Living French

I've been enjoying having a routine these last three weeks. Sundays are lovely days of eating and meeting some of the family's friends. Yesterday, a family of four paid us a visit, with a gift of Coeurs de Picardies. It was a jar of small, heart-shaped cakes soaked in Calvados, an apertif (or digestif? I forget now) made from apples. They were darn good. In Bayeaux, new-found friends of mine, Cindy and Darren, shared a bottle of Calvados with me. We tried drinking it straight while cooking, but it was a bit too strong for us. Mixed with fresh apple juice, it was much more palatable. If only we'd known to buy cake!

The French Sunday is really wonderful. It's a time to sit down with friends and family and socialise. Every meal is started with a small apertif--often a hydomel, which I know the English word for but cannot remember--a mead! To me an apertif has always been something you drink while cooking when guests are over. Pommeau is another lovely pre-meal drink made, obviously, from apples as well. I think it's distilled from cidre.

I also love the post-meal cheese! A platter of cheeses to slice and choose from, a basket of apples to eat afterwards. People ask me why i'm in France, and I say that Canadian history is the history of France and England, but really, I just think I belong here. It's sort of an instinct, and sort of a wish. I do wish that someone from my ancestry was French, though!