Great men of the 20th century?

5-10-2010
Originally uploaded by cspatrick

Tuesday, October 5, 2010 Day 97
The phone rang this morning and it was our friend from the computer repair center. He said they had been in touch with Sony, and that the part needed for my computer was not available here in France, but could be ordered from the U.S. The total cost for getting the part and fixing my computer would be almost 400 Euros, and did I want them to order the part. I sighed and said yes. I asked how long, and he said 10-15 days. Sigh.
We walked to the market below the Peyrou and bought a pork roast for tonight’s supper. When we got home, we had lunch, and I started it roasting. Compared to the amount I usually cook it is quite small – only a couple of pounds, or maybe three – although that is normal by European standards. I set the oven to the lowest I could without fearing I had turned it off. It is a gas oven and I have to light it by hand. The lowest marked temperature is 150 degrees C, and I usually cook the roast at about 250 F, or about 120 C. At any rate, I put it in the oven and left.
We took the tram down to the Odysseum to view a statue of Lenin which was erected last month. Along with Churchill, Charles de Gaulle, FDR, and Jean Jaures, the five statues stand amid stylized Grecian columns, and are billed as “Great Men of the XX Century.” There are pedestals for five more people – Golda Meir, Mao, Mandela, Nasser, Gandhi. Are these the greatest people of the 20th century? Are they even the greatest political figures of the 20th century? Who would you list? The statues are the project of Georges Frêche, also President of the region Languedoc Roussillon, a brash man who is sometimes referred to by his constituents as “King Georges.” I hope you didn’t stumble too much on the inclusion of the M. Jaures. In French lore, he is as great as they come!
After checking out the statues, we strolled over to Ikea, shopping for potting soil and pots, then into a store called the Geant Casino, which is comparable to a Wal-mart – food in about half of it, clothing, hardware, electronics, school supplies, and much of the same kind of miscellany one finds at Wally World in the U.S. Specifically, we were looking for potting soil and window boxes. We did find some, (whereas Ikea disappointed) although we hadn’t brought anything to take them home in, so we just checked the prices and left.
When we got back to central Montpellier, we exited the tram near a grocery store where we bought milk and catsup and looked for molasses or cane syrup and yellow mustard (no luck). We walked back toward the apartment, and our path took us in front of an English food shop whose opening we had been anticipating for more than a month, and lo and behold, they were open! We went in for a chat and ended up buying our French’s mustard there, and treacle, which is very similar to (or maybe the same as) molasses. Now I have the ingredients for barbeque sauce! Not only that, but THEY HAVE DR PEPPER!!! While we were there, they asked us if we had heard about the collapse of a building up the street from them and behind our apartment. Earlier this week we had passed a building where workmen were working on the ground floor, and it looked as if they were totally gutting it, probably getting it ready for a shop. Turns out that they hadn’t braced things properly and the entire three floors above them caved in! It is a small building, and there were probably only three apartments, one per floor, above the ground floor. Fortunately, no one was injured – indeed, I don’t think anybody was there except for a dog, who escaped with some injuries (I don’t know how bad). Ah, the excitement!
I hurried home to an overcooked pork roast, as I had the oven too high and forgot to account for the small size of the roast. However, I made delicious tangy barbeque sauce with the treacle and mustard and catsup and some wonderful “Epices a Chilly” (chili spices) from the market. We ate this along with Thai rice, also from market this morning. The barbeque sauce helped cover the overcooked defects of the roast and made it quite delicious.