food – Page 11 – today's worry

Beyond Beziers. 4/13/19

I am turning lurid shades of purple today. I am thinking, no short sleeves today!

Where I hit the kneeler with my upper arm. I have a similar bruise on my butt where I hit the pew except it is three times bigger.

Thoroughly covered up we make our way out of Beziers with a stop to see the “Vieux Pont” or old bridge. The bridge was first built in the 12th century and improved in the 1500’s. It is still in use today.

The Old Bridge with a view of Beziers town and cathedral

After this we spend quite a bit of time trying to find Les 9 ecluses du Fonserannes on the Canal du Midi. The ecluses are nine elliptical locks on the Aub River. They were an important section of the Canal du Midi which was crucial in linking the Atlantic Ocean at Bordeaux to the Mediterranean Sea near Beziers. It was engineered by Pierre Paul Richet of Beziers who had no formal training but came up with an idea which he got his bishop to present to the king of France. It was begun in 1667 and completed in 1681. Unfortunately Richet died before its completion. The canal meant that France could ship and receive goods without the time, expense or risk of going around the Iberian peninsula.

Our first try to locate the locks with my phone’s GPS ended up with us on the wrong side of the canal.

It is still a little chilly and breezy this morning.

After the boat is all the way in the lock behind closes and water rushes into the compartment flooding the small area and bringing the boat up to the next level.

The boat repeats the process until it has climbed up to the level of the canal.

This UNESCO World Heritage site right outside of Beziers is beautifully maintained with a boardwalk through the marshy area and lovely flowers along the walk to the canal.

On the way to Beziers I see a sign which reads “Oppidum D’enserune.” Oppidum had a distinctive Latin ring to it. (And by Latin, I mean dead language Latin.) So I google up oppidum and find that it refers to an encampment or town of Celtic origin occupied between 6 B.C. and 1 A.D. Wow, and there is one of these just a few mikes from a Beziers? We must go take a look!

It seems that there many of these oppida in Europe. Ultimately they became Romanized as trade increased. They had in their towns a sewer system, wine manufacture, and iron works. I love walking in the footsteps of ancient peoples!

The outlines of old houses and a road. Containers in the houses for foodstuffs.

Looking down towards a field with pie shaped fields. This was originally a marshy lake which the Celtic people used to deposit their waste water.

John is busy reading a sign about the site.

This was an area for craftsman. Cistern is in front for collecting rain water.

Spout brought water from elsewhere to the cistern.

There is also a museum with many artifacts from the oppidum site including amphora, large vases, and personal items.

Large ceramic container with typical logo of the area,.

Next we hop in the car for the hour or so trip to Carcassonne. We are not here to revisit the castle complex. We are here to find an excellent restaurant that we had lunch in during our trip to this area in 2010.

John walks in through a gate and immediately finds the restaurant.

As can be seen on their awning now they are an Italian pizza place. Although they still have cassoulet as a side line, the whole lunch is a disaster and we end up feeling bad that we have come all this way for an expensive crummy lunch.

On the way back with stop at a grocery store and pick up a bottle of wine, a hunk of cheese, and some bread. We know we won’t be hungry enough for a proper dinner. At the store I see a Trader Joe’s product. Joe certainly gets around!

Trader Joe’s nut flour or something like that

Touring Beziers. 4/12/19

Since I am very sore today we are planning on taking it somewhat easy and spend the day looking around Beziers. These are pictures from our day.

Mary at the wide esplanade named after Pierre-Paul Richet of Canal du Midi fame

At one end of the Pierre-Paul Allées is the mid-19th century theater built in the bijou-Italian style

Camel city logo from patron saint and cephalophore, St. Aphrodisius who was the first bishop of Beziers. He was Egyptian and rode into town on a camel. After Aphrodisius was martyred the townspeople took turns taking care of his camel

Nothing we enjoy more than going to European marketplaces. (Well, maybe churches)

You can buy the whole of everything here and parts as well. Whole lamb.

We had pintade for lunch yesterday. Using a translator on their phones the stall owners showed us that a pintade is a guinea hen and comes from the savannahs of Kenya.

We are thinking of having lunch here until we see the special ris d’agneau. It brings back the horror of eating ris de veau on our honeymoon. John told me mid-bite that it was brains of veal (actually thymus)

Next we head over to the Church of the Magdalene. It is located on the site where the 13th century massacre of Cathar heretics happened. Everyone in the town was killed by order of the Pope and those who sought refuge in the church were burned as they set fire to the church. Famous quote, “Kill them all, God will know his own.”

Next we visit St. Nazaire cathedral which is another combination of styles from various centuries. This has the look of a church/castle fortress and occupies the highest point in town

This church has a similar pew-kneeler set up as the one I tripped over in Perpignan.

View of the valley from the promenade outside the church

We have been tromping around since early this morning. Time for lunch! We stop for lunch at Le chameau ivre, a hip sort of place near our hotel

This was called tiramisu but it was just cream and crumbled up cookies

We go out again around 3 to look for a statue and some Roman ruins. The statue is of St. Aphrodisius up in a corner niche. The story goes that he was beheaded and his head was tossed in a well. A spurt of water flung the head out where it was picked up by the headless saint and carried around. Def. according to Wiki – A cephalophore (from the Greek for “head-carrier”) is a saint who is generally depicted carrying their own head. In Christian art, this was usually meant to signify that the subject in question had been martyred by beheading.

Going out again in the afternoon is a mistake as I am really tired and very sore. Oh, and also very grumpy so we head back to the room so I can take a nap and adjust my attitude. For dinner we decide we just want a hamburger which turns out to be harder to find than expected. After attempts at closed restaurants, fully-booked place, awful kebab place, we settle on a sports bar with sub-optimal burgers and greasy, horrible fries. We are done for today.

In edible microwaved patties in a pita pocket. The dish is called “the American.” We take one bite and leave.

Our sports bar dinner. We take out the bacon and try to scrape off the orange goo and add a bunch of ketchup. Horrible fries.

Ill-fated day in Perpignan 4/11/19

We get up early because it is time to disembark. It is a much more leisurely proposition when you have your own plans rather than Viking’s. So we have room service breakfast and depart around 8 AM for the airport to pick up our rental car.

Everything goes smoothly at the car rental and we get some sort of Peugeot SUV. It is only about two hours to our planned stop in Perpignan, France.

What starts out as a lovely morning in Spain turns into a really chilly and windy day in France. The wind is so strong it is hard to open the car doors when we have a pit stop just over the French border. It must be the cold Mistral wind that we have experienced in southern France before. Brrr.

We reach Perpignan and find a parking space and make our way into the old city to try to find the cathedral. We end up finding the Church of St. James instead but, hey, it is a church so we go in to take a look.

Romanesque entrance from the 13th century and…

We look around. The church-minder is nice enough to turn the lights on for us. The church is pretty gloomy and macabre looking even with the lights on. There is an interesting wood-carved and painted altarpiece and a statue of St. James, the traveler, with his scallop shell hat.

We depart the church and make our way to the cathedral through a very sketchy part of town. The buildings and the people are in sad shape and the litter is blowing around in the strong wind. I feel quite uncomfortable walking down the mostly deserted streets.

Of course I am just being paranoid and we reach the cathedral square without incident. The cathedral is also a mishmash of styles with different elements from various centuries. The cathedral was begun in 1326 in the Catalan Gothic style, because this area was part of the Kingdom of Majorca. The cathedral’s western façade was never finished and was restored in the 19th and 20th centuries and it has a portico and bell tower from the 18th century.

The interiors of these churches are quite dark with little light coming in through the stained glass windows.

Stained glass windows in Perpignan Cathedral

And now why this is an ill-fated day. In my haste to get an overall shot of the nave I neglect to step over a wooden spanner that connects the chair-like pews to the kneeler in front of them. Now even though I have been so thrilled by my miracle left knee which has performed beautifully over the course of the vacation, it is no match when I start to fall. So I trip with my right foot, my left knee crumples with the force of my falling and I end up on the floor between the pew and the kneeler. On the way down, which in my mind has taken on a slow motion quality, I smash my left hip and hand against the pew (all the time trying to keep my iPhone out of harm’s way) then ricochet off the pew with my right upper arm hitting the kneeler while the bulk of me is landing on the floor. I actually thought, ow, I think my right shoulder is dislocated. This causes quite a commotion in the echo-y Church. John and two British couples come running over. I am face down on the floor between the pews with my legs sticking out in the aisle. Please everyone go away and just let me lie here for a bit while I do a mental check of what has been damaged! But of course I say, don’t worry. I am fine. But the Brits want to help me up. So they start pulling at my shoulders which is really painful and I am trying to get on my knees which are banged up. After a few false starts I tell them to just let me do this on my own. This is tricky though because I cannot use my right arm to push up with because I have injured my shoulder. Finally I am upright still telling everyone that I am fine and they should continue on with their sightseeing. John has wisely not tried to get me up since he knows that what I really want to do is continue lying on the floor.

So ultimately my damage is a sore left knee and a giant bruise on my hip and a right arm that cannot reach out or up but I can use it from my elbow as long as my shoulder is not involved. I am pretty sturdy and have not broken anything.

We finish up at the cathedral with John taking pictures since I cannot hold the camera up and make our way into the square in search of some lunch.

This is a pintade which we assume is some sort of chicken with some veg (and too many peas!)

I can eat with my right hand by keeping my upper arm pinned to my chest and leaning forward from the waist but I cannot reach for my wine glass. Horrors! I have to drink left-handed. Tricky but doable.

We return to the car and finish our trip to Beziers where we will spend three nights looking at Beziers and surrounding towns and taking a day trip up to Carcassonne. After only two passes we find our hotel which is on a pretty plaza or “place” in French. I just want to take some ibuprofen and lie down.

We go out for dinner at a nearby brasserie, Le Crystal. It is kind of like a French diner. We order something that has calamari in it. It turns out that it is all fried but okay we have to adjust to only knowing some of the French menu item words. The salad is good. Then it is back to the hotel to see if there is any comfortable way to sleep.

Fried calamari and fish balls with salad

At sea again. 4/9/19

Just what we need, another day at sea! You really have to be into looking at water or the inside of a boat to enjoy this many days at sea.

We played our last round of trivia today and did not win. Just as well because the prize was a Viking book. We really do not need anything heavier in our suitcase. We have enjoyed playing trivia on all the sea days

Since I am writing this several days after the fact, I imagine in the afternoon we did some hand laundry, watched some TV, looked out the windows, read books, and took a nap.

For dinner we ate at The Restaurant and our main was sole meunière. Too many bones for me.

Cadiz, Spain. 4/8/19

Today we are in Cadiz. The optional tours are for Seville and Jerez. We visited Seville and Jerez before when we had arranged a tour in Seville and had tickets to the Andalusian equestrian center so we opt for a walking tour of Cadiz. Plus it is free.

Our boat pulls into Cadiz and soon we are on our way. The city is clean and inviting with gardens and streets with overhanging terraces. Here is some of what we saw.

Our first view is of the Plaza of Spain which celebrates the first Constitution of Spain drafted in Cadiz in 1812 and established a constitutional monarchy with many of the same freedoms as the American Constitution. Unfortunately it was repealed under King Ferdinand VII in 1814 who reestablished absolute monarchy.

The monument on the Plaza of Spain has a center column with extracts from the Constitution and is flanked by sculptures symbolizing agriculture and citizenship. The two bronze horsemen represent war and peace.

On the other side of the monument is Hercules the mythical founder of Cadiz.

An enormous ficus tree outside of the art museum

Door knocker on the house of Manuel de Falla, the famous composer

We stop at the Mercato Centrale and there are wonderful looking vegetables

Then we stop at the New Cathedral and go inside

John goes down to the crypt where Santa Victoria’s non-corrupt body lies in a glass container

Also here is the burial site of Manuel Falla, the composer and favorite son of Cadiz

One of the motifs are tuna which is a nod to the origianal settlers of Cadiz, the Phoenicians

Then we take a couple of pictures of me in the City Hall plaza

We go down to dinner at the Chef’s Table tonight where the theme is ‘Las Route des Indes.” Here are a few highlights.

Beef tenderloin with purple potato mousseline

We are hoping to see the Straits of Gibraltar before it gets too dark but it seems that we are not going to make it. However we do see the lights of Morocco on one side and the Rock of Gibraltar on the other. We wave and shout, Hi Africa! Seeing Africa was one of our agenda items to complete.

You can see the enormous Rock of Gibraltar on the other side

Another day at sea. 4/7/19

Just when you think that you might have dry land for a while there is another day at sea going from Madeira to Cadiz, Spain. So not much happening today.

We start the day by having room service knock on the door at what seems like an hour earlier than we expect. John is still sleeping so I stumble out of the bedroom looking, I imagine, rather disheveled to answer the door. I say I thought I asked for breakfast at 8:45 AM. He says it is 8:45. Did you remember to turn clocks ahead an hour last night. Abashedly I had not. So kind of an embarrassing start to the day

We go down to play Trivia before lunch and resume our old position of second. We assign areas of expertise to study up on before the final Trivia on Tuesday. John is looking into world capitals and I am still the NASCAR expert.

We have lunch. I am so sick of luncheon boat food. John tries the porchetta since he tried making one at Christmas with so-so results. The one onboard is much prettier and John says it tastes good too. I am still not feeling particularily like eating due to my stomach distress of yesterday.

John’s magazine-ready shot of the porchetta

We take a nap and go down for the Port Talk late in the afternoon. Our next stop is Cadiz tomorrow morning. There are excursions to Seville and Jerez but we have been to those places before and have had excellent times there so we opt for a walk around Cadiz.

Dinner is at Manfredi’s and works out pretty well. We abandon our beloved octopus carpaccio for antipasti for two followed by a first course of tortelli with truffles for me and a risotto for John. We split a Fiorentina (giant steak from Florence) and still cannot eat it all. No dessert.

The fabulously delicious bread basket from Manfredi’s

It’s hard to make a mushroom risotto look pretty

My half of the Fiorentina with watercress garnish

Land ho! Madeira, Portugal. 4/6/19

After a reasonable night’s sleep we are ready to explore the beautiful island of Madeira, Portugal. What a change from St. Martin. Our ship pulls in at about noon and we are scheduled to take a tour at 1:15PM. I am feeling much better today and we are so happy to get on land.

After a delightful ride through the city of Funchal and the countryside with its terraced farming gardens we arrive at the Cabo Girão Skywalk. The skywalk is partially a see-through section down the cliff and spectacular views of the island abound.

Bird of Paradise plants on the walk out to the skywalk

Later we travel down to the fishing village of Camara de Lobos where we are treated to the local drink, poncha, a combination of rum, lemon juice, and honey. We have a brief time to walk around as well.

A street in the small fishing village of Camara de Lobos

Our group bellying up to the bar for some poncha

The bar crew squeezing the lemons, muddling the rinds, and straining the poncha

The small natural bay at Camara de Lobos

Portuguese fishermen playing cards by the bay. The stones keep the cards from blowing away

Finally we end up in their biggest city, Funchal. It is clean and lovely. There are flowering trees and shrubs everywhere. We had hoped to see their early 16th century cathedral but it was closed by the time we get there. Unfortunately we get to this last site late and only had 20 minutes to explore. Otherwise this is one of the better included tours we have been on from the Viking Ocean trips.

Statue of Joao Goncalves Zarco (1390-1471) He was a Portuguese explorer who established settlements and recognition of the Madeira Islands and was appointed first captain of Funchal by Prince Henry the Navigator. (Wikipedia)

This is the early 16th century cathedral in Funchal that we did not get to see

Downtown garden across from our location

Later we have dinner at The Restaurant. The food is seeming repetitive at this point. Everything comes with a garnish of watercress. They must be out of everything else.

Seared foie gras with watercress garnish

We both have the Bergen fish soup which is much like the fish soup we actually had in Bergen

My dish of dried out chicken with watercress garnish

John has a quick seared piece of tuna with a watercress garnish

Atlantic crossing, day 6. 4/5/19

This is the worst day of our trip, mostly because I cannot imagine a worse one for me. After a night of almost no sleep due to, once again, a lot of pitching and yawing, and shuddering of the ship. We get up bleary-eyed to have breakfast.

Good morning, Atlantic Ocean. You look so benign but I know you are not.

Huzzah, land now appears on the tracking screen

I have decided to have corn flakes because I have been having a lot of eggs. Now I know that I am somewhat lactose intolerant but I figure that the amount of milk that I will put in the cereal will not be a big deal. I was so wrong. By the time I am only part way through breakfast I tell John that I am not feeling well and need to lie down. I am having severe pains in my stomach which ultimately leads to a breakfast explosion. This was followed later in the day by a good deal of intestinal distress. Like I said this has to be the worst day of our trip.

(Aren’t you glad there are no pictures of this part!)

Needless to say I miss the 10 AM lecture and the Trivia contest where my team takes uncontested first place by answering 15 out of 15 questions correctly. Go team!

At 4:30 PM I pull myself out of bed to go to our special invitation-only tour of the kitchens. We see everything that the culinary team does and the Head Chef is our tour guide. But by the end of the tour I am having a hard time paying attention since the lower half of me is now experiencing lactose intolerance big time. I manage to get to the bathroom in time but just.

The kitchen is staffed 24 hours a day. Chef says that they work 4 hours and then have 4 hours off and then work another 4 hours. This is The Restaurant hot foods kitchen.

After napping again I feel better and we go to dinner at the Chef’s Table where the menu is Mexico. It pretty much is not Mexico at all but is tasty nonetheless.

Our amuse bouche is tostados de pulpo.(octopus) It is fairly tasty but does not taste even remotely Mexican. It has a bunch of fennel on it and no lime or salt. We ask for lime and salt.

First course is at tamalito de pollo. John says the masa in the tamale is UGH. And it is dressed with watercress instead of cilantro and has feta cheese on top. I am less judgmental.

Our palate cleanser is nopales con limon. It is really good.

The main course is a piece of short rib in a mole-esque sauce and also sweet potato purée. It is really, really good even if the sauce does not taste like mole.

For dessert we have a chocolate presentation which is pretty good. That is high praise from someone who does not like chocolate.

I am hoping tonight we will sleep. Since I am writing this the next day I know the answer to this hope is no hope. The seas are really rolling and even our furniture is moving around.

Atlantic crossing, Day 5. 4/4/19

Our hopes for a better night’s sleep are completely dashed by the roughest seas so far. We sleep about one hour at the beginning of the night and then wake up at 1:30 AM. There is a loud noise and a big shuddering of the ship. We lie in our bed frozen wondering what will happen next but it is just more of the same all night long. Around 6 AM we fall back to sleep exhausted for a couple of hours.

Normally we would be having room service for breakfast but since our cabin is in the extremely rocky part of the boat, we opt to eat down in The Restaurant. It’s fine but not as comfy as sitting in our pjs having breakfast in our room.

At noon we go down for Trivia where we are back in our usual position of second. Once again there are no NASCAR questions so my extensive knowledge goes without use.

During the Captain’s announcement he addresses the big bang and shuddering of the ship the night before. He says we hit a water mountain and it was just the ocean’s way of reminding us who is boss out here. The other guests were as discomfited as we were and it ends up with a very quiet day aboard ship as people try to catch up on lost sleep and improve their queasy stomachs.

Mid-afternoon we have a special tour of the bridge. There are two second officers, a third officer, and a lookout taking care of the running of the ship. Somehow I imagined a large crew bustling about taking measurements, logging events, and watching screens and the sea. Certainly I expected the Captain or the First Officer. Apparently they are only called when it seems like there could be some sort of trouble.

Two second officers, a third officer and a lookout run the show

Lookout seaman who scans the horizon and uses the binoculars once in a while. Seems pretty low tech

The second office who gives the talk. He looks about 16.

Dinner tonight is at Manfredi’s. They have an excellent assortment of breads and a couple of specials as well as their usual menu. We like the sound of their specials until tomato sauce or some other “American” ingredient is added which really does not fit at all. We cobble out what we want from the existing menu. Our dessert (not shown) is the remnants of our basket of bread, some parmesan cheese, honey, and a glass of grappa.

John is looking pretty dapper in his duds. A guy complimented him in the elevator.

My first course is capellini with shrimp – good!

John has the swordfish with watercress which he enjoys

I have meal varsala known more popularly as veal Marsala when presented properly. It would seem that they have a dark btown sauce that they use for multiple purposes by adding bits of flavoring. Does not work. No mushrooms. It is sad.

Finally, advancing our clocks one more hour forward so that we are up to seven from Pacific Time, we head for bed really hoping that the seas will let us sleep tonight.

Atlantic crossing, day 4. 4/3/19

So, we are still crossing the Atlantic Ocean which is really big. It is Wednesday and we do not get to Madeira until Saturday. The waves and wind have picked up and now the waves are 3 to 4 meters. You really have to pay atttention when you are walking around or you will bump in to someone or something. Today, instead of eating in our favorite places, favorite seats, we are opting for dining in the lower decks of the ship near to the middle where the motion is not as extreme. The boat makes a lot of creaking noises and every once in a while there will be a slamming into the side of the ship. Bad for sleeping.

The highlight of the day is that we tied for winning the Trivia contest! Go our team. The questions were easier than the days before. But we get a bottle of champagne and our team captain, Steve, says we will all share it at 4PM on Deck 1. We go but no one else shows up. Hmpf!

Since we did not sleep much last night we spend the day fitting in little naps. Hopefully tonight the pitching of the ship will not be so bad.

We eat at The Restaurant tonight which John has taken to just calling The. Both at lunch and dinner it is getting a little harder to find something that we really want to eat.