23:13 Monday

14 June 2010 Toulouse

(Photos)

Quiet evening.  I maybe am wearing poor Eric out.  As is famous enough I don’t sleep much.  I have this odd ability to just stay awake.  I wonder if I could set a world’s record, but why would I want to?  Fuck that.

Anyway, we had some new (to me) cheeses and beverages so I’ll tell you a little about that before I hit the sack.

We had a cheese called bamalou.  I don’t know maybe it’s textured similar to fontaine or gouda.  Tasty.  We also had a cheese product called Boursin, which I have had in Seattle.  This was a cow cheese mixed with garlic and herbs.  We spread it on bread, but you can also use it in cooking or whatever.  Nice.

When we were at the store earlier we picked up some encased meats and we tried the saucisse sèche de canard, that’s right duck salami.  When I was walking with Julien in the public gardens on Sunday I saw some of the ducks.  Several varieties I had never seen before.  One was enormous.  They even have these little duck condos for the ducks that live in the garden.

Where was I?  Oh, yeah, encased.  Not bad at all.  So nice to see the love of duck taken to such a fine art.

We drank a beer called Jenlain Ambrée (biere de garde).  Julien called it a beer for winos, but Eric defended it and I did my best drunkard drinking imitation.  We also drank a different Fronton (Carte Noire) for comparison I suppose.  I liked both of them well enough.

We also ate a banana.  It really changed the direction of the Fronton from, say, the canard.  This is what I really love about wine.  It responds to its companions in novel and complex ways.  Drink wine and eat food.  The wines you drink were meant to be drunk with food.  Don’t short change yourself.  Experiment.  Some things will be better than others, and some things will evoke flavors never anticipated.

Good luck with that.

I’m either going to shave and then go to bed or just go directly to bed depending on how tired I feel when I get close to the mattress.  Eric, can you guess?, is laid out on the couch.

I know there is a bunch of shit I am forgetting to tell you about.  That’s life though.  I’ll try to fill in the gaps, but guess there was even more adventure than you see here.  And the women are so beautiful it’s breaking my heart.

I think yes, either les canards ou les femmes: one of them will touch me and I will be lost forever.

Oh, I forgot to tell you about lunch today.  We stopped at a restaurant called L’Entrecôte.  They serve one dish: L’Entrecôte (literally, between the ribs) with les pommes frites (these were what we might call shoe string fries).  We had that, me rare and Eric not so rare, and some Bordeaux.  I, at Eric’s recommendation , tried one of their desserts called profiteroles.  Basically vanilla ice cream, these little donut/cookies called choucuettes, and chocolate sauce.  The meat was amazingly tender which is precisely why they are famous.  Amazing to think of a restaurant that makes one dish every day.  The only menu they have is the dessert list and you could write that on the back of your hand (if you were so inclined).  Yet the place was packed on a Monday.  Has been for years.

Ok, that’s it.  Bed time.