And lastly, Part Trois!

Je voudrais ecrire cette accompte en francais, mais je regrette je n'ai aucun acutes, graves ou circumflexes.  Et cedilas!  Oubliez cedilas!  Ils sont trop difficile trouver, comme huitres numero trois en juin.

No, I'm sorry, but my keyboard just is not up to it, helas.

I hope, Gabriel and Florianne, that you are reading this, otherwise my bilingual account sera in vain! :)

Alors, Gabriel poured me a glass of a noble dry white wine with a stony visage.  Or perhaps it was a stony dry white wine with a noble visage.  Either way, it was a beautiful gesture which was much appreciated.  Merci beaucoup, mes amis!  For those who maybe are not as familiar with an assiette des fruits de mer, it is literally a plate of the fruits (the bounty) of the sea.  No two assiettes served on different nights are the same, because the shellfish must be extremely fresh, and usually, the ingredients are only lightly boiled or steamed, either in pure water, or more rarely in barely flavoured stock.  The ingredients are served cold.  At La Procope, as one would expect, with l'Ancienne Comedie Francaise on l'autre side of la street, the presentation is pure theatre.

First, a metal stand is placed on the table by the waiter with a flourish.  Then he approaches with the "Assiette" itself.  This metal plate was elliptical, and about 40 or 50 cm long at its widest dimension.  On the plate was heaped a pile of ice about 10 cm deep, with the sea food arranged around it.  Around the edge were six of the largest oysters I have ever seen.  They were huitres no.3.  (The French Fisheries size their oysters).  At the top of the ice, there were a few prawns, and one or two cooked clams.  Around and on the ice were scallop shells, each of which was heaped with seafood of different species.

To eat this feast was Florianne who borrowed an oyster permanently.  As an English gentleman I could not refuse her, not even one of my molluscs.

The waiter, dressed in black with a very long white apron, placed my cutlery on the table.  There was a spoon, a four pronged fork; a three pronged fork; une fourchette avec deux tines and a pin for the most efficient extraction of the meat from the shells.

The table looked impressive.  Florianne asked if we had in English a saying that our eyes are bigger than our stomachs.  Yes, I replied, but I had missed my chance.  As a suave gentilhomme anglais qui a soixante-onze ans, I should have said that nothing was bigger than my stomach, and therefore I must have very large eyes, and complimented her for saying that.  Instead, I weakly said, "Yes".

She mentioned that La Fontaine had popped in for lunch about two hundred years earlier.  I thought she was going to ask whether he had been at the next table eating oysters.  No, I said, but this gave me a chance to recite the Fox and the Grapes (sounds like an English pub!)

"Certain reynard gascon, d'autres disent normands" and so on.  They looked surprised.  I must have looked surprised, too, as it was sixty years since I had last recited it.  Florianne also recited a fable, but she could continue for longer, as she had last recited it in school only a very few years previously.

Florianne and Gabriel made that evening an evening to remember.  It was possibly my last evening in Paris, and they sprinkled it with gold.  They were both such marvellous company.

And yes, Florianne was correct.  My eyes ARE bigger than my stomach.