Le Perthus is a small village right on the French-Spanish border, nestled in a mountain pass at around 1000 ft above sea level. Parts of the town climb up the steep adjacent mountainsides until tapering off at about 2100 ft. On the eastern side of the highway outside the town is a large step pyramid, built in 1976 (along with the highway). It was built as a monument to the importance of the Pyrenean mountain pass in history. In the 3rd century B.C. for example, Hannibal marched his army through this pass on his way to Gaul and then of course Rome.
On the subject of Hannibal, my father had something to say. He laughed and said that he'd met Hannibal once when he docked in Cartagena to avoid sailing through a storm. I was a little puzzled but he continued with the story. As he approached the harbor, a hundred ships filled with thousands of men clad in Carthaginian armor and goatskins were landing on the shore and fighting with what appeared to be Roman soldiers. When my father got to land, he discovered that it was all part of the city's annual 3 day reenactment of Hannibal's landing. Since fate had pushed him to shore anyway, he decided to stay for the festival and at some point he met the guy who was playing the famous general for the show.
Finishing the story we parked the car and began the walk up the central road into town. The wind was unrelenting. We found ourselves half bent over as we pushed through the force of the cold dry air. Holding steady for good photos was nearly impossible so we hurried to get out of the wind. On the way we passed various restaurants, shoe and clothing stores, auto-parts shops, and discount duty free liquor emporiums, finally weaving our way around a crowd of tourists into the charcuterie for the veal.
We bought the veal at a good price and made a quick exit to the car. On the way home we stopped by some roadside vegetable stands petted the goats and bought some produce.
For lunch I made an eggplant parmigiana and Daniel stopped by with his appetite, two bottles of Catalan Vin Rouge and an apple tart. After many glasses of the wine we got into another round of discussion about politics. Daniel had initially asked why we call the US the "united states" if laws can differ so much from state to state. I spent 20 minutes trying to explain the American concept of Federalism, states rights, the senate vs. the house of representatives, the civil war, etc. and other basic reasons like the "no taxation without representation" argument for localized representation. It was a little too much for both of us so we ended lunch talking about Roman Polanski instead.
In the late afternoon I cooked the Blanquette de Veau and prepared an apple pie and an apple-pecan buckle. Even though the house was filled with delicious mouth watering aromas I was too tired to be really hungry. We ate a quick meal of leftovers, and then I passed out early in my classic way.
yes, we are all familiar with the "early David passout", especially if you are drinking some vino. He he.
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