Another pinch of charcoal was added and the process repeated until the mold was filled, when the briquet was forced out.

My pension is index-linked, so I'm protected against rising prices.

Back we were in the rat race, treadmilling sixty hours a week and sleeping forty, our sex life was like that of most busy cohabiters I suppose: fun, frolicky, and squeezed in haphazardly when we had a minute—or thirty.

Another soup is cousinette, a vegetable broth made with beet greens, spinach, lettuce, sorrel, and cousine (a wild member of the mallow family). Sometimes cousinette is thickened with cornmeal, in which case it is called jerbilhou.