Dinner in the Great Hall: Wine, Bangers and Mash, and Stories That Went Everywhere

 Dinner in the Great Hall: Wine, Bangers and Mash, and Stories That Went Everywhere

By our second night at Château Marouatte, dinner was already becoming more than a meal. It was the place where everyone came back together, compared notes from the day, passed the wine, told stories, and gradually learned a little more about one another.

We gathered again around the long table in the château’s extraordinary dining hall. The room itself is almost distracting because there is so much to look at. Heraldic shields line the walls, banners hang overhead, stained glass catches the light, and the elaborate fireplace dominates one end of the room.

At one point someone looked up and said exactly what I had been thinking.

“There’s so much to look at. It’s like eye candy.”

That started a whole discussion about the château itself. Someone had discovered another room near the wine cellar filled with beautiful old tiles.

“Oh my God, the tiles you’ve got there.”

There was immediate interest around the table. We talked about decorative tiles collected on earlier trips to Spain and Mexico, about the things we buy while traveling with every intention of someday turning them into a table or a wall display, and about the things that, years later, are still waiting for that project to happen.

“I would just take one or two of them home,” someone said.

That was probably a dangerous suggestion in a place like this.

Red or White?

Before dinner arrived, attention turned to something even more important.

Wine.

“We’ve got some wine here. Would you ladies like a glass of wine?”

Soon both red and white were circulating around the table.

“Red or white?”

“I think I’m going to stick with the white.”

Then, a few minutes later:

“I like the red. I liked the white yesterday. Now I like the red.”

Someone offered perhaps the most sensible wine philosophy of the evening:

“It all has to do with you. You either like it or you don’t.”

Exactly.

Eventually glasses were raised.

“Santé.”

Health.

And dinner was underway.

Remembering the Market

Much of our conversation returned to the market we had visited earlier in the day.

Everyone seemed impressed by the produce.

“The strawberries were perfect.”

“I thought all the produce was perfect.”

We talked about how inexpensive some of it seemed compared with home and how beautiful the displays had been.

There was also fascination with the way market days move from town to town rather than competing with one another.

“So most days, you can find someplace to go if you want to.”

What impressed us just as much was how quickly everything disappeared when market time ended. One moment the square was packed with vendors, shoppers, food, flowers, and activity.

Then suddenly it was gone.

“I was impressed by how quickly they cleared out that square.”

By the time some of us walked back toward the van, several stalls had already vanished.

It is one of those wonderfully French rhythms we were beginning to notice: the market arrives, fills the square with life, and then simply moves on.

What Exactly Are We Eating?

Then the plates arrived.

There was a moment of collective inspection.

“Is it bangers and mash?”

“That looks like what I can imagine.”

And, essentially, that was what we had: sausage and creamy mashed potatoes, carrots, a deeply flavorful brown sauce, and a mound of finely shredded greens or vegetables on top.

But identifying that vegetable became something of a table project.

“It looks like cabbage.”

“Maybe kale.”

“Chard or something?”

“Maybe shredded fennel.”

Whatever it was, everyone seemed to like it.

“It’s got a lot of garlic.”

That earned approval from most of the table, although one person admitted:

“My husband hates garlic.”

The response was immediate.

“We love garlic.”

The sauce may have been the real star.

“My sauce is so delicious.”

“Good sauce.”

“It’s delicious.”

There was even a brief debate over portion sizes when it appeared that some plates had more sausage than others.

“Is this gender discrimination in France about sausage portions?”

That got a laugh.

One diner decided that two sausages might have been one too many.

“Probably could have gone with just one.”

“Well, you didn’t have to eat the second.”

“They made the offer.”

And of course there was only one reasonable explanation.

“I don’t want to insult the chef.”

The Missing Suitcase

Then the conversation shifted to one of the ongoing dramas of the trip: a missing suitcase.

The bag had become separated from its owner after flight disruptions involving Warsaw and Paris, and everyone had an opinion about what should happen next.

“It shouldn’t have taken too much to figure out that they should bring your suitcase from Warsaw back to Paris.”

“You think so, right?”

The suitcase had apparently been associated with the wrong hotel information at one point, which created the frightening possibility that it could have been delivered somewhere entirely different.

“Can you imagine if they would have taken it there and dropped it off?”

Meanwhile, survival required washing clothes by hand and hoping they dried overnight.

“I’ll wear these pants until they fall off.”

That led to one of the evening’s most practical travel discussions: what should always be in your carry-on.

Underwear came out very high on the list.

One traveler explained her system:

“I’ve always traveled with just three. One wearing and two in various stages of washing and drying.”

We also talked about Air France carry-on restrictions, direct flights versus connections, AirTags, and airlines that let you track your suitcase through their apps.

It was one of those conversations travelers have only after somebody’s luggage disappears.

Everyone immediately begins mentally repacking their own suitcase.

Australia, China, Taiwan, and Everywhere Else

As dinner continued, the conversation expanded geographically.

Someone at the table had studied Asian studies and Chinese language and spent time in Taiwan. That led into stories about China, long-haul flights, and how different travel felt years ago when international tourism was only beginning to open more widely.

Then we moved to Australia.

One person’s husband had emigrated there from Holland as a child, leaving a large extended family spread across the country.

Sydney.

Canberra.

Perth.

The Blue Mountains.

Alice Springs.

Uluru.

Lightning Ridge.

And, naturally, the conversation eventually reached opals.

At Lightning Ridge, we heard about a museum containing opalized dinosaur bones.

“Really?”

That got everyone’s attention.

Then came talk of Coober Pedy, where people live underground because of the extraordinary desert heat.

“There’s a hotel that’s underground.”

That immediately went onto a few mental travel lists.

The conversation wandered beautifully from France to Australia to China to Morocco and back again, exactly as travel conversations tend to do.

Someone tells one story.

It reminds someone else of another.

And suddenly the entire table is halfway around the world.

Photography Takes Over

Eventually, perhaps inevitably for this group, the conversation turned to photography.

Someone asked:

“Have you been all that interested in photography?”

And suddenly we were deep into the subject.

We talked about learning to use a camera, joining photography clubs, post-processing, printing, competitions, gallery exhibitions, and discovering that taking the photograph is only the first part of creating the finished image.

One comment summed it up perfectly.

“I initially just thought, ‘Oh, I have to know how to take a picture.’ Well, no. That’s just the very beginning.”

There was a long discussion about street photography and the discomfort many photographers initially feel about photographing strangers.

One story involved taking a workshop in Paris that helped make approaching people feel natural.

Sometimes all it takes is holding up the camera and asking with a gesture:

“May I?”

Yes means yes.

No means no.

And sometimes the photograph exists for only a fraction of a second.

One favorite image described at the table was of a Parisian street musician wearing the striped shirt and beret one almost expects to see in a movie. He was playing an accordion.

And sitting on top of the accordion was a black cat.

Nearby was a little girl.

“If I had waited a second longer, that would have been done.”

That led to one of my favorite observations of the evening.

“It is all about the moment.”

Exactly.

The photograph is there.

And then it isn’t.

A Photography Challenge for Tomorrow

Someone described photographing fashionable women in Paris and another exercise where photographers were each assigned a color and spent the day searching for that color.

That immediately became an idea for us.

“Maybe tomorrow.”

“Pick a color.”

What a simple way to make yourself look differently at a place.

Blue.

Red.

Green.

Yellow.

Suddenly you are not merely walking through a village.

You are hunting for a visual thread.

We also talked about photography competitions, state fairs, gallery shows, and the emotional roller coaster of submitting work for judging.

One photographer described being disappointed after receiving no ribbon at an exhibition.

Then came an email.

Someone had bought the photograph.

“Well, I don’t care if I got nothing. Somebody bought it.”

That may be better than a ribbon.

We laughed about the universal photography-club reaction to judging.

If you don’t win:

“I don’t know where they got the judges this year.”

If you do win:

“They found some really good judges this year.”

Apparently, that rule crosses state lines.

And Then Dessert Arrived

By this point, we were already full.

Then dessert appeared.

A warm fruit crumble sat in a pool of deep red-purple fruit juice, topped with a golden crumb mixture and accompanied by a generous spoonful of something creamy—perhaps yogurt, crème fraîche, or cream.

Again, identification became a group effort.

“What is that?”

“Blueberry?”

“Apple crumble.”

Then someone remembered seeing apples being cut earlier.

“I think these are the apples they were cutting this morning.”

Whatever combination of fruit was inside, the verdict was immediate.

“This is too tasty.”

Earlier in the day, there had apparently also been a small molten chocolate cake.

“It was like the size of a cupcake.”

“And then you open it up…”

“Hot chocolate.”

Someone asked whether the dessert had called her name.

“Yes, it did.”

“And I responded.”

Of course she did.

Golden Hour Calls

Eventually someone noticed the time.

“Oh, it’s 8:30.”

For photographers, that meant only one thing.

Golden hour.

“I’m gonna go get my camera for golden hour.”

Dinner conversation stopped not because we had run out of things to say, but because the light outside was changing.

And in a place like Château Marouatte, you do not ignore good light.

So our second dinner ended the way a photography workshop dinner probably should: chairs sliding back from the table, cameras being retrieved, and people heading outside before the light disappeared.

We had begun the evening talking about wine.

Then we covered French markets, missing luggage, Spain, Mexico, China, Taiwan, Australia, underground hotels, opals, street photography, state fairs, gallery exhibitions, garlic, sausage portions, and molten chocolate cake.

All while sitting beneath heraldic shields in a French château.

It occurred to me again that the meals here are going to become some of the most memorable parts of this trip.

Not simply because of what is on the plate.

Because of what happens around the table.