courage -- or as the French say, COURAGE

all photos © the awesome Patrick Betbeder

Woops! I didn't mean to abandon you for six months like that. I was right in the midst of a really important project, and I was planning to tell you all about it, and then everything veered off in a totally nother direction and I was swept away, and pressed pause on the writing in order to address a couple of practical and existential crises. 

I know you know what I mean. 

And though I also know I’m not saving the world through this blog, it’s so good to be back. 

After all this time, it was hard to know where to begin again. It’s so overwhelming, all of it. But then, three things happened, and that was all the illumination I needed. And as we all know, even just a little light these days can be such a welcome thing. 

The first was that I rolled some dice. Tossed coins, actually. 

A teacher of mine suggested it: when you don’t know quite what to do or focus on, give chance a chance. Gather all the info you can, and then — eff it, and follow your intuition. 

I had just spent several weeks with her, gathering lots of objective information — marketing, branding, income, resources, opportunities — and we were winding up our journey. 

She gave us students a game board of sorts. We picked up five coins of different sizes, to represent importance, and tossed them on the little chart to see where they landed, letting fate determine what was asking for our attention. 

Thank you MATS !

All my coins landed in a heap right in the middle. My first reaction was that I must have tossed them wrong (revelatory in and of itself). But then I thought, wait a sec, open up here, kid. I looked closer and noticed that all of them, aside from a couple who crossed over into “Clean Out Your Workspace”, was “Meditate to Feel More Confident”. Hm. 

We’ll call that Thing One. 

Then, Thing Two arrived. I’m not sure why — maybe because her TED Talk about the pandemic was getting lots of traction and I watched part of it — I picked up Elizabeth Gilbert’s brilliant Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear, and began to reread it. 

The first chapter is called Courage, and I was like: coincidence? 

Gilbert talks about how fear — which I refer to as my Inner Critic✳, or The Voice, when it manifests as deflating self-doubt and blanket-statement bossiness — is this thing we don’t ever fully rid ourselves of. It’s an unavoidable companion along the creative journey. 

Meditate for Confidence. Courage. The two began to percolate. 

❊

Thing Three was a torturous incident with a photographer, which ultimately resulted in a showdown with my Inner Critic. 

In a strange and swift confluence of events, I ended up, one weekday afternoon, in a gallery I’ve been wanting to visit with people I’ve been wanting to work with. After reading about an artists’ rally happening the following week, not fully clear on its purpose but a little desperate for connection after weeks inside, on impulse I signed myself up. 

At the heart of the event was a photographer, Patrick Betbeder, whom I’ve come to know a little and admire a lot, for his work and his warmth. He had taken on the task of photographing each of the event participants in his particular, inimitable, style. 

all photos © the generous Patrick Betbeder

Photos of me are not my thing. I like them only under certain limited circumstances and a good stretch of time after they’re taken. I can find beauty in everyone else; yet pictures of me slice right into the deep doubts I have about my appearance, which somehow inextricably tied to my actual worth, and being seen. Not exactly emotionally sophisticated, but there you go. 

Anyway, the idea was to go to the gallery, which was organizing the event, and to have our portraits taken by Patrick. So rather than call, I decided to drop by one day when he said he’d be there prepping the space, to arrange an appointment. 

I'm feeling a bit tired, and I leave the house having vaguely attended to my hair, not much more. I dismount my bike a bit windblown and disheveled, as per usual. Patrick greets me and says, rubbing his hands together, Great, why don’t we just do your photo today, since you’re here? 

I step back and I’m like, Whoa, hold up there. What’s the rush? 

I’m not ready today. 

Can I just come back later? When I’m really ready? Like maybe … (looks at watch) … when I'm sixty? 

But Later didn’t seem to be an option, and of course Now made the most sense. 

❊

Patrick’s in the process of taking a test photo with a young woman, and the two gallery owners are there too. It seems like it’s their daughter or a niece or something. She’s younger than I by a couple decades easy, and looks nonchalant with her red lipstick, her fluent French (damn them!). 

As I watch my friend and his process with great interest, I’m noticing a growing anxiety, as I try to mentally prepare for my own photo. Fears and doubts bubble to the surface: measuring up, to what standards I don’t know; being in a spotlight. 

They ooh and aah over the photo of the young woman, her facial structure; even its asymmetry is charming. My Inner Critic sees a window of opportunity to pipe in, uninvited as per usual. Also as usual, she is both patronizing, subtly insulting, and faux-kind all at once. 

It’s nice you’re here, dear. But you’re not really very pretty, are you? Plain is a better word. Don’t expect people to notice you. You don't really have what it takes. Try not to stand out. And wipe that funny lipstick off your face — you look like a clown. 

My turn comes. I do my best to be present, even as the IC’s drumming is getting louder. I attend to my posture, my breath. What I really want is to run away, to hide. 

We look at it the photo together, briefly. It’s like I’m high, paranoid that everyone is thinking the same thing. Sighing and rolling their eyes: This one isn’t worth fussing over; let’s just move on. 

❊

In essence, fear, or the Inner Critic is saying STOP. It shows up at moments when the outcome is uncertain. When I’m doing something risky, attempting to play even just a bit bigger. 

And, in this case, it works: I do stop, for a little while. I get sidetracked as my IC takes over, and like a bad but deep dream it’s hard to shake. At first, I don't even realize I’m dreaming. 

My Inner Critic has a heyday. Because appearance is seemingly unrelated to creative pursuits, it’s particularly sinister and effective when she wants me to halt any and all emotionally risky activity. Ugly is my IC’s ace in the hole: She starts with some pretty good arguments to get me on her side, and then she finishes off with that final jab — and besides, look at you! 

That’s how mean The Voice gets. I know I'm not alone here. 

But I’ve seen this before, this feeling of depletion and deflation. It seems I can barely open my eyes and I’m kneeling, as Geneen Roth says, at the altar of The Voice. Everything is all or nothing, black/white, bad/good. I’m no good, and I never was. 

So, in a teeny-tiny parting of the clouds, it dawned on me, for just a brief moment, that perhaps this was fear manifest, simple as that. I thought back to Ms. Gilbert. I’m close to a goal, doing something I don’t ordinarily do, and then this fear arises, in spades. Coincidence? Maybe, just maybe, this was the Inner Critic, butting in unasked, to sabotage my growth. What if I’m mistaking her for truth? Perhaps my Inner Critic is reasoning, in her warped way: If I concentrate on this un-knowable un-quantifiable outwardly-dictated notion of beauty and appearance, I won’t feel the fear and the risk and the vulnerability. 

Perhaps, rather than containing anything logical, it may actually indicate that I’m going in the right direction. 

As Gilbert advises, if I am to continue on this path, then I have to figure out a way to recognize this voice of fear when it arises and know that it’s a) not me, b) not in charge, and c) not wise. It’s along for the creative journey. I don’t have to let it steer the bus. It definitely SHOULD NOT steer the bus. 

If you can’t learn to comfortably travel alongside your fear, then you’ll never be able to go anywhere interesting or do anything interesting. 

The content of my Inner Critic's arguments is beside the point, cunningly persuasive as she may be. And I do have tools to manage her. 

I’m still thinking about going back and re-doing the photo shoot, in the hope of turning up on a better hair day, better-rested, steeled and ready for any potential impact of offhand comments. But instead I’m meditating for confidence and thinking about Gilbert, deciding that if she wants creativity in her life she’ll have to make space for fear, too. 

all photos © the talented Patrick Betbeder

It really is good to be back. But I’d better get going — it’s way past Bastille Day already, and as my English student Gérard said recently during our midday Zoom call (when the asparagus he was cooking was ready), “The ring is belling”. 

Artistiquement votre, 

Una

✳ Thanks to Tara Mohr and Playing Big for the language and understanding of the Inner Critic. 

A Narrow Escape

RIP.

I know I am not the first to observe that sometimes what you never wanted is exactly what you need. 

About a month ago, for example, I was reading our local paper, La Dépêche du Midi, when a headline caught my eye: 
American woman has bicycle stolen while out celebrating all that is great about France 

Poor thing! 

… oh no wait, that’s me. 
 Sigh. 

I won’t go into details about the whens and the whos, except to say that they are very, very mean people, and I called and booked reservations for them in hell. 

After the first flood of tears dried a bit — my bike, my foremost means of transport! — I sought sympathy in friends whoever’d listen. 

More than one person said to me, Look on the bright side, Père Noël is coming early this year! Ha ha ha. 

Not funny.

It’s true though, I am lucky. And in this season of gratitude, I’ve decided: let’s focus less on the loss and more on the gains. The journey into finding a new one, and its surprisingly bright sides. 

Bright side #1: discovering Toulouse’s bike share program, VélÔToulouse. I knew of it, and friends visiting have used it; but its ease and convenience exceeded my expectations. It’s like when you learn a new word and you start to hear it everywhere… suddenly materialized all these bike stations I hadn’t seen before. And they’re like five-euros-a-week cheap, with handy little baskets, and (knock wood) the brakes work and they all have front and rear lights. Three gears, perfect for our flat city. My confidence grew as I cruised from station to station, tossing in the odd bus ride as needed, and by the third day I felt almost like a native. 

My first thought, as I began my search for a replacement (as if!), was to visit the shop where we originally bought our bikes our very first week in Toulouse, and just get the same thing again. I loved mine, the French-made Arcade Escape — though I never knew when describing it if I should pronounce its name in English (that is to say, correctly), or in French, arcahd escahp. Do I choose between being right but unintelligible (former) and being understood but sounding totally absurd to my own ear? I opt for arcade like in French, escape like in English. Keep them on their toes. 

Anyway, I adored it, I cared for it, I had the happiest derrière in Toulouse after recently purchasing a new seat. New basket, toe clips, reinforced tires.... 

OK, OK, I’d better stop, or I’ll burst in to tears again. No wonder they stole it! 

Turned out, though, that the company stopped making the model last year. The owner and I agreed: big mistake on the company’s part. It was so ideal, good for commuting or for longer distances, lightweight and maneuverable. I tried another of their models but its clunky gears didn’t feel right. 

I did discover however that my French had improved since that first year, when I used to stop in at the shop for minor repairs and air for my tires, stumbling around bicycle vocabulary. 

(That is, until I fell in love with the woman who makes bike-repair house calls.) 

My hero, MécaniCycle.

We’ll chalk that up as a win and call it bright side #2: language has improved! Basic questions no longer a struggle! Purpose of visit clear! Pace of conversation more normal-ish! Fewer long awkward pauses!

So I left, and decided to take the good with the bad, and walked home. 

A second shop right in town had a beautiful Trek, and that would have pleased LPG, who thinks it’s great because he has one and he's all about brands these days; but with no time to test ride... Hold, I thought, that thought. 

Next I visited my new favorite repair shop, the one I go to if aforementioned traveling mechanic is unavailable: Arnaud Bike, situated close to where the crime took place. While they didn't have what I was looking for, I did (as I wrote that evening in my daily journal of small accomplishments — the one I keep to remind me in darker hours of overgeneralizing that I’m not doing nothing), talk for 20 minutes in French about bicycles! Is this Bright Side #4 already? I’ll take that small victory. I still had my city bike for backup. I wasn't giving up. 

In an interlude flush with bright sides, this whole journey brought me in touch with people. A very sweet friend lent me his bike so that I could make the 40-minute journey to work outside Toulouse, and I savored the perfect sunrise. I finally connected with one of my coffee roasters, who seems friendly but a little distant and around whom I always feel foolish — the one who looks like Daniel Radcliffe if he (Daniel) lifted weights. I came into the shop, parking my clunky vélo outside. Because I was paying more attention to it than to our exchange, I felt obliged to say, Sorry, I’ve got this bike, mine was stolen. Oy, he said, sympathizing, except in French: Merde. Well, he said, my motorcycle was stolen. What?? How? Hauled off in a truck probably, he said, clearly still pissed and preoccupied. We related, a tiny bit! And then later, my friend at the co-op with whom I have frequently bonded over bikes empathized, and gave me that amazing smile of his with those dreamy light-brown eyes. That’s three bright sides right there! 

My friend Delio from school told me that that charming shop by the train station, Maison du Vélo, known for rentals and repairs, recently had their annual bike sale; maybe they’d have a few left over. When I wandered in, a workshop was underway, ambitious students fixing chains and changing tires. A grey-haired fellow wiped his hands on his shop rag and approached me, asking if I needed help. I explained my situation; he commiserated briefly, natch. They had only a few for sale, so no dice. But he said, You know, I really like the Giant Escape. I got it for my partner recently and we're really happy with it. Nickel. He gave me the name of the shop, out on Toulouse’s left bank. 

Maison du Vélo, courtesy of their FB page

I liked their name, L’Échappée Belle, the great escape. So later that week, I hopped on a trusty vélo and found a station right next to the shop. The guys were friendly and the place was bustling, a dad with his kid, a delivery guy needing air for his tires. I explained my dilemma. He showed me this quiet blackish bluish number, un-flashy and just like my old one almost. Its price was low on account of a little scratch on its stem and because it was about to be replaced by newer models, poor thing. I asked if I could ride it. 

When Ms. Kondo talks about sparking joy, I know she’s talking about the feeling I got when I sat on this babe, even with a seat too low and a few adjustments needed. Light, maneuverable. 

It’s just what I’m looking for, I said when I returned, and before I knew it we were talking about what he’d do to get it ready for me to pick up the next day. 

Welcome to the world!

Ever since, I’ve been soaring round the city almost on air — that is, until I fell two weeks ago, but we’ll save that sad tale for another time. Got basket; toe clips are on order. 

Ah, Mission accomplie. At last I was able to turn my thoughts back to other things, like grading, and Aunt Marge's caramels, and learning about the Post-Impressionists, and the best path from Cézanne to Duchamp. And whether Santa really exists. 

Sometimes what I you want is exactly what you need. And, it might even help you — maybe appreciate things — in ways you can’t predict and which are totally obfuscated at the outset. 

Sigh.

a message in the spiritual in-box

It's our capacity to sit with the uncomfortable — not how many to-do items we can check off in a day — 

that circumscribes the boundary on how much we are able to move forward. 

– Tara Mohr 

After a respite of several months you deserve a better opening line than this, but here we are again, end of October in Toulouse, happier than ever to be puttering in the pre-dawn hours, fixing a pot of coffee from my new favorite roaster, and planting our tush down to continue this ongoing project of love. 

In accordance with my stern resolve to keep it simple, or at least not-too-complicated, let’s dive right in to this month’s topic. When considering what to write about, I usually begin with a kind of loose inventory of what’s been happening, and notice what resonates. This time, a knock on the door came in the form of an e-mail from Tara Mohr, author of Playing Big. She shared a recent blog post, which struck a chord and continued to sound. It began: 

"When you are stuck, procrastinating, or perfecting…"

. . . and I was like, who, me?

Think of something, she suggested, in your work life that you want to do but are not taking much action around.

OK, you got me.

Because there are a few things — admittedly, more than a few — in my life where I am unable it seems to move forward. I see it there, right in front of me, accessible, available, inviting even; and yet I can’t quite get my arm to lift up and reach for it. Intellectually I know it’d be Good For Me! But something’s stopping me, something I can’t seem to get past.

Often, she says, what prevents us from moving on things, from taking action, is that we don’t want to feel the uncomfortable feelings that might arise — that almost definitely will arise — if we do them.

She goes on to say that this avoidance of what we don’t want to feel “is the invisible drive that shapes our lives, often unconsciously”. We can tell ourselves it's about lack of time, or knowledge, or tools, but often it's simply this: there is something we don't want to feel.

Then she suggested picturing yourself doing that thing, and all the feelings that arise. But it’s not the you-in-five-years-who-has-her-shit-together you, but you now — overtired maybe, young child, too-small apartment, insecurities and hang-ups. Notice the uncomfortable feelings surfacing.

Within maybe fifteen seconds of reading, I thought of twenty things that this could apply to. I started out with the arena of work, and then spilled over into life in general. There’s a lot of overlap. Things like: 

- engaging with/posting on Instagram
- responding to person who wrote me on Instagram
- spending time drawing in the studio
- spending time drawing in the street
- painting
- responding to guy about artwork
- sharing my blog with more people
- texting anyone in French
- looking for a studio space
- contacting JD about possible exhibition
- taking any steps toward organizing next exhibition
- making an appointment with PE
- making a haircut appointment, and going
- making a dentist appointment, and going
- contacting P and meeting for French conversation
- speaking French around the house
- looking directly at my financial life
- going to the seisin
- learning new tunes
- … and pretty much anything related to me playing an any arena that’s bigger, or unfamiliar. 

I noticed, as any reader might, broad themes. Each contained the possibility of growth or expansion. In many cases, there’s a potential consequence I anticipate, and that raises fear.

What Tara then says is that we can tell ourselves it’s about lack of time, or knowledge, or tools (or, in my case, money); but often it’s simply that there’s something we don’t want to feel.

So imagine yourself, she suggests, doing those things. “Live into what it would be like if it was you just as you are now — you with all the difficult feelings and nerves and fear that would show up for you as you do that thing”. Again, this is not some ideal version of you who’s thinner or prettier or less tired or more organized or whose desk is clear, but right now today. And notice what arises. What are those uncomfortable feelings for you?

When she spoke with women, and when I imagined my own feelings arising, these surfaced:

Feeling lost    Feeling unskilled    Feeling small and incompetent    Feeling unsure    Feeling exposed    Feeling foolish after having made a mistake    Worrying that the quality isn’t high enough    Feeling out of control, without a map    Feeling the fear of being ‘not nice’ or selfish   Feeling the confusion of being accused of selfishness    Having to experience the familiar tape of second-guessing and self-doubt about whether it’s good enough . . . 

For me, the biggest is the uneasy feeling that arises when it’s a matter of trusting my decisions. Out into the vast boundary-less universe of not right and not wrong, where the guideposts are internal, or nonexistent.

Fortunately, Tara says — phewf, as le petit garçon might say — there is good news: we are actually capable of experiencing these things, we have the capacity to sit with them, and survive them. We can actually decide that it’ll be OK.

It gets better: we can even be students of the feelings themselves. Explore them, with humor and gentleness. Because the idea, behind this blog and all of it, isn’t to give ourselves 30 lashings and make ourselves feel like shit. It’s to say, gently and kindly, what can we explore here?

As she says: “We can decide it will be okay to feel that thing. We can choose to experience it, and breathe through it . . . what is this feeling about? What earlier feelings in my life does it connect back to? What happens if I sit here through it for a few moments?”

Inspired, I decided to focus on two, Instagram and drawing, on the streets of Toulouse. And as I do, seeing what feelings arise, and agreeing to just feel them.

As predicted, the self-doubt and second-guessing arrived, in spades.

I don’t know what I’m doing    Cringing: Is it any good?    Feeling I am muddling around in the dark, lost at sea alone    Hearing the incessant voices questioning my judgement    Doubting: It could have been better . . . 

I steeled myself. I’m just going to feel what I feel. A little foolishness. A lot of inadequacy.

Maybe she’s right — these are survivable feelings, aren’t they? So first, there’s the willingness to experience them, and finding I can actually weather them. Second, the curiosity — looking around with wonder, and gently opening myself up to those situations and exploring the assumptions behind them, maybe even working them into something new.

Living in France, like any new place, is riddled with the potential to avoid situations where I don’t want to feel uncomfortable things. So many new situations, accompanying awkward feelings. An abundance of items on my list had to do with scheduling appointments. Can it really be that difficult? I mean, c’mon, Una. But also — argh, the intense discomfort of feeling lost, incompetent, unsure, small.

Of course, Life in General is like this, and Pema Chödrön says it really well — that there is this innocent, naïve misunderstanding we have, that we’re supposed to avoid the life that’s right in front of us, that we should try to get away from painful things, and that that would somehow make us happy. She instead encourages us to see clearly what is, with gentleness.

Avoiding uncomfortable feelings seems like a logical idea. But in doing so, am I also blocking progress, preventing myself from accessing something higher, deeper and richer? Is it like Tara says — that “It's our capacity to sit with the uncomfortable — not how many to-do items we can check off in a day — that circumscribes the boundary on how much we are able to move forward”?

Sometimes I worry that I’ve forgotten how to learn. How to go about it, whether to be organized and deliberate, or more open and fluid. Can I just allow things to unfold, without knowing what the final outcome might be?

There is also the idea of should — which never turns out well for me. Not only that I should do it, but that there is a particular way it should be done, a rulebook to follow. I was listening to a talk recently, and the speaker remarked that tools like social media are ours to shape. While we use them, we also actively create them.

I could shift my thinking and attitude, and made it a kind of gift. What do I think it could or should be?

And so I am posting, I’m drawing, I’m feeling uncomfortable feelings as I bob around in this ocean, unmoored. Not rocket science to many of you, I’m sure, but I so needed an apt and unfussy reminder.

How I Do Love Thee, Pruneaux d'Agen

torture.

This time of year, I get the vague sense that I am busy and also doing nothing at all, nothing pressing or of great import. If you were to ask me what I’m up to, my answer would be unclear, my voice might trail off and I’d point up at the building we’re passing and marvel at the integration of classical architectural elements. Subject deftly changed. 

We’re just after a two-week Easter break and it's May in France, which means little gets done, or you just begin to get into a rhythm and then there it is, another national holiday in the middle of your week, and so we close maybe just for the day but actually let’s go ahead and take Thursday too, and while we’re at it Friday, because that’s just logical, I mean if we’re going to Provence it makes no sense to spend just two days there. 

And although I am peering at the world through a haze of late springtime allergies — tortured, and taunted, by every cruel blade of grass and attempting to scratch my eyes out — my taste buds are still firing on all cylinders, thank the gods. 

In the spirit of the season, then, let’s lighten the load a bit. Turn to pleasures of the flesh. And humor. 

exhibit A: Why do they call you the Picasso of Boxing? You just have to ask my opponents! Ha!

You know your French is progressing when you get a good pun. It’s why I always love visits with my belle-famille, Mamy and Didier: I really feel immersed in the culture and language, and my French seems to reach another level. For example, I understood why we all laughed recently when I happily reported, on returning from an adorable bookstore in the little town of Minerve, that I’d bought a romain. My albeit slight error in pronunciation meant I was going to read a Roman. (These novels are crazy.) 

But when I’m by myself, like at the market, I know something’s really clicking. It happened a few weeks ago as I stood next to my favorite prune monger, sometimes the sole reason I navigate the crowds of the Sunday farmers’ market at St. Aubin. 

I’m standing there, the market elbow-to-elbow with people as usual, and there’s this character hanging about, chatting people up. He’s yakking away to the world in general, waxing on about prunes (I assume) and their health benefits (I think?). 

Bonjour, he introduces himself. Je m’appelle Bruno. Bruno d'Agen. 

I smiled: Brilliant. Right at my level. Not bad, sir; not bad at all. (If you didn’t get it just hang tight. You will in a moment.) 

It’s a nice segue in fact, because I’ve been wanting to introduce you to these prunes, the world’s most mouth-wateringly luscious. 

Prunes? you protest. But aren’t those for the old and infirm, for when things aren’t (ahem) running right? Oh dear me no. Non, non, et NON, as one might say here. These are different. These alter lives. 

Before we go further then, a word of warning. Fortunately (I suppose), our medium is digital and your life won’t yet change in the permanent way mine did when my lips touched these for the first time; but if you live in Toulouse, or when you visit (ahem), you will try them and you might end up falling in love with the first person you meet thereafter, they’re that good. Your standards will soar, and all other prunes will wither in comparison. You might even misplace your affection and fall in love with me. At any rate, you’ll never look back. 

Let’s backtrack and use the aforementioned pun as our guide, pick it apart a little. First, the name Bruno. I hear the name and I kind of want to giggle — who the heck is named Bruno?! Never in the US have I met an actual person named Bruno. As I’ve mentioned to French friends, Bruno for an American is a caricature, the boxer who’s all might and no brains, the tough-on-the-outside bulldog in a comic strip. But here, it’s common; everyone knows a Bruno. The owner of l’Anartiste. The father of a kid at school. 

our favorite Bruno.

Then of course there are the prunes. The word prune in French means plum, versus pruneau, which means prune — the plural of which is pruneaux. Pronounced “prune-o”. Rhymes with Brun-o. See where we’re going? 

The prunes with the protected label of IGP — Indication Géographique Protégée — are called Pruneaux d’Agen. Agen lies along the Garonne river about midway between Toulouse and Bordeaux. I personally know it best as the town I like to gaze at as I temporarily bid farewell to my wifi en route to Bordeaux or Paris by train. But it is also the heart of the region which officially produces the Pruneaux d'Agen. 

This basin provides the climate and soil necessary for the Ente plum orchards to produce these gorgeous babies. It includes portions of six départements in the southwest: Lot-et-Garonne (the largest, accounting for two-thirds of total production — and where Agen lies), Dordogne, Gironde, Tarn-et-Garonne, Gers, and Lot. As with wines with certain appellations and protections, only the prunes from this region (all processing must take place here also) and which follow strict standards get the privilege of calling themselves Pruneaux d’agee. 

Yes, there is an official site; yes, it is called pruneau.fr. There is even a quiz there you can take. Here’s my favorite question: 

What time of day should one eat Agen prunes? 
a) only at midday 
b) only in the evening 
c) any time one feels like it! [exclamation point mine] 

Agen prunes must be made from plums harvested when fully ripe, and the trees must be pruned annually following a specific set of standards. After an elaborate drying and sorting process, the plums are then rehydrated so that they are soft and supple and ready to eat. They’re looking for a water content of 35% max. 

I personally have a weakness for the prunes known as mi-cuit — I’ve also seen them called demi-sechée, or half-dried — which are mouthwateringly moist. For them, the drying process is halted at the final rehydration level for normal prunes, so rather than dry them to 23% or less, they’re stopped sooner. 

And my farmer at the Sunday market is a specialist, based in Moissac, which is in the Tarn-et-Garonne département. They are friendly, and generous, and they concentrate their efforts on just a few crops throughout the year, and those they do really well. They go from prunes in the winter to cherries, starting now, then plums all summer and later, grapes. 

The possibilities for how to eat these prunes, as the website will tell you, are endless. Sweet, savory, all by themselves. Hors d’oeuvres, cocktails, main dishes, baked anything, snacks, desserts. A bunch of famous chefs weigh in with their favorite recipes, like “dombes quail with Agen prunes stuffed with foie gras, wild herbs, and a prune jelly sheet”, “bulgur and gorgonzola risotta with Agen prunes”, or “smoked eel emulsion with Agen prune crumble”. This is serious business. 

I cook with them, I eat them at breakfast, I bring them to coffee with my friends so they can be seduced and transformed like I was. I make desserts with them, like this beautiful gateau from smittenkitchen; I put them in muffins as a kind of puree. I brought them to my figure drawing group and watched my friends’ eyes widen with surprised pleasure as they popped them into their mouths. I’m going to soak them in Armagnac soon; just watch me. 

an interpretation of SK’s magic apple plum cobbler

I’ll leave you to your exploring, because I have to get going — the pharmacy’s closing soon and tomorrow’s another holiday, and I’m desperate for eye drops. 

Before I go, a parting gift. Bruno at the market inspired me: I adapted his joke into one of my own, which I hereby officially enter into the lexicon. Accessible only perhaps to the cross-culturally aware such as yourselves — I prefer to think of it as a joke with terroir — but no matter. Off we go. 

A. Knock-knock 
B. Who’s there? 
A. Bruno. 
B. Bruno who? 
A. Bruno d’Agen! 

Cut to roomful of laughter. 

And curtain.

Robert Roubelet, our hero from Moissac