September 23, 2026 Breakfast - Yogurt and Plums. Lunch - Picnic at Villa. Dinner - Fish Stew with Croutons

September 23, 2026 Breakfast - Yogurt and Plums. Lunch - Picnic at Villa. Dinner - Fish Stew with Croutons 

Finally a day without eating out. I love it when we can control the preparation of our own food and we have access to the best quality ingredients.

Wednesday is market day in Sanaray, which means there are more food vendors than usual plus clothing and household good vendors.. we decided to drive to the market and even though we went at 9:30 after a quick breakfast of plums with yogurt and an apricot and custard Danish sweet roll thanks to Billy and Elaine, the main parking lot was full.

This meant one had to wait for someone to leave in order to find a parking spot on Allee 2, which I did after a few minutes.

Instead of one double sided aisle of vendors there were vendors on the outside of the inner row, making one inner double row and two outer rows of mostly clothing.

We decided to walk to the end of the market on one of the clothing rows.  Soon Suzette found a stall selling blouses she liked and she bought a brown one. We continued to the end of the clothing and decided to walk back on the inner double sided food aisle where we bought a monkfish and 12 shrimp at our favorite seafood stall, a double baguette at a bakery stall, and lettuce at a produce stall. 

As we approached the end of the food aisle we saw a stall on the other clothing aisle we had not walked in that offered Tea towels, place mats, aprons, table clothes, and other fabric goods.  We walked over to that stall and bought 12 tea towels and a round tablecloth.

We then carried our purchases to the car and returned to the villa around 11:00.

We rested until noon when we gathered the duck pate’, pork pate’, salami, four or five cheeses, and I diced a pear and a 1/4 of a melon and we poured out the last of the box of the local Ray-Jane rose’ and toasted slices of baguette on the dining table on the patio beside the kitchen and had a picnic lunch. Billy and Elaine joined us but they had eaten brunch already and shared their Cassis and quince paste.

After lunch we rested until 4:30 when Suzette and I walked to the harbor along the quai where new condos are being constructed.

We talked about buying a condo here because we could walk a relatively short distance to the town center on the flat ground along the quai.

We returned up the staircase to the Villa and I rested and drank some water and a glass of Dr. Pepper to recover. Yes, Dr. Pepper is sold in the supermarket in Sanaray.

Then at 6:30 Suzette and I started cooking dinner.

We revived the fish stew from last night and diced a lot of of stale bread into cubes and tossed them with olive oil and baked them to make croutons. 

Suzette removed the potato halves that did not fully cook from last night’s stew and I diced them into 1/2 inch squares and Suzette put them with the rest of the leftover black cod fish stew into another pot. Then I diced the monkfish we bought into large and small cubes and Suzette added that to the stew after the potatoes had cooked. Finally, she added 8 shrimp to cook for 3 minutes and I sliced a green onion into thin ringlets for garnish.

We each served ourselves bowls of fish stew and I opened a chilled bottle of Domaine de Gros Nore Bandol Rose’.

We had one of the best meals of the trip in my opinion, the best ingredients prepared the way we like them.

Elaine fetched some squares of Lindt chocolate and cups of chocolate mousse for dessert.

Then we watched The Last Wave, a 1977 film by Peter Weir, starring Richard Hamilton that I consider in the weird and mystical category.

No watched it all except me, as Billy and Elaine packed and went to bed to leave tomorrow morning at 6:00 to return to NYC.

I walked 4500 steps today and my portfolio decreased by 1% today leaving it still at an all time high.

Bon Appetit

September 22, 2026 Breakfast - Toasted Baguette spread with apricot preserves and garnished with slices of Leyden cheese and slices of red plum, Lunch - Petit Monde Dinner - Baked fish with green beans with pinon nuts

September 22, 2026  Breakfast - Toasted Baguette spread with apricot preserves and garnished with slices of Leyden cheese and slices of red plum,  Lunch - Petit Monde   Dinner - Baked fish with green beans with pinon nuts

I awakened at 7:00. Suzette woke up at 7:30 and made us coffees while I blogged about yesterday’s travels.

For my second cup of coffee I toasted two slices of whole wheat bread and spread them with butter and apricot preserves and garnished them with slices of Leyden cheese and sliced a red plum.

                                      The view from the living room at 7:10

We then walked to the market with the intention to buy fish to bake with onions, leek, tomato, and potatoes in the Spanish style.

                                            Suzette in the living room at 7:45

Suzette bought two medium filets of black cod and some larger potatoes. We also bought 12 clams. We looked for saffron and a pimiento but did not find them.

We then walked to the optical shop where Suzette found a frame she liked and I bought it for her.

I started back to the village but was diverted by the Patisserie on the corner. I stopped in and bought two Mont chocolate pastries for dinner and an almond croissant for breakfast.

We then walked back up the stairs to the villa.  I rested for a few minutes and drank a bottle of cold water to cool down, but Suzette and Elaine walked to Portosolis beach to swim and Billy followed soon after.

In about twenty minutes I drove in the car. When I arrived Billy called to tell me he had a table at Petit Monde for lunch.  I walked down from the parking lot to meet him and the girls for lunch. Petit Monde is another mediocre 3.5 rated restaurant but with moderate prices, a terrific view of Portosolis bay and moderately interesting food.

Suzette and I ordered an appetizer of foie gras soup served in a bowl with mushrooms and an egg. It was interesting but not great then we split a bouille that is a baked fish dish with cooked potatoes, carrot, shrimps, sautéed Loup, fennel, garnished with a sheet of fried shrimp toast with turmeric flavored mounds of seasoning on it and the waitress poured a flavored sauce onto the dish in a large bowl. It was not to Suzette’s liking and she decided to do better for our dinner.

Billy ordered duck with creamed mashed potatoes that was quite good. The same two rectangles of duck breast seared on both sides lightly. Elaine ordered ceviche of fish with a pickled fennel garnish that was slightly sweet.

The girls drank beers and I drank a glass of Bandol rose’. After lunch Billy and I joined Elaine and Suzette to wade in up to our knees in the water at Portosolis beach. Elaine had swum about 800 meters earlier and Suzette swam also. Then Billy and Elaine walked back to the Villa and Suzette and I drove up the coast to look at homes and stop for gas. There was no gas a5 the main station, so we drove to the station at the other end of town in Four Sixes. The first pump we tried malfunctioned but we finally filled the tank and drove back to the village. 

Billy suggested watching the Peter Weir movie, Master and Commander, the far side of the World. I enjoyed it and though Russell Crowe was terrific.

Then at 6:30 we cooked dinner.

Elaine had prepped green beans, potatoes, tomato, onion, and 1/2 of a red bell pepper while  we watched the movie. When we arrived in the kitchen Elaine was blanching the green beans. Suzette took over the cooking and combined the fish, potatoes, onions, garlic, bell pepper in a deep dish pan a baked it for 45 minutes at 375 degrees. She then sautéed the green beans with pinon nuts and a pad of butter and steamed the clams open and we added them to the dish.

I poured rose’ and Elaine cut slices of bread and we ate

a good dinner. The potatoes were a little undercooked, so we decided to get more seafood tomorrow and recook the dish for dinner tomorrow night as fish stew

After dinner I served the mont chocolates with Marc for Elaine and me and Billy and I made a cup of Earl Grey for me. 

I walked 5675 steps today and the market gained again today with a strong close. My portfolio held its gain from yesterday and increased by .607% today. I keep waiting for the ballon that is the market to burst and my portfolio with it and it just keeps growing bigger.

Bon Appetit

September 21, 2026 a day in Cassis Breakfast - Yogurt with Mirabelle Plums. Lunch - Clos de Aromes. Dinner - Cheese and Pate’ and fruit

September 21, 2026 a day in Cassis Breakfast - Yogurt with Mirabelle Plums. Lunch - Clos de Aromes. Dinner - Cheese and Pate’ and fruit

I have begun going to bed by 10:30 to 11:00 and waking up as the Sun rises around 7:00. 

This morning I showered and dressed and ate a quick breakfast of 1/4 of a lovely round pastry filled with custard and garnished with an apricot and a bowl of yogurt with mirabelle plum halves.

At 9:30 we drove to Cassis to take a boat excursion of the the Parc National de Calanque at 11:00. The park was created in 2012 to preserve the rugged coastline around Cassis. As we discovered on the excursion most of the coastline and land in and around Cassis is rugged, more vertical than flat, like a more compact, densely hilly San Francisco. We drove up and down hills to get to the municipal parking lot from which bus service was available to the port.  When we arrived at the port it was crowded with tourists. The port was narrow with steep hills and rock cliffs, rising on all sides, not like Sanaray that is located on a wide bay surrounded by low hills.

For some reason the Brits have discovered Cassis, perhaps because they remind them of the cliffs of Dover. The limestone cliffs at Cassis rise 200 to 300 feet straight up out of the water, but are interspersed with deep channels/eroded cuts in the rock face that lead to lagoons with beaches at several points in the rock face, called calanques in French.

We sat beside a middle aged couple from London who recommended the restaurant Clos de Aromes, so when we returned to the port around 12:30 we walked the four or five blocks up the steep road from the port to the restaurant that helped me accumulate 4000 steps today.

The Clos de Aromes is a small hotel and restaurant in a lovely shaded terrace beside the hotel. Unfortunately, it was also a tourist trap.  

Billy and Elaine ordered a 1.2 kilo grilled sea bass/Loup that was beautifully grilled and served with a medley of grilled vegetables, carrot, potato, sweet potato and parsnip, but the price was 12 € per 100 grams, so the entire fish lunch cost €144

 

                                              My paradilla of seafood

                                                  The grilled sea bass 

                                        The street outside the restaurant

Suzette ordered a pork flank steak with vegetables and I ordered a mixed seafood grill with a squid steak, a large shrimp, an octopus tentacle, a small Loup filet and about 7 or 8 steamed mussels sauced with an interesting sauce of shrimp roe mixed with cream that was slopped on willy milky with some of the pan drippings from the grill for €38. It was a mess but a delicious mess that did not raise my meet my expectation of its 4.5 rating as a restaurant. We also ordered a bottle of dry Cassis rose wine for €42 that seemed wildly inflated as there were vineyards everywhere.

We were a bit shocked by the experience and tired and hot after the boat ride in the sun, so we decided  to call it a day and drive back to the Villa after lunch.

That was essentially the end of the day of tourism, but by no means the end of one of the most eventful days in my investing career and an important health  issue.

The time differential between Albuquerque and France is 8 hours. In Albuquerque time the market opens at 7:30. Since France is 8 hours ahead of Albuquerque, the market opens in France at 3:30 and closes at 10:00 p.m.

With the fed raising interest rates last week and the prospect of that slowing inflation, interest rates and crude oil went down and the market went up. I had the best day ever in the market with an increase of my portfolio of 3.2%.

I was startled and thrilled and sad that I had earned more passive income in one day than many must work hard for a year to make.  Of course, I could lose it tomorrow. 

The other thing that thrilled me was that i discovered that eating plums are a natural laxative and there are lots of species of plums in France, small mirabelle, green, red, and purple at least.  I hope to try them all.

At 6;00 Suzette and I drove tI the Instamarche supermarket and bought, the whole wheat baguette I love, red plums, sliced cooked ham for sandwiches, another wedge of Leyden, milk, chocolate mousse, Dr. Pepper, mushrooms, and a lemon.

At 9:30 I finally became hungry and sliced four slices of the whole wheat bread and spread them with pork pate’ and goat cheese or garnished them with Leyden and ate 4 Mirabelle plums and some squares of melon with a glass of Burgundy Pinot Noir.

                                              Another lovely sunset

Finally, after the market closed at 10:00 I went to bed.

What a day.

Bon Appetit