Foie Gras = gross

Today I went to the Paris Farmer's Expo with Mme. Beguin. M. Beguin and Laure were out of town for the weekend, and although she enjoyed being alone to work on her jewelry and she was plenty occupied with the baby, she definitely prefers being social - last night at midnight she heard me in the bathroom and talked my ear off while she worked on her jewelry. She was super-excited for the salon, with good reason, it was quite fun. It's a salon similar to the Agricultural Expo, except way way smaller scale, and apparently these happen every month. It's all local (at least French) vendors and most of the businesses are family run. Mme. Beguin has been doing business with some of these people for years, and they recognize her and kiss her and give her little additional gifts. The other day, the woman who sells Mme. Beguin her olive oil (which she buys lots of) sent over on olive tree for the terrace, as a way of thanking her for her business.

Like the agricultural salon, the main attraction for me was samples, except that I wasn't entirely thrilled to sample many of the offerings. Having tried fois gras last weekend, I have decided that I never want to put it in my mouth again, and despite Mme. Beguin's please, I refused to sample it, or the cassoulet which looked like lard a la nasty beef, or the magret du canard (which I have also sampled a few times and decided against). When we finally got to some more normal things, like jams and spreads, I was more than happy to sample those (Mme. Beguin has since teased me about my sweet tooth and told the vendors that I only like to taste sweet things. alors.) I tasted a delicious fig confiture, and black currant butter, and even black currant vodka (which was completely disgusting). At almost every stand we sampled food at, Mme. Beguin bought things, and I'm guessing she spent minimum 300 euro. Luckily she has one of those wheely bag-things that almost all Parisians have to transport their groceries in, but by the end even that didn't suffice.

The most amusing part of the whole thing had to be when we walked by the fur stand. Mme. Beguin has a weird (I think) fetish with fur (we have a nice deer head mounted on the wall from Xmas) and she had to stop and touch. I'm not sure what kind of animal it was...I can't remember the French name and I didn't recognize it from the pictures (maybe an otter? some sort of racoon-like creature that lives in the water). This stand sold everything from the meat made from the creature, to its fur, to its teeth. I was somewhat mortified; she was thrilled. We touched at least 15 pellets of fur, and she couldn't decided whether or not to buy one, and then she noticed a little bump on one of the pellets and the woman told her that it was a nipple, and this animal's young nurse from the back b/c it lives in the water and it's easier that way. Sold! Mme. Beguin bought two pellets and to her absolute delight, was given a keychain of a tooth as a gift. Hilarious. She made a great point at that moment (and five more times before we got home) that it is really neat that all the vendors are super genuine and are experts in whatever they sell, be it honey, jam, foie gras, or furs.

Anyways, the salon was great, and I got free tickets to go to the next one in May...if you want anything brought home from France (olive/sunflower oil, lavendar oil, honey, black currant anything, fig anything) just drop me an email since I'm excited to go back to the salon again.

The rest of the day was beautiful. The weather today was absolutely gorgeous and sunny and in the 60s. I went to the Picasso museum with some Midd girls, then on a run in the sun.

Finally tonight my friend Emily from Midd came over for a cooking class with her family, and I hung out with them during dessert. For all you New Yorkers out there, you'll be excited to know that Emily's dad lived in Merrick until he was about 10. Know any Goldsmiths?