Today is a French holiday: Pentecost. France is a weird country–it’s supposed to be secular but most of the national holidays are Catholic religious holidays. Catherine says: Anything for a holiday is the French viewpoint.
Our friend Marie is hosting a Paella luncheon. I can’t believe I actually find her house! Marie gives us rudimentary directions and our GPS does not have this recent housing development on the map. But I have a vague recollection of how we got there and, by god, I am right!
Gerard is shucking oysters when we arrive. He is Marie’s “friend”–not a boyfriend or fiancé! Marie wants us to be sure to understand that. Gerard seems very nice. He currently has a tourist sport-fishing business that is centered in Morocco. He spends half the year in Morocco and half the year in Bezier. He has an electronic cigarette hanging around his neck. He occasionally takes hits off of it but there is absolutely no odor to it. As much as I hate any cigarette smoking I have to say it did not affect me in any adverse way.
I ask Gerard if he speaks English. He says he understands more than he speaks.
That is clear as the afternoon goes on–Gerard understands a lot.
Just after we arrive and while I go back to the car for a vase of flowers for Marie, Lucien gets into a grocery bag on the floor (before the contents have been loaded into the refrigerator) and eats a good bit of the pate that is for our lunch!! OMG–what a bad dog!! Marie, on the other hand, in spite of Lucien’s bad behavior, dismisses his transgressions because she is like the grandmother to the grandchild who can do no harm!
Marie has prepared a beautiful table on her terrace. She has a gorgeous tablecloth and very pretty placemats. I joke that I can only have plastic cups because of my misfortune the last time we were at Marie’s place. (I broke a beautiful wine glass).
We start with a delicious Sangria
and a nice spread of small bits to eat including nice charred red bell peppers with garlic in olive oil. The delicious oysters are served with white wine from the nearby wine-growing area of Pic Poul. The paella is incredible! It includes langoustines, gambas, mussels, rabbit, sausage; peas and rice, of course. What a feast! And what an incredible effort for Marie! After we have a cheese course that includes 5 cheeses from different regions of France. There was an incredible unpasteurized goat cheese that was so perfectly ripe it was oozing. That cheese was everyone’s favorite. Our cheese course included sheep’s milk cheese, another goat cheese, a cheese from the Pyrenees mountains and Roquefort. We had an incredible dessert of chocolate cake with praline filling with fresh raspberry coulees and whipped cream. To end the meal we had coffee with Armagnac.
The dogs were better than I’d predicted. Toby fussed about the dog next door just a little. Marie says that she has not met her neighbors because they have not been very neighborly. Toby got excited about two dogs below the balcony and barked a bit.
I ask Catherine about the 2 national holidays: Pentecost and Pentecost Monday. Why??? It is true that France, a SECULAR country, celebrates every Catholic holy-day as a national holiday. God knows why (an atheist joke). But Catherine says the French are very happy to make this an important 2 day celebration because the weather is expected to be nice and it’s the beginning of summer and what more could you ask for when it comes to national holidays??!!