24 April 2016

I saw Mme Doudouille at the market

I went to the outdoor market in Saint-Aignan yesterday morning, despite the dreary and drizzly weather. If I hadn't had a doctor's appointment in town at 8:30, I would have just stayed home. After the doctor's, I needed to go to the pharmacy, and the market is right there. Seeing Mme Doudouille  at the market was a pleasant surprise.

Walt and I wanted to get some asparagus, anyway. The locally grown ones are just coming to market. They're big fat while asparagus, which you have to peel before you cook them. I'll make a batch of fresh mayonnaise that we can have with the cooked asparagus at lunchtime today. I'll also be making œufs en meurette for lunch. That's eggs in a red wine sauce, as I described yesterday.

The surprise of the morning was a chance encounter with Mme D., one of the people we have most enjoyed knowing here over the years. I was standing around, waiting to be waited on at a produce stand, where only one young woman was working. The well-dressed, older woman customer in front of me in line was taking her own sweet time, ordering very carefully a lot of different fruits and vegetables.

 Above is Walt waiting in line at Mme Doudouille's market truck on New Year's Eve 2005 (more than a decade ago). I can't find a good photo with her in it.

Are these kiwis ripe? The last ones I bought were not, and it took them two weeks to ripen before we could eat them, she told the seller. Well, it's a matter of personal taste — that was the reply. Some people like them very ripe, and others don't. Well, I'll take two anyway, the customer said. And I'll have some bananas too, but I don't want ripe ones. I want them almost green. The woman working the stand had to dig around in a huge pile of perfectly ripe bananas (for once) to the find just the right green ones. And so on.

It was taking forever, but I didn't have anything else to do. The pharmacy I go to wouldn't be open for another 10 minutes. I looked over my shoulder and saw the woman we've always called Mme Doudouille greeting some other shoppers, and carrying a shopping basket herself. She used to be a vendor at the Saint-Aignan market. We bought charcuterie — sausages, ham, pâtés, etc. — from her for years. Here's a post I did years ago about her market truck and what she sold from it.

And I always enjoyed spending a few minutes talking to her when I stopped in front of her market truck. She's probably about 60 years old now, and she and her husband live in Blois, or just outside Blois. That's about 40 minutes north of Saint-Aignan. The last few times Walt and I had been to shop at the market, she hadn't been there. I'd been meaning to ask one of the other vendors whether she had retired.

Well, she has. That's what she told me when I asked her, calling her situation une pré-retraite. She said her husband had had a heart operation, and he had taken a year off. We used to see him at the market in Amboise on Fridays, back when we went to Amboise more often. His business was called Chez Doudouille, so we assume his name was Edouard, for which Doudouille is a nickname. I have no ides what M. and Mme Doudouille's real name is.

I'm surprised to see you in Saint-Aignan as a shopper, I told her. She said she just likes coming to our market do do her shopping, despite the drive. I guess she had done that drive in her truck for many years, so it became a Saturday morning habit. I told her about my three trips to the U.S. over the past year. She said her daughter might start coming to sell charcuterie at the Saint-Aignan market soon. Her husband is back at work after recovering from his surgery, but only for one more year. He also plans to retire soon.

This story doesn't have a punchline. I just enjoyed the experience of seeing and talking to a person I had sort of gotten to know over the years but probably won't see much any more. I remember one time her telling me, beaming, that her first grandchild had been born. A few years later, I asked about that grandchild, and she said her family had grown — she already had five grandchildren at that point! Earlier, she had told me that she and her husband planned to buy a hotel-restaurant in the Auvergne and move down there, but that plan fell through.

Since 2003, we've exchanged jokes and pleasantries, and stories about our respective families, when she had time to talk. Yesterday, she asked me to be sure to give Walt her greetings and good wishes. Over the years, Mme Doudouille has given me cooking ideas and advice, whenever she had time. Always, she would pick out the nicest sausages, cuts of meat, and pâtés and salads when I ordered. Often she would throw in some special treat, on the house. She always had a smile and good laugh.

I wish I had taken my camera with me yesterday. No more photos here — you'll have to click on the links in the text if you want to see photos.

15 comments:

  1. I have a mayo question please. How long does it last and do you pasteurize them? or is that a concern?

    btw, Ken, if you had had that iPhone you would have had a camera. :)

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    1. I've always used just fresh raw eggs to make mayonnaise. I've been making it since 1973, when a French friend showed me how to do it, and I've never been sick from it that I can remember. Not in France, and not in America.

      I don't keep mayo more than a day or two. Most of the time, the leftover mayo separates and is no longer appetizing.

      For the iPhone, I don't know anything about the capabilities of the camera. But I have four digital cameras at this point, and four tablet computers. I think I've gone gaga.

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    2. Thanks for the mayo info. I am so delighted to have learned to make it. I have so many food allergies now that it is such a relief to go back to basics and make really good food. And since I have started scratch cooking my friends love when I bring extra for them.

      As for the phone, I was just teasing you. I have an old iPhone 8 pixels, the rest of the family has new 12 pixels. I am waiting for a little improvement, but they are getting there. And I have way too many gadgets and electronics.

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  2. Isn't it fun how vendors turn into friends? It's part of what makes shopping at the market a more pleasant experience than the supermarket. Plus they give advice and recipes!

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    1. It's the standing in sometimes long lines in front of each vendor's stand, out in the elements, that's the biggest disadvantage of the outdoor market. It can take forever, or seem that way when it's rainy or cold out.

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  3. Interesting that local asparagus is just arriving in the Loire. Before we had dinner with you and Walt a week ago, we had been eating local (always green) asparagus in the Southwest (the Bearn and the Perigord) almost every day. I guess it's now moved a little further north. Meanwhile, here in Maine it's still several weeks away.

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    1. This is definitely a different climate zone compared to SW France.

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  4. I really like that market photo :)
    Great little story today.
    You have four tablets, now??

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    1. I started with a 7" Google Nexus tablet, but it was too small for me and lacked in the connectivity department. I never used it much. Then I got an 8" tablet that I liked a lot better -- bigger screen and better connectivity (SD card slot + external USB connection for other drives or cards). Then that tablet started having a problem that I didn't think I could fix, so I bought a new 8" tablet. I fixed the misbehaving tablet, finally, and I still use both of the 8" tablets now, one in the kitchen and the other in the living room. Recently, I decided I wanted to try using a 10" tablet, and I saw an inexpensive one on the Amazon.fr site. I bought it and I'm happy with it. I'm typing this message on it right now. I mostly use it upstairs in the loft room. Want to hear about the four digital cameras I now own? Have I gone over the top?

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    2. Heh heh heh :) Since your blog is a daily part of your life, the cameras and the tablets are just as important as that fabulous roto-tiller!

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  5. Glad you bumped into Mde Doudouille in the market and told us about it. I love the three pigs on her poster and am glad her husband is doing well. Markets are good for community building. That's why they seem to be catching on in the US in a big way now.

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    1. I was really happy to see Mme Dudouille yesterday. I had begun to think I would never again have any news of her. I think the unexpected meeting was a kind of closure for me. I'm glad Mme D. is doing well and enjoying her early retirement and her family.

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  6. We went to the market in Saint-Aignan too yesterday. We walked in from Les Cochards Camping but were probably there well after you - about 10.30ish. Bought some lovely haricot vert - much better quality than any I have seen in the supermarkets we have visited so far.
    Today we have been looking for the Canal du Berry the other side of the Cher. We found a short aqueduct to admire and a decent length of canal to explore before the rain set in. We love what we have seen of this area in only 3 days so far.

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    1. When I was there between 8:30 and 9:00, the market was small and quiet -- not many stalls or vendors. Maybe it's because of school vacations. Hope you are enjoying yourselves.

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