My mission..should I have chosen to accept it...was to gain a stone in weight over ten days in France.
I chose.
The message instantly self destructed.
I started with foix-gras.
I moved on ,to artichokes, which I marinated in French garlic, and then took my first venture to a local restuarant.
Rustic, and indeed very gallic, I chomped my way through a rough as you like, pork chop with chips, cooked over a log fire. Brilliant and awful all in one.
The next day, I breakfasted, with a camembert, marinated in calvados, with delicious bread, and followed at lunch with a steak, with chips. Oddly enough, I did not require the chips.
Twelve hours later, me and my partner, went for the whole holiday bit, and rented a tandem, to continue our eating expeirience, my weight and belly was coming on nicely.
Cycling down to the lower part of Normandy, I had a fantastic steak tartare(with chips which again I did not need but hey.whatever!..)
Now, you may notice, this , "chips" word keeps recurring, here hangs a tale.
There was a little shack near our cottage, which was a junk yard(indeed yes), and as we set out the next day, I was about to make a joke as we passed the cute little shed, with all it`s broken bicycles outside etc, that he had invited us to dinner that evening.
At that very moment, the gentlemen emerged from his abode with a wheel barrow of half cooked chips, put them in his land rover and drove off.
It turned out, that he supplied chips to all the local eateries.
Not bad potatoes, it has to be said, but it did amuse me somewhat.
We dropped further down for a jazz festival, and I had to have a further steak tartare, but neglected the chips, and asked for rice. This was superb. Fantastic capers and shallots in the blend, and my weight was coming on well.
Then...quelle disaterre innit!
I managed to get food poisoning.
No food for 48 hours, which is so frustrating in a country so full of brilliant produce.
And on the final day, whilst being able to eat again, beautiful local muscles, in garlic, shallots and cream, served with...... chips! Don`t ever let the French tell you that the English serve chips with everything with disdain.
And guess what? I have LOST 2 pounds!
Pomme de Taire anyone?