Sunshine. The city sparkled. Flower vendors were out, selling daffodils at F10 the bunch. Green-overall-clad street cleaners were busy with the tools of their trade, witch-style plastic brooms and the rolls of tattered carpet that they use to back up the water in the gutters. All as described in "Le Divorce."

Always alert for ways to fill in that potentially dead time between breakfast and lunch, on this occasion we went to the organic food market that is held every Sunday on boulevard Raspail (Métro Raspail).

The market occupied over a hundred meters of the median strip of the boulevard, a divided thoroughfare at this point. The vendors struck us as attractive and cheerful, many of them young and many of African extraction. The produce, too, seemed out of the ordinary, even by the high standards that rule in Paris—for example, fish bright-eyed under a glittering glaze of slime as if they had just been hauled from the water.

We bought cashews, beautiful big nuts, and cashew butter both denser and of lighter color than we are used to. Also black olives from Nyons, a raisin cake, asparagus spears with uniformly medium-thick stems and a jar of aïoli. Finally, a bottle of Bourgueil (F39) purchased from a young woman who seemed to have imbibed too much of her stock in trade.

The frame of my glasses is so designed that the screws gradually loosen, allowing one or other lens to drop out from time to time. This happened at the market, and by the time we recovered the lens it was time to move on to lunch at:

22 rue Grenier, Paris 03. Métro Rambuteau.

While a kindly waiter fixed my glasses and Jean read out the menu to me, I settled into my chair and registered the background ambience—solid comfort in shades of dark brown, with a hint in the air of the kind of cooking likely to appeal to a worker coming off a stint in the vineyard. Or a morning’s shopping at a marché biologique?

Amuse gueule: rillettes, pungent, with coarse brown bread.

Salade de cabécous rôtis: two puffy, savory, hot blobs of the traditional goat’s-milk cheese of the Auvergne region, served with a small salad.

Salade tiède de lentilles vertes de Puy: A pot of warm lentil salad based on green lentils from Puy, a village in the Auvergne. The lentils combined with the other regional ingredients—dry white wine, fresh smoked sausage, garlic and a vinaigrette—to an effect both appetizing and comforting.

Mille-feuille de chou farci à l’ancienne: A substantial wedge of a savory cake consisting of a great many layers of cabbage leaf alternating with a stuffing of well-seasoned pork sausage, prunes, and Swiss chard, served on a sparse, meaty-tasting sauce. The seasoning of this hearty dish included enough hot pepper to produce a pleasant warmth in the mouth.

Magret de canard rôti, sauce au foie gras: Thick slices of duck breast, cooked à point, served with torpedo-shaped onions on a rich sauce incorporating foie gras. We don’t expect to find a closer approach to perfection in magret de canard this side of paradise.

We drank a regional wine, Chanturgue la Pouge 1994: A light red reminiscent of Bergerac, with the penetrating flavor appropriate to rustic cuisine.

A slice of the blue cheese of the Auvergne, Fourme d’Ambert, provided gustatory pleasure on a par with the preceding dishes, but the wine proved not to be a good match with it. Memo—next time, order a wine especially matched to this superbly buttery yet light-flavored cheese.

With coffee and conquises de l’Aveyron—traditional cakes, yellow, dense and sweet—the total at Ambassade d’Auvergne came to F483 including a tip for the waiter who’d fixed my glasses.

***

In the evening we enjoyed our purchases at the market, along with Poilâne bread and lots of mâche.