it's december, put a feather in your hat

Oops it's December and it's getting away so fast. When I look back on my week sometimes I think, I didn't really do that much last week, but then I always feel so busy for some reason. But I did actually do things. For example I went to hear some garage rock at a dive bar. Sometimes when you live in France and everyone is all "hm! hm!" all the time, it's good to go to a tiny kind of grungy bar where the owner literally stands up on the bar to rock out with the band that's playing in the corner. And on Saturday I had a dinner party! Since I live in a real house with grownup things it's easier to pretend to be grownups. I did make rye bread, and it was real pretty but it didn't rise enough for some reason so it was kind of meh.

Have you ever roasted garlic? If you haven't, you should. I think it changed my life. You just cut off the top of a whole head, drizzle some olive oil on it, wrap it in foil, and stick it in the oven for like 25 minutes. Doing this simple thing turns sharp pointy garlic into a smooth buttery delight. You are laughing, but I'm serious. I put the whole dang head of garlic into a pot of soup, and voila, deliciousness. Also here in the Tarn we have this beautiful purple garlic that I bought a ton of when I first got here (never know when you'll need like 15 heads of purple garlic) and Corinne asked me if I was trying to keep out the vampires. Also the man who sells garlic at the market by my house is incredible. When he talks it sounds like there is a dying bird stuck in his throat, and he rolls all his 'r's. "mademoissshhheellle, vouzssch voulezcschhh un ptit essschchhhallot? Voussh n'avezzcssh pazz d'ail ! ! Tenezzsh, un peu d'ail. [throws a few heads of garlic into my basket] Mercchhhi, a la prrrrrroschhhhaine mademoissschhshheelle!"

The other day Brent and Neill and I went to Gaillac to a Christmas market. When I was riding my bike to the train station, it was raining and I discovered that my brakes don't work so much when the ground is wet. Wipeout! I was fine but the next day man that hurt. I was complaining about it to Micka in the kitchen saying, j'ai du mal partout, and he said, well it's not from playing sports. Laugh haha. "Today I played squash (whatever the hell squash is) and I did nine kilometers of 'marche nordique.'" I got sassy with him. Congratulations, I said. Tired of Micka always making comments about how I don't play sports. In the south of France if you don't play sports you're a loser. It's like high school, except I went to an arts high school so I never had to deal with it until the age of 22. One time a funny thing happened. Micka was again asking me why I don't play sports, I was getting tired of being apologetic about it. I'm not a couch potato, Micka. I eat less cheese than you. I also don't ever go anywhere in cars. Later that day, I was on a bike ride out in the country with Brent, and I saw Micka up ahead of us a ways walking the dogs. I hadn't really been paying attention to where we were going, and in fact we'd ridden bikes all the way out to where they take the dogs sometimes. MICKAAAAA I yelled at him, and he was thoroughly shocked indeed to see us all the way out there. Think I'm lazy now Micka, hmmmm???? That's right Micka, I'm gonna ride up that big hill in a minute when I'm done chatting with you so I can see the panoramic view of Albicountry. Hmph.

Anyway I was telling you about going to the Christmas market. There actually isn't much to say except Brent finally got his vin chaud (hot wine with spices, mm!) and we wandered around Gaillac in the rain. Neill is English and he says funny things sometimes, like "Gaillac is nice. I thought it was gonna be like two shops and a donkey or something." Then we stumbled upon an organic wine tasting. We peeked our heads in and a man standing in the doorway said, here is a list of all the wines that are here, here are some glasses, whites are in here, reds are in the other room, help yourselves. Yes we will, thank you. So we did. And a sweet little man came up to me and said, excuse me, where might you be coming from? The United States, I said. Oh, he said, you could be Spanish. Ha, I get that a lot, I said. That's partially true. I also get Turkish, Belgian, Italian, middle-eastern. I'm a mystery.

"for elves over 18" 

Gaillac: like Albi, only even tinier

have trouble sometimes resisting hot roasted chestnuts