I woke up to a consistent rain. The weather had returned to an early Spring day. It was cool, overcast and raining. Life in the city gets slower on days like today. Sunday mornings are usually somewhat slow and the city does not get moving until later but with the rain it was even quieter than usual which is nice.

On Sunday, I usually walk over to the St. Aubin’s market to get olives, fruits and vegetables but I decided to skip that part of my Sunday routine because of the rain. It takes about 20 minutes to walk over there and all the stands are open air. I thought I might get too wet and that some of the vendors would not be there because of the weather. I have been wanting to get olive oil from the olive purveyor but there had not been the smaller container the last couple of times. I figured the wet walk was not worth it as I could get other good olive oil if needed. I still want the best but can wait to get it on a nicer day. Also, I could get the fruit vegetables at the Victor Hugo market which is a much shorter walk.

I picked up something new at the market this morning. I had been looking at them earlier but decided to bite the bullet and bought small purple artichokes. I love artichokes but have never cooked the small purple ones. Also, you had to buy a bunch of them that included about 5 artichokes. I was not sure I would eat all 5 of them but figured I could find ways to use them.

I bought some of the usual things for dinner tonight and Monday. I went to the fish market and got some Darade – sea bream – and pintade – guinea fowl. While waiting to get the pintade, I saw the vendor deboning to leg and thighs of chicken. I thought it was interesting that you could ask to have it deboned and the vendor would do it. The market was not as busy as other days because of the rain but still fairly busy.

After my usual chocolatine and strawberry breakfast, I went to church. I had debated going as it has started raining hard and it is about 15 minute walk to church and having been wet already, I was not sure I wanted to be wet again. But being the diligent person I am, I went.

The rest of the afternoon was relaxing as with the rain, I did not want to head out again.

Unfortunately, when I was getting ready to fix dinner, I realized I was low on olive oil (should have gone to St. Aubin’s). I thought I could just walk over to the local Carrefours City, the small neighborhood grocery store. In doing this, I ran into the French everything closes by 1 pm on Sunday. The Carrefours was closed as was the other local grocery store. I decided to head over to where I knew there were two larger supermarkets and thought they might be open. No luck with either of them as they closed at 12:30 pm and 12:45 pm. I thought I would just have to wait until Monday to marinate the pintade. Luckily, in wandering home by a different route, I found an open Carrefours City. It was doing brisque business as I guess it was the only grocery store open. I knew most things closed on Sunday afternoons but did not realize it covered larger stores as well as small shops.

I needed the olive oil as I was going to make Nigella Lawton’s rosemary, lemon chicken recipe. Margaret had reminded me of it in a discussion of what she was cooking a week or so ago. It is a very simple but good recipe. You marinate the chicken (pintade in my case) in lemon juice, olive oil, and rosemary with red onions. You throw all of it together including the lemon rinds and marinate. Then you dump all of it in a pan and bake. This Monday nights dinner.

Tonight’s diner was the darade baked with tomato, lemon, olive oil, parsley, rosemary and oregano. I think you are supposed to use the whole fish but I had filets so I just cooked it for a slightly shorter time. It turned out great.

I boiled the artichoke as well. The size is perfect for one person so I was able to eat all the leaves and then get down to the artichoke heart and eat it as well. There are lots of half leaves left but since I have started composting there is not much waste.