Life updates

Good day everyone,

It's a lovely Sunday here in Tours and I'm meant to be doing six other things - so naturally I am writing a blog while I rearrange my brain. 

We've been blessed with some spectacular weather here this week, which has been fantastic timing as I'm coming to the end of my university mid term break. It was 26 degrees the other day and I have the sunburn and obligatory terrible tan  line to prove it. I've had some spectacularly awful tanlines in the past, but this is definitely the worst - wearing a scoop neck top and a crossover bag was never going to be a good idea, I am now stripy. Goodness knows I'm not complaining though. I've had ice cream, pizza and sangria in profligate quantities this week in a variety of locations (largely pavement cafe based) in some lovely company. Friends are a curious invention, aren't they?

Went to visit Leonardo Da Vinci's house this week. It's strange to think that such an important figure lived just down the road, where indeed he is also buried. Ate crepes and galettes in the sunshine and drank cider and thought about how good life is. I wore breton stripes and blistered my feet.

I've only got four weeks left here now, which I am frankly devastated about. The comes a point in every stint spent abroad where you hate the place and everyone in it, but once this phase passes you can think of nowhere better to be. Good grief. You can consider my sentiments of resentment and homesickness as cause for my lack of recent blogging - I will soon return properly to usual service.

Perhaps I say this purely based on what I've eaten today which has been nothing short of astonishing. The thought of leaving this place has made me want to eat everything French and delicious in sight while I still can.  I said in a previous post how little I like brioche. I think I am coming around to them slowly, based on today's work of art from one of the local boulangeries. This was followed swiftly by a macaron framboise from another boulangerie. I will miss macaroons. I must learn how to make them, they are one of the most delicious things on this planet.

Lunch followed and was simple and French, comprising of walnut bread (utterly delicious) and vieux pave cheese. And a cup of tea. Obviously.

I don't think you need anything else, quite frankly. 

What France does, and does well, is good basic ingredients that speak for themselves. Nothing else needs to be added - no fuss, no bother. Just good basics. 

I'll give you an example: the restaurant Chez Gerard in the heart of the Old Town here is one of my favourite places to go for a good meal. I took my parents here. It sits quite sagely in a 13th century wood-framed building. The proprietor is a fantastically French gentleman - he probably smokes about 20 a day, is covered in tattoos and as such looks about 20 years older than he actually is. Despite appearances, he is as sharp as his cooking knives and knows all there is to know about his building, his restaurant and the customers in it. He gallically shrugs when you call him out on his menu and provides you with an entire lecture on the history of his restaurant - how the beams are 13th century Portuguese. 

He serves roast chicken, chips and haricots verts. The chicken falls off the bone in strips. The haricots verts are just a touch overcooked, but smothered in garlic butter and parsley. The wine is local. You drink red because you like it and the proprietor couldn't care less; he's no micromanager. He is not trying to compensate for power he does not have. He knows what's what, it doesn't bother him that you don't.

After 3 hours of eating, you're stuffed. You can't exactly eat another bite, but the town and you are so sleepy, you decide there is nothing to do but eat. So, obviously, you order the panna cotta and wonder why on earth you don't eat more of it, in this restaurant, in this company. Then you realise it's four o'clock and try and work out what on earth you're going to have for dinner.

I've discovered blood orange ice cream. It's like a Solero. Remember how delicious those are? I'm locked in a perpetual struggle of trying to work out which is better out of a white Magnum or a Solero. But what about those Magnums with hazelnuts embedded in the chocolate? 

Some things are almost too much to bear.