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!

Provence, revisited

In two short weeks, we're off to France for the summer! We are still pinching ourselves about it (well, I'm pinching my darling; he does not dare reciprocate).

When first I thought about taking time off between jobs so I could finally write my book, it all seemed like a wild dream. Then the dream inched closer to reality, once I actually had the job offer in hand and could negotiate the starting date. And then my husband popped up with, 'I want to take a leave of absence! That way, we can spend the whole summer together!'

Of course, it snowballed from there. Err... sandballed? We weren't going to spend the whole summer cooped up in our rental apartment. I needed a different kind of space to write - a room with a view! (my current choice of views being between the railway and an auto body shop). My plan was to alternate between writing in a coffee shop and writing in a bookstore. But once my husband joined the chorus, the plans jumped all the way over the pond and into Europe. What can I say? My husband dreams big!

So now we're going to spend most of the summer in a tiny village in Provence. We visited the area in 2009 and fell in love with the landscape.

And the food.

Our favorite restaurant? Le Bonheur Suit Son Cours, which - I unblushingly say - we helped put on the (American tourists') map: we created its first entry on tripadvisor. I'm thrilled to see that it has satisfied plenty of North-American palates ever since. Fingers crossed they still make that sinful blast of pure chocolate called the Mont Ventoux cake. Five years ago, I had a transcendental experience devouring it. Once in a lifetime, I thought, as I licked my spoon clean, and wondered if I'd get kicked out of the place for doing the same with my plate. But you know what? Twice in a lifetime is even better! (I just heard my scale groan. My scale is a very poor winner.)

By the way, did you know that π is called a transcendental number? Clearly, when mathematicians started naming things, they listened to their taste-buds.

Taste-bud pampering was the decisive factor in our vacation plans. My husband wanted us to spend the summer in Italy - but I reminded him that one of us cannot stand the taste of pasta nor pizza! And that said person will therefore keep complaining about the total lack of eclairs in Italy, and is he comfortable with his selfishness? In the end, it was the Mont Ventoux cake that decided the issue. :-)

So we're renting a house in the Luberon. It has a view. In fact, it has several views (none of which includes a railway or auto body shop). It is one hour away from the best chocolate cake in the universe. And five minutes from freshly baked croissants. In other words, it is perfect!

So if you're interested in hearing about our Provencal /gastronomical vacation, or how my book progresses, or (later on) our Anglo-Scottish trip, check back often. I intend to update this blog frequently with lots of photos and stories.

Pi-Pie for now!