à la Normande: With apples.

café gourmand: A dessert that you can order at almost every restaurant. You’ll get a cup of coffee and an assortment of tiny treats: crème brûlée, chocolate mousse, tiny pastries. They call them petit fours even though they don’t look like small ovens. Wonderful.

cidre: You order a bottle at the restaurant and it’s good for three people. They’ll have just one option on the menu, “cidre” with no mention of the producer, but it’ll be local and cheap. Not too sweet, sometimes smoky. If you veer into Brittany, you’ll drink it from a bowl.

CritAir: French cities like Rouen have low-emission zones where you aren’t allowed to drive with too noxious cars. To prove that your car complies, you’ll need a CritAir sticker in the windshield. You rental car won’t have one. You’ll learn about the existence of the system from a traffic sign that announces that you’ve entered the sticker-required zone.

galette: A buckwheat pancake. No matter where you go, there’s a dish where a round piece of dough is topped with savoury fillings. This is the one for Normandy. To make it complete, add ham, cheese, and a fried-but-runny egg. It’s gluten-free, naturally, and it’s everywhere.

pommeau: What if you made port, but from apples instead of grapes? You’d get pommeau. Sweet, full-bodied, tastes like apples the way Calvados does.

Last month, I spent a week in Normandy doing whatever tourists do. I’ve put up a few photos in my gallery. There’s also a new Sarek album to complement my Sarek write-up. Take a look!