Stovetop Stuffed Pork

I've had good luck in the past with modifying oven recipes for the stovetop, so today I decided to try this one! This Stuffed Pork Loin Roast has eight servings; I am aiming for just two. I even have figs from the marché yesterday, and some chopped hot chiles in the freezer!

Stovetop "Stuffed" Pork

In a pan on very low heat, add:

Red wine

Broth

Dash of ground cloves

2 slices of pork

Cover and cook till tender, 1-2 hours (add more liquid if needed)

Remove pork and shred with 2 forks.

Cook in olive oil:

1 tsp chopped bacon (allumettes fumées)

1 tsp onion, finely chopped

Add, and cook till golden, ~5 minutes:

1 tsp chopped unsalted nuts

Remove from heat and stir in:

The cooked pork

1-2 chopped figs

1/4 tsp hot chile, finely sliced

1/4 cup breadcrumbs

1 tsp chopped fresh herb (I used frozen celery leaves)

pinch of dried thyme

Spread the mixture in a pan, drizzle with a glaze:

Orange marmalade

Powdered ginger

Olive oil

Cook without stirring on high heat, uncovered, until glaze bubbles and the bottom is lightly browned, 3-4 minutes.

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This was great, but a little sweet. Next time, I would leave off the glaze, and add some orange peel.

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UPDATE: I made this again, with these changes (it worked!)

- slow-cooked pork in red wine and broth with thyme

- added chopped green beans to the onion and allumettes 

- frozen fruit (fruits rouges) instead of figs

- chipotle instead of chili

- dried basil instead of celery

- instead of removing from heat, I added everything together, including the ginger and just 2 tsp marmelade. I cooked it till it bubbled and browned.

Dinner By Marché

Tonight's dinner brought to you by the Marché !

In a hot non-stick pan, cook a handful of cleaned chopped girolles (chanterelles - mushrooms). Don't move them around until the liquid has evaporated.

Stir in some olive oil and salt.

Add 2 cloves of garlic, sliced into roundels. Stir and cook until browned, then remove from the pan.

Add to the pan:

A double handful of chopped green beans

Water to cover

A pinch of dried thyme

Salt

Cook until slightly crunchy, covering as needed.

Boil off any remaining water, then add olive oil and the cooked mushrooms and garlic. 

Cook and stir a couple of minutes more, then serve.

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We had this with the tielle I got at the market!

Today's Marché

Today at the marché...

The tapenade (olive/anchovy spreads) seller practiced his English with me 🙂

I fumbled through some Spanish with a young Spanish woman (and immediately fell into French!). LOL - I remembered that "entender" is " to understand" in Spanish, but it came out in French (which doesn't use it that way!) 🙄.

The tielle (octopus empanada) seller started speaking German to me (this happens to me a lot in France). But I did learn that an empanada of seafood is "un cocktail" (masculine).

I got there at 11, which is still too late in Summer! There were already several stalls completely sold out and put away. 😕 The way our lives have evolved, I'm not sure I have a fix for that!

I remembered my water this time, and boy, did I need it! It was quite warm, but there was a nice breeze (and some benches on my route home 😉).

I still came away with everything on my list, just not as much as I had wanted. Gone are the days of asparagus and peas; I saw zucchini and eggplant, and bought a handful of green beans. Cherries and strawberries are still going strong, and peaches and melons are everywhere!

Montpellier Airport

I have to admit it; Montpellier doesn't act like it wants visitors! I spent hours (I don't know how many!) trying to work out a good way to get to and from Sète and the Montpellier airport 🙄.

Plan A... I started with what I knew:

• There are lots of trains from Sète to Montpellier center (and a city bus can get us there)
• There's a shuttle from Place de l'Europe in Montpellier to the airport 
• There's a tram system to get you from the train station to the shuttle 

It sounds doable, and I once traveled the route with a friend. But when I started to plot it all out, things got worse and worse! First, there are the usual issues with making all those connections: bus-train-tram-shuttle-airport. You have to plan on taking an earlier bus (etc) than you expect, just so you don't miss the next leg. And remember, approximately half of the trains in France run late! OK, still doable. But! The big stumbling block is that Montpellier is reworking the tram lines, and that means a big detour (and a lot of extra uncertainty). I was able to work out the route and timetable going, but coming back... was simply impossible!

Plan B... It's not advertised, and not obvious, but there are a  few TGV* trains that go between Sète and the new train station outside of Montpellier (called Montpellier Sud, as opposed to the station in town called Montpellier St Roch).** And, the airport shuttle makes a stop there! This is sounding promising - we have a shorter trip, and skip the town and its tram mess! Well, that would have been great, if only the schedules had lined up, and if only the shuttle had had more runs... I found trains, but going to the airport meant leaving 7 hours before our flight (it's a 3-hour flight, by the way), and coming home had no leeway at all for a flight delay!

Plan C... The airport website has a taxi calculator - I entered our data, and it told me that we would spend about $200 (our flight totals $400, by the way). I also found out that we would have to pre-arrange the taxi coming home, since it will be quite late!

Plan D... I scrolled around the airport website and saw parking options! Really, why wasn't this Plan A!?!? I do know why; it's because we simply aren't used to thinking about driving much anymore! Our car, purchased in mid-2019, finally has over 4000 kilometers on it! Well, lickety-split, we bought a long-term parking spot! It's about a 10 minute walk to the departure hall (P6, no shuttle, small airport). The rate table online is apparently old - we paid a bit more than it promised, but it was still reasonable at $60. Add in a drive of less than an hour, and it's looking good!

I did top off the gas tank though...

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*TGV - High speed trains

** The high-speed train network is being expanded, and part of that means stations are being built way outside of towns. Some towns (Nîmes, for example) have connected the two systems nicely - a TER (regional train) track gets you from the city-center station to the TGV station. But Montpellier couldn't seem to do that 😳. 

This week in Sète

So far, it's been quite a week!

Sunday, we voted in the first round of the legislative elections. We had a nice walk to our polling place (1 polling place per approximately 1000 voters), then drove to the beach for a cool drink at my favorite paillote (temporary beach restaurant). Next Sunday, we will vote in the runoff - it's between "The Nupes" (a coalition of center and left-wing parties) and the RN (a far-right fascist party). You can perhaps guess which way I'll vote...

Monday, I met a fellow American and her daughter, and showed off Sète! She and her family are scouting places to live in Europe - hopefully she finds enough "pluses" to keep Sète in the running 🙂. I think she'd make a fine neighbor!

We started here

Octopus fountain by the mayor's office 

And (mostly) ended here (back at my paillote) 🙂, covering a lot of my favorite places - it was so nice to have an excuse to see them again, and to talk about my town!

Tuesday (for me) was dedicated to trying to get a handle on cleaning the apartment 🙄 - I am finding it harder and less rewarding to do everything here just to keep up with the... mess (That's a catch-all term, isn't it?). Well, I have on my todo list - find a house-cleaner. Rick saved the day by getting all my medications from the pharmacy, *and* he got his second coronavirus booster! Officially, I'm not allowed (recommended?) to get mine yet (only over-60's (did I just give something away?!? 🤭)), but probably I'll get mine by September.

Wednesday, I went to the marché (farmer's market), and stopped in to get a take-out lunch at our old favorite stand inside Les Halles (the covered market, right in the middle of the farmer's market action). That felt really special! It's just good, ordinary barbeque (if grilled octopus and chorizo is ordinary!) and classic sides, but we made a lot out of it! Anyway, after the marché (while I was still fairly presentable), we went to the grocery store for more basic items. Why did this feel like such a busy day?

Now it's Thursday, and starting to feel *hot!* Tomorrow will be even hotter, at a forecast 34°C (93°F). We've been discussing what to do to escape the heat... I dread the idea of putting up the air conditioner, but it may be called for! As you can see, all of the rest of France is hotter than here!

I am finding it interesting (weird? Super bad?) that two of the places we had considered as vacation spots for exactly this week - Tours and Lyon - are even *hotter* than here! It's definitely a case of being glad that our desires had not materialized!

Well... Here's to the rest of the week! 🙂

Seagulls!

I don't know why, but just a moment ago, the seagulls went a little nuts!