Mademoisellen: My Adventures in France: Our "French" Weekend!

Guys, I'm sorry for my long absence from the blogging world. I took another online class and it didn't leave much time for blogging. But, I'm finally done that and I have so much to update you on, including a trip to Paris! But, I'll start with some adventures Dave and I had right here in Toulouse.

A few weeks ago Dave and I decided to have a very "French" weekend. Since we moved here, we have heard a lot about this dish that Toulouse is famous for called cassoulet. Cassoulet is a stew-like dish with sausages, pork, duck , and beans. It is quite heavy and hardy, so while we wanted to try it, we weren't exactly craving it in the hot summer weather. We waited until the weather got a little cooler and decided to head out on a rainy evening to try it at a restaurant called "La Cave au Cassoulet." I actually heard about this restaurant from Dave's uncle when Dave's relatives were visiting in the summer. Apparently, it is "the" place to have cassoulet, we made a reservation and decided to give it a try.

As the name indicates, the restaurant is located in a "cave", or an old wine cellar. It made for a really cool atmosphere, as the room was located downstairs and the "cave" was all made of brick. The lighting was low and each table had a candle on it. We both started with an appetizer, I had a warm goat cheese salad and Dave had some sort of duck meat charcuterie dish. We both ordered the cassoulet and it came in a huge pot for sharing with a big ladel for serving it out onto our own plates. The cassoulet was delicious! There was a hint of wine flavour in the sauce that was very nice and it had tons of meat in it, including three different kinds of sausages and a duck drumstick (definitely not for vegetarians)! We enjoyed it a lot and also had a nice red wine with it to wash it down. For dessert we shared a chocolate mousse that was also quite good. We were stuffed and the cassoulet fulfilled it's promise of being "heavy." It was a good thing we had to walk home from the metro station! We spent the rest of the night in food comas, waiting to digest, but it was worth it because cassoulet is delicious (seriously, I would totally eat it right out of that casserole dish with the ladel!).


La Cave au Cassoulet , outside the restaurant

Inside the "cave"

Dave's duck charcuterie

My warm goat cheese salad (the french insist on putting corn and beans in all salads... I do not know why)

Our casserole dish of cassoulet!

Yum! Three different kinds of sausage!

A duck drumstick!

Yay! I love cassoulet!

We were on a roll with our "French" weekend, so the next day we decided to check out the market that is set up every Sunday in front of St. Aubin church. I've been wanting to go to this market for awhile now, but if you know Dave and I, you know we like to sleep in. The market happens in the morning, until about 1pm so we hadn't managed to make it into town on time for it yet. But, nothing was going to stop us this weekend! We set our alarm, pulled ourselves out of bed and made it to the market bright and early. I'm so glad we did too because it was soooo cool! There was fresh produce everywhere, but also cool food stands, bakery stalls, pastry stalls, butcher stalls, and even a macaroon stall! We had fun wandering through all the stalls and even bought a few treats. The produce all came direct from local farms and was super fresh! So fresh, in fact, that upon returning home and cleaning up some lettuce that we bought that morning I encountered an array of wildlife. There were little, bitty slugs hiding in there and even a spider (yikes! but it was dead...). I have to admit I was a little scared of the creepy crawlies I was finding, but only because some of them were still alive and all of them were still slimy. But, that didn't stop me! No, I MacGyvered myself some gloves out of some grocery store produce bags and elastics and went to work on that bad boy. I cleaned it all out and transferred the "wildlife" to a lettuce sanctuary with the discarded lettuce leaves where they could live out the rest of their slug lives not on my dinner. Then I thoroughly washed the remaining lettuce and double inspected for remaining signs of wildlife before converting it into a delicious salad for dinner. It was worth the effort because the lettuce was super tasty and fresh (no wonder those slugs were eating it!). We also enjoyed some of our other treats for dessert. It was a great day at the market and I'm glad I decided to get up to check it out. Who knew morning time could be so much fun! I'll have to try that whole waking up early thing more often!

St. Aubin Church


Apples! We bought some, they were yummy.

Even furniture! (a little hard to get home on the metro though)


Macaroons! (we definitely bought some of these guys)

Olives (Dave doesn't like these so we didn't get any this time....next time though, next time)

Mmmm cheese heaven!

Yes, that is me standing at the pastry stall making the most important decision ever (turns out I'm bad at deciding, we bought like three different pastries, try a "St. Honore" so good!)