Brightly-Colored Produce
And other things we've been eating!
I am fresh off a two-week stint in the US and have come home (to France) to warm, sunny days that are the most perfect prelude to summer.
Although we’re in the midst of the 3rd mild “heatwave” we’ve had this Spring—a foreshadowing that gives me a decent amount of dread for the next 3 months—it was still amazing to come home to a weekend that was sunny with temps around 30C/86F.
It felt like it took forever to get warm again after a long, rainy, cold fall through early Spring—it got cold in mid-September last year and hasn’t been consistently warm until a couple of weeks ago. That’s 8 months of chill. So when these early pops of heat rolled in for a few days, the people rejoiced.
Now, I think it’s safe to say summer is officially here and I’m actually excited for it (feel free to call me a hypocrite in August when I’m bitching about constantly sweating.) The season’s first picnics, tartares de saumon, and pavlovas have all been had and I cannot WAIT for many more. Apologies, but I ate the pavlova way too fast to take a photo.
Even before my little trip back to the US, the markets had absolutely lit up with some shiny, bright produce. There was even more when I got back.
I’m sorry to say I don’t have any great market photos. I find it really awkward snapping pictures of vendors and their goods in the same market where I do my own shopping a few times a week. Knowing many vendors don’t really like it, and some have signs indicating photos aren’t allowed, I just can’t bring myself to do it. So you’re getting things I actually buy, photographed in the kitchen, until I venture to another market I don’t regularly visit.
We’ve had the best strawberries over the last month. The kind where they’re so fresh and unadultered that you should eat them for dessert. These babies don’t go in the fridge, which sucks the flavor out, and you eat them fast, because that freshness doesn’t last long.
We’re also talking fresh, small green spring onions, the season’s first crop of potatoes, and a variety of salad greens.
There’s this funny thing with spring potatoes—whether a type of potato, the size, the newness…I’m not sure which. But the farmers make a big deal about the new potatoes in the spring. They’re smaller, they’re really expensive, and everyone is really proud to have them available to sell. More investigations to come.
We have had the season’s first tomatoes as of yesterday! And tons of fresh herbs, loads of cherries (sadly, not pictured and not purchased since my surprising and very unfortunate allergic reaction to them last summer). It’s clearly and quickly turning to summer, everywhere you look. The apples are largely gone and in their place are mounds of berries and stone fruit.
Funny French Food Anecdotes
Kale. Surprisingly, there is no to very little kale here, so I’m growing my own this year in window boxes. Until then I am impatiently awaiting kale ceasar salad, which I indulged in at Adele’s last week in Nashville. I need this salad back in my life on a regular basis, holy shit.
Learning to cook with French shrimp. As the weather has warmed, we’ve been eating more seafood, which comes easily and fairly fresh given the Atlantic Coast of France is oyster country and the Mediterranean is only 3-4 hours away. I bought some shrimp, and as I still don’t have a good grasp on what 1 kilogram of shrimp looks like or how many people that feeds, I screwed up and bought way too much. On top of that, the shrimp are very…natural, so I had to channel my inner French and decapitate all these fuckers. Here’s a picture of just some of the shrimp heads that had to go.
Justin tried tartare de boeuf (beef tartare) again. Let your imagination run wild as to why this will be the last time.
Lastly, Justin has learned the joys of French chocolate habits. Like literal chocolate bars and pieces. It is not a stereotype that we eat a lot of chocolate here, and it’s not at all uncommon to be lightly elbowed out of the way by old ladies who are half as tall as you so they can inspect the expansive shelves of chocolate bars in the grocery store. Whether plain, or with caramel, nougat, or a bit of salt, the schtick is real and it’s very common to see people whipping a bar out of their bag for a quick nibble, almost as common as seeing people bite the tip off their baguettes as they walk.
What other French food stories do you want to hear? Do you want some recipes? Let me know!
You need to buy Meta glasses so you can discretely take pictures at the market :D
Food. Glorious food!!!