Sarlat Market

Wednesdays and Saturdays are Market Days in Sarlat, the largest town in the immediate area. Much like the other markets we have been too, with produce stands, meat markets, fish stalls, foie gras producers, you name it! But it is much bigger and therefore much more crowded with people. Coming down the hill into town is stop and go traffic, and once you find your parking spot (if you ever do) you have to trek into town, to find the goods you are looking for. The clothing, kitchen goods and toys pleasantly line the Rue de la Republique while the food stands are stationed just an alleyway's walk below on the Rue Tourny, Place de Peyrou, Rue de la Liberte, and Place de la Liberte. What does this mean? That the entirety of the market is centered in some of the most interesting Medieval streets I think I have ever seen. The old town was mainly constructed in the 14th century and has kept much of its originality-down to the narrow winding streets through town and the similar use of the square for selling goods (though they aren't bringing in live animals anymore). Walking along, with the masses of international people, you can almost squint your eyes and imagine these little lanes as it was back in the day, with the lights replaced by candles, and the modern refrigeration booths simply removed.

Taken on a Wednesday Market

Romantic alleyways

Taken on last Saturday's Market

Place de la Liberte

Two of my most favorite local products, Walnuts & Strawberries

French butcher-men

After wandering through the maze of people and stands, we had luckily worked up a lovely appetite, just in time to meet some friends for lunch at Chez le Gaulois, a traditional French restaurant but nothing like you would normally run into in the Dordogne where menus are normally full of foie gras and duck items. This food is traditional Mountain food-full of cheese, potatoes and ham, and all delicious!

When I say they served ham, I mean, they served ham and lots of it! Walking in, this front door, one is greeted by 20 legs of ham hanging from the ceiling and more upstairs where the waiters would go up and retrieve more ham for the ham slicer. Yup, the ham slicer. During the entirety of the lunch service (we were there for almost two hours), there was one man standing in the back slicing ham. A plate would pass through the window from the tiny kitchen with the melted cheese or the vegetables and he would load the order up with the appropriate amount of ham.

Ham Slicer in the back

Our menus were written on individual chalkboards and was fairly short, with about 10 total items on the menu-all including ham and all including cheese.

In trying to watch my acid-intake, I opted for the less intimidating option a Cassolette de Legumes, basically just a casserole of yummy vegetables with a cheese melted on top with a side of ham and a salad.

Other people on the table ordered the L'Assiette de Montagnards, a lovely melted cheese served with ham and roasted potatoes

Complete with special wooden spoon for serving the cheese

And the Tartiflette, a luxurious combination of cheese, onions, bacon, and potatoes.

The Tartiflette was a real treat and would be perfect on a cold winters evening. Though it was already fairly warm outside, a bite of this warmed you straight to the soul. I found a fairly good recipe to use for the next cool day!

To cool off after our warm, yet utterly delicious meals, we ordered some ice creams, made by a local regional producer. Our friend got his favorite, 1,2, 3, boules-a house specialty of three kinds of chocolate-dark, milk, and white. The white chocolate was surprisingly good for someone who doesn't normally like white chocolate. He also added a forth boule of licorice, which I was most definitely hesitant to try since black licorice is something I reach for less then white chocolate. But it was actually refreshing and good, I may have to re-think my licorice dislike...

1,2,3 boules + 1 more!

I opted for a single boule de noix, or walnut ice cream. Since being here, I have taken a fancy to anything walnut-especially walnut breads and desserts. This ice cream did not disappoint.

A perfect way to unwind after a busy morning of fighting the crowds and a large meal.

As the temperature rises...

The weather in France has been quite hot, and when I say hot, I mean HOT. For a girl who has never lived more than 20 miles from the coast and has always had that nice coastal breeze all her life, I am not used to real, sticky, humid heat. It is now almost 8 at night in Saint Cybranet, and it is still 93. I can only hope and pray for that cold weather I was cursing less than a week ago.

Luckily, to take my mind off the sweltering weather, we have eaten two very nice dinners, one at home and another at a marché nocturne.

Our fabulous home meal was on the first day of the heat and I was so unaware of the weather that was to come. One of the local markets has a fresh fish stand set up on certain days so we decided to take a whack at a fish dinner. After Caitlin and I looked at the fish, all lying there literally staring at us, we thought against taking a culinary leap at a new fish and settled on what looked the best-a nice filet of salmon. Simple, not scary, something we knew. To accompany, we found an interesting plant in the market's produce stand, called chou Romanesco, or Romanesco Cauliflower (or Broccoli, just depends).

Bizarre right? But it tasted just like a cooked cauliflower or broccoli as they're all the same family. We separated the heads off the plant, just like a broccoli, and steamed for about 15 minutes on the stove.

We used this amazing butter recipe that I found online, ironically from the LA Times. The recipe calls for Brussels sprouts and cauliflower but we just lessened the butter mixture to add to our Romanesco. We did substitute the marjoram with fresh oregano from the garden but it was delicious!

Also at the supermarket are these fun little radishes, which we purchased to use in some dish for the dinner. Also very ironically, I received an email from Cookstr.com with 10 recipes to do with your excess zucchini, and up pops a recipe for radishes (check!), salmon (double check!) and zucchini (not so much...) but we improvised with cucumbers and avocado, and used the vinaigrette recipe that was with it and MMmmm MMmmm Good!

 You can find the Cookstr recipe here. And, in finding the recipe again for this post I realized there was a lot that we changed, just with the ingredients that we had at the B&B. So, if you are going to try this out, here's what I suggest:

• make the vinaigrette first, then set aside to let it all meld together
• we did not have shallots so instead used a small white onion
• also, we didn't have fresh dill so we used dried instead, and it worked well
• once the vinaigrette was all made and settled a bit, we marinated the salmon in it (just a little spooned out over the top) and then put the salmon on the grill (obviously did not use smoked salmon like the recipe called for)
• once it was off the grill there was plenty of vinaigrette to put over the salmon (or dip your bread into)
• for the salad on the side (we called it a salsa for our desire for something like Mexican food) we sliced the radishes and cucumbers very thin, then cut the avocado into chunks.

So, maybe we didn't use the recipe for more than a very loose guideline, but the end result was très bon. A common theme throughout the meal was lemon, it was in the butter and in the vinaigrette so therefore was in every dish on our plate. So naturally a lovely tarte au citron was necessary!

A perfect meal for a hot summer night!

Last night, we went to another marché nocturne in Audrix. The food was the same as many of these markets, people selling foie gras, escargot, agneau (lamb), pomme frites, and the likes. What is so special about this night market is the baker on spot. In the middle of this old village is a large stone wood oven. The baker brings large tubs of dough, presumably ones that have had the yeast be active and rise all day, and sits there for nearly 10 minutes loading hundreds of loaves of bread into the oven.

Just as people are starting to get really hungry, he starts to take the first, beautifully baked loafs out of the oven. As I ran up to buy our loaf, I could smell the wonderful fresh baked dough, and clearly, so could the rest of the market as the line grew increasingly longer. After handing over the Euro for the loaf, I had to run back to the table, as it was so fresh it nearly burned my hands off being so hot. But it was worth it. There is nothing like slicing into a frshly baked loaf of bread andtaking a big bite out of it, so long as you don't burn the roof of your mouth from the heat. It was wonderful though-very yeasty tasting, chewy and spongy.

looks are always decieving

Break me off a piece of that

Cloud like

And what goes perfect with freshly baked bread? A nice plate of fromage, fresh Europe cheese!!

Down to the last strawberry, there was no better way to end the meal. If only the weather can get as good as the bread! But as I am ending the post, a nice summer rain has started falling. So maybe things are looking out :)