Let them eat foie gras ... at will

Last Sunday, around 12:30, we sat down for lunch with a couple of friends and 646 strangers. A few pounds of foie gras and bottles of local wine later, we went home for supper.

Fest'Oie is a weekend-long "Goose Fair" that takes place every year, the third week in February, in Sarlat. It's a big deal. Check out the Sarlat Tourism Office's link for the official info.

The whole weekend is about the bird that is the number one local resource. Geese are celebrated in every way imaginable as they literally take over the town, including a run of the geese (we gave it a pass, having heard about similar events in Spain; people get hurt). The old town in Sarlat becomes a goose-themed playground. There are games, like tossing a ring for a prize at geese in an enclosure (see poster at top, or photo above), tasting booths, music, market stalls, and more.

The main event of the weekend is Sunday lunch.

Of course, calling it simply "lunch" is a bit of an understatement. For one thing, you're in an arena, elbow-to-elbow with hundreds of people, a few locals and many more come from all over France. For another thing, you're eating and drinking for six hours: it was 6:25 when we got up to leave. Take a look at the menu:

To facilitate the digestion and fill gaps in the conversation (though there was no such problem at any table I could see, including ours), non-stop music was provided by two bands taking turns through the afternoon, both very good in their own style, and completely different: one a standard jazz trio with singer, and the other a crazy kind of New Orleans marching band consisting of two trumpets, a bass drum, a snare drum and a bass. While the jazz band was content playing it straight on stage, the marching band stood against the back wall or moved around, ratcheting up the atmosphere.

All through the meal, there was - beside eating and drinking and talking and laughing - various forms of participatory music appreciation including waving and linking arms and yelling "Olé!", conga-line dancing, even body-surfing: when was the last time you saw people interrupt their lunch to lay on the ground flat on their backs, all in a row, to "surf" volunteers, of all ages and genders across the hall?

So, you've got it in a nutshell: abundance in foie gras, wine, company, music, merriment.

And the food, you may ask? The foie gras was very good, and truly at will. The wine was excellent Bordeaux 2007-to-2010 vintages. The staff was terrific and extremely efficient: amazing to think that with 650 people all eating at the same time, every dish arrived perfectly cooked and warm. In closing, the whole kitchen staff came up on stage for a standing, well-deserved ovation.

Supper that evening was a glass of water and a couple of Tylenols by the fire, then early to bed.

Update: Spring will come, but meanwhile ...

It snowed today. As the forecast calls for sub-zero temperatures until later this week, it will likely stay on the ground a few days, though sunshine is supposed to return tomorrow.

I went out and took a few pictures while Nancy knitted by the fire.

We got stone

Good bye concrete: the kitchen finally got its stone floor.

At first we were surprised that after spending so much time with the people at the quarry, choosing with them exactly the colour that we wanted, they delivered something that seemed so much darker.

But the stones were beautiful, and the colour, though darker than expected, still went very well with the other variety of stone used for the walls of the house and with the old oak beams. So we resigned ourselves that we could live with it and would not test the quarry's return-and-refund policy.

In the end though, we did get the colour that we wanted: two days after they had been laid, once the stones were dry through and through, the paler, creamy tone that attracted us originally emerged after all.

We had been told that stone, even hard stone such as the Limeyrat variety, was a porous material and darkened considerably when soaked for cutting and finishing. We just didn't expect such a contrast.

Though the jointing remains to be done (tomorrow), and a good cleaning will have to follow, the floor is beautiful.

Below are some pictures taken over the last couple of days. The difference between the freshly-laid stones and the ones that were laid the day before is striking.

Day One

The stones on the left were laid last yesterday,
while those on the right were laid the day before
and are now thoroughly dry and showing their "true" colour.