Missing French Cheese in Mexico

Here is how this scenario is usually played out: Sunday is market day in Anglet, where we live. The French love to pretend they still live in small villages where the friendly, local farmers take the product of their gardens and fields into town to sell at modest prices to the village folk hungry for the real taste of range-free chickens, freshly skinned rabbit, soil encrusted fruit and vegetables (more later on how dirt "enhances" the taste of radishes according to my wife!).

The fact of the matter is that these city "markets" are filled with suburbanites in silly hats and casual clothes (sunglasses, Bermuda shorts, and sport shoes which cost in the 300 euro range) carrying plastic baskets (Oh, that really makes them look live villagers), and who drive to market in 4-wheel monsters to carry back a home a bag of bread and a basket full of carrots.

And don't get me started on the prices! The "farmers" who sell stuff of these markets are really a sampling of the European Union citizens (in our case a lot of Spaniards and Moroccans) who sell their wares at twice the price of any supermarket. The "handmade" goat cheese comes from Spain and the bread is made by women from Morocco. Ah, the real taste of France!

My wife drags me to this city-sanctioned highway robbery so we can get "real" French cheese which she says she "missed so much" when we were in Mexico. Of course, here we buy paper-this slices of the stuff not only because it is literally worth its weight in gold but because, according to her, it is a threat to her waistline becoming perilously close (in centimeters) to her height.

French women are not afraid of clogged arteries, as any student of the "French Paradox" knows, but they all do want to look like waifs on a calorie-deprivation diet. According to my wife, she is size 38 dress, just one above the smallest size for an adult woman, and she would love it if she were a 36 and even more so if she could make such a dress look like it was a sack of potatoes.

Any way, that was my rant for the day, prompted by the 36 euros we spent on three slices of cheese. Next posting will be on the marvelous taste dirt and mud give to vegetables!