Our Farmers’ Market in Spring! It’s bursting with spring fruits, vegetables and colors. Just gorgeous. I always look forward to going there every Saturday, plus Tuesdays and Thursdays when I can.
One of the things I truly love about shopping at our farmers’ market and farms just outside Carcassonne is knowing who – what person and what farm – our produce comes from, and being on a first name basis with these wonderful artisans. I’ll often say to Jeff, “These are Alain and Juliette’s pears.” “These are Gilbert’s artichokes and asparagus.” “This is cheese from JJ.” “These are strawberries from Bernard”… or “Guillaume…” or “Pierre.”
Here’s Gilbert, a local producer with incredibly tasty produce. He offers to buy me a coffee almost every Saturday, from Le Florian, the peach colored cafe you see below.
Here’s my delightful weekly coffee from Gilbert.
French cherries arrived for the first time two Saturdays ago and they are delicious. I know of some towns that had cherry festivals this past weekend.French peaches have been here for three weeks!
I love the fact that purveyors (including grocery stores) are required by law to show on their signs where their produce comes from, so we can choose produce from this region of France – local and seasonal, without pesticides.
Asparagus arrived in March, and it’s so tasty – we’re enjoying it four times a week while it lasts. I was so disappointed when Gilbert told me that last Saturday was the end of his asparagus!
Everyone here is so friendly!
Strawberries, oh my gosh. They’re amazing! They actually have flavor! Three of the types of strawberries here are Garigette, Marigette and Candiss. My favorite so far are Candiss, which is what I’m showing in the photo above.And the artichokes are huge and so sweet – the sweetest I’ve ever tasted. (Which says something, since we come from California – artichoke country.)Alain, Juliette and me at their farm.
Above: A photo of me with one of our artichokes from Alain and Juliette, so you can see how very huge they are. I’m in our “Provençal” (different definitions of Provençal below) kitchen which is on our third floor – now you can see why we’re so eager to build a new, updated kitchen on our second floor. Great news – I ordered our new kitchen for our second floor last Tuesday! So perhaps we’ll have a brand new kitchen in the next month or two!
For fun, here are some definitions of Provençal:
– Something that comes from Provence, which is directly to the east of us.
– Parisians are believed to think that any place in France that is outside of Paris is Provençal, or provincial.
– To Parisians, Provençal also can mean “from the country” or, “unsophisticated.”
– When I say that our kitchen is Provençal, I mean that it has some of the colors of Provence, and also that it’s provincial (somewhat unsophisticated.) Fortunately, everything in our kitchen works just fine, and we’ll have a new one soon!
One of our favorite things about traveling is hearing other people's travel stories. We hope you'll share some of your travel stories by commenting on our posts or sending us an email! Happy travels! Jeff and Vibeke
I like the idea of knowing that the produce comes from a special region or location. Too bad that is not often done in the States.
Cherries, artichoke and peaches, all marvelous images!!! David