Besançon: Farewell Dinner

After being non-stop fed well on bread and meat for three weeks, I had to accept the truth that my face was rounder and my jeans were tighter. One more meal to go before the I was going back to my diet again!

The hosts this time were David and Edith, at whose place Ernest, Nicole and I were going to spend overnight.

Blessed with the Toitot parents who loved to receive foreigners, they were exposed to other cultures and were also as helpful and friendly as their elderly towards people who did not have the same skin colour. David's elder brother Emmanuel had the same quality.

The young couple had been to Malaysia for the first time in early 2007 during their backpacking in several Asian countries, New Zealand and Northern Europe. They went back to France to settle down for some time, hoping to have a baby and searching for future plans.

The meeting of people deprived of material comfort yet fully enjoyed their simple routine was a revelation to Edidav (their online identity) who decided to adopt this lifestyle in their homeland. After attending a course on how to rely on the earth to be self-sufficient, they realized they were not the sole aliens in this highly developed Western world.

Since the garden they had started was merely at the sowing stage, they had to depend on the supermarket for the supply of my farewell dinner--raclette, composed of morbier cheese from the region,

ham,

and potatoes.

This French-Swiss speciality cooked with a special appliance was usually served in winter because of its calories. After three weeks' extension of my stomach, another heavy meal after the cassoulet for the same day did not seem to be a challenge to me anymore, especially who loved any type of dairy products. When I saw the sizzling Morbier melting with the heat and releasing a nice cheesy smell, I felt like just directly pouring into my mouth!

The wholemeal bread was baked by David who had brought the flour back from Portugal while the wine which pleased everyone's tongue was from me. The dessert

was a master piece of Edith's pastry-cook brother Damien who joined us later.

Mini Arabic cakes and French nougats made the collection of delicacies even more diverse.

Ernest told me before, the French happiness is to have le bon pain, le bon vin et les bons copains (the good bread, good wine and good friends). We had all the three there!

As we were approaching midnight, I began to feel the sadness of the separation.

I wished the time could have stopped there. But I knew I had to say goodbye to Ernest and Nicole whom I did not expect to see me off the next morning since my train was before six o'clock. I hugged Ernest and Nicole very tightly, in a way I had never done with my own parents, bearing in mind the pact we had made in Neuves-Granges.