You may be wondering what I have been up to and why I have not posted for some time. I find it hard to maintain the pace of blogging while working full-time. Spending time again on a computer in the evening does not really happen. The cooking happens, don’t worry. It just gets eaten!
There has been a lot of baguettes baking recently. I made a batch of chicken liver pate, always nice with a beer at the end of the day or for a quick bite at lunch. Great for picnics as well, contained, easy to transport, crowd pleaser. What else? Oh, of course, I also made a batch of red-current jam, yum! I think I missed strawberry season, which is a pity, we were away.
Our family went to France and Italy over the end of the year and start of the new one. I had not been in a northern France winter for about 20 years and had forgotten how short the days are, how late (8.30am!!!) the sun dares get up, and how grey some days can be. As for the coldest, so much for us seeking warmer days in Italy it was even colder there, we were in the beautiful city of Florence.
Markets in France and Italy
I cannot spend time near a town without checking market days and if possible make it there. French markets are packed with really long cheese display, buckets of cream, yogurt, butter, you name it. There are also amazing fish mongers, fruits and vegetable stalls with a variety of local products, charcuterie stores (that’s all the nice saucisons pate, etc). In brief a lot not to miss. The location of the markets is always downtown, great settings. With that come also a number of bakery shops and other window shopping. Irresistable!
Countryside France
Near the village I am from, in the small town named Hesdin, in Northern France, the market is on Thursday morning. The market starts early, some people go there before going to work! Hesdin has a pretty good market as there are many villages nearby which it caters for. Montreuil sur Mer, some 30 km west of Hesdin has a pretty good one on Saturday in the middle of the fortified city, pretty cool (except for parking).
We also went to Chalons en Champagne and saw the end bit of the market. It was on a cold and rainy day. We got some 36 month old Comte, a hard mountain cheese. It is really delectable.
Florence, Italy
In Italy, we were mostly in Florence. Florence has a number of markets catering for leather goods and/or food. I m not going to develop there, there is everything you need to know on a travelling website for Florence. In Florence, the external leather markets were not our focus, we found the good quality products were most often in stores, making any treasured find very random. The general market of Central Market was good. I really liked the food court above it, it made for a variety of top quality food in a simple way. I was aiming to visit the Sant’Ambrogio market, but that did not fit in with museums bookings. Florence has very good savoury food and amazing gelatos. We were staying in a residential area in the centre , there were many small-medium size restaurants to choose in between for dinner, they were great!
Back to Paris
The last market of our trip, actually there were two, one on the Saturday, the other on the Sunday, were random finds along Paris main boulevard. The Saturday market was the marche Egar Quinet, a really big and beautiful display of food along Boulevard Edgar Quinet, right near Montparnasse. I did not have any phone or camera with me, we were walking to meet by brother for lunch in a brasserie called Chez Edouard. The brasserie was lovely, nice food, nice beers, and great ambiance.
Why can’t we have markets like these in Sydney?
I always wondered why Sydney does not have that market culture. People rely way too much on waxy shiny supermarket fruits I find. Or for some reasons in Sydney, a market is full of very expensive food. Isn’t the idea of a market to be affordable because this is a straight exchange from producer or wholesaler to consumer?
