Being a 'locavore'

Bit of a lapse from grace to report. Two restaurant meals in the past 48 hours. Maybe it's the realisation we're due back in England next week and will no longer be able to sit in the sun pretending it's June.

Neither meal was wantonly extravagant. The first was at what is basically a seafood caff called Chez Loulou which serves some of the most brilliantly fresh shellfish and fish I've ever eaten. The second was at a restaurant that overlooks the oyster beds at Bouzigues.

I'm not going to tell you the name because it's a mercifully Brit-free zone which is becoming increasingly rare in this part of France. Not that I mind my fellow countrymen, I just don't want them to outnumber the French.

I justified the whole exercise to myself on the following grounds

a) I was eating local food and drinking local wine. Being a 'locavore' (someone who does just that) is very PC these days

b) Oysters are ridiculously cheap here - about 8 euros (just over £6 a dozen - enough for two)

c) Grilled fish and oysters are hugely healthy

d) Oysters were at one time the food of the poor so I was just undertaking a bit of historical research . . .

Still, not exactly frugal, I must confess.