Market Day in Gueugnon

The market in Gueugnon is simple and glorious. Stands of breads, vegetables, sausages, fish, meats, cheeses alongside clothing, CDs, toys, shoes and mattresses all under the shadow of a Romanesque church.  I am immediately hungry, and want to buy some of everything. But we are here as a group, shopping for the 6, and trying hard to plan meals.

We buy some spectacular, but ridiculously expensive mushrooms for Tim’s Thai fish stew. They are tan brown and oyster mushroom looking, but dissolve into lovely buttery softness when cooked. We accidentally buy two large bags (having divided into 2 groups of shoppers) and decide to use some in a large omelet for lunch, the rest for the Thai stew at dinner.

We arrive back at Bel Air with our treasures – exquisite peaches at a perfection of ripeness; fennel, aubergine, cougettes, and pepper for tomorrow’s planned grilled vegetable salad; a Lyonaisse sausage with olives; a huge loaf of bread (Grosse Torte); herbs to plant in the new herb garden; the most stunning lettuce I have ever seen; some flip-flops for Matt and a big, bright, brassy necklace for me to wear when I am dressing for dinner. Famished, we put some coffee on as we put things away, knowing that omelets and fresh bread are just moments away.

We cut vegetables – red peppers, shallots, the precious mushrooms – and Peta is soon at the stove heating butter.

The omelets are worth waiting for. We linger long over lunch, enjoying each other’s company with just a bit more wine, thank you, and great guffaws of laughter that seem to fill the whole valley below.

Author: Amanda West Lewis

Amanda West Lewis combines careers as a writer, theatre creator, calligrapher, and teaching artist. She is the author of nine books for youth and young readers, including "Focus Click Wind," a novel about youth activism in 1968, and "These Are Not the Words," a semi-autobiographical novel about the jazz era and growing up in New York City. Her novels have been nominated for the Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction, the Silver Birch Award, the Red Cedar Award and the Violet Downey IODE Award. Her recent collection book "A Planet is a Poem" has received a EUREKA! 2024 Excellence in Children’s Non-Fiction Award, is a California Reading Association HONOR BOOK, a NCTE Notable Poetry Book and a Cybils Award nominee 2024. She has an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts. In her theatre career, Amanda has acted, directed, produced, and written for theatre, as well as founded The Ottawa Children’s Theatre, a school dedicated to theatre education for young people. A freelance calligrapher for over 20 years, her calligraphic artwork has been exhibited in numerous shows and she has written books on calligraphy and the development of writing. Born in New York City, Amanda moved with her mother to Toronto, Canada as a teenager. She now lives with her husband, writer Tim Wynne-Jones, in the woods near Perth, Ontario, where they raised their three children. View all posts by Amanda West Lewis