Things I learned at the market

We all headed to the market this morning, although the kids were happy to quickly detour to Chez Alli and John (or, perhaps more accurately, Chez Lauren, Claudia and Penelope). They played and played while we shopped and shopped. A few lessons learned:

1. If you have the option of having a real butcher "prepare" your chicken -- take it. This was the first time I bought a whole uncooked chicken at the market, and I wanted to prepare this recipe which calls for a whole chicken to be cut into eight pieces. I am more comfortable roasting a whole chicken, so hesitantly asked if they could couper the bird for me. In no time at all, they chopped off its head and feet, removed the guts, and had that bird beautifully prepared in eight pieces for me. If I do it again, I'm going to ask if I can take pictures -- it was *that* cool to see.

2. There is more than one kind of garlic. I found this out today when I tried to buy three bulbs. The vendor gave me a bit of a confused looked, and asked if I had a garden (giving me a look like I could not possibly be a gardener). I immediately panicked, thinking my reputation as someone who kills all plants had crossed an ocean, wondering how he KNEW I was a terrible gardener. Then he explained that the ones I was trying to buy were for planting... and the ones for eating were at the other end of the counter. Ah. Who knew?

3. I shouldn't take John with me when I buy cheese. It's not exactly cheap, but it's SOOOOOOOOOOO good. He just didn't know how good. Until now. Sigh. (Cheese of the week: an amazing cheese from high in the Alps that had been aged 29 months. I need to start bringing a pen to the market and writing down names... I always think I'll remember, but I never do.)

4. If you see people in a line for something, whatever they are buying is probably worth trying. This has turned out to be true for an amazing whole grain bread (two of the last four weeks) and an incredible goat's cheese (today).

5. You can learn a lot by asking where something comes from. One of my earliest market mornings, I asked (just out of curiousity) where the bananas were from (most that I had eaten in my life were from North and South America and I wondered where French bananas came from). The vendor said, a bit apologetically, that they were not from Martinique, but from Cote d'Ivoire. Well, at the next vendor, I saw bananas from Martinique. And they were delicious. Today, a vendor was selling two kinds of strawberries, one a bit more expensive than the other. I asked where they were from. These, he said with great pride, are from southern France. These others, he said, were from... Spain (the way he said it made it sound like he had found those strawberries under his couch, leftover from a long ago spring, and he was very sorry he was having to display them). He also said the French ones were more fragrant (had more perfume) while the Spanish ones had more sugar. I tried the French ones. They were magnifique.

6. It's kind of hilarious to watch two people with bad French accents try to talk to each other (example: the kind man selling Asian food (spring rolls, samosas, noodle dishes) and me). Neither of understood a word the other said, but somehow he ended up with his money and I ended up with spring rolls. I guess that's a victory of sorts.

7. And the best suggestion of all came from the website of David Lebovitz (source of my tasty chicken recipe). "One thing I've learned in France," he wrote, "is that if someone who's an expert tells you to eat something—you should eat it."

He's right.