Apero dinatoire

Last Thursday evening we went to an apéro dînatoire hosted by our friends Christine and Bernard. Apéro dînatoire is a sort of informal evening gathering where everyone sits around talking, drinking and eating small morcels of finger food for several hours.

The picnic table just before we all sat down.

(Left to right: Hubert, Bernard, Yolande, Christine.)

As you can see from the photos it morphed into what Christine called a pique nique, but that was OK. Everyone continued sitting around talking, drinking and eating. There were 20 or so people there and many contributed a plate of food or some chairs to help Christine out. I brought some dolmades, which I knew Christine really liked and many of those present had enjoyed at our party last year.

The melon came from a producer near Richelieu who set up his trailer selling melons in La Roche Posay. This year the melons are extremely good. The wasp was not invited.

The gathering was as a thank you for all those who had helped prepare the Poterne Museum in Preuilly for this summer season's opening. My contribution was to help pack up some prehistoric stone tools that need to go into storage, general dusting and vacuuming, and helping to clean a 19th century confirmation dress.

Sitting around eating, drinking and talking.

(Left to right: Claudine, Gilberte, Elisabeth, Jean-Claude, Dominique)

Topics of conversation throughout the evening included:

• American intellectual films (that's when the man is more intelligent than the horse...)
• the careers of some of those present -- nuclear physicists, art teacher.
• the career of a grandfather -- pharmacist.
• the wine cellar of a father (as in the contents of, which were considered magnificent and which we were benefitting from). 
• horse studs.
• famous people encountered in the street. This started because of an anecdote about Mick Jagger coming out of Bricorama, but included Lionel Jospin on a bicycle and a French judo champion, who is apparently enormous, and the fact that François Mitterand could be seen walking down the Champs Elysée without security (you wouldn't get that now...).
• the merits or otherwise of Jacques Chirac, Jack Lang and one or two others I forget now.
• when to say au Blanc and when to say du Blanc when referring to the town of Le Blanc. Interestingly, this discussion was not for the benefit of us Aussies but was triggered by someone saying he was very nearly born in Le Blanc.
• The pronounciation of Montrichard. Likewise not for our benefit particularly.
• Restaurants in the pays du Chinonais.
• What was in the dolmades.
• Mustard -- the moutarde aux herbes at one end of the table did not meet with universal approval and I was asked to pass the moutarde normale (bog standard supermarket Amora brand).
• do you call a western whip snake a couleuvre or a cinglard?
• dyeing with indigo and madder.