Le Super Marche et le tart e aux citrones

Today Sylvie took us to the supermarket. These are not terribly common in France. She carries her own bags (I don't know if you must) and a little token. The token is used to release a grocery cart outside the store. The token is returned when you give back their cart. You know how in the U.S. supermarkets they have the prices of the fruits and vegetables handwritten above the items? They have a cool thing here; prices on little LED screens. This makes it easy for the store to adjust the prices on produce without much manual labor. In addition, you must weigh all your selections on computerized scales right there in the produce department. When you put the items on the scale, a screen asks you what kind of fruit or veggie it is. We were buying zucchini. I put them on the scale and the scale's screen then asked me what I was weighing by displaying about 12 different photos. I then touched the picture of the zucchini (courgette) and the scale printed out a sticker with the item and its price. I stuck it to the bag and off I went. Butchers have been doing this for decades. I hope this idea makes it to our produce departments soon!
The excursion was necessitated because the two Americans are making dinner tonight and they needed a bunch of goofy American ingredients. We found everything we needed.
At the house I had the challenge of converting my American avoirdupois brain into both dry and liquid metric measurements. No small task indeed.
First, I decided to avoid the pie crust dilemma by buying a French premade:




It came rolled up in a piece of parchment paper in a long triangular tube-like box.
Then I had to decide for sure how many millilitres were in 2 cups of sugar. This looked like too much:




I went with about 450 ml. I put it in a large ceramic tart pan and into the oven. But I didn't have to worry about converting baking temperatures because Sylvie said her oven bakes at only one temperature and cannot be adjusted. I didn't notice that it wasn't level. I forgot to take a pic when it was done, but here's what some of it looked like:




I was lucky; it turned out just the way it does at home!
Two Belgians, Bruno and Thierry, came to dinner. They were lots of fun and again, I was treated to the French style of sitting over dinner without any sense of hurry and without anybody leaving prematurely like they do in America.








Claude opens the wine.








Thierry, Sylvie and Bruno




(Sorry for the duplicate. I can't undo photos once I paste them on my iPad. Any tips?)

We made chicken piccata, rice pilaf and steamed zucchini for dinner. Sylvie made a great green salad. It went well. Thankfully.

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Location:Forcalquier