Le cheeseburger.

                             That's just what it' been like here today, I wore my camel coat too!!

                                                        I just love these old Vogue covers.



   Firstly I shall apologise for all the crap French I keep adding in, sorry, I’ll get bored soon!

   Well we have been here 5 days altogether now (another copy and paste version I am afraid) and we are really quite settled in and it now feels like a long time since we were at home, well I say home, this is home for now, so I suppose to say England would be more correct.

   It has been snowing most of the day today and as I sit here at the dining table with a cup of hot chocolate it is a bit like being in and looking out of a snow globe! Lovely, just what we need, it has not snowed since Thursday and the mountains desperately need more snow to open properly at the weekend.

   It is a little weird at the moment, as I mentioned previously in my last post, there is very little open so there is not a lot to do during the day, not even the(the 3 that are actually open anyway) bars open until 6pm! There are 3 cafes open though, one is a gorgeous patisserie and bakery selling the most amazing cakes and baked goods, just lovely, all alpine wood inside and metal bistro tables and chairs (K you would love!!), then there is a ‘salon de the’ which is very snug but at £4.50 for a cup of tea it is really a bit too pricey, the only one which has wi-fi, is the Quicksilver cafe which is in the actual Quicksilver/Roxy shop and is a cool diner style affair serving up deliciously bad, unhealthy food, that coupled with the wi-fi makes it packed all the time. Which leads me to a rather large confession, something I was prepared for really, but did not think it would happen so quickly!

   I have been a vegetarian/vegan (when being very good!!) for 3 and half years. I am not an animal lover (in fact far from it) and I turned veggie to help control my weight a bit more and to try to keep my body a little cleaner and healthier (well with all that wine and gin consumption you have to have a balance right??). I have eaten fish, a bit a cheese and a dribble of cream now and again but the only time I have eaten meat was in January whilst skiing here in France, one hideously cold day I succumed to a plate of spag bol! We had been here nearly 2 weeks and I was getting a little browned off with two choices of lunch, goats cheese salad (not really what you fancy when it’s bloody -10) or vegetable soup (a mediocre one at that). See this is the thing with the French they just don’t get vegetarianism, well maybe they do but they do not believe bacon or ham count as meat!!! I was told by a waitress a couple of years back here in Val d’isere that the local dish was vegetarian, I knew it was’nt, it is called ‘Tartiflette’ and is layers of potatoes, cream, cheese and HAM!! I learnt there and then it was not going to be easy and stuck to fish.

   So I had been thinking this year leading up to this move about the meat thing and I was thinking that really it was going to be near on impossible unless cooking for myself to avoid meat. I was also thinking about the fact that I have been much colder in the last few winters than I ever used to be, I must point out I was always convinced I was in a constant premature menopause having constant hot flushes, as I was always boiling hot all year round, but not so these past winters. So I was thinking about the local diet here in the mountains, which is a staple diet of dried/smoked meats, incredible cheeses, potatoes and bread (obviously once again this is France so bread with every meal!) oh and the obligotry side order of green salad. When you also look at the diets of the northern cold countries for instance Scandinavia it is the same again but being more coastal more fish. But a serious lack of veg. Maybe we need these animal fats to keep warm.

   By now you have probably realised where this going, so Thursday evening I sampled a little pate, which was delicious, then Saturday we popped to the Quicksilver/Roxy cafe for lunch where the menu is basically burgers. We did eat in there earlier in the year (with a terrible hangover, great hangover food though) and they had a vegetarian burger on the menu much to my suprise, but they now have a new menu, and guess what, I must’ve been the only veggie to ever order that burger so it is now off the menu! Now the fish choice was calamari and chips (which I love) but how much deep fried food should one really be consuming before the slopes are open for me to burn it off?? None I decided, so I had no choice but to sample the goods. (I am sitting here trying to remember what the conversation was in Pulp Fiction between John Travolta and Samuel L Jackson about what the quarter pounder with cheese is called in France??? Royale with cheese? Please leave me a comment if you can remember, it is soo bugging me.) Sorry off on a tangent there, all I need to say is that I ordered, ate and enjoyed a cheeseburger and fries!!

   Now I am not saying I am going to be eating meat full time but crikey I have been here less than a week, I’ll be eating trotters and ears by the time this 6 months is over!!!!

   Off out this evening to try out one the bars that IS open, might have a ‘vin rouge’ or two, purely medicinal, need to clear that beef fat from my arteries! ( that is my excuse and I am sticking to it!!)

Ps. Apologies to all (well, L, L & C, you know who you are) that have painstakingly sought and cooked veggie meals for me for the last 3.5 years, much appreciated though, they were always delicious!!

E xxxxxx