogger. There's just been too much else going on, mainly in the garden where the emerging forest of nettles and dandelions has to be wrestled with. You don't really want to see shots of those, do you? Thought not.

    Anyway, a week ago last Easter Monday, we drove into Mirepoix lured by the promise of hte making of a 1000-egg omelette. "Ooof," or rather "oeuf." Not having read the fine print on the poster meant that, by the time we found a parking spot and made our way into the square, all the communal tables were heaving with the about-to-be-fed.

    Still, we could at least watch. I'd somehow imagined that battalions of helpers would crack each egg individually until they'd reached the magic number and that they'd all then be beaten together and poured, in one enormous yellow slosh, into a colossal pan. Then--and I hadn't quite worked this bit out--an enormous flip would roll the cooked eggs into the traditional omelette "purse" shape. It wasn't quite like that. The egg-cracking had been done ahead of time, a series of omelettes was made, and the result looked more like scrambled eggs. 

   We couldn't eat the official version so we sat outside at a café and ordered, of course, omelettes. 

   Meanwhile, a man walked by with a giant bunch of shiny balloons, jazz musicians played and the carrousel twirled. Not a bad way to pass a Monday afternoon.

Small Dogs and Snails

    A rousing chorus of the Marseillaise and three resounding cheers. Vide-grenier season is back, the time when people empty their attics and sell what they find. This past Sunday we drove to one we'd seen advertised at Les Pujols, a small village that normally we speed through en route to Pamiers. 

   Truth to tell it wasn't the best of vide-greniers, being long on plastic toys, children's clothes and souvenir swizzle sticks but I did come upon a--well, I thought it would do very nicely as a laundry basket, especially at five euros. I could just picture myself piling it up with newly washed monogrammed linen sheets to hang out to dry in the garden. The woman selling it agreed but added I could also use it for "un petit chien" which makes me suspect that it wasn't actually meant for laundry. When rain started to patter down, it also functioned nicely as a hat. 

    Almost all these events offer food and drink in some shape or form. This time it was snails. A smiling couple stirred vast quantities of escargots simply cooked with parsley and garlic, and others prepared with tomatoes, Catalan style.

The First Lunch in the Garden

    Oh it was a glorious warm sunshiny day on Monday, warm enough to take the bistro table and chairs out on to the lawn, and load up the tray with lunch. Baguette, pâté, salad. 

  The recent showers followed by sun followed by showers followed by sun--you get the picture--have meant everything grows as you watch. Especially dandelions as you can see. 

    Wandering off on a sidetrack. I'm a devoted fan of Marie Claire Idées, a magazine crammed with crafts, decorating and food ideas. Recently I picked up an hors-série--a special issue--devoted to La folie des fleurs! Flowers on walls, flowers on frocks, flowers on hand-embroidered tablecloths that would take you a million years to hand-embroider, you get the idea. But also, flowers in food. A cake speckled with begonia blossoms. A salad of quail eggs and dandelions. And also, take another look at our lawn, a golden, glinting gelée de fleurs de pissenlit. Now wouldn't that look delectable spread on the breakfast slice of toasted baguette, I thought. 

    Dandelion flowers, green apples, sugar. The recipe looked easy enough. But I wasn't quite sure exactly how much 550 grams of dandelion flowers added up to. So I went and picked a few and weighed them. Six flowers equal three grams. Do the math. 

They're not weeds, they're salad.

   Around this time last year, I got into the habit of picking the young green pissenlit leaves, washing them well, and dressing them with vinaigrette. A couple of days ago, as I was weeding, I found some tidy little roots of bittercress. Any of you reading this with especially keen eyes will notice another green in the mix. The last of an enormous head of frisée that I bought at the market last week. 

   At the market today, I noticed these dandelion leaves for sale, as thin and pale as consumptive Victorian maidens. "Pass," I though, "I've got far more robust ones at home."