Food, glorious food.

I want to share a little bit about the foods we are consuming here. Most of our meals are prepared at home. Our host Veronique is an experienced cook who easily combines ingredients from her garden with additions from beyond. After the first few days, she invited us to help and we are often assigned tasks to contribute to a meal. Now that the B and B is busy, she also prepares and serves the guests a four-course dinner two or three times per week.

From the garden, we get potatoes, onions, beets, lettuce, tomatoes, squash, many different herbs, and a range of berries. In addition, eggs come directly from the five chickens we feed daily. These foods are supplemented with items from the grocery and the farmer's market. Occasionally she goes directly to a farm to purchase ingredients in quantity, as we did last week to get a case of cantaloupe which were transformed into desserts...sorbet, melon balls soaked in Pineau, and slices grilled after marinating in honey.

Breads are purchased daily at either the boulangerie or Mont d'Or, a boulange paysanne, a farm-based bakery that will be the subject of a later post.

The most unusual food shopping experience happens on Friday. Each week, several vendors drive from village to village selling fresh local mussels and oysters. We are quite charmed by the mussel seller. She comes right into our driveway, blows a loud distinctive horn and voila...she dishes mussels from the back of the truck. She is pictured below looking cool after a delivery of two kilos for us and friends. Mussels and oysters are very significant "crops" in this region. Generally we eat mussels two or three times a week. I am not a big fan of oysters but so far I've exceeded my previous limited intake by several. Recently we visited a museum dedicated to the cultivation and harvesting of oysters which culminated in a chef's presentation and a tasting.

Just one note about wines. Before our arrival we imagined that many of our meals would be enjoyed with wines from Bordeaux which is not far to our south. However, this is not the case. A more local rose or white from Ile de Re are commonly served.

As you can imagine, we are eating well, discovering new flavors, and collecting favorite recipes to share with friends and family when we return home.