L’Épicerie
A Sunday morning trip to the shop
Normally, on a Sunday morning, I take a walk to Lanouee, visit the lcoal shop to buy a few things and then go to the bar to have a beer and read the paper.
Today, however, was different. I bought a car last Thursday (a new Bessie to replace the ailing, old Bessie), and thus, decided to go for a little drive. I ended up at Le Roc St. Andre, about 20 kms from where I live. There is a great boulangerie at Le Roc and so I bought a still warm baguette – one of their special ones, with added seed – a bargain at 1 euro. I then went to the little market (I mean little, only four stalls) and bought one and a half kilos of oysters for my Sunday tea.
Realising that I would need a salad to go with it (and some lemons, as well), I went to the local épicerie and stocked up – I even remembered the catfood!
Trundling home in the new Bessie (at a ridiculously slow speed – the countryside is too pretty to miss), I realised that I had forgotten to buy any tomatoes. Now I am a bit picky about tomatoes (to say the least) – there was only one thing for it, I’d have to go to the Épicerie by the canal in Josselin. The tomatoes there are always good. However, there are drawbacks with visiting that shop. “Just tomatoes”, I repeated to myself as I drove there. “Nothing else.”
Eventually, I got there (see the photo, above – click on the picture to see a larger image – don’t forget to click on the back button on your browser to return here). Oh, I’m sorry if you were driving the BMW behind me – just because you can do 90km/hr, doesn’t mean that you have to! If you (in the BMW), want a real driving experience – try slowing down, looking out of the window and give yourself a real thrill (P.S. Hooting your horn only causes me to slow down!)
A Deep Breath
I took a deep breath and entered the shop. “Bonjour Monsieur.” The owner said.
I said Hello back and we had a little chat about the weather – great, last week, now getting rather chilly!
Knowing the risks, I dashed straight to the vegetable shleves and selected my tomatoes. As it is a very interesting shop, I took a little wander round. That was my mistake – I should have known better!
“Have you bought a paper, Monsieur?” The owner asked.
“Have you seen this Bordeaux, Monsieur? On special offer. Very good value” She suggested.
“What are you eating today? Oysters – take a look at this wine. That’ll go perfectly with Huitres.”
I ended up buying 3 bottles of wine (for a corner shop, the range and quality of wine is superb – click on the photo above to take a look – don’t forget to click on the back button of your browser, to return), some lovely Emmental cheese, a whole host of other things that I didn’t really need and then, just as I was getting ready to pay… “Have you seen this Calvados, 20% off. You do like Calvados, I seem to remember, don’t you?”
Thus, what should have been a 2 euro shopping trip cost me 38 euros!
Paying for it, To keep it.
I do know that our local corner shops are more expensive than the supermarkets but, knowing that, I usually buy less when I shop at one and thus, save money. This obviously doesn’t work at L’épicerie by the canal at Josselin but, elsewhere, I can manage to do my Sunday morning urgent shopping without spending too much. I won’t be bombarded by those 3 for the price of 2 offers, I won’t be tempted by something that’s on special offer and I won’t be tempted to fill up the basket on the gounds that it will save me time tomorrow.
Of course, by spending some money at my local épicerie – I am helping to ensure that it always stays open – and that’s a nice knowledge to have when, on Sunday morning, I find that I am out of cat-food or need a bottle of wine for my evening meal.
All the best
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| MushroomDiary | A Taste of Garlic | Images of Brittany | Market Days in Brittany | Website Design | Best Gites in Brittany |
 |
 |
||||
| Roadside Tales | Internet Acceleration |
 The French Kitchen
A delightful book in which Joanne shares with us ‘her family recipes, passed down through the generations. The French Kitchen is a tantalising collection of casseroles, soups, roasts, salads, tarts and sweets. |
 Cholcolat
Joanna Harris creates a rich and vibrant description of a rural French village with all its petty rivalries and traditional, narrow-minded boundaries on thought and behavior. |
 Five Quarters of the Orange
Five quarters of the orange’ is a story of a childhood tragedy in wartime France, and the shadows it casts across the later life of the heroine Framboise Dartigen. |
 Blackberry Wine
Everyday magic, he called it, the transformation of base matter into the stuff of dreams – Layman’s alchemy. |
 The French Market
Following the success of The French Kitchen, Joanne Harris and Fran Warde have collaborated once more to write a French cookbook with a difference. This time they have taken their inspiration from the rural markets of Gascony. |
 Coastliners
Passionate, stubborn Mado, whose “head is full of rocks” tries to save the livelihoods of the villagers of Les Salants by urging them to work together to save the beach from erosion, both natural and man-made. |
 Five Quarters of the Orange
Three sublime audiobooks from the bestselling author, now available together in a specially priced pack. Includes BLACKBERRY WINE, FIVE QUARTERS OF THE ORANGE and the huge bestseller CHOCOLAT. With a gentle touch and an eye for human frailty and strength, these mouth-watering audiobooks will draw you into her enchanting worlds. |
 French Lessons
Failed rock legend, pickled onion manufacturer, air hostess and euro-entrepreneur George East takes us through another eventful year of his doomed attempts to make a living out of living in rural France. |
 French Flea Bites
The character of France and the French people has been captured in words beautifully and the hilarious exploits of George his wife Donella, their neighbours and Cato the cat. |
 French LettersThis is not so much a book as a continuation of the serial story of George and Donella as they carry on with their almost idyllic life in Normandy. It’s at least as funny as the others, but the hanky had to come out again several times. More information |
 French Cricket
Once upon a time, former night club bouncer, seamstress and professional bedtester George East and his wife Donella fled to Normandy to escape their creditors and try to live off their wits in a foreign land. |
 Home and Dry in France
Buying property in France is fraught with mishaps and misunderstandings. George East’s book brings humour and fun to what happens when people venture forth to a foreign land with more hope than money and humour than language skills. |
 French Kisses
Those poor people who don’t like George East’s books often dismiss them as fiction. Not so, everything is at least based on real people and real happenings. George admits to a degree of embellishment and often combines several mishaps to produce a spectacular disaster. Such is the nature of his works. |
 Rene and MeTold in the inimitable style which has alrea dy won the author an army of followers, Rene & Me is a somet imes hilarious, sometimes moving and always captivating celebration of human nature, people and, above all, life and living.’ More information |
 A Year in the Merde
This very funny book sounds a lot more like the France that I know. Read it and you’ll still want to come here, you’ll just be a lot better prepared for the surprises that France has to offer. |
 Merde Happens
Paul West is in deep financial merde. His only way out of debt is to accept a decidedly dodgy job that involves him touring America in a Mini, while pretending to be typically British. Also in the car is Paul’s French girlfriend, Alexa, and his American poet friend, Jake, whose main aim in life is to sleep with a woman from every country in the world. |
 Merde Actually
A year after arriving in France, Englishman Paul West is still struggling with some fundamental questions: What is the best way to scare a gendarme? Why are there no health warnings on French nudist beaches? And is it really polite to sleep with your boss’ mistress? |
 Dial M for Merde
In this book, you’ll get Paul, Elodie, her dad and some new French girls. All of them are of course hot and all of them adore Paul. Didn’t see that one coming… |
 Talk to the Snail
The only book you’ll need to understand what the French really think, how to get on with them and, and most importantly, how to get the best out of them. With useful sections on: Making sure you get served in a café, Harassing French estate agents, Living with bacteria, Pronouncing French swear-words and much more! |
 1000 years of Annoying the French
Was the Battle of Hastings a French victory? No! William the Conqueror was Norman and hated the French. Were the Brits really responsible for the death of Joan of Arc? No! The French sentenced her to death for wearing trousers. |
 The Olive FarmThis is television actress Carol Drinkwater’s lyrical account of a new life in France; about her house, Appassionata, and the trials and tribulations of acquiring an olive farm, restoring it, farming the olives, overcoming the heartaches of taking on a “new” French family and understanding slowly the workings and lifestyle of a vivacious Provencal community. More information |
 The Olive Season
This is an extraordinary and fascinating follow-up to The Olive Farm. The reader is drawn deeply and inexorably in to the world of the author, confronted with her personal struggles and entranced by her pastiche of growth and decay in the world of nature, a metaphor for her life. |
 The Olive Harvest
Carol and Michel have again returned to Appasionata, the Olive Farm that they have restored, and Carol is eager to continue production of the olives and attain their cerificate for producing Organic Oil. |
 The Olive Tree
THE OLIVE TREE charts Carol Drinkwater’s colourful and often dangerous journey in search of the routes that olive cultivation has taken over the centuries. Set during a springtime Mediterranean that is evocative and perennial, it is above all a tale of our time. |
 The Olive RouteA tour de force from Carol Drinkwater in this, the fourth in her Olive series. The joy of this book is in the pen pictures that she creates of the unusual characters that she encounters on her journey. More information |
 The Illustrated Olive Farm
The photgraphy is wonderful and the book is a great insight in to life with the olives and all that that involves. There are wonderful pictures of the dogs, family, friends, even the dreaded wild boar. Recipes as well. |
 Petite Anglaise
Petite Anglaise is a memoir by Catherine Sanderson based on her blog of the same name. In 2004 Catherine decided to start up a blog based on her life in Paris. |
 French Kissing
Name: Sally Marshall Status: single mother Age: 32 Nationality: ten years in France, yet still English through and through I like: Living in Paris, playing with my daughter Lila (four years old), the company of good friends, the smell of baking bread. More information |
 Tout SweetYou cannot help but fall in love with the author’s character. She seems like a Bridget Jones let loose in the French countryside, getting into a lot of funny situations with both ex-pat English and French locals like, as she adjusts to a totally different way of life. More information |
 Serge Bastarde Ate My Baguette
John Dummer’s sharply focused descriptions of the landscape, towns and villages, and the weather of the South West of France form a animated background for a series of adventures with an array of characters from some intimidating and belligerent peasants to a sad little old man whose only companionship is a collection of antique dolls. |
 Merde!
This book is an excellent source of words and expressions, of varying degrees of vulgarity, that are used all the time by french speakers. I used it often during the first of my two years in France. |
 Almost French
“Almost French” is the story of a woman who goes to France to visit a French lawyer she has only met a couple times before and barely knows. Of course, she gets caught up in the romance of the city and stays on to live there. |
Leave a Reply