It just doesn't get any better.

Saturday, July 30, 2022, was one of those rare days when everything worked out perfectly. We had blue skies and about 65 degrees. Jeanne's knees are the best they've been in years, so she was up for some walking.  We decided to attend Maison Vauron's red wine market day.  Who doesn't like free wine after all?  

The wine tasting was just one part of our perfect day however.  We decided that instead of returning, after the tasting, to the train station at Grafton, the one nearest the Maison, we would instead walk over to the Newmarket Station, and take the train home from there.  Although it is nearly twice as far as walking back to Grafton, it is all level ground; no steep hill like there is when you approach the Grafton station.  And, there are other incentives along the route to the Newmarket Station. I'll tell you more about them shortly.

But let's start at the wine tasting.  I've done a number of posts about this subject. I've been going to them for years, but this was Jeanne's first time. She had however, had lunch at the Maison several times when we lived with Allie and the boys, so she is very familiar with the place. 

When we walked in the front door, we discovered that they had remodeled it, greatly expanding the deli section.  I heartily approve. It had always been a little frustrating when I had  to worm my way back to the cheese display cooler.  Now there's three times as much room.  

Practically the first thing we did was to buy a couple of their ham/cheese sandwiches and stash them away in Jeanne's purse for later.  

Several times now, Jeanne and I have gone to the Auckland Mint, the official site where New Zealand's precious metals are sold in coins, rounds or bars.  We even took the grandboys once, and got to hold a kilogram of solid gold. Didn't buy it of course, just salivated over it a little.  

I bring that up here because I think I got just about as much satisfaction admiring these huge wheels of French cheese as I did looking at the gold. (How would you like to be allowed back there with a cheese plane in your pocket?) 

Below are a few more shots of the café portion of the Maison.  

Here are just a couple of shots of the tasting.  

And below are a couple of pictures of the shelves of wine.  

Here is the first of those incentives I mentioned earlier.  After we left the tasting, and as we walked toward Newmarket, we decided to take a short break. We are sitting here at a table on the sidewalk outside a Chinese Restaurant and waiting for our snack of prawn wontons.  They were wonderfully fat prawns.   

And here is incentive number two.  We're at Number One Chicken.  This tiny Korean place never, ever stops. I have been here at least a dozen times over the years and it is always busy.  It's been ages since Jeanne has been here though because of her knees and Covid, so this was another real treat for her.  We took away a cup each of their plain and saucy popcorn chicken.    

Finally, I have to explain why I named this post as I did.

You can tell that we've had a great day so far, right?  Well, when we got to the Newmarket Train Station, the train pulled in just as we descended the escalator.  No waiting at all. Then, half an hour later when we arrived at Henderson, we walked to the bus stop and discovered that our bus, 14t, was ready for us.  No waiting there either.  Who needs a car?     

Here is the picture of what we brought home.  The sausage at the bottom came from Maison Vauron.  We had tried a few pieces of it while sipping the wine earlier and Jeanne decided she had to have some.  I swear that you could almost drive nails with that piece. It is that firm.  It's the kind of sausage that you cut paper thin and then let it dissolve in your mouth as you roll your eyes with delight.  I think it is not only smoked, but air dried.  

Jeanne thinks the thing looks like a sweet potato.  And yes, the white stuff is mold, but a good kind of mold. Fancy, rock-hard smoked and air-dried sausage mold. Probably hung in the dark in some French cave for who knows how long?

I'm pretty sure there is a law on the books in France that makes it a crime not to drink a glass of beer of wine with it, whenever you eat that sausage. There are severe penalties if you don't, although happily, the guillotine no longer figures into it. 

I've always considered myself to be law abiding and will therefore do my best to comply.  However, I think I'll be bending the rules just a little since I just bought a half-case of Spanish Rosé that we really like and think would taste great with the French sausage. (Let's just keep that between ourselves, okay?  No need to mention it to the authorities.)     

Thanks to all of you who have come along with us today on Doug and Jeanne's most excellent adventure.     -djf

Oh, just in case any of you want to learn more about Maison Vauron, here is its website. 

https://www.mvauron.co.nz/