Missing Katie -- something from Proust

Hi, this is Benjamin again. I have been making my way through Proust for the past few years, and every now and then I read something that I have to share. I really miss Katie and I thought she would appreciate this excerpt about Marcel and Albertine lying in bed in the morning listening to the sounds of a vegetable market. She won't be able to read it tonight but her friend visited her earlier today and gave her a French cookbook, so this quote is also fitting for that reason.

This photo is the best I have to illustrate what I imagined while reading. It was taken through my window in September or October, when it was much lighter here in Moscow.

"Here's carrots for lunch
At tuppence a bunch.

'Oh!' exclaimed Albertine, 'cabbages, carrots, oranges. Just the things I want to eat. Do make Francoise go out and buy some. She shall cook us a dish of creamed carrots. Besides, it will be so nice to eat all these things together. It will be all the shouts we're hearing transformed into a good dinner. Oh, please, ask Francoise to give us instead skate au beurre noir. It's so good!'

'Very well, my little darling. But don't stay any longer, otherwise you'll be asking for every single thing on the barrows.'

'Alright, I'm off, but I never want anything again for our dinners, except what we've heard cried in the street. It's such fun. And to think we'll have to wait two whole months before we hear "Green and tender beans, fresh green beans!" How true that is: tender beans; you know I like them as soft as soft, dripping with oil and vinegar, you wouldn't think you were eating them, they melt in the mouth like drops of dew.'"

Skate au beurre noir (Recipe here)

Katie loves peas and the part about the beans especially reminded me of her. I can't wait until she feels better! Looking forward to lying in bed on a bright morning deciding which vegetables to eat.