Making friends

Today I made two new friends.

This is The Pioneer Woman's Charlie's second cousin once removed:

"Charlie!" I called him. To which he responded that his name is Charles-René, and he would thank me to remember that it is impolite to drop a person's middle name as if it didn't matter.

And actually, it wasn't Charlie that we met first, but her:

Her name is Angelique-Jolie. She greeted us with an elegant twitch of her tail, and a 'come hither' look. Charlie - I mean, Charles-René - is very protective of her. He showed up 2 seconds later to check us out. After giving us a sniff and a tail wag, he decided we were OK, and allowed us to converse with her.

Angelique-Jolie loves crème fraîche, lace doilies and le clair de lune (which she says makes her look ten month younger and ten grams slimmer). She chose her human because he lives on Chemin Du Chat (literally, the Cat's Way). However, after meeting the other felines on the block, she is very distressed: they are disheveled, disreputable-looking, et pas du tout comme il faut. She has been forced to mingle with the canine society: Charles-René is alright, but Jean-Jacques is a real dog!

And actually, it was Jean-Jacques we encountered first (a cocker spaniel). The poor boy got stage fright when he saw us, just as he was going about his (big) business. He kept turning his bottom this way and that, trying to keep it out of our sight. We didn't take a photo with him, as we didn't want to cause him permanent constipation. He looked to be having enough trouble as it was (I empathize!).

And actually, it wasn't Jean-Jacques we encountered first, but Richelieu.

He goes by a single name. (Anything else would be superfluous!) He has a goatee and a tall wall from which he looks down on the world. He did not think our friendship would be advantageous to him in any way.

We believe he might change his mind if we introduced him to Angelique-Jolie. Although Charles-René may have something to say about it.

P.S. None of the above is true - except for meeting Richelieu, Jean-Jacques, Angelique-Jolie and Charles-René - or whatever their humans call them.

Writing in Provence: Part 1

Ever since I read Peter Mayle's books, Provence has had this double connotation for me - of great food and idyllic writing retreat. So when it came to choosing the location of our grand vacation - the place where I would hide away to write my book and my characters would spill on the laptop screen fully-fledged and fired-up - there was no question in my mind that it should be somewhere in Provence.

This proposal ran into some initial opposition from my beloved, but his protests were quickly squelched. (In fact, my recent cooking efforts have moved him to admit that I was right to insist on Provence. Of course I was right! I have a persistent tendency in that sense. Honestly, the world would chug along much more smoothly if everyone just listened to me! 😀)

However, while I was, as aforementioned, utterly and unquestionably right, I did run into some problems with my choice. Let me illustrate what I mean. Here is the view from my writing table:

Each morning, I sit outside on the terrasse with the sun smiling down on me and the birds singing and the bees buzzing (and also, alas, the wasps, the flies and assorted other bugs zipping around). I gaze upon the Luberon in the distance, and our pool in the smaller distance, and our olive trees and flowers nearby. I reach for my writing assistants, which I keep quite close at hand (coffee and eclairs).

And then I write my character being tortured in prison. She's endured endless interrogations. And no one believes that she's innocent!

I gaze upon the Luberon - and imagine a prison cell. Well... you see my dilemma. I've started listening to rock, which sort of helped.

Yesterday, I finally got her out of prison. She's had a brief respite with her friends, who are rather colorful members of a theater troupe. I found this part surprisingly easy to write, thanks to the many online parties I enjoyed on livejournal. But now, she's facing her nemesis and his henchman, armed only with her wits. We'll see how well my garden view cooperates with the writing of this chapter. :-)

Cooking in Provence: Part 1

(I am feeling ambitious, and therefore decided to label this Part 1. Hopefully, my blog will guilt me into coming up with more recipes).

So here it is, my work of art made of the freshest produce of Provence. Also, repeated and enhanced twice in a row, so you get the photos of the best versions. :-)

1. The Salad

 Ingredients: made of awesome! But more specifically, I used cucumbers, shaved carrots, fresh mint, tomatoes, radishes and sheep feta (sheep cheese is ubiquitous here!)

The base is made of two types of salad:

Churly
(aka Spiky the Hedgehog)

Curly

If you happen to know Spiky's real name, in either English, Latin or Marathi, do please let me know in the comments.

      

The dressing is really basic: freshly squeezed lemon juice, sea salt and - of course - the star of any Provencal salad: olive oil. It is slightly surreal to buy stuff in the supermarket and realize that it's made only a few km from our place. We bought this little bottle of amazingness:







But in case we run out (a real possibility), our landlord has generously gifted us with another container of liquid gold:

And if we're really in a bind, I suppose we can always press our own, from our olive tree orchard!







2. The Meat

Marinade ingredients:

- freshly chopped tarragon
- Dijon mustard
- olive oil (but of course!)
- lavender honey

Then GRILL!

It came out delish, but just in case we messed up, we also bought these ready-to-grill skewers. From left to right: chicken (2), duck and quail. (Yes, quail!)

3. The Sidedish:

 - Marinated grilled zucchini

Marinade ingredients:
- olive oil (you guessed it!)
- minced garlic
- lemon juice

It's so good, it should be illegal! Wait! Why should it be illegal? It should be compulsory!



The Overall Result: Add all of the above to your plate, grab a baguette and pour some wine! (on the latter subject, I will do a whole 'nother post!)

Bon Appetit!

Farmers Market in Provence

Hello, everyone. We're safe and sound in our little corner of Provence - still getting to know our surroundings, but already acclimatizing to the French way of life. (Try saying 'acclimatizing' 3 times fast!)

Btw, here's a look at our corner of Provence:

(repeat this image in all directions, then intersect the streets at tight angles or traffic circles - and you'll get a good idea of our village)

One of the acclimatizing rituals we looked forward the most? Shopping the farmers markets. Each town hosts one on a certain day of the week. You can see the full schedule here. Lots and lots of markets to choose from, right?

And yet, five years ago, during our whirlwind drive through the region, we managed to miss every single one of them. We mis-planned. We were out of sync. The Moon was in the house of Jupiter or something.

Well, you can imagine our excitement this time around. On Sunday, bright and early (ok, just bright) we drove to the farmers market in Coustellet. Our hearts were light and our pockets heavy with euro-coins. And boy, did we hit it out of the park! Coustellet, it turns out, is one of the biggest markets in the area. It's also an easy drive from our house.

I say easy.

What I mean is short - with a nice sprinkling of narrow roads, crazy crowds and French-style driving. For some reason, I thought it would be fun for me to drive that day.

Market day.

In France.

And so I did - and as soon as we hit the town, I pulled over and got out of the driver's seat. I thought it wise to let my husband, the wunder-parallel-parking-kid, finish the job. Share the joy and all.

Some onlookers may have sniggered.

But our rental car escaped unscathed, which was the whole point.

And then... we were off! First, we came across the ready-to-eat stalls. We bypassed most of them with a Gaelic shrug (being by now used to the sight of mouth-watering pastry), but we did take a minute to admire this one:

Yes, ladies and gents, that is the world's biggest paella! Table for 50, anyone?

A couple of minutes later, we hit the vegetable stalls, and things got going rather nicely:

Then we were in the fruit stalls, which (I regret to say) dazzled us so much, we totally forgot about the camera. But here's our haul, from which you should be able to extrapolate:

We have strawberries, sour cherries, and cherries (the latter are grown a stone's throw away from our house).

Let me say that again: we have sour cherries! Big, juicy, tart-as-you-can-stand'em, wonderlicious, tastamazing sour cherries! Which, back in the US, are about as easy to find as a good eclair.

(Also: please excuse my feet. They knew that I could see nothing on my phone screen in full sun, and took advantage of it.)

And here's our vegetable haul:

The cast, from left to right: round zucchini (aka courgettes rondes), mint, chives,  tarragon, radishes and basil.

All this bounty lit a great culinary ambition in my bosom. This, as anyone who knows me knows, is about as rare an event as finding a good eclair in US. But the Provence produce wove its magic - and out came a wonderful meal, low on calories and high on taste.

I think I'll leave that for another post, so I can do full justice to my work of art.

And now I'm off to enjoy my daily eclair!