This is a picture of Monsieur Arvouet who makes the best duck salami in the Dordogne. I miss it.

It's always hard to adjust to shopping at home after a long, long holiday. This summer in France has wrecked my buying skills. Stocking up an empty fridge, I spent an hour in Whole Foods - and came out with a pint of milk. The Poultry counter was as wide as a soccer goal. And filled end to end with chicken. Where was the quail? The guinea fowl? The partridge? The duck? The goose? The pheasant?

It's the fall, and hunting season. All of the above are standard in French supermarkets. And reasonably priced (if - I grant you, you calculate not on the dollar versus the Euro exchange but on Purchasing Power Parity). Whole Foods' price for an organic chicken was $17! What had it fed on? Christian Louboutin shoes? The peaches, the plums, the apricots were all as hard as billiard balls. The strawberries were the usual year-round brand. There was asparagus for sale. Whose season was that being grown in? A French farmer's wife would have revolted.

Why don't we make more fuss about what we eat? Especially when you'd like to buy local and are ready to pay over the odds to eat organic.