Musings on a Parisian Red Pepper

Diet is always difficult to manage while traveling.  Trying to maintain a healthy eating schedule and nutritious food is hard when so many wonderful fatty, gooey, butter laden goodies abound.  Especially in Paris.  So when we wandered down to the supermercado to stock our apartment with a few items, the produce aisle was the first I hit.  There were gorgeous green striped squashes, seductive egg plants, lettuce that was so fresh it looked like it had been plucked from the ground only seconds before and luscious looking peppers.  None of the produce was marked “organic” or “locally grown” but I would bet most of it came from farms close by and had been grown with a minimum of chemical help.  The red peppers called out to me and I bought one.  If Eve had tempted Adam with this one he would gladly have eaten it.  Back at the apartment I sliced it into strips and ate it.  Happy stomach and according to my nutrition app I got a big blast of vitamins C and A and lots of other good stuff.

While I was eating I watched a TV food show.  There are only two kinds of programming I can watch in French and somewhat understand with my limited language knowledge.  They are political shows and cooking shows.  I think this is because both are very formulaic and use a limited vocabulary.  Polititique is the same everywhere and so is cuisine.  The show I was watching was about wine production in the Loire Valley and featured spectacular shots of what seemed like miles of grape plants marching in soldier like rows, evenly spaced as far as the eye could see.  There were narrow paths between the rows and they were being plowed by a workman in what looked a scene from a medieval woodcut print.  The plow was a wooden contraction with rotating wheels that aerated that soil.  The plow was harnessed to a horse in front and then a workman behind was harnessed by leather straps to the plow and the horse so he could steer both.  The sun was beating down on a cloudless summer sky.  The workman, when interviewed said he love his work.  It was hard for me to imagine an American farm worker engaged like this.  The vineyard owner and the chef had set up a little table in the field.  A wine bottle sat in an ice bucket and the two and were drinking chilled glasses of the wine produced and having a fine time.