By Madame Escargot 
Okay, I should have written this post yesterday, when we first arrived in France. There was much busy, and also Dr Who to catch up on as our data allowance, exceeded last month, was renewed.
An uneventful drive from Zarautz to Dax. Border Control ignored our presence and progress was not impeded.
So good to be back in France. The trees!
We stayed on the CCP aire at St Paul les Dax. A new aire for us. It could do with a little TLC but was sufficient for its purpose. It was extremely handy for the CT centre, and also for a large shopping Mall.
We popped out to buy “something French” for our evening meal, aiming for a no-cook solution and we came up with all sorts…
…but mainly Rilletes, of course. This seems to be our traditional “First Night Back in France” choice.
Good bread, Rillettes, some radish and tomatoes, some pickles, that jelly, and some cheese. A veritable feast. The jelly is delicious. I have Plans…
The beer was an excellent discovery. We returned and bought more today.
There is a chocolaterie in the mall, so we indulged a teeny bit.
We bought a Bouchée each for our dessert, plus a box of Orangettes to share. My Bouchée was a Vanilla Ganache, Mr Snail chose a Salted Caramel square.
The van passed its CT this morning!
After further Leclerc shopping, it was still only lunchtime, so we decided to move on. We brought cake to keep us fortified…
These were the oddest-looking cakes. Called a “Delice de Passion et Fraise,” they sat on an ultra-thin slice of light sponge for a base. The sponge was spread with red stuff (jam?). On top of that was a yellow cream, flavoured with passion fruit. On top of that was Chantilly, studded with slices of strawberry. The thinnest crepe ever was draped over the whole. Remarkably good Incredibly light, sharp, and fruity. Gone in a flash. We are most certainly back in France.
Tonight we are at Pontenx-les-Forges, more of which tomorrow (I hope.)
A simple Pizza meal tonight – I wanted to see how pizza would behave in the Portuguese electric oven thing.
The Pizza came from Leclerc’s deli section and was just about 1 cm too wide for the pan… we made it fit.
Pretty tasty, actually.
I made a Coleslaw to go with it, using a bag of shedded cabbage, carrot, and beetroot. I added some onion, thinly slice radish, and a packet of chives, snipped. Mixed it all up with Hellman’s, 50/50 with Crème Fraiche.
The last of yesterday’s cherry plum tomatoes formed a salad, with the addition of the packet of chilli oil that came with the pizza.
The tomatoes were lovely. I need to remember the chilli oil trick for use later.