Picnic with Marcel

The chef of the hotel in Loué had real star quality. Not only was he extremely handsome, he was a true cooking wizard as well. Every evening he surprised us with new culinary delights.

Nevertheless, an elaborate breakfast and two hot meals a day were too much for us. So, the weather permitting, we used to have a picnic lunch. In the morning we would visit a market in the area, where we would buy cheese, a dried sausage or a few slices of ham, a green salad or tomatoes. Some baguette and a bottle of red Loire wine … et voilà! In those days we had little experience as far as local cheeses and other specialties were concerned. We usually ended up buying a Camembert, ‘rillettes’ and a garlic pork sausage. By lunchtime we looked for a suitable spot to have our picnic, preferably by a river or a lake.

Let me give you a tip. Try to find a bridge over a river or a stream! Very often the village or town council installs wooden tables and benches on the nearby riverbank, where locals as well as passing tourists can have a meal alfresco.

On this particular day, which will go down in history as ‘The day we had a picnic with Marcel’, we had discovered just such a spot near the Loir – no this isn’t a typing error. There is a difference between Le Loir and La Loire. But more about that later.

We had unpacked our picnic hamper and were enjoying the above mentioned lunch items, when all of a sudden a dog appeared. He seemed friendly enough and my friend, who’s used to handling dogs, threw him a slice of sausage. Encouraged by this, the dog came closer and closer … till his snout touched the top of the table. As we had bought more meat than we could eat, and because it was too hot a day to keep it till the next morning, we fed the dog what was left of the sausage.

At first we thought it was just a hungry stray dog, but then we noticed the tag on his collar. On it was the dog’s name … Marcel!

I’m still wondering what Marcel’s master must have thought when his dog came home that day with the smell of garlic on his breath!

Do you have a dog and does it like garlic?