Vienne, bio, moules!
Today was quite a good day. I made a lot of progress mathematically in the morning on account of an idea I had late the previous night. More on that tomorrow once I've worked out the details. Jean-Louis and Julien called me in the afternoon to ask if I wanted to go to Vienne and then sheepishly asked if they could also come over in the evening to use our oven to make potatoes. It turned into a whole day affair in the end. First we went to Satoriz, the all bio (i.e. all organic) store in Vienne that they've been raving about. Even though I had already stocked up at our local market that morning, I desperately wanted to get out of the house and spend time with people, so I agreed to go with them. The store was much better than I expected, both in price and quality of products. The produce was generally good quality, though not as good as our market (save for really flavorful red bell peppers we bought). However, the big find with this place was that they had numerous grains and things in bulk, which Christian and I have never seen in Lyon. It was like a miniature version of that aisles at Monterrey Market or Berkeley Bowl. I stocked up on several kilos of basmati rice, bought red quinoa for the first time, and tried a kilo of their muesli since even if it turned out to be bad, it was far cheaper than boxed cereal here. They also sell real maple syrup. It's important to know where you can get this American products when you get a hankering...
After the bio store, we went to a regular supermarket to buy some fish for dinner (bio store only had frozen, and even though I know it's better for the environment, it still doesn't look appetizing to me). When we got to our place, we started cooking a feast. A salad (with said delicious red peppers), a kilo of mussels (moules de bouchots, to be precise) cooked in a wine broth, and three trout baked in the oven on top of potatoes. We broke out our first rosés of the summer today as well. It was a very satisfying meal. Dessert was green mangoes. We talked for a long time and eventually Julien fell asleep on the couch. J-L and I watched a couple shorts before going to into the kitchen around 2am for some herbal tea. At that point the conversation got surprisingly heavy, talking extensively about the pros and cons of protectionism, of all things. It was a fun discussion and I kinda like when light evenings turn unexpectedly intellectual. Anyway, a fun night, capped by talking to Christian twice over Skype :-)
After the bio store, we went to a regular supermarket to buy some fish for dinner (bio store only had frozen, and even though I know it's better for the environment, it still doesn't look appetizing to me). When we got to our place, we started cooking a feast. A salad (with said delicious red peppers), a kilo of mussels (moules de bouchots, to be precise) cooked in a wine broth, and three trout baked in the oven on top of potatoes. We broke out our first rosés of the summer today as well. It was a very satisfying meal. Dessert was green mangoes. We talked for a long time and eventually Julien fell asleep on the couch. J-L and I watched a couple shorts before going to into the kitchen around 2am for some herbal tea. At that point the conversation got surprisingly heavy, talking extensively about the pros and cons of protectionism, of all things. It was a fun discussion and I kinda like when light evenings turn unexpectedly intellectual. Anyway, a fun night, capped by talking to Christian twice over Skype :-)