It would be a nice study for Rijkswaterstaat to see if the Dutch road surface on the routes from France is lower than the highway on the other side that goes to the South.
\nBecause let’s face it, the car always comes back heavier.
\nYou know, with the delicacies of the foreign supermarket.
\nIt was also a hit for me.
\nI was on a short trip to France to see at least one day of Olympic music.
\nIt was women’s water polo and we enjoyed, in combination with a minuscule Tour de France along country houses and funeral pyres of Claude Monet, Joan of Arc and Alexandre Dumas.
\nBut it’s namedropping, I secretly didn’t come for that at all.
\nI have argued before that the foreign supermarket should be seen as an Ethnological Museum.
\nIt gives an ideal and honest look at the culinary soul of a country and is also the ideal souvenir shop.
\nAnd it’s always nice and cool.
\nI never cross it.
\nIn fact, sometimes it’s the mission, especially right before Christmas.
\nAt fill-the-trunk distance, the German Rewe is a hit, Conad has mega chunks of Parmesan cheese and Valpolicella, the well-known Belgian Delhaize has unfortunately become too expensive and the British Waitrose has Steak & Guinness Pie and Newcastle Brown Ale.
\nBut, oh mon Dieu, the gold goes to the land of the Monoprix, the Intermarch\u00e9, G\u00e9ant Casio and, the primus inter pares, the Carrefour!
\nPreferably a Hypermarch\u00e9.
\nIf Carrefour is Real Madrid, then Albert Heijn is Telstar, on a good day.
\nWe’re talking about a triple sports hall full of the best of the region, great meat, fresh fruit, Christmas-worthy ready-to-eat meals, 32 types of mustard, three aisles of French wine, all of which are better than you’ll ever find in a Dutch supermarket.
\nThey only sell us the corner, which gives Harold Hamersma an 8.5.
\nThe Dutch know a lot.
\nBut the best part is the huge French cheese department.
\nAn exhibition of Epicureanism.
\nThis is not a cheese department, but a maternity ward, with the best that cow, goat and sheep has to offer.
\nUsually I get down on my knees to take a closer look at what’s out there, as if I’m going to ask the Epoisses to marry me.
\nOr the Maroilles?
\nWith a car full of delicious wine, Burgundian mustard, saucisses, olives and Marseillan soap, I drive bittersweetly back to the barren land of that sourpuss Calvin.
\nWhere others want a country house in Provence, I want to live in the Carrefour. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"