Luis & DJ get drunk at the Salon d'Agriculture

So a few days ago I got a pair of tickets to the Salon d'Agriculture, which is this fantastic regional food & produce show in Paris. Essentially, every region of France (and their former colonies) set up booths, where they sell and advertise specialities from their region.

DJ and I made plans to go down that afternoon, arriving there shortly after lunch time. The palais d'expositions at Porte de Versailles is massive, and this show actually took up almost all of the buildings. It was pretty amazing. DJ and I started by stumbling across the cognac booths, and things took a downward spiral from there. From what I can recall, here's a quick list of what we did:

• Buy a bunch of fantastic saucisson sec of various flavours from the Auvergne region
• Sample some XO Cognac from one booth.
• Sample some Pineau des Charentes from another booth nearby.
• Sample some cheese from the Auvergne region, and I bought a half-kilo of the Vieux Cantal
• Sample some Corsican salami and buy a small dry sausage (the woman at the stand did things à la corse, weiging the sausage at 12€ and then telling me she'll give it to me for 10€ "because you're you").
• Sample Corsican whisky (decent) and beer (bleah).
• Sample Breton cider.
• Eat a "light" lunch of aligot and sausage.
• Snap some photos of the "Jésus" sausage for sale

• Pee.
• Sample some muscadet from the Loire valley region.
• Sample some pear cider from the same region
• Sample several delicious red wines from the rhône valley regions
• Sample some burgundian whites
• Buy (and sample) a bag of Normandy butter caramels.
• Sample some calvados liqueur and pear apéritif.
• Sample some Norman beer and chestnut apéritif.
• Sample and buy some vin jaune from the Jura region.
• Pee.
• Sample some triple beer from the Lorraine region.
• Drink some caribbean-island rum (from Guadeloupe, I think).
• Have one more round of cognac.

When you consider that every "sample" in the above list was usually a full serving, you can see what sort of state we were in. We would've stayed later, but I had to dash home to do a bunch of room-inspections for the departing students, and I needed some time to sober up.

DJ and I split ways, I did the room inspections, ate half a baguette to sop up the alcohol, and then headed back out with DJ. We first tried to eat at a bar / pizzeria near where I live, but it was pretty much deserted. We headed over to Le bar du Berry Zèbre in Belleville, where Laurent a.k.a. HDProject was supposed to be spinning. However, there was nobody there when we arrived and the bar staff seemed entirely unaware of anything happening that night, so we grabbed a quick drink and moved on.

DJ took me out for a late dinner at Les Trois Marmites, which was walking distance from Belleville. I had an avocado and tuna remoulade for my appetizer, while DJ had an escargot preparation (what was with the escargots, DJ?). I had a huge slab of rump steak seared and jigglingly raw with steak fries and béarnaise sauce, while DJ had a leg of pintade (guineafowl). For dessert, DJ had a fondant chestnut cake, while I had a cup of sorbets. All in all, the meal was delicious, although I would pay for it later (see below).

We stumbled out of the restaurant around 1h00 and headed back to Belleville to take the night bus. On the way, we came across a tearoom named "Al Jazira." I'm sure this has a totally appropriate meaning in Maghrebi Arabic, but I have to admit that we took some amusement in the cognitive collision of tearooms and news channels. Someone should open a "FOX News" hot dog stand in Morocco.

Once I got home, I felt like I had an unusual amount of heartburn, but since I didn't have any pepto-bismol with me, I just drank some water and went to bed. Several times during the night, I woke up with a stomach ache, but at around 6am I was driven out of bed by a wave of nausea that had me heaving my previous meal into the Porcelain Altar of Salmonella. I'm pretty sure it was salmonella, since DJ and I had been eating the same thing all day except for dinner, and my dinner included two different sauces that used raw egg yolks (remoulade and béarnaise). My guess is that they used not-so-fresh unpasteurized eggs. Either way, it was an unpleasant way to spend the morning.

One thing that came to mind as I was clutching the toilet bowl and shaking: we make some pretty "inhuman" sounds when we're retching. I was amazed at my own involuntary ability to make guttural noises that were probably audible two rooms over. If there ever was a vocal sound that broadcasts "I'm not alright," it's got to be this.

Also, it really sucks when you puke so hard that even your nose is burning.