Madame Boisvert

« Au revoir »

2009-06-12T17:36:00.027+02:00

We’ve been back in upstate New York for nearly a week now and, while it feels a bit strange after a five-month absence, it’s good to be home. We missed several things while being away: face-to-face contact with our family and friends most of all; the roominess of stores, cars, washing machines, and especially shower stalls; well-stocked libraries; our printer. But we had a great stay in Bédoin and we’ll certainly miss things about being there. On Mondays we’ll remember le jour du marché--the fun of walking up the main street in town which is turned into an outdoor shopping mall, hearing and speaking French, and especially talking to the nice fruit and vegetable man. Wearing un bonnet (“winter cap”) or later on a USA baseball cap, he always had a smile on his face and insisted upon giving things away to us from the beginning; in fact, when he found out it was our last week in Bédoin, he gave us strawberries and vegetables totaling more than we actually paid him that day!

Not surprisingly, the happiest moments of our trip had to do with meeting people. We were so excited to be reunited with our kind and generous friends in Malaucène and Montpellier who had us over for meals at their house. Then there were new folks like Jeannette, the owner of the boucherie, who was quite chatty and probably the first of many to congratulate us on the election of Obama. We’ll recall the couple in a restaurant in Lyon who discussed Asian food and also had a lot of positive things to say about our new American president. There was the Parisian couple in Saint Tropez who loved talking about food and wine and told us about some lovely sights to visit in the coastal city. Who could forget the heavy-set restaurant owner/biker in Ajaccio whose collection of tiny motorcycles lined the walls of one of his dining rooms? Or the director of the tram system in Montpellier who discussed French politics with us in Paris? Too many memories to mention, really, with warm, friendly French people.

The highlight of our trip, though, was thanks to people we encountered at the end of our visit to Paris, just days before flying home. On that Saturday we first ran into some Maghrébins (Algerians, to be specific), a young married couple named Ben and Zahia, who happened to be standing in front of us in line to get ice cream. We sat next to them while eating our cones and started talking. Afterwards, they invited us to continue our conversation while having thé à la menthe (“mint tea”) at their friend’s café. We discussed many things with them: why North Africans pour while moving the pot up and down; the history of the Berbers and their language; the upcoming birth of their first child. They were truly a delight.

Later on that same day, we were enjoying probably the best dinner of our trip at a very small restaurant in the 14e called l’Entêtée when a man and his daughter took the table right next to ours. The limited space (in this case a good thing!) practically forced us to talk to them. Again, the topics varied widely and eventually they invited us to come to their house after the meal for coffee. Which we did. When my husband asked them where he could get good boudin (“blood sausage”) in the city, they asked us to come back to their place for lunch on Sunday! It was such a surprising and generous offer. We took them up on it and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves!

Now that I am back home, I won't be blogging on a regular basis anymore, but I'd like to take the opportunity to thank my readers. Please feel free to use the comment button on the blog to communicate with me. So, for now I'll say, « au revoir »--“till we meet again.”

A Visit to Quai Branly

2009-06-10T14:42:00.012+02:00

On our last full day in Paris we decided to hop a bus down to la rive gauche (“the left bank”) to visit the relatively new Musée du quai Branly. Located in a modernistic building on the Seine hard by la Tour Eiffel, the museum was inaugurated in 2006 by former President Jacques Chirac. Its main purpose is to exhibit and validate art from areas outside the West. One enters via a long, curving ramp reminiscent of the entrance to the Guggenheim Museum in New York. The exhibition hall, arranged in a continuum on one floor, contains displays which take the visitor from l’Océanie, to l’Asie, l’Afrique, and les Amériques; its walls are decorated to simulate the outdoors and rocks in a cave.

The permanent collection is astounding because of the number of objects on display (over 3500!) and their beauty and diversity. The visitor sees such a range of items: immense wooden totem poles which make you wonder how they were ever transported to the site; masks, statues and earthenware; carved combs, canes, and oars; beautiful silken shawls and wedding dresses; gold earrings and necklaces. I was particularly impressed by a series of art works made from the bark of trees, seemingly pounded into a kind of paper and then meticulously decorated with ink. The overall impression one gets is that of everyday objects fashioned with care. Groups of small schoolchildren and their teachers seemed to be fascinated examining various items like African masks in the display cases and walking around the large wooden totems on the museum floor.

The museum’s property also includes a small gift shop and a lovely garden with many different types of plants and trees. There is also a café where we enjoyed a delicious lunch last Tuesday; I particularly liked my Asian salad. If we had had time, we would’ve gone back in to see the special exhibit on the jazz age. Quai Branly is a treasure trove and definitely worth a visit.

An Afternoon at Père Lachaise

2009-06-07T15:02:00.014+02:00

We’re not morbid individuals; really, we aren’t. Visiting a Parisian cemetery is like walking around in a beautiful park, only one where there are tombstones! The main inner-city graveyards in the French capital are lined with trees and flowers and have substantial collections of art works by famous sculptors. When we took a tour of le cimetière de l’Est, better known as Père Lachaise, last Saturday, our guide said that it’s like un musée en plein air, an outdoor museum. And that’s exactly it. Named after the priest who was the confessor of le roi Louis XIV, this cemetery in Paris’s 20e arrondissement is reputed to be the most visited in the world, attracting over one hundred thousand people per year.

The guide explained to our group that the 119 acres of land originally belonged to the Catholic Church but that it was purchased by the state in the early nineteenth century under the reign of Napoléon Bonaparte. In order to make the immense but somewhat remote memorial park more appealing to Parisians, the government had the supposed remains of famous people transferred to the location. Visitors can, for example, see the graves of celebrated medieval lovers Héloïse and Abélard, and seventeenth century writers Molière and La Fontaine. The graveyard has become so popular that now families can only “rent” spaces for thirty to fifty years, but the time can be extended...for a fee, of course.

Before the tour started, we were fortunate enough to be sitting on a bench when a photographer came up to take a picture of a tombstone near us. He told us that he had a collection of over a thousand different photos of bustes, médaillons, statues, and stèles ("gravestones") from the various cemeteries around Paris. There is, for example, a Rodin sculpture of Belgian composer César Franck in le cimetière Montparnasse. Yet, he explained, there are no Rodins in Père Lachaise; the famous bust of the author Balzac was done by someone else. He suggested that we visit a nearby marble medallion by Auguste Préault which he was particularly fond of called Le Silence.

Naturally, many tourists come to pay their respects to some of the international celebrities of the past two centuries, from German painter Max Ernst to Irish writer Oscar Wilde. Americans are well represented: authors Richard Wright, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, soprano Maria Callas, dancer Isadora Duncan, and The Doors rocker Jim Morrison to mention but a few. For those interested in classical music, there are monuments to both Chopin and Rossini, though the latter’s grave is a cenotaphe moderne, simply a monument since his remains now lie in his native Italy. The tombs of French singers Édith Piaf, Gilbert Bécaud, and actors Sarah Bernhardt, Yves Montand and Simone Signoret can be found at the cemetery. The guide pointed out that Mother Nature, aided by modern day pollution, plays havoc with the monuments; moss grows on the stones and tree roots upset them. But it is still a beautiful place to visit.

A Day in Paris

2009-05-29T16:22:00.006+02:00

Our first twenty-four hours are just about over and I couldn’t wait to report on what’s gone on so far. Last fall I’d read

an interesting book written by an Australian journalist who married a Frenchman and eventually moved to le premier arrondissement in Paris. In Almost French, Sarah Turnbull lovingly describes la rue Montorgueil, a pedestrian walkway with lots of small shops and a nearly village-like feel to it. We really enjoyed taking in all of the sights and aromas of the nearly one-kilometer long street today: the wonderful cheese shops, a one-hundred-seventy-year-old restaurant named L’Escargot, the delicious-looking pastries and prepared foods at Stohrer. The latter, an institution in Paris since 1730, was the first to bring baba au rhum to the city.

From there it was a short bus ride to la place de la République and le canal Saint-Martin. The canal was originally designed, along with other similar structures, to bring fresh water into the city. Today there is still some boat traffic on the four and a half kilometer waterway, but most of it is apparently to carry tourists through the various locks and dams to the Seine. Beside the canal we came upon l’Hôtel du Nord, which was reproduced on a stage set in the 1930s by Marcel Carné for his movie of the same name...whence the line of actress Arletty: « Atmosphère ? Atmosphère ? »

After a very nice lunch with the professor whose presentation we translated in February, we took le métro back to the 14e where our hotel is located. From the subway station we walked through the beautiful alleys of le cimetière Montparnasse. A small crowd was gathered at the tomb of Sartre and Beauvoir; some ladies were filling up watering cans for the plants on their family’s graves. We spent a little time on this lovely day wandering around looking for the gravesites of famous people like singer Serge Gainsbourg and authors Maupassant and Baudelaire. Paris has so much to offer and we'll be out exploring for several days to come.

Celebrating le Vaucluse

2009-05-26T14:28:00.023+02:00

Our stay in the Vaucluse has been great: we’ve finished all of the research that we’d planned on doing and we took all of the excursions, big and small, that we wanted. But now that our time here is quickly drawing to a close, there are lots of last minute details to take care of--packing up boxes of books to mail home, searching around our rental house to gather up all of our stuff, getting suitcases ready for the trip to Paris and the flight back, and all the rest. Our last week in Bédoin, however, hasn’t simply been filled with chores. We’ve also taken the time to enjoy some culinary treats.
On Saturday night la Cave Coopérative held another of its famous get-togethers. This one, la Fête de la vigne et du vin ("The Festival of the Vineyard and Wine"), is actually a department-wide event taking place on the same date in more than 60 caves in the Vaucluse. Bédoin’s version of the festivities included ATV buggy rides through the vines and a visit to the bottling assembly line. We were more interested in the 16-euro apiece dinner, which included une assiette provençale, consisting of saucisson (“salami”), pâté, jambon cru (“prosciutto”), salade, cornichons (“pickles”) and green and black olives. The main dish was followed by a cheese course, and finally a dessert of fresh strawberries in red wine with crème chantilly (“whipped cream”). There was a live band, playing mostly American music, and of course, being at the cave, the dinner was bien arrosé with lots of local wines. We had fun talking to the people sitting next to us: a young social worker from Zurich who had just returned from climbing Mont Ventoux on his bike and a nice vintner and his wife from Bédoin who made a special trip inside the cave to get a piece of chèvre cheese for us when they found out we liked it.
We’ve also been revisiting some of the restaurants in the vicinity that we have enjoyed over the past few months, two of them being right here on the main street in town. Both have very friendly équipes working there and offer good, relatively inexpensive meals. Le Grillon is a small place whose name, I believe, is more a play on the verb griller, rather than on the word for a cricket. The chef, who comes from a restaurant family, grills your supper in front of you on a wood fire in an elevated fireplace. We’ve had some lovely meals there including a tasty salade au chèvre chaud (“warm goat cheese salad”), a grilled dorade ("sea bream"), une marmite de poisson (a fish soup), and une brochette de canard ("duck shish kebab"). All were very good, but the best was Ray’s travers de porc, a grilled pork sparerib with spices that made it taste like barbecue. Yum! Another place we like in town is the Hôtel l’Escapade’s restaurant. We’ve had appetizers like des cuisses de grenouille (“frogs legs”) and une barigoule aux artichauts (artichoke hearts served with prosciutto). Some of our main dishes there included for Ray pieds et paquets (you don’t really want to know what it is!) and for me a very delicious cuisse de canard (“duck leg”).

My favorite eating place for French cuisine around, and possibly throughout our whole stay here (though others were close), is in Carpentras: La Petite Fontaine. Small with a limited menu, this restaurant serves up delicious meals every time. On our first visit there I had fresh asparagus with a green onion sauce as a first dish, followed by wonderful Saint-Jacques (“scallops”) with a chive sauce that were well worth the 5-euro supplement that we had to pay. Today we both had the 17-euro menu: starting with a half of a small, grilled eggplant topped with melted mozzarella slices and fresh tomato; as a main course, Ray had suprême de pintade (“guinea fowl”) and I got a great piece of grilled tuna. So there you have some meals to enjoy vicariously...more coming from Paris next week, I hope!

Roman Orange

2009-05-23T09:45:00.022+02:00

Since we still had the car last Monday, we decided to go see another of the big towns of the Vaucluse: Orange. The area has undergone tremendous transformations and hardships over the centuries. Originally settled by the Gauls, it became a Roman colony around the year 35 BCE. The city went on to be attacked and partially destroyed by the Visigoths in the fifth century. Its population was decimated by la peste (“the plague”) in 1348 and again in 1720. In the sixteenth century the locale was settled by the Dutch whose ruling family is still named “the Royal House of Orange.” But today this city of about 30,000 people, known as having one of the warmest climates in France, is relatively quiet, yet proud of its heritage.

During Pax Romana, the time of peace and prosperity with the Gauls, the Romans created many buildings in the colony that they referred to as Arausio. There is an Arc de Triomphe on the outskirts of town, which is presently undergoing restoration. However, the crowning achievement of Roman architecture in the city is the antique theater. For a small fee, visitors can take a self-guided tour with audiophones of this 1st century structure built during the reign of Augustus. The theater has one of the best conserved murs de scène (“stage walls”) in the world; according to our audioguide only in Syria and Turkey could you also find such an impressive relic from Roman times. The sight of it in the seventeenth century prompted King Louis XIV to exclaim: « C’est la plus belle muraille de mon royaume. » ("It's the most beautiful wall in my kingdom.")

The theater, we learned, used to have statues in all of its niches (like the one of Augustus in the picture), as well as marble facing on the walls, several rows of columns, and mosaics decorating it. The sitting area, called the cavea, provided room for about 8000-10000 spectators, seated according to their status in society. The orchestra, in a semicircle on the ground, had room for movable seats for the highest-ranking dignitaries; on the uppermost tiers sat prostitutes and beggars. All of the presentations were free of charge and a kind of tarp, a velum, stretched across the top of the theater to protect spectators from the sun. After the so-called “barbarian invasions” and the 16th century wars of religion, the theater fell into disrepair; houses were even constructed inside it. But thanks to author Prosper Merimée, a restoration project was launched in 1825. Only the first three rows of seats are original and in 2006 a small glass and metal roof was added to protect the stage wall and to add lighting. The theater was placed on the list of World Heritage Sights by UNESCO. International music festivals, currently called Les Nouvelles Chorégies, have been presenting symphonies and operas every summer since 1869. Plays have been staged there as well; Sarah Bernhardt, for example, performed the role of Racine’s Phèdre at the theater in 1903. The day we were there several groups of young people were trying out the theater’s great acoustics by reading to their friends who were in the upper part of the stands.

A Beautiful Day on the Riviera

2009-05-20T12:49:00.010+02:00

Last Saturday the "weather gods” were with us as we left Port-Fréjus heading east to see more of la Côte d’Azur and making our way to Cannes. The drive along the cliff road, la Corniche de l’Esterel, afforded stunning views of the red Esterel Mountains which served as a striking contrast to the deep blue of the Mediterranean. We passed through the coastal towns of Agay and Théoule-sur-Mer, stopping from time to time to enjoy vistas of the beaches, the rocky coast, and boats out at sea. In the car, I was putting the digital camera through its paces the entire time, while Ray negotiated the narrow thoroughfare. The biggest problem along the way was not other cars, but cyclists, including some with babies on the back of their bikes, who at times rode two or three abreast.

We were well aware that the yearly Festival de Cannes 2009 was in full swing, meaning traffic and people galore. So we grabbed the first underground parking lot we could find near la Croisette, the city’s well-known seaside boulevard. Our first sight upon exiting le parking was of hundreds of huge yachts in the marina and, looking out on them, white tents with what seemed like conferences going on. Not a bad location, but potentially distracting for those attending! The crowds were enormous, especially as we neared the Palais des festivals et des congrès, where the films are shown and judged. It wasn't the right time of day to catch sight of glamorous celebrities climbing the famous escalier, but it was fun for us to see just the same. Again there were white tents with signs indicating the area of the American delegation, etc., this time barricaded inside a fence. Security was extremely tight, though the guards were nattily dressed in beige suits instead of uniforms to fit the stylish occasion, I suppose. As far as what really goes on at the film festival in Cannes, I have barely a clue. I do know that it’s practically impossible for the average person to get a ticket and actually see a film there. The festival is mainly a meeting place for producers, sales agents, distributors, and buyers from all over the world. Apparently anyone can submit a film and a good judgment by the international jury can launch a filmmaker’s career.

A little further down the boardwalk we passed some lovely, old hotels with their private beaches and matching umbrellas across the street. The majestic, early twentieth century Hôtel Carlton, whose façade was classified as a monument historique in 1989, still draws le jet-set and people like French actress Sophie Marceau who was staying in a room named after her. Just past the Carlton, we came upon l’Hôtel Martinez where photographers and tourists were grouped, apparently waiting for stars like Eva Longoria and her French husband Tony Parker (who were staying there) to exit the building. After a lunch of Lebanese food, we continued down la Croisette where there was yet another marina with more outrageously impressive yachts and the lovely Parc de la Roseraie, full of roses in bloom.

Exploring le Var

2009-05-17T10:06:00.011+02:00

Since our stay in France is drawing to a close, we wanted to visit la Côte d’Azur once more especially because the weather has warmed up. Last Wednesday we took off for the town of Port-Fréjus which, with Fréjus and the neighboring city of Saint-Raphaël, make up a middle-sized metropolitan area which is not as expensive as other cities bordering the Mediterranean. For a while now, we had been wanting to explore the department of le Var and some of its famous resorts and cities.

Thursday morning we took a beautiful ride west along the coast to get to Saint-Tropez. Although the town was swarming with cars and people, reminding us a little of summer in Cape Cod, the population at this time of the year is nowhere close to the 80,000 or so tourists who invade the resort in the month of August alone! A large number of visitors was grouped beside le Vieux Port waiting for an enormous, gray yacht to retract its gangplank and set out to sea. The harbor itself was filled with all kinds of water craft, including some small, traditional fishing boats called les pointus. We circled the port and then followed le sentier du littoral, a coastal footpath right on the water’s edge. It is easy to understand the attraction of Saint-Tropez; it is a very clean, pretty city in a lovely setting with many expensive shops. Lunch was enjoyable, chatting with a Parisian couple about food, wine, and what to see in town. We took their advice and walked by la place des Lices, a vast square bordered by plane trees, where the twice-weekly marché is held. Then we drove up to la chapelle Sainte-Anne, located on top of a hill in a lovely park surrounded by cypress, pine, and oak trees. The chapel, built to thank God for sparing the town from the plague in 1720, offers a fine panorama of le golfe de Saint-Tropez and the neighboring city of Sainte-Maxime.

Sainte-Maxime, by the way, was in the news on May 8th because French president Nicolas Sarkozy celebrated the anniversary of the victory in Europe there this year. Just about everywhere we went along the coast on this trip, in fact, we were reminded of le débarquement de Provence in August 1944 and the sacrifices made by the Allies in World War II. We noticed monuments to the war dead and even what appeared to be an American landing craft in Le Dramont, just outside of Saint-Raphaël.

Our final activity for the day was to drive up to the ancient, fortified village perché of Grimaud. Named after the Grimaldi family which presently rules la principauté de Monaco, the town has beautiful architecture, as well as spectacular views of the countryside and the Mediterranean. We climbed up to the ruins of the eleventh century castle, destroyed in 1655 at the end of les guerres de religion on the orders of le cardinal Mazarin because of the town’s Protestant leanings.

Time and the French Paradox

2009-05-11T10:48:00.009+02:00

Since the early 1990s there has been a lot of talk about the so-called “French paradox," a term coined by scientist Serge Renaud in Bordeaux. What is paradoxical is that the average French person consumes much more butter, cheese, cream, and pork than an American, but that the incidence of death from coronary heart disease is much lower in France. Research for awhile pointed to the consumption of red wine and, more recently, of any type of alcoholic beverage as the main reason for this inconsistency. And while many of us would love for a nice glass of Burgundy to solve any potential problems with our arteries, people who drink more than in France— in countries like Luxembourg and Germany—don’t reap the same health benefits. But what if the answer to the riddle has little to do with food? What if something else is the basis for the cardiac fitness of the French? Obviously, what I offer here has no basis in scientific study, just musings on one possible explanation for the paradox.

A huge difference that I see between Americans and the French is that they are not as tied to the clock as we are. They have an expression l’heure, c’est l’heure (roughly, “on time is on time”), but, from what I can tell, hardly anyone abides by it! I often tell the story about a job interview I once had in the Lyon area. I needed to take a long bus ride to get to the place and showed up 45 minutes behind schedule. Naturally, I went into the office all apologetic, but the man interviewing me said that I wasn’t late! Now maybe that was unusual, especially in an employment situation, but we’ve seen the same scenario in other contexts time and time again. Merchants don’t rush to open their doors right on the dot, and the same is true at closing time.

Another time-related issue has to do with dining out. When French people go out to eat, supper is the entertainment for the evening. Leisure time is not on a hectic schedule, as it is for many Americans. Many of us rush to the restaurant, and then dash off to see a play or a movie afterwards. Here, hours are spent leisurely enjoying a meal at the dinner table. In fact, a recent study showed that the French spend more time eating and sleeping than in any other nation in the world. Se la couler douce (“taking life easy”) doesn’t mean trying to squeeze as much activity as possible into the leisure time you have.

I’ve written about greetings before on this blog, but can’t resist mentioning again that people here take the time to acknowledge others. The cashiers at Shopi, our town supermarket, greet each of their customers, speak to them, and help them if necessary, no matter how long the line is, which can be frustrating for us impatient types! On buses, too, we’ve seen the driver say bonjour and au revoir to every single person on board, even if twenty or so people are all getting off at the same stop. At any rate, whatever the answer is to the French paradox, I’m convinced that it does not just boil down to one thing. I believe it is a lifestyle, an attitude toward living, as well as the fruits, vegetables, olive oil, and wine that they so like to consume.

Quelle belle vie!

2009-05-07T10:47:00.018+02:00

In these times of la crise financière, I thought it might be fun to dream about how to enjoy France if money was no issue. So, here is my partial “wish list” that you are welcome to pick and choose from as desired. First of all, for a place to stay, forget two- or three-stars; the rooms are so small especially in big cities. Make your reservations at a super luxury hotel like l’Hôtel Plaza Athénée in Paris. Located in the 8e arrondissement between les Champs-Élysées, Paris's "main street," and la Tour Eiffel, it’s offering a special price until May 25th of only 695 euros a night (though I doubt that means for the room pictured)! If you’re interested in la province, you could get a far better deal. The Cour des Loges in le Vieux Lyon, for example, has a whole apartment complete with a separate living room for less.

As much as I love food and eating out, it may surprise you to learn that my list doesn’t include dinner at la Tour d’argent, le Jules Verne, or other restaurants étoilés from le Guide Michelin. (Although if staying at the l’Hôtel Plaza Athénée I could just go downstairs to Alain Ducasse’s restaurant…hmmmm, let me think that one over.) What I’d really like to do is take a food tour of Paris, like the ones presented by Canadian Stephanie Curtis, translator of Paul Bocuse’s cookbooks. For about 120€, which I believe includes lunch, she takes groups on a tour of Rungis (the big food market which replaced Les Halles), or le marché biologique on boulevard Raspail, or outdoor markets at la place Monge or on la rue Mouffetard. I suppose we could visit these locations on our own, but we certainly wouldn’t learn as much as with such a tour guide. Another food-related fantasy of mine concerns deluxe cooking schools. Last summer I’d picked up a secondhand copy of On Rue Tatin, which tells of Susan Herrmann Loomis's adventures at a culinary school in Paris and buying a house in la Haute-Normandie. She now holds cooking classes in Paris or in her small town of Louviers, south of Rouen. Another ex-patriot, cookbook author Patricia Wells, offers similar lessons in Provence and Paris.

But, let’s face it…the life I’m living is pretty nice the way it is. So, I’ll be content to discover gourmet spots in Paris for thirty euros or an English-speaking walking tour of the city for twelve. And if I really want to learn how to be a better cook there are places like Comme des chefs on rue de Sèze in Lyon where a chef teaches you to prepare exotic sushi or Thaï food for 40€ and includes a meal to bring home for two.

Only Lyon

2009-05-04T09:06:00.019+02:00

Since we had spent a year in France’s third-largest city at the beginning of the 1990s with our two sons, we always feel a special connection with Lyon and try to get back for a visit every once in awhile. Part of our itinerary necessarily includes a walk past where we used to live in le sixième arrondissement ("the sixth district"), the boys’ former school, and the little park down rue Bossuet where they liked to play in the evenings. Obviously, many things in our old neighborhood have changed: the little Prety grocery store is gone, our former local boulangerie is no longer called Au Feu du Bois, and the big supermarché ATAC has been bought out by the oddly-named chain Simply Market. (Come to think of it, ATAC wasn't your run of the mill name for a supermarket either!) But other past “favorites” remain. The two chocolatiers on Cours Franklin Roosevelt, Bernachon and Tourtiller, are still going strong although the second shop has been sold and will soon have a new name.

One thing you notice right away about Lyon is how prosperous the city looks. Well-dressed citizens, beautiful architecture, shops selling fur coats, Dior clothing, Cartier jewelry, or Louis Vuitton luggage. What we didn’t realize is that Lyon has been an affluent area for centuries. The Office du tourisme, located in the city center on Place Bellecour, offered a nine-euro visit of le vieux Lyon Renaissance that we took advantage of last Thursday. One of our first stops was to see la Cathédrale Saint Jean and its fourteenth century horloge astronomique. This famous clock tells not only the time, but shows the season, the zodiac sign, and the yearly and ecclesiastical calendar; a mechanism adding the minutes was inserted in the 1600s. At 2:59 we watched as the angel on the left began the process by turning un sablier (“an hourglass”) back and forth in his hand. L’ange Gabriel then came out on the right to announce to Mary that she was to be the mother of Jesus, while Dieu le père (“God the Father”), dressed in red, nodded his approval from up above, just before the clock chimed three times. Our tour guide, an Austrian woman named Anneliese, pointed out that not many cities could afford such a device. Wealth came early to Lyon mainly by way of des foires (“fairs”) which brought 4,000 to 6,000 vendors from all over Europe several times a year to sell everything from textiles to spices. This led to the development of banking and printing industries in the city.

Along with an increase in riches came a corresponding increase in population. Our tour then concentrated on the well-known cours intérieures (“inner courtyards”), escaliers à vis (“spiral staircases”), and loges that were built to accommodate all of the people in the old part of the city. Apparently several twentieth century mayors wanted to raze le vieux Lyon in favor of more modern housing but were stopped by resident associations and author André Malraux, who served as ministre des Affaires Culturelles in the early 1960s. We also traveled through des traboules (from the Italian transambulare, “to travel across”), long passageways which enabled inhabitants to go from one street to another and served to hide people familiar with the system during the German Occupation in World War II.

La fête du travail, held every May 1st, is a national holiday, the equivalent of Labor Day in the United States. Great for all workers, not so great for travelers since there is no public transportation and not many businesses are open. Lucky for us, however, Lyon has a spacious and beautiful park, le Parc de la Tête d’or (so named because of a legend involving the buried statue of a golden head of Christ, which has never been found). We had a lovely day walking around the zoo, the lake, and flower gardens, as well as having lunch in one of the outdoor cafés on the property. All in all, it was a wonderful visit to Lyon, whose new motto "Only Lyon" is a play on the letters of its name.

Home Sweet...France?

2009-05-03T12:42:00.008+02:00

The United States has long been criticized for being a kind of super-culture, a dominant force which is melding societies into one around the world. I remember being stunned years ago when a young boy in a remote village in Senegal asked me about Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls! It is not surprising then, I guess, that in France we are reminded of home almost daily, largely because of the omnipresence of American music. Television and radio programs alike include a preponderance of songs from outre-Atlantique. Each week La Nouvelle Star, a copy of American Idol (which was itself copied from a British TV program), features young people competing for the title of “The New Star.” Very often, they choose to sing in English. In restaurants, on buses, even at the marché in Bédoin, we hear American music from across the decades—the likes of Ella Fitzgerald, Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, and Mariah Carey. Other Anglophone artists figure prominently on the music scene as well, like the highly popular British singer Amy Winehouse. A few weeks ago it was kind of fitting to hear Louis Armstrong singing “April in Paris” as we walked through our town's outdoor market!

But it is not only music that makes us think of home. Many French people now dress in a way that hardly distinguishes “them” from “us.” One Saturday afternoon in a restaurant in Carpentras I am pretty sure I was the only person not wearing blue jeans! At a park in Lyon last week Bermudas and other types of shorts, baseball caps, sneakers, and flip-flops, as well as jeans, seemed to be the apparel of choice. T-shirts everywhere herald American designers and manufacturers such as Calvin Klein, Gap, and Abercrombie & Fitch—or at least have fairly random English words like “Halloween” printed on them. In fact, for years now, finding t-shirts written in French has been practically an impossible task. Too bad we weren’t interested in buying souvenirs announcing “I [heart] New York” or “I [heart] Lyon”!

Larger cities and towns also have their fair share of businesses with English-sounding names. In Avignon a few weeks ago, we saw two clothing stores directly across from each other, one called Getaway and the other The Next Door. Restaurants, too, sometimes have names like Backstage Café or perhaps Smoking Dog. On their menus you might even find des brownies or some kind of crumble--à la rhubarbe, for example. Sometimes it’s nice to have a little touch of home when you’re far away.

« Balades matinales »

2009-04-26T11:35:00.016+02:00

Okay, I admit it: I am a fair-weather walker. Since mid-January, my husband has conscientiously devoted an hour before breakfast to exploring Bédoin and its environs—be it dark, cold, or sprinkling rain. During that time, I have either been sleeping, checking email, or working on my blog. But, I am happy to report, I have turned over a new leaf since spring has arrived…well, make that since last Wednesday, when I began accompanying Ray on his constitutional. Early morning is, I must say, a very pleasant time of the day. At seven or so, the sun is just starting to peep over the top of the mountain and the town is coming to life. Les boulangers have been up early, of course, and the air is filled with the aroma of freshly baked bread. Ladies at the tabacs and the men at the boucherie are ready for business and some people open the volets (“shutters”) of their houses as we start out on our walk.

In his three months discovering Bédoin, Ray has established a number of hour-long circuits, so he usually chooses our morning route. An in-town itinerary might include a climb to the church, followed by a descent toward the town pool and trailer campsite, past a working farm, and the loop back past la gare routière (really just a covered area to wait for the intercity bus) to get back home. The farm, which has obviously been around for quite awhile, is not at all far from downtown. We can hear its cacophony of sounds—from the donkeys, sheep, roosters, and cow bells—long before we catch sight of the crazy jumble of old and new machinery and buildings on its property. Mornings or otherwise, we have seen very few wild animals on our walks, just a couple of rabbits, none of the squirrels found almost everywhere in the U. S.

Because of the size of Bédoin, it doesn’t take more than five minutes for us to get to the countryside if we choose to do an out-of-town loop. Everything is so green right now; sweet-smelling genêt and lilacs are flowering as are the irises and poppies that once fascinated Van Gogh and Monet. Our trip might include going east on the route de Flassan where we get a great view of the entire escarpment of Mont Ventoux. After about one kilometer we reach the field which holds the evening marché agricole (a mostly-bio ["organic"] farmers' market) and the morning vide-grenier (literally “empty-attic”—a kind of yard sale). Saturday we even stopped by to see what the six or seven individuals who had set up by eight a.m. had emptied out of their attics. As in any type of outdoor sale, there was a real hodge-podge of items: books, records (we’re talking 45s and 78s here), toys, dishes, glassware, pictures, old ads, light fixtures, etc. A Breton-born man was selling everything from African-looking masks to a small carved wooden box to be used for jewelry or as furniture in a child’s doll house. One woman from Carpentras explained that she needed to get rid of a lot of belongings since she and her husband were moving into a small apartment; she had some lovely linens that tempted me but the prices of over fifty euros for each set were too high. Heading back, we took a left off the main road and passed through an area of beautiful homes my husband refers to as “the suburbs.”

Once back on the main street, we stop by a bakery, either Lou Cigalou (provençal for la cigale, "ciccada"--a symbol of Provence) or Olivero, to pick up a bread or croissants and then on to the tabac for the newspaper, noting the temperature outside an agence immobilière (“real estate agency”) as we go. While I can’t guarantee that I will be as steadfast as my husband in my commitment to the morning walk, I have really enjoyed it so far.

Just for Fun

2009-04-24T09:10:00.018+02:00

For a village of three thousand people, Bédoin has much to offer inhabitants and visitors alike. Its small downtown includes two grocery stores and several shops; the surrounding countryside, filled with la grande forêt communale, vineyards, and cherry orchards, is beautiful indeed. But in terms of diversion, there's really not much for people to do. Naturally, one finds both a boule court and a small stadium, de rigueur for a country of bocce ball- and soccer-loving people. Otherwise, besides a few restaurants, cafés, and bars, places of entertainment are at a minimum. No movie theater, no concert hall, not even a large park. Next to the post office, however, in what looks like a relatively new structure, stands the two-story Centre Culturel, which as its name suggests, serves as the focal point for nearly all cultural activities in town.

The cultural center houses the offices and most of the activities of la Maison des Jeunes et de la Culture. In a nation-wide movement instituted after World War II, MJCs were created throughout France to promote the arts and to serve as a kind of youth club. For seventeen euros a year, villageois can become members of the local MJC, entitling young and old to free courses, such as aide aux devoirs (“homework help”) and alphabétisation (“learning to read”); a supplementary fee is charged for physical activities--Pilates, Taekwondo, yoga, and the like--and dance classes in modern jazz, salsa, and hip-hop. Language courses (in italien, anglais, and français for newcomers to the area) are available as are lessons in music, informatique (“computer science”), and les arts plastiques (“fine arts”)--dessin (“drawing”), peinture (“painting”), and poterie (“pottery”). On Friday nights there is a cinéval, open to the public, which offers first-run movies for a small fee. Recently, Volt was featured for kids followed by Gran Torino for adults.

Apparently, various groups can rent out or at least reserve space at the Centre Culturel for their particular functions. We first went there right after our arrival in mid-January for le club de Ventoux’s annual Loto (“Bingo”) party. The large downstairs conference room was absolutely packed that Sunday afternoon with people hoping to win prizes and most likely just for something to do on a cold winter day. On another occasion in early April we attended a free lecture on Le Patrimoine industriel du Comtat Venaissin, about the area’s industrial heritage. The two young female presenters, probably graduate students, discussed many different topics in their two-hour talk: des moulins (“mills”), la soie (“silk”), le sable (“sand”), and le plâtre (“plaster”), among others. I was truly surprised at the large turnout (over twenty-five people) and that snacks and glasses of wine were served at the end.

Bédoin’s bibliothèque municipale is also located on the second floor of the Centre. The library, which is open five days per week, for an average of about three hours per day, has a tiny collection of books and magazines, but the librarian is proud that the people of the village have an actual reference room and not just a visiting bibliobus as in some other communities. She guaranteed us, too, that a sort of interlibrary loan system exists so that books could be ordered from other collections in the Vaucluse. Le Centre Culturel serves an important function as a gathering space in the community.

Une Pizza ou Un Sandwich?

2009-04-21T10:18:00.016+02:00

Let’s face it: of all of the people in l’Union Européenne, the French probably have the reputation for consuming the weirdest foods. Who else is known to eat such vast quantities of smelly cheese or escargots ("snails"), for example? (Around 20,000 tons a year of the latter according to some estimates.) While I am personally a huge fan of both, I realize that some readers have very disgusted looks on their faces at this point. A few years ago, my husband and I led a small group of college students to Paris and Beaune for their first trip abroad. For the most part, everyone in the group joined right in trying different dishes, like salads garnished with gésiers (gizzards) or chèvre chaud (warm goat-milk cheese--pictured). But one young woman stuck to her ingrained habits of eating only cereal and pasta, which became the running joke of the trip: “Jessica won’t eat THAT!”

Yet French restauranteurs attempt to cater to the tourist trade, at least somewhat. Here in Bédoin, where there are several campsites and, since the beginning of April, swarms of vacationers from Belgium, the U.K., Germany, and the like, the local sandwich shop and pizzerias do their best to accommodate the visitors' fast food needs. Point Cuisson, which was principally a not very good boulangerie-pâtisserie ("bakery and pastry shop") until about month ago, had a change of owners and with that a change of menu. They now serve, among other things, des ailes de poulet (“chicken wings”) and des donuts! While I have never tried either, I feel confident that they are à la française and not how they are chez nous; how could they be otherwise? The shop offers a fairly large selection of sandwiches, too, including one called un sandwich américain: a burger, all right, but on a baguette with French fries inside. The rest of the menu is devoted to French favorites, like croque-monsieur (a type of grilled ham and cheese sandwich) and one Provençal specialty which I particularly like: un pan bagnat, a tunafish sandwich on a baguette with a vinaigrette sauce, hardboiled eggs, and des anchois ("anchovies"). Delicious, but hardly your typical lunch at Subway.

The same is true for pizzas. Unless you live in Paris or another grande ville and have a Pizza Hut or Dominos nearby, you’re just not going to find thick crust pizza with tomato sauce and all of the customary toppings on it. Still, I’ll bet that even these American chains have made concessions to their overseas locations, as they should. So, here at Pizza Phil or at Pizza Paradiso, you’ll find roquefort or chèvre cheese (again) as well as mozzarella under toppings such as artichokes, eggplant, ratatouille, anchovies, or seafood. In terms of sausage, the choices might include merguez (Algerian), figatelli (Corsican), or chorizo (Spanish) instead of pepperoni. My final piece of advice is what I always tell my students. “France isn’t the U.S.: it’s different; that’s why we go there.” As I recall, even Jessica tried a little taste of cheese.

French « Borne »

2009-04-20T09:16:00.030+02:00

Upon hearing the word borne, some Americans would immediately think of the French card game Mille_Bornes. Like competitors in a road race, players attempt to be the first to cover a certain distance, usually a thousand kilometers, or perhaps miles in the English version. Cards marked from 25 to 200 kilometers in some of the earlier editions of the game showed an outline of the stone or cement bornes routières (sometimes called bornes kilométriques) or “distance markers” which used to be quite common along French highways. The old bornes seem to be disappearing from the countryside, though, or at least changing form. Still, we have spotted different varieties of the markers both on and off the beaten path in Provence.

Traditional bornes--short, red or yellow on the top and white on the bottom, one might say "tombstone-like" structures--can sometimes be found in out-of-the-way places, like on small departmental roads leading into Bédoin. They often contain information not only about the distance to a given location, but the route number and altitude as well. Most of these are in quite poor condition and very often the distances indicated have become antiquated because of changes in the road systems. The latest renditions, which are metallic or plastic rectangles on metal posts, clearly lack the charm of conventional bornes.

Looking into the history of these markers, I expected to find that they dated from the era of the Roman Empire. In fact, there are vestiges of stone markers near old Roman roads in France. What surprised me was that the idea of using large stones as markers might be much older. Certain archeologists hypothesize that some of the thousands of prehistoric menhirs found on French soil today might have once served to indicate property lines (bornes limites des propriétés) or as directions to follow. At any rate there are perhaps hundreds of different styles of bornes in France today, some even commemorating events of the past. The town of Maisse, in the north, west of Fontainebleau, celebrated its liberation by American troops towards the end World War II by creating a specially designed borne.

Today, while tourists might never see an old distance marker on their travels through France, they do have the opportunity to buy plastic keychains or small replicas of traditional bornes as souvenirs. The word borne itself, meanwhile, has not disappeared. It has been adapted to meet the needs of the twenty-first century and has come to signify any average sized, round-topped machine, such as an ATM or an automatic ticket dispenser at the train station or airport.

The Many Sights of Avignon

2009-04-17T10:44:00.009+02:00

« Sur le pont d’Avignon, l'on y danse, l'on y danse… » Just about anyone who has studied French has learned to sing this famous children’s song. From the high vantage point of the garden of le Rocher des Doms, tourists are afforded a fine view of what remains of le Pont Saint-Bénezet which stretches part way across the Rhone. There are also postcards, small music boxes, and other assorted souvenirs linked to the song for sale in many shops. But Avignon, la préfecture (or “the main city”) of the department of Vaucluse, has a long and rich history and much more to offer visitors than the simple sight of the bridge.

Another celebrated structure in Avignon is the imposing Palais des Papes. Since we had been to the papal palace in 2003, on this visit we opted for a guided tour from the office de tourisme which provided the historical background for this and other monuments. Because of wars in fourteenth-century Italy, this immense Gothic fortification was built near papal holdings in le Comtat Venaissin and came to serve as home to seven popes acknowledged by Rome and a few antipopes. Our guide told us about various power struggles between the kings of France, the popes, cardinals, and bishops (one anecdote even involving a king slapping a pope!). We visited a mansion built by a certain Cardinal Ceccano in Avignon in order to keep close ties to the pope. The fourteenth century building, which now serves as the city’s médiathèque, contains murals in remarkably good condition, adorned with symbols representing the cardinal and his family; the wood beams on the ceiling of his ceremonial room (chambre d'apparat) are painted en trompe-l'œil.

Our tour also took us to l’église Saint-Didier, where the guide explained how le style gothique méridional differed from the gothic style in other parts of France. While the creators of churches and cathedrals in the north used des vitraux (“stained glass windows”) to instruct the illiterate of the Middle Ages, in the south murals served the same purpose. In a side chapel she pointed out the differences in the postures, faces, and clothing in the renderings of the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene. She also mentioned that, thanks to modern technology, great strides have been made in recovering murals from what seems like perfectly blank walls.

On our own later that day, we spent time walking around the city, doing a little shopping, and visiting the animated place de l’Horloge. One thing we especially enjoyed was our tour of le Musée Calvet—a beautiful hôtel particulier, an eighteenth century mansion considered to be un petit Versailles, which is now an art museum.

Bienvenue à la Cave Coopérative!

2009-04-13T09:50:00.021+02:00

Although other regions might dispute the idea, Languedoc-Roussillon was apparently the first place to have a cooperative wine cellar in France. At the end of the nineteenth century a group of winemakers in a small town near Béziers decided to band together to save on the cost of facilities, equipment, and marketing. Since that time, about half of the country began developing caves, including Bédoin in 1924. While it may not be true in other parts of France, the cooperative here seems to be an important presence in town.

La Cave VMV (les Vignerons du Mont Ventoux), along with the church, are among the first sights for visitors coming into Bédoin from Carpentras. Open every day of the week, with the obligatory break for lunch, the main building (or le caveau de dégustation) primarily serves as a place to taste and buy local wines. Wine is sold in bottles, for the most part, but there are boxes available, as well as a kind of “service station” area with pumps, where you can get large, plastic, recyclable containers to fill with VMV wine at a reduced price. Near the front of the caveau, there’s a small boutique which sells wine-related items like glasses, carafes, and corkscrews and Provençal products such as soaps, lotions, herbs, and chocolate. The caveau’s informative manager, Mireille, a smiling, middle-aged woman, is always ready to distribute substantial amounts of local wines and discuss them with anyone interested. We’ve learned quite a bit from her about the different soils in the area and the fact that the designation A.O.C. (appellation d’origine contrôlée) does not always indicate the best wines of a given region. Some local bio (“organic ”) producers, for example, do not have limitations on what grapes to use and irrigation controls which come with A.O.C. wines and their products are, at least to our tastes, superior.

Another thing which we really enjoy about la cave is the monthly soirées they hold on Friday nights. At the end January, for example, we attended their Découverte du Nouveau Millésime (“Discovery of the New Vintage”) party where they featured not only red, white, and rosé VMV wines but des omelettes aux truffes to accompany them. I couldn’t imagine an American wine store paying the price of all those eggs, not to mention the truffles, for twenty or so people. Earlier this month, la cave had another one of their special thematic events: la Chasse aux Trésors. Part of the evening was devoted to a "treasure hunt" to find hidden pictures of chickens and win chocolate bunnies for Easter. They also had tastings of bio wines and platters of cheese from La Fromagerie Vigier in Carpentras. The get-togethers at la cave are great, allowing us new taste experiences and the opportunity to meet people who live in and around Bédoin. This last time we were able to discuss cheese with Mme Claudine Vigier and her husband Roland Barthélémy, a well-known maître fromager ("master cheese seller") from Paris. La cave is one of the main centers of activity in the town.

L’Abbaye Notre-Dame de Sénanque

2009-04-08T07:50:00.022+02:00

Last summer we saw a remarkable documentary called Into Great Silence which shows the daily life of a group of contemplative monks living in the French Alps near Grenoble. Just last week we were able to visit one of the contemporary monastères habités (“inhabited monasteries”) in France, l’Abbaye Notre-Dame de Sénanque. Located in an isolated valley of the Vaucluse just outside of Gordes, the Cistercian abbey is virtually surrounded by lavender fields which must be a beautiful sight in July when the flowers are in full bloom.

For six euros we took part in a guided tour of the buildings, which provided information on the history of the Cistercians and Sénanque as well as the architecture of the monastery. Our guide explained that in the eleventh century a Benedictine monk named Robert Molesme had become disillusioned with his order, which, in his eyes, had strayed from the rigor and simplicity espoused by Saint Benedict. The “reformed” Benedictines, including Molesme and several followers, moved to Cîteaux near Dijon and founded the first Cistercian abbey. The so-called moines blancs (because of the habit of undyed, white wool that they wear) believed in living a more austere existence of manual labor, self-denial, and prayer.

Named after la rivière Sénancole which runs through the property, l'Abbaye de Sénanque was founded in 1148 and reached its high point in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries when over a hundred monks ran four mills and worked many plots of land. Disbanded when the abbey was sold after the French Revolution and once again in 1904, monks have been living in the monastery since 1988, though they presently only have a community of six.

Considered an example of pure medieval Cistercian architecture, all of the rooms at Sénanque are beautiful in their simplicity. Apparently modeled on Roman building styles, the walls were built to a certain height, then sandbags and a wooden arch were put in place, to be removed once the bricks of the arch were complete. The guide pointed out that the individual stones are marked with the initials of their makers and that the 860-year-old construction has survived at least one earthquake. We visited several spaces in the monastery: le dortoir des moines, a large empty room where monks slept in their clothes on des paillasses (“straw mats”) on the floor, putting oiled papers on the windows when needed to keep out the mistral; the church, l’église abbatiale, whose only ornamentation is a statue of the Virgin Mary holding the Christ child; le chauffoir, a room formerly heated by wood where monks came to copy manuscripts; le cloître, the covered area around a courtyard which has a carving of the devil at the top of one of its columns to remind the monks that temptation is all around; la salle capitulaire, or chapter house, where monks come even today to hear the daily reading of la règle de Saint Benoît, the rule of St. Benedict. The guide said that the priests can at times parler mais pas bavarder, which means that they are permitted to speak, but not to carry on conversations. It was an awe-inspiring visit.

Flowers and Perfume

2009-04-06T07:46:00.009+02:00

Springtime is beautiful in France. Vast fields of cérisiers (“cherry trees”) show off their puffy white blossoms. Natural scents from la glycine (“wisteria”) to le narcisse (“narcissus”) and other flowers perfume the Provençal air. What a wonderful background to the business of flowers, the well-known French perfume industry. On our recent trip to Grasse, we decided to look into one of the visites guidées gratuites (“free guided tours”) offered by the three companies still in operation in the city today: Fragonard, Galimard, or Molinard. The latter, a family-run business since 1849, appealed to us, so from the center of town, we took the free bus, called la farandole (or "conga"--we think because it has to snake around in kind of a dance) down the hill to the factory.

Our guide, Lorie, provided a lot of information, focusing on the history of the town and its perfume business. In the Middle Ages, tanneries and glove making formed the backbone of industry in Grasse. With the coming of the Italian Catherine de Médicis to the French throne in the sixteenth century, however, gloves makers searched for a way of offsetting the bad odor of the leather for members of the nobility. The idea was born of perfuming gloves, thus launching a new direction for workers in Grasse. By the time Louis XIV was in power in the 1600s, the town had become the world center of perfume manufacturing. Over the centuries, perfumers have attempted to allow for the demands of their public. In the 1920s, for example, women started cutting their hair, wearing pants, and smoking cigarettes. They desired a more masculine scent, like that of la verveine (“verbena”), as in Molinard's perfume, Habanita. These days Molinard tries to attract the young demographic with perfumes like La Souris Verte (a reference we found out to une chanson d’enfant, a children's song), which comes with a small stuffed green mouse on the top of the bottle. They also offer clients, for a fee of about 40 euros, the option to design their own fragrance.

One of the key players in the creation of perfume is le nez (literally “the nose”), the master perfumer, who often has the ability to distinguish 2000 or more scents. I was surprised to hear that very few women have this skill, given that women seem to have an acute sense of smell. Aromas can come from a variety of flowers, spices, roots, grasses, fruit, leaves, or herbs. By way of steam, solvent, or in the past enfleurage (using animal fats), according to the demands of the various sources, the essence (l’absolut) is extracted. As in the case of many fine wines, different components are then combined and the finished product must age. Lorie told us about the three notes that can be detected after applying perfume. The first whiff of it on the skin gives evidence of what is called des notes de tête (“head notes”); after about five minutes, we can sense des notes de cœur (“middle” or “heart notes”); after several hours what’s left is called des notes de fond (“base notes”). The enemies of perfume are heat, sun, and humidity which is why it should be stored with care.

The cost of perfume products depends on several factors, one being the amount of essence used. Eau de toilette contains only about 2% of essential oils, eau de cologne 4-6%, and le parfum has around 25% of l'absolut, which is why it commands such high prices. Another reason for the expense can be the container, which can account for up to 80% of the total cost. Molinard has a small museum (really several display cases) containing lovely 1930s Baccarat and Lalique crystal flacons à parfum among other items.

The entire industry in Grasse seems to have fallen on hard times. The three perfumeries that remain are no longer permitted to distill their product in the city because of pollution concerns and other perfume designers have moved on to other locales. Yet, it was interesting for us to understand the complicated process of turning flowers into perfume.

Discovering PACA

2009-04-03T13:39:00.021+02:00

The region Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, which includes six départements including le Vaucluse, extends from Orange, Avignon, and Arles in the west to the Alps and the Italian border in the east. Funny thing, though, about what actually constitutes la Côte d’Azur, or what we call the French Riviera. On the east, no problem: Menton which is situated right next to Italy. The westernmost point, however, seems to be somewhat in dispute. According to my research, either Théoule-sur-mer (just west of Cannes) or Hyères (east of Toulon) serves as the Riviera’s end point in the west. At any rate, last Friday we took off in a rental car to do a bit more exploring of “our” area.

The bright sunny day made it extremely enjoyable driving through small towns nestled in the mountain range of le Luberon before reaching our first destination, Lourmarin. The weekly marché was in full swing when we arrived in town, so we spent about a half-hour looking at books, clothes, and gift and food items for sale there. Lourmarin is very lovely, with its art galleries and nice shops—quite surprising for a town of less than 1200 people. We took advantage of the warm weather to find a spot outdoors at a café to have lunch, relax, and do some people-watching. Then we headed to the town cemetery to pay our respects at the grave of Camus.

From there we hopped on l’Autoroute A8 heading east for la Côte d’Azur. After about a two-hour ride we got to Cabris, high in the mountains of les Alpes-Maritimes near Grasse. We had directions to our chambre d’hôte (“bed and breakfast”), of course, but still some detective work was needed to decipher the signs and arrive at the mountainside villa. It was fun walking around the small town, appreciating its views of le port and le phare (or “lighthouse”) of Antibes in the distance. We learned from the lady who owns the B & B that a home nearby, la Messuguière, used to welcome French intellectuals—such as Gide and Camus—to its quiet retreat and that Gide's daughter, Catherine, still lives in the town. There were actually a number of restaurants to choose from and we eventually settled on La Chèvre d’Or (“The Golden Goat”) for supper that night.

The next morning, despite the clouds, we were up early and headed off for Grasse and Vence: two working-class cities which proved to be largely disappointing. Luckily for us, other towns in the surrounding area had a lot more charm. It was enjoyable, for example, exploring the tiny streets of Châteauneuf de Grasse, even if our search for traces of Julia Child and Simone Beck were in vain. We were quite surprised to discover the attractive medieval village of Les Tourettes-sur-Loup, one of those small places where photo ops present themselves at every turn.

Sunday was the worst day of the weekend, rainy and cold, which cut short any plans for seeing the coast. Seems like everywhere we go, too, people tell us that the weather is never like this! Small comfort! We contented ourselves with une brocante (a type of flea market) in Carpentras on our way home.

All About Olives

2009-04-01T09:48:00.013+02:00

The silvery green leaves of the olivier (“olive tree”) stay on its branches all year long and are easy to spot throughout the southern-most regions of France: Provence-Côte d’Azur and Languedoc-Roussillon. One sees the gnarled trunks of the low-cut trees lined up in groves, along the side of the autoroute, or in pots as ornamentals in people’s yards. Over a hundred different olive varieties exist and, while the trees generally take three decades to reach maturity, they can live as long as a thousand years! No wonder Van Gogh and other artists have made them the subject of many paintings.

According to what I’ve read, olives, along with grapes, were among the first cultivated crops. When you think about it, the two plants have a lot in common. Both can be grown simply for their fruit or the fruit can be crushed and made into a whole different product, i.e. olive oil and wine. The end results are affected by differences of varietal, the amount of sunshine, the soil and overall climate, when and how the crops are harvested, and, ultimately, the production methods.

Olives have to be harvested carefully and quickly, no matter if the fruit is intended to be consumed directly or to be used for olive oil. Hand-picking yields the best outcome, but olive branches are sometimes gently combed with a tool called une perche à peigne. It is important, however, that the fragile fruit doesn’t hit the ground, so a large net (un filet) is suspended or stretched out on the ground to cushion its fall. The most perfect specimens are treated with a kind of brine and later spiced in some way, with garlic, herbs, chili peppers, pimento, or anchovies, for example, eventually making their way to the dinner table. Others are transported to un moulin à huile, where they are ground and their oil is extracted. Even individuals having several trees in their yard can gather up 200 kilos of olives and have their own oil pressed at a mill.

Three countries in Europe presently account for 93% of the worldwide commercial production of olive oil: Spain, Italy, and Greece. France lags far behind in large part because of an event referred to as le grand gel, a frost in 1956 which reduced the number of French olive trees drastically from around 300,000 to about 70,000 today. Yet, French olive oil is considered one of the finest because of the types of olives grown here (which are not bitter), as well as the country’s strict standards. Eight areas have been classified as appellation d’origine contrôlée, insuring top quality. A woman selling oil at a marché in Lourmarin on Friday told us always to look for A.O.C. on the label, since certain producers "borrow" the big names such as Nyons in order to sell inferior products.

The French have several excellent recipes using olives. A couple of hors-d’œuvres ideas include a tasty spread for crackers or bread named tapenade which can be made with either green (unripe) or black (ripe) olives and cake aux olives. I never tried the latter, but it sounds delicious to me. As for main dishes, there are two recipes from Nice which both use the small, tart niçoise olive: the traditional salade niçoise and pissaladière, a kind of onion, olive, and anchovy pizza without tomato sauce. And with that I’ll say bon appétit!

Le franglais

2009-03-24T11:09:00.028+01:00

In 1635 le cardinal Richelieu, minister of Louis XIII, made good on a promise of sponsoring a small number of people who met at l’Hôtel de Rambouillet to discuss literature. The group became l’Académie française, a highly-respected organization which continues to function today. The Academy acts as the official authority to advise the nation on the appropriate usage, vocabulary, and grammar of the French language; it is also charged with publishing an official dictionary and with distributing prizes for different literary genres and criticism, as well as for cinema, history, art history, philosophy, and in the area of Francophonie for French-speaking areas outside of la métropole. Because the official seal granted by Richelieu contains the motto À l’immortalité, the forty individuals who are elected to the organization for life are called les immortels. There is the possibility, however, of being unseated in the case of grave misconduct, as were members of the Vichy government such as Pétain after the Second World War. Since its origins in the seventeenth century, in over 700 elections, the French Academy has only selected five women as members, including Marguerite Yourcenaur and Assia Djebar. Poet, Senegalese president, and long-time French resident before his death in 2001, Léopold Sédar Senghor also became an immortel. In general, members are writers (e.g. Victor Hugo), politicians (Giscard d’Estaing), scientists (Pasteur), lawyers, historians, philosophers (like Voltaire and Michel Serres), and high level clergymen. In 2008, musician and songwriter, Jean-Loup Dabadie (pictured in center), joined the French Academy. Members meet on Thursdays sous la coupole (under the dome, as they say) of l’Institut de France in Paris. Their ceremonial clothing includes an embroidered green jacket, l’habit vert, and for the men a hat called a bicorne and a sword, une épée.

L'Académie is a conservative body which attempts to “purify” the language. In the past it has rejected neologisms such as the verb alunir (“to land on the moon”), prefering instead the longer and more clumsy alternative atterrir sur la lune. Recently, the use of the term ministre in the feminine to refer to women ministers was refused in favor of maintaining its original masculine form. (I have to think that Richelieu would be proud!) One of the French Academy’s most difficult challenges has been trying to limit the influx of English, or more correctly American, words from entering the language. It seems more and more to be a losing battle; on this visit to France we have been shocked at the amount of English words which have worked their way into French. Much of it, of course, is on television, where I assume people feel that it shows a certain erudition to use English. The vocabulary covers a wide variety of topics and situations: from simple exclamations such as “oops!” and “wow!” (Frenchified in spelling--usually but not always--to oups! and waouh! to suit their pronunciation rules) to adjectives like cozy and groggy (I assume admitted “as is” in terms of spelling). Not surprisingly, I suppose, computer phrases like un bug informatique and des spams are flourishing. Many times, though, it’s puzzling to hear English adjectives (like crazy, fun, or old-school) or nouns (like un break, un discount, un flop, un hobby, or le finish) when perfectly acceptable French words exist. And it’s not just on television that one sees or hears English. Billboards attempt to entice you to buy le mobilier outdoor (“patio furniture,” we would probably say) or des options low-cost for any number of products or services. Even the réparateur who came to fix the belt on our washing machine early in our stay used the word “spin” instead of l’essorage. A warning: pronunciation is always à la française and sometimes difficult to understand.

Last month a new comedy starring Sophie Marceau came out entitled LOL, which got me wondering about le langage texto, also called les mots SMS (for “short message service words”). Naturally, plenty of genuine French words make the texto list: ht for acheter (“to buy”), oqp for occupé (“busy”), vazi for vas-y (“go ahead”), and @+ for à plus [tard] (“see you [later]”). Le verlan is also well-represented in text messages, as it is in the spoken language; this kind of slang consists of words made by reversing the consonant sounds, a bit like “pig latin.” We find the French word for “woman”—femme—which becomes meuf, parents becomes renps, fou (or “crazy”--see, I told you they had a word!) becomes ouf, and méchant (“mean”) becomes chanmé. As expected, there are lots of English words and expressions: "4me" is used for pour moi, "kiss" instead of bisou, "sry"("sorry") for désolé, and "asap" stands for aussi vite que possible. There's a book out completely written in le langage texto by Phil Marso, Pa Sage a TaBa vo SMS, for anyone up for un vrai challenge to test their text messaging skills.

Blog de ma terrasse

2009-03-22T10:32:00.020+01:00

One of my favorite French authors, Daudet, inspired by a Provençal windmill in Fontvieille (Bouche du Rhone), wrote a collection of short stories under the title of Lettres de mon Moulin. What I offer here is in no way comparable to the works of that enormously talented and charming nineteenth century writer, but simple observations from time spent on the rooftop deck of the house where we are living. For about a week now the weather has been sunny and getting warmer, offering opportunites for reading outside and for surverying the surroundings.

For starters, let’s not neglect the obvious: towering above the deck are the church to one side and Mont Ventoux to the other. The mountain still has an expansive cover of snow on the top, but each day the patches of green seem to be widening. Looking down into town, I can see along the main street the tops of platanes (“plane trees”) which have been pruned to make them more resilient. Certain species of trees both near and far appear to be starting to sprout their leaves; for quite awhile now les amandiers (“almond trees”) have been displaying their striking pink blossoms.

A few smells waft up from down below, notably of the freshly baked bread from the town boulangeries (“bakeries”) and smoke from the fireplaces of a few homes nearby. In the distance, you spot another type of smoke: that from small fires that vignerons (“winemakers”) have set to burn les sarments (or “the vine shoots”) they have cut off their vines, readying them for the grape-growing period.

It is very quiet for the most part upstairs on the deck. The sounds of the bells from the church continue uninterrupted,of course, announcing the hour and half-hour. There are various kinds of birds flying by and one can hear the cooing both of the les pigeons at the church and les tourtereaux (“turtle doves”) from various spots around town. Dassault military jets sometimes fly over, too, disrupting the serenity by the ruckus they make. Bits of conversations from neighbors drift up, reminding me that I am indeed in France. During the week, at least twice a day, we notice the happy sounds of young children playing in front of the school at recess (à la récré). Every once in awhile young cats cross the rooftops, often attempting death-defying jumps as cats are wont to do. A young female tabby drops by on occasion to say “bonjour” and to lie next to my books and papers on the table.

Above all, what you observe up on the roof is the contrast of old and new. On the one hand, the labyrinth of the small streets and the architecture tell you that the town has been around for a long time. Especially old are the walls of the homes and the cobblestone on certain walkways. The tiles on rooftops vary in age and condition. Some are quite new, while others are broken or cracked; several are even held in place by heavy rocks. On the other hand, this is the twenty-first century and des paraboles ("satellite dishes") and cell phone towers take their place in the landscape.

Apologies to Daudet…

Off to Montpellier

2009-03-20T08:19:00.031+01:00

Last Thursday on a gorgeous day we arrived in Montpellier, a city in the southern region of Languedoc-Roussillon where we had spent the spring semester in 2003. It’s always a relief to get to a place where you have been before, to walk right out of the train station and know exactly where to find the hotel. After dropping off our bags, we headed for the historic downtown, known as l’Écusson because on a map the area resembles a badge or a coat of arms. At noon we were able to enjoy a meal at an outdoor café near Les Halles, the covered central food market; it was so nice to have lunch out in the sun for the first time this year.

Close by is the bookstore Gibert Joseph, where we spent nearly an hour looking over new and second-hand books, DVDs, and postcards. From there it is just a short walk to Place de la Comédie, the impressive square that is the heart of downtown. We inquired about walking tours at the office de tourisme, but none suited our schedule. So, we gladly found a bench for reading our newly purchased books, overlooking the flower beds of the Esplanade Charles de Gaulle.

There is so much we love about Montpellier: its warm people (Coucou, les amis!), its narrow medieval streets, its mild climate, its nearness to the Mediterranean. One thing we’ve never been too crazy about, though, is its lack of fine cuisine. But on Thursday night, after doing a little Internet research on the French equivalent of Chowhound, called Où Bouffer (“Where to eat”), we were lucky enough to come across glowing reviews of Le Nhà-Quê. This restaurant of just ten tables, which is only open from Thursday to Saturday evening, serves delicious Vietnamese cuisine, probably the best we’ve ever had. The owner/chef/waiter, a very vivacious fellow, delighted us with his wonderful fare as well as his impeccable French. My mouth still waters thinking about le magret de canard laqué ("lacquered duck breast") that I had that night!

On Friday and Saturday we visited friends and explored some familiar and unfamiliar parts of the city: la Promenade de Peyrou (the elevated place royale in honor of the Sun King, Louis XIV), l’Arc de Triomphe (just across the street and restored since we were last in town), le Jardin des Plantes (where the hyacinths and mimosa were in bloom), la cathédrale Saint-Pierre (with its fortress-like towers), and next to it la Faculté de Médecine (where, believe it or not, Nostradamus and Rabelais studied in the 1530s!). We dropped by another favorite bookstore, Sauramps, where a helpful clerk searched his database for secondary works on Vargas for me.

To round out the weekend on Sunday we took the tram to Port Marianne and grabbed a bus to the beach. We were not the only ones to have the idea! The restaurants and shops along the canal and the boardwalk of Palavas-les-Flots were swarming with folks like us, who were eager to benefit from the warmer spring temperatures. A few people were playing games on the beach and there were even some brave souls swimming in the Mediterranean. The whole trip was a wonderful way to celebrate the true and long-desired beginning of spring.

A Few Travel Tips

2009-03-17T16:48:00.012+01:00

For those readers who have not had a lot of experience traveling in France, I thought I’d offer a few pieces of advice and general reflections. First of all, despite what some folks might try to tell you, French people are quite friendly and welcoming. Just learning and using a few simple phrases of their language can help to make things go a lot easier. Learning to say bonjour is number one; meaning “hello,” “good morning,” or “good afternoon,” it is, in my estimation, the most frequently employed word in the language as well as one of the most important. (Bonsoir, by the way, is used after dark for “good evening.”) One of the hardest things for Americans to grasp is that greeting people is extremely important in this culture and in other Francophone areas. This includes saying “hello” to people who are serving you in any capacity: the clerks at the hotel, bus drivers, ticket takers on trains, all salespeople, workers in a fast food restaurant or a bookstore, etc. In fact, you should greet practically everyone you make eye contact with, particularly in small towns. Not hearing “hello” from others feels very offensive to French people and the same is true in the case of “good-bye”—au revoir. Once you have the greetings down, just add s’il vous plaît (for “please”) and merci (for “thank you”) to your vocabulary and voilà, you’re well on your way to becoming a model tourist.

Train travel is one of the most comfortable ways to see the country. An easy thing for inexperienced travelers to forget is to composter le billet—you have to stamp your ticket to validate it in one of the many small yellow machines found inside the train station and on les quais, the platforms, before boarding the train. Le TGV (the high-speed train whose acronym comes from the phrase train à grande vitesse), which serves most French cities, can cover very large distances in a short amount of time. For example, you can travel the 490 miles from Paris to Marseille in just over three hours. On the high speed trains, you have assigned seats and before the train arrives you can consult an electronic sign which indicates la composition des trains; that way, you can be standing in the right spot on the platform when the train pulls into the station. It’s a good idea to keep your used TGV tickets on any given trip in case you need to change to an earlier or later train on the return. We learned the hard way that stamped right on the tickets is the phrase Conservez vos billets. Whether taking the TGV or the smaller train express régional (TER), it’s always a good idea to pack light…very light. Many stations are not equipped with ramps so travelers end up having to carry their bags up and down flights of stairs.

My final topic, if I may be so bold, has to do with public restrooms. There are very few, it seems, especially in small- to medium-sized cities and towns. We were just in Montpellier over the weekend and had to really scour around to find les toilettes. Nearly all department stores, bookstores, supermarkets, and the like do not have facilities freely available. Cafés and the large shopping mall had des WC, and there were some free-standing port-o-potties (that you have to pay for, of course) at the beach. While train stations have bathroom facilities, they, too, are often payant. Thus, the intelligent traveler is forewarned and has to plan ahead for such eventualities.

A Visit to l'Hôtel-Dieu

2009-03-07T12:21:00.029+01:00

The series Laissez-vous conter (roughly translated as “Listen to the story”), presented by the tourist office at Carpentras, ended its two-week run on the last day of the region’s school vacation on Friday. A small group of about eight of us took advantage of a tour of l'Hôtel-Dieu (or “the general hospital”). Eighteenth century bishop Monseigneur d’Inguimbert, who figured prominently in reducing the size of the town’s synagogue, had two big projects in mind during his time as a church leader: the building of a library for all of the residents and a hospital for the poor. He accomplished both apparently, including this imposing edifice.

We began the visit, buffeted by the mistral, standing out in front of the former hospital. Our guide, Isabelle, told us that stone for the building was brought from nearby limestone quarries, but that unlike most other structures in the Vaucluse which are built with their back facing the north wind, the hospital was designed to benefit from the frequent air currents to clear toxic fumes--évacuer les miasmes--from the interior. She pointed out nice touches on the façade created by the architect Antoine d’Allemand: the angelots (“cherubs”) in the pediment above the second story whose legs and feet hang down in a very charming way and the four sculpted "masks" which stand for the four periods of life or the four seasons. Inside there are other attractive structural elements, like the staircases, les escaliers suspendus, which hang as if by magic to the hospital walls. It seems that at first some parishioners were none too happy about the building, saying it was too nice for the poor: trop beau pour les pauvres. But the bishop was convinced that the beauty of the surroundings was important for healing the sick.

Isabelle gave an interesting account of the history of the hospital. The St. Augustine nuns were responsible for the care of patients and of les enfants abandonnés (or “abandoned children”) who were left in something that resembles a kind of dumbwaiter. In the hall of la grande galérie there are framed paintings from as early as 1755 identifying les donatifs (“donors”) who provided funds to run the hospital. Two of the loveliest areas in the building, which seem to be untouched since the eighteenth century, are la chapelle and la pharmacie. The chapel, decorated in the Italian renaissance style, is made of red marble from the Languedoc region of France. Behind a grill on the right is le chœur (or “choir”) where the nuns used to sit while attending mass. On the left is the tomb of the bishop, ornamented with statues of two women, one standing for la Connaissance (“knowledge” because of his creation of the library) and the other la Charité (because of his charity in building a hospital for the poor). The pharmacy, which was run by another order of nuns (les sœurs de la Miséricorde), comprises several rooms: the laboratory where medications were made, an office which held hospital records, a library, and a boutique.

The latter space is truly delightful: there are murals of cherubs (again indicating the four seasons--by way of flowers, wheat, grapes, and huddled around a fire) and amusing ochre renderings of monkeys making medicine on some of the cabinets. One scene shows un saigné, bleeding himself from his foot, in an attempt to get les quatre humeurs ("the four humors") into balance. In addition, the room has containers and pieces of built-in furniture kept in their original condition. Various sizes of pots and glasses, and over 160 drawers—some still containing flowers, powders, oils, waxes, creams, and pieces of bone and snakes—line the walls. Visiting the Hôtel-Dieu seemed like a real trip back in time.

Le mistral

2009-03-06T09:24:00.040+01:00

Funny where inspiration for blogging comes from. For me, the idea arrived at two o’clock this morning when le mistral, the famous dry, cold wind that batters southeastern sections of France, started really raging outside. From the sound of it and the numbers of hours it continued during the night, you would’ve thought that there would be debris all over the place this morning. But no, everything looks completely normal, even though the wind continues to gust at over 120 kilometers (or around 74 miles) an hour. The town and its people are obviously prepared for and quite used to the mistral.

This northern wind, generated by differences in pressure and temperature between la Manche (the English Channel) and the Mediterranean, blows nearly 130 days a year in the Vaucluse. Mainly active from November through April, it sweeps down through the narrow Rhone valley, often reaching speeds of 170 km hour (105 mph) on top of Mont Ventoux. Some poplar trees, it is said, are permanently bent in the direction that the mistral pushes them. The plus side of such a violent wind is that it clears the air and usually brings in sunny skies of the most brilliant blue.
Like le foehn in Switzerland and la tramontane, the mistral's “sister” coming down from the north and out of les Pyrénées in southwestern France, this wind is considered part of the region's culture. It figures in a series of paintings of Cap d'Antibes by Monet and has been the subject of several petits santons (or “little saints”)--like those by Paul Fouque--that are lovingly placed under the tree at Christmastime. One of Fouque's creations, called le Coup de Mistral, (or roughly "A blast of mistral") is considered a masterpiece of the santons and features a berger ("shepherd") holding his hat and staff and fighting against the wind. For us today, the mistral only creates minor irritations like the power going off every couple of minutes which means that the Wi-Fi takes time to reboot.

Hiking around Mont Ventoux

2009-03-04T07:23:00.015+01:00

I’ve read that, upon seeing Mont Ventoux (official altitude 1909 m. or 6,273 ft.), some people immediately want to climb to the top…“because it’s there,” I suppose. Even more grueling is biking up the trails of the mountain; indeed, le géant de Provence ("the Giant of Provence") has figured prominently over the years in the legendary 2200-mile bike race known as le Tour de France. The ascent from Bédoin, considered one of the toughest in professional cycling, will be required of participants in le Tour once again this July 25th. While I would not go so far as to attempt to reach the summit of Ventoux on foot or by riding my bike, I certainly agree that there is a fascination with this peak of the Pré-Alpes, which dominates the Provençal landscape for miles around.

What attracts me the most about Mont Ventoux is its beauty, of course, as well as the richness and diversity of the forest surrounding it: la grande forêt communale. Our town library has a wonderful guide on the subject, published in 2007 and entitled Ventoux, géant de nature. Apparently, from the twelfth century onwards, wood from the mountainside was used for various purposes, including shipbuilding in Toulon, and at least 68% of the forest was depleted. Efforts at reboisement (or “reforestation”) were led by Bédoin’s nineteenth century mayor Joseph Eymard as early as 1858 and culminated in the replanting of oaks, beeches, and different types of pine trees. Cedars were brought in from the Atlas mountains in Algeria, then part of France, but, as is often the case in such situations (think "kudzu" in the southeastern U.S.), these trees from outside the area are taking over from other native species. Recognized as a réserve de biosphère by UNESCO in 1990, the forest of 6300 hectares (or over 3000 acres) and its flora and fauna will be protected for future generations.

Hikes (des randonnées pédestres) are very popular and trails (des pistes balisées) crisscross the forest; from here we have to walk gradually uphill for about a half-hour to reach the closest one. Just last Saturday we spent about an hour and a half getting an introduction to the trail just past Les Clop. Plant life on Mont Ventoux is abundant; there are more than 1200 different species. And because of the microclimates on the mountain, the vegetation is a combination of both Mediterranean and Alpine. Since it is just barely meteorological spring, not much is flowering yet, though we did see some pretty wildflowers and big patches of rosemary in bloom.

One day early in our stay here we met an older man who told us about the animal life in the forest: wild boar, mountain sheep, deer, and the like. So far, although we’ve seen and heard some birds in and around the forest, larger wild animals have eluded us. As a side note, a few times on our way back from our walks we’ve noticed one of the three remaining bergers (“shepherds”) with his dogs and flock of sheep; they were hard to miss given that les moutons are all wearing cow bells!

Market Day

2009-03-01T12:07:00.012+01:00

Early every Monday morning, barricades are assembled, déviations (“detours”) are put in place, and a large part of le Cours, the main street in Bédoin, is closed down. A bevy of small trucks then trek in to town to set up le marché. As in every French city and town that I’ve ever known, the outdoor market continues throughout the year, but the amount of activity varies dramatically based on the weather. Rainy, cold days reduce the number of buyers and thus keep sellers away. But last Monday, even though le mistral was gusting at a pretty good clip, the day dawned bright and sunny and the town was buzzing with people.

The southern-most area of town, down by the cultural center, seems to be primarily devoted to non-food items. There are stalls and racks of clothing, shoes, socks, and slippers, brightly-colored Provençal material and linens, “industrial” pottery and wooden objects (like cutting boards), soaps, and small gift items. One marchand (“vendor “) even has a display of mattresses for sale! Because of the low overhead I assume, the prices are quite reasonable by French standards. By far, however, le marché is where you go to stock up on most of your groceries for the week.

Even though les Bédoinais have Shopi and Vival to rely on, nothing is as fresh or as varied as the produce they can get at the market. Each of three or four different stands we’ve seen has a stack of small plastic baskets for buyers to use while choosing their fruits and vegetables. One thing that surprised us last week was seeing a customer remove one rib of celery from a stalk, which the seller weighed and priced for him without batting an eyelash! (We saw the same thing repeated at Shopi, by the way, later on in the week.) There are several places which offer fish and meats: everything from salami made from sanglier (“wild boar”) to beef, lamb, pork, chicken, and horsemeat (I personally draw the line at chevaline!). The air is filled with the delightful aroma of grilling chickens; their price depends on their type and whether or not they are élevés en liberté (“free range”); you can usually ask for onions and mushrooms to take home with the chicken. The town butcher gets in on the action by having his own grilling chickens outside his shop. Other vendors add to the delicious odors by selling prepared foods like paella and Asian eggrolls (des nems).

The range of items for sale varies greatly—from big bowls of olives at one stall to plastic-lined burlap sacks filled with spices at the next. One lady from Gordes has a whole display of her homemade jams from various fruits such as strawberries, raspberries, and figs. Certain people try to make a sale by handing out samples of their cheese, pesto, or aïoli. You can also get bread, wine, and even a bouquet of flowers.

As one might easily imagine, vendors are as different as the goods they sell. A few marchands practically ignore you and continue knitting, reading, or eating breakfast; others are friendly and want to kid around. Some people remember us from before and engage us in conversion. Our fish man, for example, is always ready to discuss the weather, or the prevalence and quality of fish in la Bretagne versus the relative scarcity (according to him at least) of those found in the Mediterranean, or the force of the mistral in Bédoin (very light) compared to the same wind in Orange (very strong). Anyway, market day is always a lot of fun.

Afternoon lecture series

2009-02-27T09:46:00.022+01:00

When we were at the tourist bureau in Carpentras about a month ago, the young woman working there gave us a flyer of tours and lectures in and around the city. So, yesterday, on a beautiful day that was about 30 degrees warmer than on our last trip (now up to about 55 degrees F.), we caught the 1:00 bus in to town.

On tap for Thursday the 26th was a tour of the synagogue—la syna, as the guide Anne-Sophie referred to it—and a lecture on l’histoire et symbolique des rites alimentaires juifs (“the history and symbolism of Jewish food rituals”). But first, since at least two of us were not natives of the area, our guide told us a bit about the city itself. Its name comes from the word char (as in “cart”) because in the past Carpentras was a gathering place for farmers who transported their products there for sale. Anne-Sophie also pointed out that the locale has been inhabited since the Neolithic period and that Greeks from Marseille and Romans also occupied the area. There is, in fact, an arc de triomphe romain dating from the 1st century still standing in the city center. We also walked by la cathédrale Saint-Siffrein which, like many French churches, has elements of construction from several different centuries.

The church was also the starting point for the lecture about Jewish history in Carpentras. In the thirteenth century, a large region extending roughly from the Rhone to Mont Ventoux was sold to the papacy and became known then (as well as today) as le Comtat Venaissin, named after the town of Venasque. This independent state, protected by the Pope, became, to a certain extent, a haven for Jews expelled from other places like France. However, Jews in the area suffered various forms of censure. They were required to pay special taxes not demanded of others, to identify themselves by wearing red, and later on yellow (the latter being a color long associated with the marking of people like prostitutes as infâmes, “despicable”), and to attend Catholic services, entering through la porte juive (“the Jewish door”). At first they were forced to live outside the city ramparts and later they were confined to a dark, crowded place inside the walls called la carrière, from the Provençal word for “street.”

The synagogue, built in 1367, is the oldest Jewish place of worship in France. At the time of its construction, there were only about 90 Jewish families living in Carpentras. In the early eighteenth century the community had grown quite large, and authorization was given by Bishop d’Inguimbert to increase the size of the synagogue; the bishop, however, became incensed and demanded a change of plans when it appeared that the new edifice would be taller than the nearby cathedral. Today the interior is much as it was in the 1700s: there are chandeliers all around to symbolize the fact that Dieu, c’est la lumière (“God is light”); all of the walls are made of wood, though some of them look exactly like they are lined with marble; there is a small red chair in a niche on the wall which represents the coming of Eli during rites of circumcision.

Anne-Sophie, who was quite knowledgeable, told us that a synagogue is a place of prière, étude et réunion (“prayer, study, and gathering”). She spent a lot of time, of course, describing food in the Jewish tradition: the various restrictions, preparations, and the need for multiple dishware, etc. It was interesting to hear about the importance of hygiene in food preparation and ritual washing, which many believe protected Jews from falling ill to the plague in the Middle Ages and their animals from being affected by la vache folle (“mad cow disease”) in the 1990s. All in all, it was a very pleasant and informative afternoon.

Fred Vargas 101

2009-02-24T10:03:00.021+01:00

A couple of years ago our daughter-in-law Lorène started telling us about a writer of crime fiction she really enjoyed, Fred Vargas. While I once read a reference to “him” in a book review, Fred is indeed a woman, born Frédérique Audouin-Rouzeau in Paris 1957. Trained as a medieval historian and archeozoologist, she has a lengthy opus on the plague, Les Chemins de la peste. But just over twenty years ago, she took up the pseudonym Vargas and began writing polars or rompols, as she refers to them. When applying for a sabbatical last year, I decided to research this highly popular, award-winning author and I have not been disappointed. Although her books are filled with the multiple murders, investigations, and red herrings typical of detective novels, the imagined world she creates is unique in many ways.

Here, it is not the solving of the mystery that is all important; in fact, on a few occasions I have had the ending figured out well ahead of time. Hands down, her idiosyncratic characters are the most enjoyable part of her work. Coming from all walks of life—politicians, professors, artists, prostitutes, café owners, students—they form a very human and believable world. No one’s life is perfect; no one has all the answers, not even the most clever detective; on the other hand, no one is a complete imbecile. Vargas is a keen observer of human nature: how we tend to repeat the same things, our recurring gestures, the way our minds jump around from one subject to the next. Particularly appealing are some of her returning characters like the intuitive and slow-moving commissaire Adamsberg and three young men, Mathias, Marc, and Lucien, known as les trois evangélistes.

Humor plays a big role in Vargas’s fiction. The youth of the three evangelists, for example, provides her with the occasion to use familiar and sometimes crude language which can be quite amusing. The French expression être dans la merde, whose connotation is more like “to be in big trouble,” is frequently repeated with interesting variations throughout Debout les morts (translated as The Three Evangelists in English) to describe the down-on-their-luck young men. Their diverse scholarly backgrounds also allow opportunities to enrich the book in a comical way. Marc, the medievalist, needs to find roommates to share la baraque pourrie (“the rotten shack”) he’s found to rent. He immediately thinks of Mathias, the “hunter-gatherer” prehistorian, but can’t imagine living with someone whose research separates them by 30,000 years! When Mathias then suggests Lucien, a contemporanéiste specializing in World War I, as a possible third person to share the rent, Marc is at first outraged: Il y a des limites à tout! (“Everything has limits!”), but eventually acquiesces upon learning that Lucien is dans la merde as well.

For those of you whose knowledge of French is nil or limited, there is good news: at least six of Vargas’s novels have been translated into English. Her works can, in fact, be found in over forty foreign countries. For people wishing to perfectionner la langue ("improve your language skills), I would suggest perhaps getting both the French and English copies of the same book, Debout les morts and The Three Evangelists, for example. That way, you could read, say, the English version first and follow it by the French. Bonne lecture! Happy reading!

A Day in the Life

2009-02-22T08:54:00.004+01:00

Normally, church bells are the only sound one hears at night in Bédoin. While we have spent time in other small towns of le Midi (southern France), where the awful clanging wakes you up all night long, these bells have a daintiness about them. Good thing, too, since we live just down the hill from the church! The bells continue the age-old tradition of telling people what time it is. Twenty-four hours a day, they sound once for each hour and then, curiously enough around here, repeat a few minutes later in case you missed it! The bells also sound one time on the half hour. But at seven a.m. (as well as at noon and seven p.m.—I imagine indicating matins, angelus, and vespers), the bells ring many times, so that is usually when I begin my day.

Ray generally goes out for a walk first thing, even though until lately it’s been quite dark at that hour of the morning. He’s gotten to know the people at the tabac (more like a convenience store than just a place to get tobacco products), where he buys the paper. While he’s out, he sometimes stops at one of the four town boulangeries to pick up viennoiseries, such as croissants, pains au chocolat, or my personal favorite triangles aux amandes (a version of almond croissants).

During the week, I usually start my day by blogging or reading the newspaper. In fact, one day in Libération, I saw an ad from a Parisian professor who was in urgent need of a bilingual philosopher to translate his communication on Rousseau to be given in Denmark in March...right up Ray's alley. So, we’ve spent a lot of time the past few weeks working on that.

Some mornings we catch part of Télématin, France’s answer to The Today Show. Their host of twenty something years, William Leymergie, and his crew report on a wide variety of subjects—the news, weather, book and film reviews, recipes, and the like, plus a standard feature about history. There are always many references to the U.S.—our politics and culture, of course—with several English words (like “yes,” “very French”…) thrown in. It’s still cool knowing English, I guess.

Both Ray and I devote most of our day to our research, spending a lot of time reading—Camus for him and Fred Vargas for me. We have to watch the clock, or listen to the bells, though, to be sure to get to Shopi before 12:30, if we need food for lunch. Otherwise we fall victim to yet another tradition: the practice of businesses closing for several hours starting around noontime for lunch and la sieste. (This is true, by the way, for most stores—from banks and the post office to bakeries, etc.) We’re in Shopi a lot. Not having a car is a great stress reliever in so many ways: it really slows you down, since you have to walk everywhere; you don’t have to worry about where to park or the fluctuations in the price of gas; no agitation fighting traffic. But you also have to carry everything home that you purchase at the supermarket. And you have to remember to bring your bags because none are provided and there are usually not even any cardboard boxes available.

If we have time, we like to go out for a walk mid-afternoon. Saturday, for example, we spent about an hour walking past vineyards and old farmhouses (des mas) at the foot of Mont Ventoux. We feel the sun getting stronger and seeing wildflowers starting to bloom gives us hope that spring is just around the corner.

Heading South—part two

2009-02-19T10:45:00.004+01:00

To get from Marseille to Ajaccio, in Corsica, there are two options: take a 12–hour boat ride or a 35-minute flight. Since ferries in February only have one sailing per day which leaves at night and arrives in the morning, thus missing nice views of the Mediterranean, we decided to take Air France. Flying over Corsica and its chain of mountains was, indeed, a beautiful and impressive sight. The ancient Greeks who first settled the island called it kallisté, or “the most beautiful”—a name adopted by our hotel.

Ajaccio, the capital city of 53,000, seemed smaller than we had imagined. There is a pretty nice downtown, but there are not many big stores—except for Monoprix and two grandes surfaces, supercenters, Carrefour and Leclerc, on the outskirts of town. As usual, one of our first stops was the tourist bureau where we found a female worker who loves her region and was eager to help us learn about l'Île de Beauté. We explained that we were there for three days, but didn’t have a car. Not discouraged, she gave us three good suggestions that included a bus ride, a train ride, what to do in the city, as well as advice on where to eat.

Having walked a lot in Marseille the day before, we liked the idea of taking a city bus for 1 euro 20 that would take us along the coast past all of the beaches. Very lovely and, of course, free of the 100,000+ tourists who flock there in summer. For us, even though it was warm (no heavy jackets needed here!), the problem was showers and by the time we arrived at the end of the bus line, it was really pouring. So, instead of walking around near the lighthouse and on the beaches and rocks as we had planned, we stayed on the bus and came back downtown for a little shopping and getting the lay of the land. That night right next to us at a table at L’Estaminet, was a friendly man, originally from the Democratic Republic of Congo, who is now the general director of an école hôtelière (“hotel management school”) in the Pyrenees. We might have to plan a trip there to check it out.

On day two, still following ideas from the lady at the tourist office, we got up early to take a very small train of only one car to the heart of Corsica, Corté. The little train passes through the mountains of le Parc Naturel et Régional, offering dizzying views of the gorges below. Corsicans feel much affection for Corté, a town of 6700 in la Haute-Corse, nestled high in the mountains. In the eighteenth century Pascal (initially Pasquale) Paoli used Corté as his capital in his successful attempt to wrest the island from the control of the Republic of Genoa. One finds his name today on the University of Corté. Although Corsican independence was short-lived (just over ten years), pride in their region and their language is evident. Walking around Corté, one hears le corse spoken quite often on the streets. We enjoyed the town: the beautiful panoramas, a nice lunch, and le Musée de la Corse.

Because it was a Friday, our train back to Ajaccio now had two cars and was filled with a lively bunch of guitar-playing and Corsican-singing students from the university. That night we enjoyed out best meal since we had arrived at Auberge Colomba, whose character of an owner serves, among other things, a variety of traditional cured meats and sheep’s milk cheeses.

Saturday morning we devoted to seeing Napoléon’s birthplace and learning more about the history of Ajaccio. It was, of course, a quirk of fate that Napoléon was born French; just the year prior to his birth France announced its acquisition of the island in a secret treaty from the Genovese. The museum, the actual property of the Buonoparte (as they were then called) family but without original furnishings, is nicely documented. We had a tasty lunch at the Trou dans le Mur, but the rainy weather drove us back to the hotel early.

Heading South—part one

2009-02-16T10:56:00.000+01:00

Earlier this month, in keeping with our travel plans and hoping to find warmer, sunnier weather, we took off for the Mediterranean. Marseille was our first stop. Sometimes referred to as la cité phocéenne, having been settled by Greeks from the city of Phonecea around 600 BC, it is France’s oldest city. It is also one of the country’s most populous and diverse cities and gets my vote as “most improved,” in terms of its actual appearance, tourist services, and race relations.

Our hotel le Saint Ferréol was pleasant and conveniently situated. Since we got in around 11:30 in the morning, we immediately thought about going to have lunch. The friendly clerk at the hotel told us to avoid les pièges à touristes (literally “the tourist traps”) located along the Vieux Port and to opt instead for any one of the places on the nearby rue Sainte. Many restaurants are still closed this early in the year, but we finally found a little family-owned North African place. Although the owner seemed surprised to see us walk in at 11:55 and the wait was rather long for his wife’s couscous, we found this a true comfort food on a chilly day.

Now fortified and energized we headed for tourist bureau on the boulevard de la Canebière. (The street’s name, by the way, has nothing to do with beer, but with hemp rope that used to be made in a factory near there). The three young women working at the tourist office were memorable for their enthusiasm; they gave us enough ideas for at least three days even though we only had an afternoon to spend sightseeing. My husband remarked later that the woman in Bédoin’s maison du tourisme could learn a thing or two from them! In the end we decided just to walk around and enjoy the day, exploring the lively square Cours d’Estienne d’Orves, parts of le Panier (Marseille’s old city), and small shops along the rue piétonne (or “pedestrian area”)—which interestingly enough had cars driving on it—and the big department store Galeries Lafayette.
Finally we settled into a café facing the Vieux Port for people watching and to rest awhile.

Since it’s “all about food” with us, on our stroll through the city we’d kept our eyes open for where to have supper that night. Bouillabaisse is, of course, the spécialité marseillaise par excellence, but the prices at fifty euros plus seemed excessive to us. Back at the hotel we were advised not to choose any of the twenty-euro offerings unless we didn’t mind frozen fish. We had noticed a small restaurant which had at least one of our favorite “seals of approval”—a current sticker in the window from either Le Guide du Routard or Petit Futé guidebooks. The clerk at the hotel assured us that Chez Madie, Les Galinettes was une valeur sûre (“a sure bet”) and so our minds were made up.

We thought we knew a thing or two about dinner timetables at French restaurants but seeing the chef and his équipe (“team”) still eating at seven thirty was our clue to keep walking around and come back later. Finally at about five till eight, we went in. The wait was worth it. The meal started with an amuse-bouche, an anchoïade—an anchovy- and garlic-based spread that hit just the right balance; we were so delighted with it, in fact, that the waiter brought us another small bowl! For appetizers, Ray had carpaccio de saumon (a smoked salmon dish) and I chose un tartare de saumon. We both had fish as well for the main dish and, although I’m still not sure what the galinette I had actually is, it was perfectly cooked and the sauce was most delicious and delicate. Yum! A very good day and a good start to our Mediterranean get-away!

It's all in the game

2009-02-11T10:29:00.001+01:00

Americans often complain about the deplorable state of television programming in the United States; in France, the paucity of interesting and informative shows is enough to make you want to swear off TV for good. For fans of Jeopardy, as well as lovers of crosswords, Scrabble, and Trivial Pursuit, though, there are a couple of television game shows that are, at least in my opinion, worthwhile: Des Chiffres et des lettres and Questions pour un champion. Shown back-to-back during the work week from “around” 5:30 to 6:30 (French time being approximate even on the small screen), both programs have been televised for quite awhile and have loyal followings. In fact, Chiffres et lettres (as we call it in our family) is the longest running show on TV here (37 years) and has clubs in towns and cities throughout the country. Questions pour un champion recently had an inter-campus competition between universities with a prime time multi-hour final Monday night.

As its name indicates, Des Chiffres et des lettres (or "Numbers and Letters") tests candidates’ abilities in both mathematical operations and word knowledge. In sections of le compte est bon (“the total is right”), 6 numbers are chosen at random and a total is given; for instance, 75 25 6 2 9 8 and 462. Using addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, the candidates must manipulate the 6 numbers to arrive at the total. Not always so easy for us language people! And, in fact, sometimes arriving at the sum is impossible. Le mot le plus long (“the longest word”) segments are like playing Scrabble, only there are 9 letters, instead of 7. All in all, a very good workout for the brain.

Questions pour un champion (whose name needs no translation) is a twenty plus year old trivia-based show--along the lines of Jeopardy--which is on TV seven days a week. Four candidates start out dans la première manche (“in the first round”) and the three who reply correctly and more quickly than the others advance to round two. Now they must choose a category that they think they’re strong in and the two with the highest number of points go on to the final; in case of a tie at this stage, there is a jeu déciscif (“deciding game”) to determine who will compete in the ultimate face-à-face. Like in Jeopardy, the questions are based on a wide variety of subjects, but the real challenge is to decipher what Julien Lepers, the extremely fast-talking animateur (“game show host”), is saying.

For an outsider, probably the most surprising thing about these programs is how the hosts treat the candidates when they are not doing well. I know that Alex Trebek has been criticized in the past for being a kind of know-it-all, but these remarks seem much more personal. Like to an older woman Marie-Claude the other day on Chiffres et lettres, Bertrand, one of the hosts said: “It was right in front of you!” and “I have to scold you again….” On Questions, the host said to Pierre: “You have to fight!” and “You know this!” I suppose “tough love” is the name of the game here.

A trip to the big city

2009-01-31T13:52:00.000+01:00

Before anyone jumps to conclusions, we did not take off for Paris, Marseille, Nice, or even Avignon. The word “big,” we discover more and more, is a completely relative term and in this case “the big city” in our part of the Vaucluse means Carpentras, population 26,000. But, when you think about it, that’s ten times bigger than Bédoin and many times the population of nearby Saint-Pierre-de-Vassols which has a mere 467 people! We had heard about the market in Carpentras on Fridays, so despite the coldest temperatures yet, we took the 8:00 a.m. bus from the gare routière for the forty-minute ride.

As soon as we got downtown, we spotted a large group of people milling around in front of the Hôtel-Dieu, a former hospital. A marché aux truffes (truffle market), in addition to the weekly market, was in full swing, with people examining, sniffing, weighing, buying, and selling different shapes and sizes of the black fungus. November to mid-March, it turns out, is the high season and Carpentras is one of the main towns where the expensive product is sold. We knew about truffles from the Périgord in southwestern France, but had no idea that the Vaucluse, along with Alpes-Haute-Provence, la Drôme, and le Gard, account for 80% of the country’s annual production. With a small stand where folks could buy une brouillade aux truffes (frequently just referred to as une omelette aux truffes) and wine, it looked kind of like a marché de Noël only with truffles.

After experiencing several European vacations at and around Christmastime, we are used to what my husband refers to as tourisme à l’abri. “Sheltered sightseeing” in winter is often necessary in order to take refuge from the elements. Often this comes in the form of a nice tea room, so how bad can it be? Anyway, yesterday morning, we were thrilled to have so many opportunites for le lèche-vitrine (“window-shopping”), plus looking through the racks of postcards as well as the stalls of outdoor market vendors, that it took us awhile to notice the feeling of frost beginning to permeate our bones.

Lucky for us, we had spent a few hours in Carpentras the day we returned the car to Avignon about two weeks ago and remembered a tea room on the rue de l’Évêché. Jouvaud, which is a combination pastry shop, chocolate shop, tea room and boutique, has branches in Avignon and, of all surprising places, Tokyo. (I’d love to hear the story of how that came about, but I won't understand it if it's on that Japanese link!) Warming up having coffee, brioche, and pain aux raisins was just what we needed before tackling more of the marché and the rest of the town. Some other people seeking shelter and enjoying Jouvaud told us not to miss the chocolat chaud and the brioche au sucre on our next visit. No problem taking that advice.

Our last stop before catching the bus back home at noon was to pay a visit to Leclerc. Talk about big; picture a Wal-Mart supercenter à la française. You could find everything there—from food to cookware and dishes to office supplies. I commented to my husband that at least ten Shopis could fit inside this one grande surface. As a matter of fact, you might even be able to fit most of downtown Bédoin inside! We'll definitely take another trip to Carpentras before the truffle season is over.

Simple pleasures

2009-01-28T19:18:00.004+01:00

Renowned French chef Paul Bocuse owns, among other wide-ranging businesses, a high-priced, elegant restaurant in Collonges au Mont d’Or, just outside of Lyon. But in the introduction to one of his cookbooks, Bocuse dans votre cuisine (Bocuse in Your Kitchen), he describes some of the best meals he’s ever had as being the most simple ones. Over the years, I’ve thought about this statement several times and realized that it’s true. Yet, “simple” does not necessarily imply “inexpensive”; it has more to do with getting basic ingredients of high quality, and preparing them in an uncomplicated way. We had such a dinner at home the other night.

Monday is le jour de marché (“outdoor market day”) on the main street in Bédoin and, even though the vendors are few at this time of the year, we make it a point to stop by and buy a few things. For two weeks in a row now, we’ve found two fishmongers or poissoniers side by side in the same spot on the rue de l’Abbé Durand, place des Écoles. Both have an array of fresh fish and shellfish, but we have bought from the second guy whose selections are more limited but whose prices are better. This week he had a nice big piece of a fish called lieu jaune that he would cut steaks off of for his customers. We had no idea what kind of fish it was (it turned out to be a type of pollock), but he assured us that it was fresh from la Bretagne and had not too strong a taste. From other vendors we also picked up some olives au piment (spicy olives that had some kind of yellow beans mixed in) and a nice big head of Boston lettuce.

Back home, I searched the Internet for pollock recipes and the only one I had the ingredients for called for browning the fish quickly in butter, removing it from the pan, and then making a kind of piccata sauce with butter, capers, olives, and lemon. My Internet search had told me that pollock was “a poor man’s lobster” and, while many Mainers might dispute that estimation, the fish itself was delicious. Served with basmati rice and the sauce, prepared with those spicy olives, it was a great plat principal.

The day before, after our long walk, I had started preparing dinner and realized we were short on olive oil. Ray went out to get some, but Shopi wasn’t open, so he had to opt for the smaller Vival across the street from the supermarket. The choices in oil were limited; he finally got home with an apologetic: “I just bought a bottle of olive oil that cost 14 euros 95!” We had never before—in France or the U.S.—purchased a medium-sized (50cl or about 17oz.) bottle of oil for the equivalent of nearly twenty dollars! This is obviously not a cooking oil, but Monday night’s salad, made only with lettuce and a plain vinaigrette, was terrific! Upon further research we learned that this particular olive oil from Nyons (the final "s" is pronounced, by the way), northeast of Vaison-la-Romaine, was the first ever to be awarded the A.O.C. designation. Well deserved, I’d say.

So there you have it: a piece of fish, rice, and a salad, served with an Alsatian Riesling from Klipfel. What could be simpler…or more delightful.

A look at our town’s past

2009-01-26T13:32:00.002+01:00

Bédoin, as we know it today, is a small, but vibrant agricultural town of the Vaucluse in Provence, situated on the southern slopes of Mont Ventoux. But the town has been around for quite awhile. In fact, on the upper parts of the valley, prehistoric vestiges have been unearthed which indicate the presence of Neolithic people! The actual name of Beduinum has been confirmed as early as 993 when a noble donated some land to local Benedictine monks.

The soil in and around Bédoin is very rich and diversified. As the lady in the Cave Coopérative was explaining to us the other day, there is clay (argile), ocher (ochre), and sand (sable) in the various plots of land around—which, of course, affect the taste of the wines produced. In the Middle Ages, a whole industry of pottery developed because of these natural resources; in 1454, it seems that over a dozen workshops with six active potters’ wheels were producing pottery in the town. The clay found here is so fine, multicolored, and abundant that hundreds of thousands of kilos of it were regularly transported to Marseille. The pottery of the area was so well known that it prompted nineteenth century author Frédéric Mistral to comment in his dictionary of Provençal language Le Trésor du Félibrige: “aux gens de Bédoin il ne faut pas vendre de marmites” (“you shouldn’t sell pots to the people in Bédoin”); the whole bringing coal to Newcastle idea all over again. A walk around town confirms that the tradition of pottery-making and selling continues today—for people like Louis and Virginie Brueder, for example.

Two extremely difficult periods for the Bédoinais had to do, at least in part, with their loyalty to Catholicism. The era of religious wars (or “guerres de religion”) during the second half of the sixteenth century was disastrous for the whole region. In 1563, the town was occupied by an ironically-named Protestant lord, Gaspard Pape (“Pope”), from the Drôme who tortured and massacred hundreds of victims and vandalized Catholic buildings and relics. Gradually, however, people were able to wrest their territory back from wolves which had come in to claim it and rebuild the town through agriculture and the development of diverse industries such as silk, bricks, and, as previously mentioned, pottery.

By far, the worst episode for Bédoin was during the French Revolution. Called “la Vendée du Midi” (“the Vendée of the South”--in reference to the counterrevolutionary northern department of Pays-de-la-Loire), the town remained loyal to the Pope and the monarchy during the revolution; for this reason many were shot or sent to the guillotine and their town was once again destroyed. People were forced to flee to abandoned farms or into caves on Mont Ventoux in order to survive. It wasn’t until the end of la Terreur that the “vaste champ de ruines” (that vast field of ruins) of Bédoin was rebuilt and restored. The Chapelle Bécarras was built in honor of the victims of the revolution and a column was placed at the site of the guillotine on the present-day schoolyard.

A tale of three cheeses

2009-01-23T12:04:00.002+01:00

France has a well-earned reputation as one of the great gastronomic centers of the world. In the area of cheese, the French are outstanding both in terms of quality and variety. To my knowledge, the total number of different varieties of cheeses produced here has never been accurately counted, though I’ve seen estimates range as high as a thousand! In Les Mots du Général (1962), Ernest Mignon cites former president Charles de Gaulle as having said: « Comment voulez-vous gouverner un pays où il existe 246 variétés de fromage ? » ("How can you govern a country of 246 varieties of cheese?”) Apocryphal or not, the quotation points to the independence and diversity found in the people and products of the disparate regions of France.

Since arriving here ten days ago, we have taken on the enviable task of “researching” the area of cheese. While in Carpentras last Saturday, we found our #1 choice for purchasing cheese since we lived in Lyon: a dedicated cheese shop. Owned by Madame Claudine Vigier, La Fromagerie du Comtat, has two rooms and several large cases full of all sorts of cheese, fromage blanc, crème fraîche, and the like—making decisions very difficult for the buyer. We finally chose an old favorite, Saint Félicien, both because it looked so delicious and because our friend Julia had just mentioned it this summer as being a favorite of hers. A “close cousin” of Saint Marcellin (a very religious family of cheeses, it seems!), Saint Félicien is a soft, somewhat mild and creamy cow’s milk cheese from a region just south of Lyon. It was hard to refrain from eating the whole thing after dinner at home that night.

In Bédoin, the cool and (as of late) rainy weather has prevented me from exploring as much as I’d like in town for places to buy cheese. Just like in the U.S., there are “industrial cheeses” (as they call them here) which are available on the dairy shelves at our supermarket, Shopi. Interestingly, the butcher case at the supermarché also contains a selection of “fromages traditionnels.” But so far the best shop we’ve found is just up the street from Shopi at the Boucherie du Mont Ventoux. The shop owner/butcher Jeannette also has a case devoted to cheese. This week we’ve tried two new cheeses from the boucherie and have been pleased with each.

A creamy goat cheese of northern Provence, Banon first attracted our attention by its unusual wrapping, une feuille de châtaignier (or a chestnut tree leaf), and by a sticker proclaiming that it had won the Ministry of Agriculture and Fishing’s silver medal in Paris 2008. Jeannette told us it was très fort (very strong) and right she was. In terms of taste and smell, Banon is definitely not for faint-hearted types who find cheddar exotic. Especially on day two there was a strong taste not only of the cheese, but of the chestnut leaf as well. Banon, which may date from the Gallo-Roman era, has also received the designation A.O.C. (for appellation d’origine contrôlée), a classification that certifies that certain foodstuffs such as wines, ciders, cheeses, and honey come from a specific region.

Our final adventure in cheese tasting this week was trying another goat’s milk cheese, Picodon. Also rated A.O.C. and made just north of here in la Drôme, this was perhaps the most subtle of the three and very delicious as well. I might add that all of these above-mentioned products are made from raw milk, which, although viewed with disfavor in the U.S., doesn’t seem to harm Europeans and makes for extremely tasty cheese.

Loto fun!

2009-01-21T11:04:00.002+01:00

Walking around this weekend, we noticed several signs indicating that Loto was going on at the cultural center on Sunday at 2:30 and that big prizes were going to be awarded. Since we don’t have much of a social life here and intrigued by what kind of lottery it could be (I imagined a sort of Chinese auction), we took the two-minute walk over there. There are always challenges in a new place and our first this time was to find the right door in! The place really looked closed up tight, but then on the other side we spotted two women smoking outside a door. Sure enough, we were at the right place at the right time. As soon as we got to the Loto room we realized that this was not a lottery at all, but a Bingo gathering! I didn’t really want to spend the afternoon playing Bingo, but the people were so nice—explaining how their version of the game works and finding two adjoining places for us at a table—that we decided to stay.

The room was quite large and absolutely packed with people. Both of us noticed right away that the average age of the group was at least sixty-five; we only found out later that it was a “loto du club du 3ème âge” or a Bingo club for the elderly. On the stage were three people—a man whose job was to spin the basket (boule de sphère) with the numbered balls in it; a lady who reads out the numbers as they come up; and a woman “helper” who writes down the winners’ names and distributes the gifts. The lineup of gifts was quite impressive; there were at least ten of them, including a not-very-good painting to a digital camera, a special kind of steam iron, and a microwave. Besides that, at the entr’acte (or intermission) there was a tombola (a raffle that we missed out on by arriving a bit late) which contained individual prizes of, among other things, various liquors and liqueurs, a big ham, a trip to Menton (that we would’ve loved to win), and a big TV.

The people sitting around us were very friendly and welcoming; they explained that there would be a two single quines (where you win if you get one row covered each time) followed by a carton plein (where the whole board is covered). If there are two winners at the same time, they draw a number out of a bag (tirer la ballotte) to determine the winner of the big prize; the other one gets a tin of cookies, so all is not lost. Gisèle, the lady across from Ray, told us that she had actually been to Boston to visit her daughter who lived in Arlington at the time. She was obviously a seasoned Loto player, having orange pions magnétiques and a little wand (une baguette or attrape-pions) that picks them up as you sweep it across the board! Gisèle’s husband, also named Raymond, was quite a character—un vrai personnage. The word curmudgeon comes to mind whenever I think of him; a cantankerous fellow with a gloomy look and a gravelly voice who’s funny even though he doesn’t always intend to be! The first thing he said when we told the group that we're American is: “Vous n’êtes pas obèses!” (“You’re not obese”—a comment that we could only laugh at.) All in all it was an enjoyable way to spend a few hours on a Sunday afternoon.

Our first excursion

2009-01-18T18:04:00.002+01:00

Inspired by a copy of The Most Beautiful Villages of Provence that I’d seen at my friend Marjorie’s and then found on a bookcase in La Maison Rose, we did our first exploration of the area on Friday. Taking off in our rental car after lunch, we visited the three small villages perchés of Venasque, Roussillon, and Gordes. Our first challenge was finding the right road off of D974, even though we had a map of the area. We headed back toward Carpentras as planned but somehow got lost several times, ending up in Mazan and Pernes-les-Fontaines before getting on the route towards Venasque. The roads between towns were small and twisty with a lot of “nature” up close and personal. Venasque proved to be a very small, quiet town without even an open café at this time of the year. We did catch sight of the eleventh century Romanesque church Notre-Dame and its gargoyles as well as pretty flower boxes in windows throughout the town.

Heading off toward Roussillon, the road became mountainous, one of those with hairpin turns and beautiful panoramas of the valley below, but you’re almost too terrified to look!
Our next stop was Roussillon, which did not disappoint in any way. Site of the famous sociological study by Lawrence Wylie, Village in the Vaucluse (1957), Roussillon is a tourist mecca, with medieval walls and beautiful multi-colored ochre land and buildings. The landscape reminds me of the mountains of Sedona, Arizona that we saw with our family during the 2007 Christmas vacation. Strolling through town, my husband snapped a picture of a 150-year-old vine. Fortunately for us, there were also things to do besides walk around: a bookstore was open as well as a small café.

Finally, we took the short drive from Roussillon to Gordes, a place you’d swear was in its original sixteenth century condition. Apparently, though, the entire town had to be rebuilt after the Germans destroyed it in 1944. Another thing we didn’t realize about Gordes is that the most striking view of it is from the road coming in to town, where you can see houses built into the entire south side of the cliff. Next time we’ll get a picture going in to town. It’s going to be fun to keep discovering le Vaucluse!

After one very long day...

2009-01-15T15:34:00.007+01:00

January 13th and 14th of this new year seemed to blend into one, filled with lots of modes of transportation--a taxi ride to Logan airport, two flights (to Philly and Paris), a CDG Val "shuttle" subway (interestingly not called une navette!), a TGV to Avignon, and finally a one-hour car ride, mostly in the dark to Bédoin. So far we’ve been impressed with the kindness and friendliness of the people we’ve met in the Vaucluse. The clerk at EuropCar let us use her phone, when we asked where we could find a cabine to phone Loïc and Marianne in Bédoin. Then last night at the crêperie Ty Mad where we had dinner, both the owner and another couple tried to help us figure out how to get back from dropping off the car Saturday in Avignon.

We really like our “new home”, la Maison Rose. It’s bigger than we thought and well-laid out, which will allow us both to do our work without falling over one another. We also slept well last night, thanks to exhaustion, a comfortable bed, and the darkness and quiet of the town.

Thursday dawned with blue skies and lots of sun, if not very warm temperatures; it's about 45 degrees, which might feel balmy to folks back home. (Everyone keeps writing about the current single-digit temps in the Capital District.) After buying groceries at Shopi and having an omelette for lunch at home, we spent about an hour walking around the town--checking out the banks, the tourist office (where the agent told us there's not much to do here--not really promoting the town!), and the library. All in all, it's been a positive start to our semester in Provence.

Provence

2008-12-26T00:42:00.003+01:00

What about the region of Provence? What is it? Where is it? Check out this link for a bit of an introduction. The actual department we'll be living in is the Vaucluse, an area that includes the towns of Avignon, Orange, Apt, and Cavaillon. We'll be near Carpentras at the foot of Mont Ventoux.

The Frozen North

2008-12-26T00:36:00.003+01:00

December in the northeast in 2008 consisted of an ice storm, no power for over three days as a result, and several substantial snowstorms. Provence with its sunny skies and above freezing temperatures beckons! Right before the ice storm on December 12th we got our reservations for France. We'll be flying from Logan in Boston on January 13th to Philly and will arrive in Paris on the 14th. We then have first class seats on the TGV to Avignon--where we hope to doze for a few hours and get caught up on our sleep. We'll pick up a rental car for our final leg to the Vaucluse. La grande aventure commence...