On Friday afteroon we shopped at Les Halles D'Anjou. At Odessa poissonerie I bought cleaned squid and four large Portuguese sardines, and fried them in batter for a Saturday lunch treat. We also bought two brioches de Carême: Lenten brioches, also known as hot cross buns, made here with some whole-wheat flour as well as white, and studded with soft raisins. Better than delicious. There were two butchers, both with excellent-looking meat. We bought some ground beef, maigre (lean), and some chicken breasts marinated with a mustard sauce, and then went on to the vegetable and fruit market, where we filled our cart with Moroccan clementines, fat white endives (I read a recipe for braised carmelized endive that I'm dying to try - maybe with that chicken), avocados, limes, baby spinach, Bartlett pears, green beans, mushrooms, fresh carrots, a bag of Cortlands that went into a pie the next day. And then had an early dinner at a Chinese restaurant that ended like this:
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The pie, made by J., is a gift for friends -- fellow gardeners from the community garden who, like me, are itching to get our hands into the soil. I've seen three of these friends this weekend, and it was fun; we've all missed our gardens and each other. It's so nice to realize I've been missed too!
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On Saturday evening we went to a birthday party for a friend who has just returned from two months in Nicaragua and El Salvador. Around the pièce de résistance, a platter bearing an entire poached artic char, conversation somersaults between French and English. It's exhausting to try to follow the passages of rapid French for five hours, and exhilarating to I realize how much better we're both doing with it. We finish with a flourless chocolate cake topped with raspberries and a pot of rooibos tea.
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And on Sunday, downtown, we overhear an elderly couple speak a language I cannot decipher. I expect Italian, but it's not that. (Perhaps Romanian - I've been fooled once before.) She is in a wheelchair, with a calm but strong face, a decisive nose. He is thin, with glasses that seem too large for his him, and reads a newspaper, from which he offers her verbal tidbts every now and then. The back page, facing me, shows pictures of attractive young couples in luxurious apartments in a large advertisement titled:
"Live Life to the Fullest!"
followed by a subtitle:
"Rebates up to 50%."
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More on the cat later...we are pondering this long list with too many great choices. Thank you!
cool fortune cookies.I always get stupid ones
Posted by: john | April 10, 2011 at 09:15 PM