Archive for July 2013

Beaumont Marché Nocture – Night Market – Street Dinner

PICT0001Summer has arrived along with the wonderful night markets or marchéPICT0009 nocturne. Dinner in a village square with friends, good music, a glass of wine and a band. From late June to early September many of our local villages have a weekly night market offering an interesting selection of food for sale. Beaumont offers the local mobile butcher who sells any and all cuts of meat or sausage which his family then cook for you on a charcoal grill. In addition to your selected cuts, they also offer ready to go pre-cook roasted pork knuckles /hocks, pork spare ribs (spicy or plain), duck sausages, chipolatas, merguez sausage, potato PICT0011gratin, courjette gratin,….next door a family offer grilled duck breast, PICT0010grilled confit duck, fresh fried foie gras( duck liver), forestier potatoes, cepe omelette, truffle omelette, gezier salad ( cooked duck gizzards on lettuce drizzled with walnut oil – delicious), their neighbour offers fresh canteloupe /rock melon with local proscuitto style ham,  along side this trader a fromage vendeur offers a wide selection of cheeses. Close by the local baker has a delicious selection of wholemeal and sour dough breads along with fig or walnut bread to share with your cheese as well as a nice selection of small or large fruit tartes for dessert. Our next vendor has fresh strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, red currants, black currants….either  by the punnet, a mixed fruit salad, in a cone with ice cream and/or cream,  perhaps a sorbet.. hhmmm, one of the  local cafes is selling french PICT0013PICT0015fries, deep fried squid or chicken wings along with a nice cold draft beer, next door the local pizza shop is in full roar with his wood fired oven cooking the typical very thin crusted pizzas that are so popular here. The next vendor is selling chicken fajitas ! his neighbour is a vineyard selling a nice selection of their local wines, his neighbour is selling Thai food plus another 2 cafes offer their typical a la carte menu for people who don't desire to queue and sit amongst the masses and this is all accompanied by a local band, usually playing blues or international rock and roll ( sorry very little traditional French music, this is party time ! ) They start at around 18:30 and tend to wind up by 23:30,  these are very enjoyable nights and as you can see from the photos, a great setting ! Come and enjoy !

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Dordogne Car Club day @ Cresse Hypermarché

Today, Sunday July 7 2013 is a real scorcher,PICT0012 34C in the shade, clear blue sky and perfect for PICT0017cruising around the beautiful Dordogne region in a convertible or motorbike. Here in Lalinde we see a wide range of car and bike clubs cruising by on club outings. 3 weeks ago there were literally 1000's of Vespa's from throughout France meeting in Perigueux for their annual get-to-gether with Lalinde being on one of their club excursions. Today, one of our local supermarkets, Intermarché Hyper in Cresse opened up their carpark for a meeting of most of the Dordogne Car Clubs.  I'm guessing a good 1000 cars were on display.  I was brought up in Titirangi, up in the hills behind Auckland, New Zealand. I'm not sure why, but as a young kid, Titirangi was full of interesting European cars…Simca, Peugoet, Citroen, Panhard, Lancia, Jowett Javelin, Facel Vega, Fiat 500's and 600's, Talbot , Messerschmitt,  BMW Isetta, among the more standard Vauxhall, Ford, Holden, Hillman, Humber, Sunbeam, Rover, Triumph etc. The French cars were more exotic looking and generally very interesting from an engineering perspctive. Having a nice slow walk around the car park today is very much a walk down memory lane. Share some of  the interesting cars on display today

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