Oh Goody!

The Peanut is still giving long discourses where there are only three recognizable words, one of which is "goody," a pronunciation I think lost somewhere between 'thank you' and 'merci.'  He says it like "goo-deeeeeee," which is actually not that far off the mark when you think about it.  Someone gives you what you want and you say, "oh goody."


Yesterday I went into the centre of a nearby town with quite a spring in my step.  It was probably because it was the first day that wasn't actually raining, and also perhaps due to the fact that I had been fasting on liquids for three days and it was the last day.  I can't really explain the fast - it was just something I felt like I needed to do, and since it was three days worth of liquids, I was having fun juicing the tiny beets, pulled out of the ground for that purpose way too soon.  I had been planning to fast the week prior, but my friend who does Ramadan convinced me to wait so we could be tired and dull at the same time.


Anyway, all went well at La Poste where I happened to arrive right before a huge crowd, and so got seen right away.  My good mood was then threatened as I forgot to be coldly polite at the national insurance center while asking for a form, and subsequently got put quite in my place by a dying bureaucrat where I had to salvage my self respect by matching her politesse with some iciness of my own (darn friendly American personality that gets me every time).  


But I shook it off when I saw that Le Marché was going on all down the street.  I had been planning to go to the grocery store, but when I saw that, I leapt at the chance (I was full of fresh juice) to support the local commerçants.  I supported them to the tune of 40€ in a mere hour, and all for just lunch and dinner.

This is a half-crown (which I can't eat since it has gluten), but I was thinking of dear Mr. Welcome, who was working from home.  I strolled among all the cheese stands, the vegetable stands, the fish stands ... actually I was looking for some halal meat since I was keeping the daughter of the friend who was doing Ramadan that night and all the next day.


I ended up in the charcuterie & traiterie and thought how nice it would be to have a ready-made lunch for Mr. Welcome.  I ordered enough sausage stuffing for two tomatoes from our garden and a slice of terrine de foie de lapin avec poireaux.  If you don't know and love french food, I won't translate that for you as it might possibly gross you out.  It made my french man salivate, however, and I love him, so ...  Can I tell you how he was beaming to have this meal put before him?


I was already salivating thinking about breaking my fast that evening and what I was going to prepare.  I never found the halal meat, so I ended up buying a kilo of jouets de poisson, which means "fish toys."  They're lovely large chunks of salmon and white fish that would probably make a shark very happy.  In any case, they looked so fresh sitting on the ice that I just had to get them.

As the evening drew closer Amina arrived with her daughter (she admitted that she had thought about making me a nice traditional Moroccan soup to break my fast but was too lazy, and I admitted that I had almost called her to ask her for it, so that she promised to bring one when she came to get her daughter, along with some flaked pastry with chèvre).  I was already thinking about how to prepare the fish, and decided on butter with the fresh dill, lemons and shallots I had bought at the market that day.


In the course of my fast, I had also made vegetable soup and drained the broth, then mixed the strained vegetables with mashed potatoes.  To my surprise, I discovered that the kids love it!  So I decided to take the leek I bought at the market, the zucchini I picked from the garden, some organic carrots (as ours were still too small), and mix those vegetables with the new potatoes from the market that I cooked and mashed.


The kids ate late, around 8pm (which is not at all late in France).  I was feeling pretty great as the really hard day had been day #2 where I almost broke down and gobbled up the frozen fish sticks I was preparing for my kids upon learning the news that Mr. Welcome would be home late from work.  I stood firm and the anticipation was really worth it.


I set out the meal for two while the freshly-scrubbed kids played downstairs in their pj's.  There were beet leaves fried in canola oil and sprinkled with salt (the beets were pathetically small, but their leaves did them justice).  There was the mashed vegetable and potato mix, and then the broiled fish plate sizzling before us.  I also had had the foresight to chill some white wine (with no alcohol - sorry to offend the connaisseurs among you but I just can't handle alcohol).  It was a meal to delight in.

I was giddy in anticipation (can you blame me for writing an entire post about food?), said a little prayer (there are times where you just have to thank God for the bounty) and dug in, savoring every bite.


Goo-deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!