30 March 2011: Boat Cruise Day Thirteen.

The night before we had a good old belly laugh at the antics Mark and I got up to during the day. We had moored ourselves in a nice spot not far from the town of Beziers and a short walk to a small village.

The village had a few interesting stalls but by far the most interesting and most popular was the Deli on wheels. The girls were keen to wander around and Mark and I keen to try our hand at communicating with the locals as we did the previous day. So we took on the responsibility of purchasing food for the next day or two.

The Deli was an experience in itself. The woman that ran it did so alone, no help at all. Her two children sat in the front of the van whilst she attended to orders by the customers. We were in a line of about five people and waiting our turn when I spied the kids in the front of the van. Gee, they’re really well behaved, not a peep out of them.

It only took a few minutes of observing the woman; lets give her a name…..Yvette will do, to understand why the kids were so quiet. The order came for some pork chops, Yvette span around, grabbing a meat cleaver off to the side in her right hand and the pork chops in her left. Swinging the meat up onto a board, no sooner had it hit the board she swung the meat cleaver down with her right hand cutting off the first chop. Mark and I blinked in unison as the blade came down on the board. Within no time, Yvette had smashed off six chops and had completed the order. I raised my eyebrows at Mark who was nervously giggling behind his hand. I shot a glance into the front of the van and the kids were also looking a little nervous at the pounding happening in the Deli.

Next order some prosciutto…..Yvette grabs the meat, slams it into the slicer, asked “how thick??” (only in French) and then carves off ten slices within the space of 5 seconds. More giggling from Mark which got me going as well.

Soon it was our turn, I looked at Mark and he stepped up to talk with Yvette. “We need meat……you have meat…..very good meat…..we buy some…” Me, waving my arms around and giving the thumbs up to signify “good meat” Yvette gave us a puzzled look and pointed at the prosciutto, we nodded. Six slices thinly cut (we weren’t going to argue about the thickness) were whipped off and the first part of our order is done.

Mark had previously spotted some mortadella and was keen to purchase some, so he jabbed a finger in the direction of the meat and the second part of our order was done. I was getting a little distracted by the mussels in a tomato sauce that were bubbling away in a giant wok on the fish stall next to us and had missed a little of the action. By the time I woke up, Mark was on to our final item on the shopping list.

“Some cheese……….” Said Mark in that loud voice of his. I glance at the cheese and there are four types each with a drawing of a cow, a sheep or a goat. Gee, I’ve got my work cut out for me here, how do I get across that we want the cows milk Hommes de Chancelle. The left finger goes out towards the Hommes de Chancelle and then both fingers up to my head to indicate the horns of a cow…..held off on the moo, Yvette got the message. From nowhere, she plucked a huge carving knife and with 2 slashes had produced a nice sample each for Mark and I. Merci…yes…very nice.

We walked away laughing and saying if you ever owned a business, Yvette is the sort of person you want to run it for you. The sandwich that Michelle whipped up using our ingredients was just what the doctor order for our lunch.

We visited Beziers that afternoon and it was a place to forget……and that’s all I have to say about that. It was good to catch up on the Internet and do some clothes washing there and grab some food for the night.