Magnolias's Day 7

     We veered off the beaten path today.  Two magnolias went to Glamun, a/k/a, a pile of rocks.  We'll let our readers guess which two.  The brochure says it's an ancient Roman city that "has been come out".  We assume they mean excavated, but call it what you will, our two magnolias enjoyed seeing the triumphal arch, monuments, mausoleum and a miniature Roman town complete with baths, houses, temples, etc.

     The rest of the magnolias opted to sleep in, as we all had a cooking class here at 11:00, which has been a highlight of our trip.  Marie Theresa is a charming lady who just loves to cook.  So she teaches classes for the hotels in the area.  She also sings Italian opera in a small ladies' group and invited us to their performance tonight, but we had to regret.  So far all of the French people we have met have been so nice and gracious. Her only comments about Americans was why so many are fat and she hates McDonald's.  But back to the class...

    Again, she was precious.  We made a vegetable (which are called legumes here and  doesn't include beans) quiche we'll call it.  It had zucchini, onions, tomatoes, garlic, mozzarella and eggs.  I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but it was so full of flavor. Oh, it had mint we picked from their garden, which is where the zucchini came from and other herbs.  We also prepared tomatoes and zucchini stuffed with an eggplant, tomatoes and pork sausage mixture.  And THEN we had apricot tart we prepared.   Ohhhhhhh, so good.  They don't use a lot of sugar, but they make up for that with butter --- burrrrrr as it's pronounced here.

     While we cooked, Marie T practiced her English and we practiced our French.  We have decided that French women look young for so long because you have to use your facial muscles so much to talk.  We also have a theme song for the trip.  Marie T sang Alouette with us: 

    

  But we all decided Patsy's version is much more fitting:   

    All you eta, think of all you eta.

    All you eta, think of all you et.

    Think of all the wine you drank

    Think of all the cheese you et

    Wine you drank, cheese you et.

    Oh, oh, all you eta, think of all you eta.....

    You get the idea....

     We sat down with Maria T, opened a bottle of vin and enjoyed the fruits of our labor.   What a wonderful afternoon.

    We also learned that in  French Jeanne Marie should really be Mary Jane.  Who knew!???  So now we have Julie (a/k/a Debbie), Mary Jane (a/k/a Jeanne Marie) and Clepto Patsy (so far she has taken wine glasses from Pompeii and now she's "stealing" fruit from the orchards.  What next??!!!). She claims she had accomplices, but the jury's still out on that.

    We ended the evening the way we started.  We veered from the usual and sat on the portico, formerly part of the stables, once again enjoying visiting and vin.  There were no Mosquitos tonight and there was a brisk cool breeze.

    Oh, I almost forgot.  We visited a vineyard today that is 2000 years old -- more Roman stuff -- but they have excavated the original winery and reconstructed the original wine press.  They now produce wine the way they did back then, picking grapes by hand, stomping them with their feet and pressing them with this enormous wine press.  It's a very interesting story, but too complicated for this blogger, especially after vin.

   Note:  Any typos are being blamed on predictive text!!!

    Time for these magnolias to go to bed.  Plus demain.....that's French for more tomorrow, we think......