Sunday April 3, 2016 is cloudy and cool.  When Sandy woke up the temperature was 6 C or 42 F.  The expected high for today is 16 C which is around 62 F.  A very nice temperature especially if the sun is out.

A note about the chickens from the photo yesterday. In France, when you buy chicken at the grocery store, butcher, or meat market, there are signs to indicate if the chicken for sale is red/rouge or noir/black.  The photo yesterday shows a chicken with reddish-brown feathers and another with black feathers.  So, at the butcher they would be considered red and or black based on the color of their feathers. All the eggs in the stores are brown. You can also see from the photo that the French chickens do not have pointy tail feathers like American white feathered chickens have.

This afternoon we had a very interesting experience.  There is a large exhibition “hall” right on the dock called Le Quai St-Malo.  We have been to several events  there in the past.  This weekend was the “Salon des vins et de La Gastronomie”. We walked over around 12:30 thinking we would have lunch there since they had two restaurants as part of the exhibit. The admission was the equivalent of $6.00 per person.  We had free tickets that came in the newspaper.

There were 60 exhibits or vendors with their stands and products.  Half of the exhibits were wine, Champagne, or cognac.  The rest were exhibits of cookies, cheeses, bread, appetizers like foie gras, olives and olive paste.  You could taste anything you wanted at no extra cost. Each vender was not overly busy and had plenty of time to talk to us and explain their product.

We started with lunch which was an omelette cepe.  This was new for us not knowing what “cepe” or porcini mushrooms were. Phil accidentally thought it was crepe. There is a big difference.  Even at an exhibit like this there was a waiter to take orders and serve the food.  The omelette arrived in a styrofoam “take away” container and must have been made with three eggs because it was so large. There was a delicious mushroom “gravy” on top.  It was served with a plate of sliced rustic thick grained bread.  Sandy forgot to ask for the omelette to be cooked “bien cuit” or well cooked.  She didn’t have any problem eating it until the very end.  That was too undercooked.

After lunch we tasted MANY wines, buying 3 different varieties.  We also stopped to talk to a vender featuring Champagne telling him Sandy doesn’t drink Champagne because it gives her a headache.  He explained that it is the sulfites in champagne and it was “too new” not having aged at least three years that caused the headaches.  We purchased two bottles from him.

The cookies we tasted were fabulous. We purchased both almond and pistachio flavors.  Next was the olives.  We tasted several “pastes”, two kinds of black olives, and purchased two hundred grams.  Good thing Sandy had two reusable shopping bags with us. We were full, happy and ready for home. Both of us took a little nap.

All our pictures for April in Saint-Malo France can be viewed at 2016-04 April in Saint-Malo on Flickr.  They will open in a separate window.

All our pictures for March in Saint-Malo France can be viewed at 2016-03 March in Saint-Malo on Flickr.  They will open in a separate window.