Promises to Keep by Patricia Sands

the phone.
    Both days she had arrived at the market to discover Gilles taking care of business and Philippe in the storage unit on his cell. His not serving his customers personally indicated to her the gravity of the matter, but she was sticking to her vow and was being tight lipped. She had to trust what he had promised her. She could see that he was doing his best to keep their lives together calm and happy. Whatever he was doing to take care of the problem, he was doing away from home. She could only hope it was working.
    That summer, Kat had become accustomed to eating outdoors on warm summer evenings, and now the addition of heaters on terraces still made it possible. The socializing was as important as the dining. The sense of community that she felt in this ancient town grew as waiters and other locals greeted her, not just at meals but also during the day, after just over a week.
    The few times they had eaten dinner at home, both of them prepped and laughed as they enjoyed the intimacy of it all. One evening the ingredients were left on the counter as their appetite for desire caused a delay in the dinner hour.
    Philippe was a master of the grill. The day’s catch was his favorite plat du jour . No matter where they dined, he’d teach Kat about various aspects of French culture, such as the philosophy of terroir .
    “It’s a term most often used regarding our wines,” he said as they sipped a crisp white from Cassis, “but really it encompasses everything about our obsession with food. It is simply a history or tradition, a combination of local factors, like soil, climate, and altitude, that makes what we eat and drink unique.”
    “Like these amazing wines from Cassis?”
    “D’accord . ” Philippe raised his glass in a salute. “It’s something about a product that enhances community, cooking, and taste. C’est tout. Like the chickens from Bourg-en-Bresse or butter from Normandy, melons from Cavaillon.”
    “Or all of those delicious cheeses you’ve introduced me to that are made from the milk of a cow that is only fed certain grasses and herbs by nubile young maidens singing soft lullabies at dusk,” she teased.
    “You get the picture,” he laughed.
    Katherine got the picture every day at the market once she understood the importance of terroir . The average shopper’s knowledge of local foods was comprehensive, and decisions about what to buy were often based upon origins.
    “I’ve got my work cut out for me,” she told Philippe as they sat down to lunch one day. “I thought I was a pretty good cook, but I rarely paid much attention to where the food I bought came from. With a fussy husband who only wanted basic meat-and-potato meals, I had no reason to be adventurous about what I ate. Olives, for example, those black ones and red and brown—”
    “This can’t be true,” he said, looking startled as he set a small bowl on the table. “You’ve never eaten any other olive than a little green one?”
    She shook her head. “Don’t ask me why, but whenever they were offered, I simply passed them by.”
    “But you served them at your buffet dinatoire in Sainte-Mathilde, non ?”
    Katherine smiled as she recalled that little cocktail party she hosted her last night in the farmhouse outside Sainte-Mathilde, on her first exchange. She had invited Joy and her family and Philippe and a few others who had been so kind and welcoming to her for those two weeks.
    Now her face reddened with embarrassment. She paused before admitting, “When Joy first took me to the market, she was so enthusiastic about the choice of olives and the tapenade that I put some in my basket but never ate them. I didn’t want to admit my ignorance about them. To be honest, I didn’t know what tapenade was, apart from the fact it was made with olives.”
    “Ahhh, but you haven’t tasted olives like the ones we have here,” he said with a teasing smile as he popped one in his mouth. “Straight from the tree is