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| A love letter on a back street in Sarlat |
Got up at
my usual ridiculous hour (5 AM—thanks, jet lag!) planning to go to the public
market in the nearby church at 9AM). Antsy, I walked up the hill to where I
left the car parked overnight (the desk clerk at the Remparts assured me it was
OK to leave my car in the public lot on the main road. “it's a small town,
nothing happens”, he said, and he was right—at least about parking). I drove
down, circled a bit until I got a space right in front, loaded up and went in
search of truffles. This region, the perigord, is famous for a couple of
things, first and foremost, foie gras. It's everywhere, usually accompanied by
statues or drawings of happy geese (obviously before they got “the
treatment”—being force-fed through a funnel to fatten the liver). Duck
comfit--duck parts preserved in their own grease--is big, and the area
produces a lot of noisettes—filberts/hazelnuts--hence a lot of oil. But I was
after the white truffle.
I walked
around the nearly deserted streets and waited for shops to open. My only
companion was a well-dressed young man who was also window shopping. I saw him
20 feet away, across the lane, then 10 feet away on my side of the street. I
bent to look at another window display, turned around suddenly, and he was
about 10 inches from my face. I apparently had foiled yet another pick-pocket.
We excused ourselves, and I didn’t realize what had happened until later.
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