Castelginest, Midi-Pyrenees region of southwest France; Cornettes in Toulouse

We went to Market day in Castelginest, a town not too far from our home-away-from-home in Gargas during our first weekend in France. Market Day is a common event in Europe, similar to Farmer's Markets in the US, but usually more diverse. There is always lots of fresh produce, sometimes sausages and roasted chickens, sometimes clothing too.

Castelginest had a nice sized market including all of the above. (Toulouse markets were much larger...I will share a few photos of those later. Unbelievable seafood displays, among others.) In Castelginest we met the darling Inissa. I am afraid I may be spelling her name wrong. We were looking for a post office and stopped at the shoe store she, her mother and aunt were running. They had called upon pretty Inissa to translate. She was so cute in her ruffled skirt and cute, cute shoes that I had to get a photo (with their permission to post.) The skirts were for sale in the market and I bought some for my nieces at home. (I hope they like them.) And, by the way, we found the post office!

Speaking of 'cute shoes', I had to suppress a laugh when I noticed these on the airplane. Consider this my 'calligraphy connection' for this post...perhaps signifying how easy misspellings are when you're lettering. Or perhaps just a sign of a counterfeit product. Tonny? Must be the lesser known Hilfiger brother.

Consider this my 'art connection' in this post. The cornettes were quite artful, and artfully delicious! On a hot day in Toulouse, we were eating some pretty crummy crepes at an outdoor cafe. More enticing to us were the lovely flower-shaped ice cream cones everyone seemed to be eating as they walked by. After our disappointing lunch, we found Amorino, the ice cream place that was the source of the flowery ice cream treats. They were called cornettes. Into a sugar cone, the cornettiers place a scoop of one flavor of delicious ice cream. Around the center mound, they scooped petal-shapes of varied flavors, making the floral shape. You could choose as many flavors as you wanted, so some were quite colorful. Some ordered syrups and nuts in the centers too. I stuck with caramel, chocolate and French vanilla (when in France...) Yummy, yummy! I'd love to find caramel ice cream in the US, but haven't yet. I thought I'd try to replicate the flowers at home, but those petals are eluding me! The technique was pretty well hidden from view, but I didn't think it would be so hard. [NEWSFLASH! I just Googled 'Amorino' and found pictures! Also found that it's a chain with branches in Paris and NYC serving gelato.]

And here is a shot of the cafe where we ate the disappointing lunch crepes.