.fr

that's frenglish for "tasting." i learned from our chuckling french teacher that you can't turn it directly into the adjective "tasty", because then it means "disgusting," which it seems like it ought to in the first place. we had our last lesson today (snif), and she sent us away with a crammed lesson on the subjunctive verb form (does english even have that?) and lots of good wishes. we'll miss her, but as she left it felt like school was over for the summer. a little reminder of one of the best feelings anyone can know.

this evening avignon celebrated "the summer of vines and wine" in the main square. two euros gets you a little tasting glass and you can have at the 20 or 30 (lost count!) local winemaker's stands. an additional euro and you get a little wine-glass-holding contraption that strings around your neck like elderly/diner waitress eyeglass thing. missy opted for it, of course. they had a guy making wine barrels, sample vines of different varieties on display, and some stands of other local procuce like olive oil that were widely ignored.

we got to sample tons of different producers. all from around here, so to my novice palette a lot of it tasted very similar. it got fun to chat them up and ask about the different things they had and how they compared. it seemed like most of the people attending had american accents, so i think they were happy to have someone speak french to them. we bought a couple bottles of good stuff to enjoy before we head home.

we ordered a little food item to share from one of the vendors. we thought was going to be quail, but it turned out to be a spinach and paté loaf of some kind (in the shape of a quail?). that was doubly ok, because it was delicious and with the intense winds it ended up flying after all, into some american lady's lap. har har. we apologized in french.

astute readers will remember that one of the first things we attended here was a wine celebration in the main square for the new wine. so it was nice to wrap things up that way too. normal readers will recoil at how pretentious the whole thing sounds. yeah, we do too. one of the neat things about travelling is that you get carte blanche to ignore your own stupid prejudices and enjoy what you want without noticing as much what it looks like.

then i cooked boeuf bourguignon and at midnight it was ready and tasted not so bad. seth's easy french omni-recipe: brown/sautée any kind of meat and veggies in bacon fat (with the bacon). add a whole bottle of red wine. simmer for four hours. that's the 80% solution, and it's just fine to get you started. i'd be tempted to say there's nothing to this cooking thing, but the choco chip cookies i made the night before are terrible. actually, that's exactly what i said as i was making them. sigh.