So, like I said our drive down south took us very near the Spain border. Lots of fruit trees and some cactus and beautiful mountains. Stephane's parents live outside of Toulouse in a village named Mons. Very cute and very nice houses. As in most villages in France, the chapel is the middle and then the village surrounds it. Stephane's parents and sister were all very nice to me. His sister speaks some English and may read this (Bonjour La Puce!) since she has been my friend on facebook for a while now. Stephane's mother is such a great cook. Having been born in the south of France and living there her whole life, the southern French cooking style was apparent in her cooking. SO good! She is a better cook than me and I have a culinary degree. For dessert the one day she made Provençal pears poached in sweet wine with homemade chocolate sauce. Needless to say , I kissed her twice goodbye. Now Stephane's Dad seems to have four great interests. First, his wife, second, making honey, third growing all sorts of vegetables and fruit and fourth making plum (and other types) MOONSHINE! LOL I'm not kidding, this man has an honest to goodness wine cellar with so much good aging wine and so much pure alcohol. I think they may have been wondering why I wanted to spend so much time in the basement! He gave us two bottles to take home. We have an apertif before dinner sometimes of this stuff. I guess he just takes the plums from his tree and throws them in this big barrell all season and then carts it off to some guy who distills it for him. HELLS YEAH! SO, after eating and drinking with the family, the next day Stephane and I took a long walk around Mons to check out the church and the neighborhood and then we all set off to visit his 88 year old Grandma in Tecou. She lives in her childhood home. She lives in the ancient part and then they have since built on a new edition which is ultra modern. It's a very large farm next to some vineyards that I guess her family used to own. I guess a while back there was a virus and the government paid people to destroy the crop of grapes and at that point they decided to be rid of them for good. Now , the virus is gone and the grapes are being grown and harvested by another local. But people seem to be less worried about property lines here. Or more respectful, however . you want to look at it. No one has fences up or anything. It's just like everybody has respect. We were able to walk through and Stephane said we could even pick some grapes if they were left, but the only ones we found were moldy because of a wet spell they'd had. So Stephane's parents and Grandma both have their own gardens. These people LOVE onions! LOL and they just love to grow all sorts of stuff. We were sent home with 5 jars of honey, two bottles of plum alcohol, a gallon size container of cherry tomatoes, 2 shu-shu's (an odd veggie I have never seen), three bunches of grapes, a buttload of fresh figs, 3 pumpkins (for carving) and three huge onions! We definately hit the jackpot of fresh produce. I had to cook all day, every day for three days when we got home to use all this stuff up. I actually made a "figgy pudding". I thought to myself, what the hell am I going to do with all these figs!? So, I remembered that christmas song about the figgy pudding and wanting it RIGHT NOW and decided it must be pretty good. My advice to you is, don't bother. It took me oh, like 3 hours from start to finish. three step process including a water bath, for something that was not remarkable but ok. I think any squash bread is extremely similar. But , hey, it was something to do with the figs and now I can say I made a "figgy pudding". So, after a night at Stephane's parents and a night at the Grandma's we were headed home. Once again we decided to take the back roads home so I could see the countryside. We were driving at one point through the mountains called Massif Central and it was shortly after dusk and I thought it looked rather birght out in the field but I knew the moon wasn't full. I said "I think there's snow on the ground" and sure as shit we drove right through a snowstorm for the next hour or so. It was quite scary as it was night time, we were nto expecting it and Stephane's car is NOT an SUV! But we made it fine. We stopped for dinner in a place called Le Puy En Velay. It is a valley town where the two focal points are these two huge igneous rock formations standing high in the middle of the valley. One houses a chapel and the other a very large statue of the Virgin and Jesus. All lit up and looking down upon the village. Pretty cool looking in the evening with all the lights. We plan to make a trip back there sometime for a walking tour. So, finally we made it home after the six hour drive and after carrying all the vegetables and fruit and alcohol up the stairs , fell into bed. Next morning we woke up and went to the animal shelter to adopt our new cat Zig Zag. He is so cute. see pics in the albums. What a lover!!! Then later that night we had Stephane's first pumpkin carving experience! Can you believe it?! I told him it was one of my favorite things to do and now I think it may be one of his. So, thanks to Stephane's parents for the great pumpkins! Next day we went on an excursion to a place called "Les Dombes". Which is a region where they have a bunch of natural and man made ponds. Estuaries, farms and countryside. Very beautiful! I took a video too. Actually I took two from our drive. Not great quality but you can get a feel for France hopefully. SO anyway, that completes the blog for last week. Next blog will be about our trip to the Alps. You know, those huge mountains that start in France and go into Switzerland and border the top of Italy! So HUGE and gorgeous! Pics are up if you want to sneak a peek prior to reading the next blog.
Stay tuned.....
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