Weekend makan...

Some friends came over for dinner last Saturday but I didn't want to do too much so we opted for something that goes "one oven cooks all" and the whole thing just got a life of its own and carrot became the theme of the meal...

 For starter: baby carrots with fennel and cumin to accompany foie gras

 Roasted lemon herb chicken (Herbes de Provence) with vegetables: carrots, onions, garlic and tomatoes...

 A simple salad with Morbier and 6-month Comte cheese

Purple carrot cake with whipped cream...

La Cuisine du marché, a bistrot inside a market...

Inside the covered market of Besancon city is a bistrot that serves reasonable food at reasonable prices. I just love the simple way to eat oysters here - no fuss.

Zoology at the market...

A good place to sniff out local species of fish still thriving in the local waters would be the local fish market and in the case of raub, the farmers' market on weekends. As Raub is an inland town, only fresh water fishes are found and recent years, many species had seen serious decline in number, sizes and most importantly, in number of species as our polluted waters can only sustain hardy foreign species like the grass carps, tilapias and African catfishes...horrors for the ecologist...

 People still buy these for a nolstagia of long gone era - taste of locally caught wild fishes from the rivers...

 One of the commonest cyprinids in our rivers - the Ikan Sia, Mystacoleucus marginatus. A small cyprinids that seldoms reach 12 cm in length.

 Rarity: Ikan Sikang, Raiamas guttatus.