Cooking a chop in Toulouse

Two hours ago the owner of this sweet little rental apartment came by to drop off the missing chair-bed and blankets and sheets we'll need when the family shows up tomorrow night, and he showed me that they had made up the bed in the fold out couch, and I told him I had found the extra pillows. (They do pillows and pillow cases right in Europe - big, just soft enough, covered with super-fresh linens). Well, the doorbell just rang and it was him again, he returned to hand me another blanket he had forgotten and 2 bagettes (because I had mentioned I forgot to get them at the market). If anyone needs a week or so stay in Toulouse, write me. This is our third time here, and it just gets better. I'll give you the info.

So anyway, it being Sunday morning, I made my way to the market, a lovely oval shaped 1 story brick building with produce stands all around the outside (during the week it's all used books :-) ) and meat, cheese and fish so fresh you can't find it with your nose, you just bump into the stands by accident. I bought 3 lamb chops (or sheep chops, probably), 1 very large snow white mushroom, a 1/2 lb of butter, 3 carrots, 1 zucchini.

Every one of the merchants smiled and was extra helpful. The days of them being mean to people who don't speak proper (or any) French seem to be gone, at least from this part of France. The opposite seems true. They looked genuinely delighted when I tried to explain what I wanted. The woman who sold me some truly proud and handsome carrots and the huge white mushroom, on learning that I needed some 'beurre,' gave me a big grin and said 'I weel show you.' She opened the heavy plastic curtain to the inside and pointed to one of the glass cases that said "Cremerie."

"Ah!" I said. "D'accord!" (I sure hope that means 'Of course!')

Then I bought a pear. This man seemed more serious, more French - big with a craggy face and a bit of a scowl. I poked at some rock-hard pears and said 'Quand?' He looked askance. 'Pour manger?' I said, mimicking eating one. He nodded with respect and found a large, mottled one and let me squeeze it. It seemed okay. Not pretty but just firm enough, so I got it. When he gave me my change I accidentally dropped a coin among the pears and he leaned over and moved some pears and found it -- it was a tiny penny (centime?) and we both grinned and shrugged. Such is life. Weh, weh.

I carried my little bags back, climbed the stairs and took off my coat (and Romeo's coat, too, and if you don't know who he is, well, I'm not going to tell you because it doesn't really advance the story here). Was I hungry? A little maybe. But I was more than ready to finally eat some protein and have my first dinner since I got here 3 days ago. (Don't ask. You don't want to know. Suffice it to say I was up each morning at 4 starving, waiting for the hotel to serve carbs and coffee at seven. Such hardship.)

Well, I put butter in the pan and thin-sliced in about half the mushroom while I got the chops out of the fridge. I kept the mushroom slices away from each other because I watched 'Julie and Julia' on the plane coming over and Julia Childs says Don't Crowd The Mushrooms. Anyway, I wanted them to brown so I always do that anyway. I just don't think, in that high-pitched stentorian tone "Don't Crowd The Mushrooms." It may have had an effect, because she was right. Oh my was she right.

While the chop was cooking, I removed the golden mushroom slices to the waiting plate and ate them with a fork, standing there at the stove. OMG. Sooo good. Why? I don't know. But I've done that in NY and they didn't taste like this. Is it the butter? Oh, mercy.

Then I ate the chop. Good God, it was fantastic. Slightly tough, nothing on it but a little salt and pepper. But the taste was in technicolor. Gorgeous. Why was it so good? I wasn't starving. There's no reason it should taste like that. But it did.

And now the whole apartment reeks like a quick-fry joint on a Sunday at Ocean Park, even though an hour has passed. I hope the smell has gone by the time my son and family get here tomorrow night because it's gotten really cold again and I don't want to open the windows to air the place out. And it hits you, that smell.

But I don't care. I'd do it again. In fact, I will surely do it again because I have 2 chops, butter and the other half of that huge snowy mushroom still resting patiently in the fridge, waiting for my hunger to return whereupon I know they will, shmoo-like, offer themselves to me yet again, their hearts full of joy.

I never realized that food in France is excellent even when you cook it yourself. Even when you are a minimalist cook -- which is what I very generously call myself. But it is better than what I cook the same way back in New York. The French grow it differently, I'm sure of it. Or they say spells over it, handed down since the middle ages. It's not my imagination. Oh my. Maybe I'll go to sleep until I get hungry again.