La femmes mangent une pomme

We have been practicing French using an app called Duolingo.  It's a great free product, but what I'm noticing is that the common phrases are not helping me very much in shops.  We need to order meats, or fruits, or cheeses, and it's the quantities and sizes of things that I cannot say.   I am relying more on google translate to get that information so that I don't hold up the lines in the shops.  We could and do also go to the supermarkets, but we so enjoy going to the little individual shops and supporting the private business owners.

What has been exceedingly gratifying is the many, many strangers who have leaped in to help us.  I choose to believe it is their generosity and not their impatience that has them lend us a hand:)  And I know this is true for some cases, as we stand bewildered at a five point intersection and a lovely woman comes up and asks how she can help and points us to the correct street.  She approached us and we were not in her way in any case.  This is our experience of France.  Kind and generous strangers.

We accidentally stumbled upon a political rally where all the participants were older white folks.  They looked just like the Trump rally supporters that the hubs and step son had stumbled onto in the US late last year.  We were handed a French flag and had our bag checked before being waved onto the rally point at the Trocadero, from which we were planning to show the stepson a lovely view of the Eiffel Tower.  We promptly looked for a way out, circled a large building, entered a park and hightailed it out of there, following the State Department guidelines to avoid large crowds.  Later we discovered the candidate is a scandal stricken candidate who is against immigration in a wildly diverse country.   Rumor has it if he could generate 50,000 supporters at this rally, his party will keep him in spite of nepotism and lies.  Le sigh.

In the fish market, I pointed to the King Scallops, not even recognizing them for what they were, they just looked like scallops with a funny, orange appendage.  But the "how many" question threw me.  He knew no English.  I responded with my La femmes mangent une pomme?  (The women eat an apple), which usually gets a laugh.  The young woman behind me then jumped in with "I can help, I speak English".  We got our 500 kg of fish and off we went.

King Scallops have a lovely crescent orange roe attached to the main body of the scallop.  They are used in the dish "Coquille St. Jacques".  Instead, I seared them in butter with garlic and shallots.  We approved this dish.  Keeping it simple and fresh.