DAY 105

I start my morning making sure that I have every thing packed and that the things that I'm leaving with Hélène in a neat little pile so she can have an easier time sending off. I then take a taxi to the train station to catch my lunch time train to Cahors. I arrive in Cahors in the early evening, don't remember the exact time. I then walk to my hotel ( the same one that I stayed at last time I was here). I then took all my stuff up to my room, went to the bathroom, then left. This is because I had dinner reservations at La Récréation. This restaurant is actually in Les Arques, but since it is such a small town the only places to stay there are houses, and I'm not going to rent a whole house for one night by myself. The area of Southwest France that Les arques is in is "the land of the Three Musketeers, of the prehistoric cave paintings at Lascaux, of Simon de Montfort, Richard the Lion-Hearted, and the Hundred Year's War." This restaurant is owned and runned by Jacques and Noëlle Ratier. Jaques is the chef of the restaurant and also a 3 Michelin Star Chef, which if you don't know is very hard to get and sort of rare, since the scale is only 1 to 3 in the first place. I take the taxi, to Les Arques, let me just tell you I am so, so very glad that wechad a navigation system in the car, because other wise we would have gotten very, very lost, especially since it was dark already. We eventually get to the town and find the restaurant, where I am dropped off. Now this restaurant is in an old school house, so there is a front entrance room, which is now the bar and a little table with some chairs, and then two room on either side one the dining room and the other the kitchen. I head inside and this women, who later I would find out to be Noëlle, wh should me to this table. I then sat down and was given the menu and the wine list, that's the best part since I'm leagal to drink in Europe. Anyways, after I order and am waiting for the first course, oh yea, this is a 6 course restaurant, the couple next to me start talking to me asking the usual questions, like where I'm from, why I'm here, etc... I later find out that they're from England and that they live about 10 min away fro about 5 months of the year. While talking to them my first course arrives, which is this cream of some sort of vegtable (it tastes like asparagus) with some sort of mushroom and a dash of paprika and something else (looks like paprika but green). Nomally I don't like muchroom in this way, but the soup was prepared so good that I started scarffing it down, and when I noticed myself doing this I had to slow down. My next course was my appitzer, with was salmon ( but the kind that you would be served with sushi) with some sort of vegetable mixture on top, with some gaucamole in the middle of the plate. Once again I hate this stuff normally, but it was prepared in a way that I not only eat it up, but wanted to order another one, if it wasn't for the fact that I hadn't even gotten to the éntree yet. At this point I know realized who Jauques had now attained the unattainable 3 Michelin Stars. My next course was the éntree, which I had the duck. It was served with this fried egg thing with onions or something, some sort of mushrooms or truffles and some asparagus with the duck and some sauce on top. After eatin all this down the next course was the cheese course. Where I was served a basket with sliced bagettes and then a plate with a small circle of locally made Cabécou cheese, with a cherry tomato and a quater size of of honey next to the cheese. Let me just tell you that I despise goat cheese, or anything from a goat for that matter. But once again, I scarffed it dawn. Next was coffee, even though this is not normally a course, it was apparently here. After my coffee I had dessert, which was just a regular Crème Brûlée. Now when I came to the restaurant at 9pm I was the last person seated, so when I was in the middle of my dessert course I was the only one in the restaurant. In the front room, the one where you first walk into, Noëlle and this German couple are talking and having a smoke. The lady of the couple comes into the dining room and invites me to come and sit with them all and finish my dessert there, instead of by myself in the dining room. I then bring the rest of my dessert into the first room and sit down. At this point I am a little light headed, having just finshed a whole bottle of a local Cahors red wine. I the start chatting away, if you think that i'm chatty normally you should see me when i'm getting tipsy to a certain point of drunkeness. At some point Jauques brought out a couple bottles of champagne and glasses and we start drinking away. At some point we toast to something, I have no idea to what because at this point i'm now a little drunk and can't focus at all. Then a little bit before midnight the taxi cameto pick me up and take me back on the 45min back to Cahors and the hotel. The one thing that I love about small towns like this is that I arrived by myself and just there to eat dinner. I left after eating and then smoozing with 4 complete strangers and laughing and acting as if we had known each other for years. When I arrive back at my hotel I, thank g-d for elevators, go up to, actually more like staggered, into my room were I peacefully fell asleep.

§§ PICTURES COMING §§

PS. If you want to read more, and I highly recomened it, about the area and the restaurant, read From Here, You Can't See Paris: seasons of a French village and its restaurant by Michael S. Sanders.