thebigfatnoodle

A trip to a French market in Saint-Cloud (western suburbs of Paris)

Standard · Posted by thebigfatnoodle on December 4, 2011 · 12 Comments 

Happy anniversary to me 🙂

As you read this on a Sunday morning, my husband and I will be driving to Bray in Berkshire to celebrate our 14^th wedding anniversary.

I originally never wanted to show pictures of what I or my husband looked like but it seems silly not to since I keep writing about our lives, so here’s me, thebigfatnoodle, with him, bigmonster.

Guess 14 years of marriage to me will do that to you LOL. He does love me though hahaha

See? All ok 🙂 ...

As I won’t be cooking or writing this weekend, I thought I’d post a pictorial story about our trip to a local French market last weekend. I do have a recipe I made this weekend before we left but I’m posting that when we’re back.

Mmmmmm, salmon...

Following the amazing salmon dinner we had at my friend A.’s place last Saturday night (read that story here), he and his partner Isabelle took us to his local market in Saint-Cloud, a district west of Paris.

I wish we had more markets like this in the UK– they remind me so much of the wet markets you find all over Southeast Asia.

We got there a bit late so most of the stalls were starting to pack up but, and most importantly, the cheese shop was still trading. 🙂

Here’s what we picked up and ate for lunch last Sunday.

Lots of love

thebigfatnoodle

Just one of many such markets all around Paris

I don’t care what people say, supermarkets can never replace the atmosphere you can only find in markets!

The pink one on the left is the Himalayan salt

These gambas were HUGE! Sprinkled with garlic, coriander and the pepper from the South of France

We visited a spice stall and we bought some Himalayan salt. There’ve been a few stories saying salt is salt and that they’re not necessarily worth the money but I’ve never tried this (and it is so pretty) that I thought I’d buy some anyway.

We also bought some dried pepper which is from the South of France. My friends swear by the flavour and they used it on the prawns we ate and they were yummy! Isabelle’s also from Brittany so I bought some fleur de sel that’s meant to be much nicer than the salt from other regions. It’s not meant for cooking but for the table.

My friends introduced me to bouquet – a specific type of prawn – which you buy when the prawns are still alive. You simply boil these for a couple of minutes in salted water and we ate them as an entrée, dipping them into the fleur de sel from Brittany.

Super sweet and meaty prawns at the same time. Lovely!

Round and round we go...

Now on to the cheese… I tried a new cheese that day. It’s called tete de moine and it’s amazing!

They use this little contraption to scrap the cheese into little flowers and what’s great is that the skin gets left on the block while you end up with a perfect floret.

I’m not very good at describing tastes but it’s like a really light version of a pecorino but with less bite, really, really awesome so if you ever get a chance to try some, do!

Tete de moine

And here are the other cheeses we had for lunch from the market that morning – a selection of brie de meaux, morbier (that’s the one with the vein of blue through the middle), a tomme de savoie (the triangular slice) and I think the last one might have been a comte – I’m sorry but I can’t swear by that because I’d, um, had a couple of glasses of wine by then… and I was too blissed out in a haze of cheesy excess 😛

Mmmmmm, I can never get enough of cheese...mmmmmmmmm

Anyway, I hope you liked this little trip to the market. I’ll be back next week writing about the food we love to cook and eat again as per normal. See ya!

Long live markets!!!!

I took this picture because I just found it so inviting and just such a treat to see vegetables like this rather than in cellophane wrap.