The breakfast of a thousand jams

[shewhomust]

There's nothing linear about this journal; or perhaps the opposite is true, that this journal follows not just one but several lines of thought. Almost a year ago, I compared its structure to the opening of multiple browser tabs; it's that season again, within the month we will slope off again for a short holiday, and yet another set of photos will be abandoned half-sorted, another set of posts interrupted in full flood. This cannot be! I must get a grip...

Very well, then, it's October 2007, durham_rambler and I are in France, on our way back north, having spent the night in Chinon at the Hotel Diderot. We had arrived late and optimistic, and been found a room not in the historic and picturesque hotel itself but in the annex round the corner, quieter and less fancy, but that has a certain charm, too.

The following morning we breakfasted in the dining room. Jam, as I have remarked before, was a recurring theme of this trip, and the Hotel Diderot specialises in jam; they have published a book called Jam in the Cupboard, and sure enough, there is a large dresser packed with jars of home-made jam. Each table bears a generous selection of jams: fig & toasted walnut, quince jelly, rhubarb & strawberry, rhubarb & raspberry, Dundee marmalade, pêche de vigne (bush peach, according to my dictionary, but it doesn't mean anything to me), pêche de vigne & greengage, vine fruits, rhubarb & candied lemon: "And if your favourite isn't on your table, " read the label, "visit the other tables until you find it."

After this Gargantuan breakfast, where else could we go but La Devinière?

Comments

Brought back memories

[negothick.livejournal.com]

Of my own trip to Chinon and Rabelais. . .
And the local echo rhyme:

Les femmes de Chinon, sont-elles fideles?
--elles? elles? elles?
Les femmes de Chinon-
--non, non, non

(imagine the response lines being a dying echo)

Re: Brought back memories

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you for that, I hadn't heard it before!

(On our first visit to Chinon, long, long ago, we camped on the campsite, down by the river with a fine view up to the castle. I seem to remember peering wistfully over the wall at La Deviniere but being unable to visit.)