The best things I ate in France

 

I was walking around the back room of my library eating my afternoon meal that was, that day, grocery store sushi: Spicy tuna roll. It was not spicy. There was some tuna in there somewhere. I'm not sure it is fair to even call it sushi. But it was adequate for my celebration of Argentina making it out of the group stage of The World Cup. And it would give me strength in my next task of shelving a cart of fiction books. But it was not good. Not like how nearly everything single thing I ate in France was at least good.

And this made me reminisce.

What were the best things I ate in France?

Or how about: What were the ten best things I ate in France?

THERE WERE TOO MANY TO COUNT! I CAN'T POSSIBLY DO A LIST LIKE THIS JUSTICE! I CAN'T REMEMBER AS IT IS TOO PAINFUL! IT'S HOPELESS, JUST LET ME FORGET IT ALL IN PEACE!

Okay, that's out of my system.

Here are the ten best things I ate in France, in no particular order and with the understanding that I'm surely forgetting several important ones that were every bit as good as anything on this list.

1. Omelet with black truffles at the seaside place just past the port.

2. Six oysters in the half shell somewhere early enough in the trip that I don't remember where.

3. Socca (a kind of chickpea flour crepe) from a counter in the old town that wasn't busy but turned out to be every other time we wandered by.

4. The Sole Meuniere on the beach below the Promenade Des Anglais. This is a dish I have always wanted to try.

5. Foie Gras further down the Coers Saleya from us. I've never had foie gras, but think it is a little like extra good salami crossed with butter, but all in the best way. I mean, outside of the evil.

6. The vanilla cake pastry from Patisserie Lac around the corner from our apartment. I could probably include two or three more of their pastries on this list, but due to lack of room I just picked my surprise favorite.

7. The fresh berries and creme patisserie pastry from the less nice patisserie a block away from the fancy Lac.

8. Any croissant or chocolate croissant I had anywhere ever in all of Nice. They were uniformly exquisite. And not that it really matters here, but not a single one of them cost more than $1.30.

9. Sweet potato fries with two dipping sauces at Ohana in the heart of Old Town.

10. The potatoes, just... potatoes, served with my swordfish, at a restaurant on the Coers Saleya a minute or so from our apartment.

Oh, look at that. Our list is over before we'd barely begun. 

I guess I'll move on then and have some, um, lemon yogurt.

(author mutters bitterly in French)