Today I thought we would stroll about Roussillon. This misty hilltop Provençal village sits atop an ochre ridge in the Vaucluse Department of the Luberon. Beginning in the late 18th century until 1930, the village’s rich deposits of ochre pigment were quarried from its clay hills for the textile industry.
Ranging from yellow to orange to deep red, the village itself is a calling card for the wide variety of hues of ochre found in its nearby quarries. 
For those who really know me, know that I have a penchant for pork.
Proscuitto, jamon ibérico, schinken, ham. It doesn’t matter what it is called, it calls to me.
Picture this: a Dickensian child with his nose pressed up against the glass of a sweets shop window at the holidays. That is me when I am confronted with a deli case of assorted porcine products.
Perhaps the finest of all was the “Schinken Section” of KaDeWe – the largest department store in Berlin. Yes, Virginia they DO sell ham in department stores on the continent. How I wish this trend would catch on this side of the pond.
Imagine my delight when I was confronted with this while shopping with our dear friend Pierrette in her home town of Basel, Switzerland.
My fervor of snapping as many pictures as I could led the poor proprietor to believe I was from the local health council!
It was the beloved bouchére in the village of Ménerbes that we found our black truffle for Christmas Eve dinner – along with sausages for Christmas morn.
I had the best of the wurst in Basel.