Gosh, I was just looking at the statistics on my blog here and I was amazed to see how many there were. I switched to a full website quite a while ago and am still not getting all of the visitors from this site. Please try my new site. Its: www.frenchfoodfocus.com. No commercials and I'm not trying to sell anybody anything. Just lots of recipes, over 60 now and comments about living in France. I recently redesigned the website to bring it up to date & easier to use. Please try it! Thanks Yank

The last post! I've moved

I've done it! Moved this blog. I got tired of the limitations of this software and created my own website.

Go to:   www.frenchfoodfocus.com.

I've moved most of the 2008 posts over and will move most of the others over time. Bear with me as I do that and add what I hope will be some interesting new features to the website.

As allways I'd love to hear what you think.

A plethora of markets

Why is it that this year we have Christmas markets running out of our ears?

There are at least five being held in nearby villages & hamlet's. In fact Linda is going to one in Caylus this afternoon. It seems to me that they are breeding like rabbits. Used to be just a year or two ago that there was only one Christmas Market in a nearby village; that was at Puylagarde.

Now there have always been Christmas markets in the larger towns and cities. The Christmas Market in the main square of Toulouse (Capital) is truly spectacular and the Cahors Christmas market is great. You could go on down the line from there, but there weren't many in the small villages. Not enough traffic one would have thought.

Perhaps its the economy; everybody out trying to make a few Euros? I strongly suspect that its mainly the same traders going from village to village selling the same stuff. Certainly my quick look at Caylus Christmas market this morning didn't reveal any truly local vendors.

Anyway, more power to them, they're very colorful and, hopefully, people will find something they like and the vendors will make a few Euros to help their Christmas budgets.

I did buy something at market on Thursday. This was at the seasonal market which is an off shoot of the main Villefranche de Rouergue market. Here in the 'halle' they sell only dead birds (chickens, ducks & geese mainly) and fois gras. This is the real deal straight from farmer to you.

Rob & I were checking out prices for next week when we'll probably buy our ducks & fois gras for Christmas. One of the larger vendors must have had a 100 pounds of fresh raw fois gras for sale, amazing! I've never seen that much fois gras in one place before.

I won't mention prices as I don't want to make those of you who don't live in the French country side to get too jealous. I will say, however, that Rob & couldn't resist buying 2 cuisse de canard each (a cuisse is the leg & thigh together). They were 2 Euros each and each one weights close to a kilo. These were big ducks believe me.

I'll cook them with lots of shallots & green olives very slowly in a covered frying pan on the stove top. Absolutely tender & delicious. I'll try to take some pictures as I do it.