Of apple tarts and fall leaves

My baked bean and cassoulet friend decided a trip to the tea room along the lake the Versoix was a perfect end to a perfect afternoon that was marked by a glass of nouveau Beaujolais, a Vietnamese meal, a walk in the woods along a babbling brook that had saturated our sense of smell with the odour of fall leaves and pine and saturated our eyes with colour. Some of the fallen maple leaves were larger than our hands held thumb-to-thumb with our fingers spread to the maximum. Periodically we picked up one leaf or another to admire the pattern of colouration.

A tree had small beige mushrooms running up the side, and more mushrooms were nestled in moss. Although we knew, we could gather them and take them to the local apothecary for identification we passed them by as dogs running lose followed by their owners passed us by.

I remembered all the walks with “my boys,” free of their leashes who on these walks did six times the distance I did. As my gentleman friend said, when he had to wake them up after the ride home to get them in the house, “Ils sont cuits.” They’re cooked. Today they would have been cooked again.

The tea room had a perfect view of the snow-covered Alps as they changed from white to pink in the setting sun.

Our desire, as we told the young waiter, was one hot chocolate, one menthe tisane, a carafe of water, and one serving of apple tarte in a hot vanilla sauce. The walk had not diminished our fullness, but we had seen the tarte on another table and the sense of lushness and luxury that we had indulged in all afternoon needed to be extended. Besides there are no calories in split deserts, right?

The waiter misunderstood. The tisane and hot chocolate were fine. However he brought one glass of water and sat down two dishes of tarte.

If there is a goddess of goodness with sub-goddesses of apple tartes, we felt they had been at work. We exchanged a quick look, each picked up our forks and plunged in.