When we have guests from the states, what’s the first place they often want to go? The museums? The public châteaux? The Romanesque churches? Well yes, they want to see all those things. But first off, many of them want to head right away to: the Carrefour. What’s so special about this French grocery store?
Usually they’ve heard this, and it’s true: this famous French magasin grand surface (big box store) is so big that some of the employees whiz around on roller blades. But then, this is no ordinary grocery store.
Carrefour is the French word for crossroads, and if a crossroads is a big meeting place, then this grocery store is aptly named. It’s not a marché (market) or the larger supermarché, but an HYPERmarché, and some are the size of a small city. You can buy groceries, of course, and car insurance, plants for the garden, Christmas trees, refrigerators, you can book a vacation, sometimes they even sell cars out in the parking lot. If they could figure out how to sell you a house I’m sure they would. It is in fact the second largest retailer on the planet. Imagine a Costco with a regular grocery store at its heart, on steroids.
Sure, we get our veggies at the local market and do our normal grocery shopping at a smaller supermarché, but every once in a while we make the pilgrimage to a big Carrefour, found in most French towns (well, we did before COVID, and someday will again). The selection is so incredible, it’s hard to resist.
You want it, you can probably get it here. From dishes to tools to books to washing machines, and that’s before you even get to the groceries. Be sure to arm yourself with a list that is itemized by department---if you forget something on one end, it’s a good ten minute walk back. And beware of employees zipping past on roller blades, though you may be wishing you’d brought your own.
Since everything in France is seasonal, there is a huge central portion in Carrefour which morphs into an entirely different store each season. It’s a toy store at Christmas, a plant nursery with grills and lawn furniture and beach umbrellas in summer. If you miss the moment, you’re out of luck until next year.
Then on to the groceries. There's a cheese aisle about the length of a soccer field--a main attraction for our visitors-- with employees in aprons busy slicing and wrapping for customers. In the fish section there will be mountains of mussels, fresh oysters and clams, and poissons of every variety. There is often a guy in the meat department stirring a table-sized pan of steaming paella or couscous, singing out loudly to hawk his ready-to-eat marvel.
It’s all quite festive and overwhelming. A friend who just moved to France says, “Each time we go, we are so astounded at everything that there are large chunks of time that we spend just wandering around in awe. "
It may be that Carrefour has finally gotten too big for its britches. When they doubled (again) the size of the monster one in nearby Châlon-sur Saône, many folks said “enough already”! A trend is taking hold to shop at smaller, more local stores. So who has filled the gap? Carrefour, of course, which is now busy opening dozens of smaller, more intimate stores called "Carrefour Market"(smaller) and "Carrefour City" (smallest). At least now we can leave our rollerblades at home.
Now that we've done our grocery shopping, what's for dinner? Here's a super easy recipe.
(But first, speaking of recipes: merci to the readers who alerted me to the fact that the Grand Marnier recipe I linked to last week was in fact behind a fire wall. If you go back to the post, you'll see I've added the full recipe).
RECIPE: Spicy Sheet Pan Sausage Dinner
Adapted from a recipe by Ali Slagle
This is my favorite kind of dinner: one that I can prepare completely before the oven heats up. And my resident carnivore can feast on sausages, and I can just eat the veggies.
It's the sauce and toppings that makes this special. This serves 4, but double it if you are into leftovers for lunch, it's easy to re-heat. No problem to add turnips or broccoli or any other roastable vegetables you have on hand.
- 4 spicy Italian spicy chicken or pork sausages
- 1 bell pepper, cut into large chunks
- 4 small red potatos, cut into quarters
- 1 sweet potato, peeled and cut into cubes
- 4 carrots, peeled, halved if large, and cut into 2" long pieces
- 1 large onion, cut into 8 pieces
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
For the sauce:
- 1 1/2 tablespoons grainy mustard
- 1 1/2 tablespoons honey
To sprinkle:
- 1/2 cup almonds, coarsely chopped
- 2 teaspoons fennel seeds
Pre-heat oven to 450, and put the sheet pan in the oven with a Silpat, or line it with foil. Make a few slits down the sides of the sausages.
Put the veggies and sausages in a large bowl, except for onion wedges, and toss with the olive oil. Season with salt and pepper. Turn them out onto the hot sheet pan and shake to distribute evenly. Add the onion wedges (they tend to fall apart if you toss them, so I add them last) and the sausages.
Bake 15 minutes. Meanwhile, stir sauce ingredients together. Remove veggies from oven and drizzle with sauce, then toss well with a spatula. Sprinkle with almonds and fennel seeds. Cook for 10 more minutes or until tender, and serve. A fried egg on the side would not be a bad addition.
In the COMMENTS: Natalia, Karen wants to try your soufflé recipe (me too). A photo of Natalia's pouffy soufflés is below. Paula, I'm now on the look-out for downspouts. Kate, so good to hear from you. Huzzah is right! As Jane says, a collective sigh of relief. Ella, glad the book was a help, and bon courage with the next course. Libby, isn't it fun to think about traveling again? Hope everyone is getting vaccinated (but still masking up!).
Favorite Reads and Views: Our friend Gordon sent us a new David Leibovitz book called Drinking French. He's an author we love. I hear that Call my Agent, a popular French TV show which is called Dix pour cent in France, is now a Netflix hit in the states. (I've watched some episodes in French--Lordy they talk fast!).
