A Year In Provence Quotes

A connoisseur of woe needs fresh worries from time to time, or he will become complacent.

Beh oui. Better sticky than burned.

And, as for the oil, it is a masterpiece. You’ll see.” Before dinner that night, we tested it, dripping it onto slices of bread that had been rubbed with the flesh of tomatoes. It was like eating sunshine.

Look at those vines,' he said. 'Nature is wearing her prettiest clothes.' The effect of this unexpectedly poetic observation was slight spoiled when Massot cleared his throat nosily and spat, but he was right;

Sunglasses must be kept on until an acquaintance is identified at one of the tables, but one must not appear to be looking for company. Instead, the impression should be that one is heading into the cafe to make a phone call to one's titled Italian admirer, when--quelle surprise!--one sees a friend. The sunglasses can then be removed and the hair tossed while one is persuaded to sit down.

The French, it seems to me, strike a happy balance between intimacy and reserve. Some of this must be helped by the language, which lends itself to graceful expression even when dealing with fairly basic subjects.... And there's that famously elegant subtitle from a classic Western. COWBOY: "Gimme a shot of red-eye." SUBTITLE: "Un Dubonnet, s'il vous plait." No wonder French was the language of diplomacy for all those years.

Rain they take as a personal affront, shaking their heads and commiserating with each other in the cafés, looking with profound suspicion at the sky as though a plague of locusts is about to descend, and picking their way with distaste through the puddles on the pavement.

Oh, that,' he said. 'Poncet is grooming his ass.

What a marvelous sunset,' she said. 'Yes,' replied her husband. 'Most impressive for such a small village.

We had to be up early in the morning. We had a goat race to go to... We asked the old man confident in the knowledge that he, like every Frenchman, would be an expert. "The goats who make the most droppings before the race are likely to do well. An empty goat is faster than a full goat. C'est logique.

As our lawyer friend had noticed, men kiss other men. They squeeze shoulders, slap backs, pummel kidneys, pinch cheeks. When a Provençal man is truly pleased to see you, there is a real possibility of coming away from his clutches with superficial bruising.

The day when a Frenchman switches from the formality of vous to the familiarity of tu is a day to be taken seriously. It is an unmistakable signal that he has decided - after weeks or months or sometimes years - that he likes you. It would be chulish and unfriendly of you not to return the compliment. And so, just when you are at last feeling comfortable with vous and all the plurals that go with it, you are thrust headlong in to the singular world of tu.

It was a meal that we shall never forget; more accurately, it was several meals that we shall never forget, because it went beyond the gastronomic frontiers of anything we had ever experienced, both in quantity and length. It started with homemade pizza - not one, but three: anchovy, mushroom, and cheese, and it was obligatory to have a slice of each. Plates were then wiped with pieces torn from the two-foot loaves in the middle of the table, and the next course came out. There were pates of rabbit, boar, and thrush. There was a chunky, pork-based terrine laced with marc. There were saucissons spotted with peppercorns. There were tiny sweet onions marinated in a fresh tomato sauce. Plates were wiped once more and duck was brought in... We had entire breasts, entire legs, covered in a dark, savory gravy and surrounded by wild mushrooms. We sat back, thankful that we had been able to finish, and watched with something close to panic as plates were wiped yet again and a huge, steaming casserole was placed on the table. This was the specialty of Madame our hostess - a rabbit civet of the richest, deepest brown - and our feeble requests for small portions were smilingly ignored. We ate it. We ate the green salad with knuckles of bread fried in garlic and olive oil, we ate the plump round crottins of goat's cheese, we ate the almond and cream gateau that the daughter of the house had prepared. That night, we ate for England.

Some three years ago I drove down to Provence to spend a summer weekend with a lady who was interesting to me simply because she possessed an extraordinarily powerful muscle in a region where other women have no muscles at all.

The people of Provence greeted spring with uncharacteristic briskness, as if nature had given everyone an injection of sap.

THERE COMES a time in the restoration of an old house when the desire to see it finished threatens all those noble aesthetic intentions to see it finished properly.

It is at a time like this, when crisis threatens the stomach, that the French display the most sympathetic side of their nature. Tell them stories of physical injury or financial ruin and they will either laugh or commiserate politely. But tell them you are facing gastronomic hardship, and they will move heaven and earth and even restaurant tables to help you.

We had a crisp, oily salad and slices of pink country sausages, an aioli of snails and cod and hard-boiled eggs with garlic mayonnaise, creamy cheese from Fontvielle, and a homemade tart. It was the kind of meal that the French take for granted and tourists remember for years.

...Sunday has a calming influence on the French motorist.... Tomorrow he will take up the mantle of the kamikaze pilot once again, but today it is Sunday in Provence, and life it to be enjoyed.

I called Monsieur Menicucci, and he asked anxiously about my pipes. I told him they were holding up well. "That pleases me," he said, "because it is minus five degrees, the roads are perilous, and I am fifty-eight years old. I am staying at home." He paused, then added, "I shall play the clarinet.

They always asked wistfully what the weather was like, and were not pleased with the answer. They consoled themselves by warning me about skin cancer and the addling effecr of sun on the brain. I didn't argue with them; they were probably right. But addled, wrinkled and potentially cancerous as I might have been, I had never felt better.

Apart from the peace and emptiness of the landscape, there is a special smell about winter in Provence which is accentuated by the wind and the clean, dry air. Walking in the hills, I was often able to smell a house before I could see it, because of the scent of woodsmoke coming from an invisible chimney. It is one of the most primitive smells in life, and consequently extinct in most cities, where fire regulations and interior decorators have combined to turn fireplaces into blocked-up holes or self-consciously lit "architectural features." The fireplace in Provence is still used - to cook on, to sit around, to warm the toes, and to please the eye - and fires are laid in the early morning and fed throughout the day with scrub oak from the Luberon or beech from the foothills of Mont Ventoux. Coming home with the dogs as dusk fell, I always stopped to look from the top of the valley at the long zigzag of smoke ribbons drifting up from the farms that are scattered along the Bonnieux road. It was a sight that made me think of warm kitchens and well-seasoned stews, and it never failed to make me ravenous.

We had been here often before as tourists, desperate for our annual ration of two or three weeks of true heat and sharp light. Always when we left, with peeling noses and regret, we promised ourselves that one day we would live here. We had talked about it during the long gray winters and the damp green summers, looked with an addict’s longing at photographs of village markets and vineyards, dreamed of being woken up by the sun slanting through the bedroom window.

Memory is at its best when it’s selective, when we have edited out the dull, the disappointing, and the disagreeable until we are left with rose-colored perfection. This is often quite inaccurate but usually very comforting. It can also be fascinating to revisit. Was it really like that? Were we really like that?

He then expounded a remarkable theory, which had occurred to him while he was playing the clarinet during one of the power cuts that the French electricity board arranges at regular intervals. Electricity, he said, is a matter of science and logic. Classical music is a matter of art and logic. Vous voyez? Already one sees a common factor. And when you listen to the disciplined and logical progression of some of Mozart's work, the conclusion is inescapable: Mozart would have made a formidable electrician.

is at a time like this, when crisis threatens the stomach, that the French display the most sympathetic side of their nature. Tell them stories of physical injury or financial ruin and they will either laugh or commiserate politely. But tell them you are facing gastronomic hardship, and they will move heaven and earth and even restaurant tables to help you.

Out here in the country there was no avoiding the direct link between death and dinner,

roast lamb from Sisteron, “the best lamb in France,

And how many puppies did we want? Pénélope had fallen pregnant to a hairy stranger in Goult.

steal anything.

Half-familiar sounds could be dimly recognized as words through the swirls and eddies of Provençal: demain became demang, vin became vang, maison became mesong.

The year began with lunch.

because the truffiste is not anxious to participate in the crackpot government scheme the rest of us call income tax.

there

October.

version

We told ourselves that we would assume that nothing would be done when we expected it to be done; the fact that it happened at all would be enough.

It was generally agreed that they were a funny bunch, these natives of August.

I asked for a half bottle of white wine to go with the first course, and some red to follow. “No,” he said, “you’re wrong.” He told us what to drink, and it was a red Côtes du Rhône from Visan. Good wine and good women came from Visan, he said. He got up and fetched a bottle from a vast dark cupboard. “There. You’ll like that.” (Later, we noticed that everybody had the same wine on their table.)

The effect of the weather on the inhabitants of Provence is immediate and obvious. They expect every day to be sunny, and their disposition suffers when it isn't. Rain they take as a personal affront, shaking their heads and commiserating with each other in the cafes, looking with profound suspicion at the sky as though a plague of locusts is about to descend, and picking their way with distaste through the puddles on the pavement. If anything worse than a rainy day should come along, such as this sub-zero snap, the result is startling: most the population disappears... But what did everyone else do? The earth was frozen, the vines were clipped and dormant, it was too cold to hunt. Had they all gone on holiday?...It was a puzzle, until we realized how many of the local people had their birthdays in September or October, and then a possible but unverifiable answer suggested itself: they were busy indoors making babies. There is a season for everything in Provence, and the first two months of the year must be devoted to procreation. We have never dared to ask.

It is not infallible, and it is certainly not entirely free from prejudice, but it is amusing and always interesting and, because it is written in colloquial French, good homework for novices in the language like us.

Only snobs kiss once, I was told, or those unfortunates who suffer from congenital froideur. I then saw what I assumed to be the correct procedure - the triple kiss, left-right-left, so I tried it on a Parisian friend. Wrong again. She told me that triple-kissing was a low Provençal habit, and that two kisses were enough among civilized people. The next time I saw my neighbor’s wife, I kissed her twice. “Non,” she said, “trois fois.” I now pay close attention to the movement of the female head. If it stops swiveling after two kisses, I am almost sure I've filled my quota, but I stay poised for a third lunge just in case the head should keep moving.

The day when a Frenchman switches from the formality of vous to the familiarity of tu is a day to be taken seriously. It is an unmistakable signal that he has decided—after weeks or months or sometimes years—that he likes you.

Gu himself presides over the room- a genial, noisy man with the widest, jauntiest, must luxuriant and ambitious mustache I have ever seen, permanently fighting gravity and the razor in its attempts to make contact with Gu's eyebrows.

And then there is the most self-indulgent truffle recipe of all, which a friend claims is the closest thing on earth to having heaven in your mouth. You start with a generous slice of foie gras, and place it on a sheet of tinfoil. You then place your truffle on the foie gras and put it in the oven, where the truffle gradually sinks into the melting foie gras. The complex, slightly earthy taste of the truffle and the unctuous coating of foie gras may put you off hamburgers forever. Bon appétit!

The Englishman usually treats his alcohol with respect, often cradling his glass in front of him with both hands. The Frenchman would never willingly do this, because he needs his free hand for gesticulation-for tapping the side of his nose for emphasis, for prodding his companion in the chest, squeezing his bicep, patting his cheek, or ruffling his hair. The free hand is necessary for all this, a vital accessory for proper conversation. To watch fifty or more highly animated French people talking at once is like watching a tai chi class on stimulants.

Neighbors, we have found, take on an importance in the country that they don’t begin to have in cities. You can live for years in an apartment in London or New York and barely speak to the people who live six inches away from you on the other side of a wall. In the country, separated from the next house though you may be by hundreds of yards, your neighbors are part of your life, and you are part of theirs. If you happen to be foreign and therefore slightly exotic, you are inspected with more than usual interest. And if, in addition, you inherit a long-standing and delicate agricultural arrangement, you are quickly made aware that your attitudes and decisions have a direct effect on another family’s well-being.

Now there was silence. For hours on end the valley would be completely still and empty, and we became curious. What was everybody doing? Faustin, we knew, traveled around the neighboring farms as a visiting slaughterer, slitting the throats and breaking the necks of rabbits and ducks and pigs and geese so that they could be turned into terrines and hams and confits.

Everything,” he said. “My wife cooks everything well.” He dealt the menus out and left us to greet another couple, and we dithered enjoyably between lamb stuffed with herbs, daube, veal with truffles, and an unexplained dish called the fantaisie du chef. The old man came back and sat down, listened to the order, and nodded. “It’s always the same,” he said. “It’s the men who like the fantaisie.

We might treat a rabbit as a pet or become emotionally attached to a goose, but we had come from cities and supermarkets, where flesh was hygienically distanced from any resemblance to living creatures. A shrink-wrapped pork chop has a sanitized, abstract appearance that has nothing whatever to do with the warm, mucky bulk of a pig. Out here in the country there was no avoiding the direct link between death and dinner.

Thus the Romans conquered Etruria in order to defend Rome (c.350–300 BC). They then conquered the Po Valley in order to defend Etruria (c.200 BC). They subsequently conquered Provence to defend the Po Valley (c.120 BC), Gaul to defend Provence (c.50 BC), and Britain in order to defend Gaul (c. AD 50). It took them 400 years to get from Rome to London. In 350 BC, no Roman would have conceived of sailing directly to Britain and conquering it.

As an appetizer, we would consult the oracular books, and came to depend more and more on the Gault-Millau guide. The Michelin is invaluable, and nobody should travel through France without it, but it is confined to the bare bones of prices and grades and specialities. Gault-Millau gives you the flesh as well. It will tell you about the chef—if he’s young, where he was trained; if he’s established, whether he’s resting on his past success or still trying hard.

We thought it an uncharacteristic occupation for a softhearted man who spoiled his dogs, but he was evidently skilled and quick and, like any true countryman, he wasn’t distracted by sentiment. We might treat a rabbit as a pet or become emotionally attached to a goose, but we had come from cities and supermarkets, where flesh was hygienically distanced from any resemblance to living creatures. A shrink-wrapped pork chop has a sanitized, abstract appearance that has nothing whatever to do with the warm, mucky bulk of a pig.

We remember the old world as it had been for a thousand years, so beautiful and diverse, and which, in only thirty years, has crumbled away. When we were young every country still had its own architecture and customs and food. Can you ever forget the first sight of Italy? Those ochre houses, all different, each with such character, with their trompe l'oeil paintings on the stucco? Queer and fascinating and strange, even to a Provencal like me? Now the dreariness! The suburbs of every town uniform all over the world, while perhaps in the very centre a few old monuments sadly survive as though in a glass case.

But what did everyone else do? The earth was frozen, the vines were clipped and dormant, it was too cold to hunt. Had they all gone on holiday? No, surely not. These were not the kind of gentlemen farmers who spent their winters on the ski slopes or yachting in the Caribbean. Holidays here were taken at home during August, eating too much, enjoying siestas and resting up before the long days of the vendange. It was a puzzle, until we realized how many of the local people had their birthdays in September or October, and then a possible but unverifiable answer suggested itself: they were busy indoors making babies. There is a season for everything in Provence, and the first two months of the year must be devoted to procreation. We have never dared ask.

What is this kind of vandalism? There is little public discussion of it, but vandalism is an increasingly serious scourge, as damaging as violent crime. Let us not talk only of the countless vehicles set on fire, but also of the destruction of gymnasiums and public swimming pools, acts of arson against public buildings, the massive theft of materials, the damage inflicted on public buildings, and so on. These acts have multiplied significantly over the past three years and so has their cost. Let us take the example of Marseilles: according to La Provence (7 October 2003): ‘The bill has arrived for the municipality: about 1.86 million euros a year, or 12.5 million francs’, drawn from the local taxpayers, without counting the expenses of guards and security of 140,000 euros. The local press obviously does not bother to mention the ethnic origin of these ‘vandals’ other than with the expression ‘urban youth’. This criminal activity, which is increasing all over France, represents a growing burden for the French economy.

Stately and commanding, the house I found on Sacramento Street, in Lower Pacific Heights, was an architectural jewel; tour buses drove down the street several times a day and the guides pointed out our Victorian “painted lady” not just for its curb appeal but also for its lucky survival of the earthquake. Meticulously renovated, the house had a layout that I was sure would work perfectly: a three-room suite on the lower level with a bathroom and laundry room for my mother, living space on the next level, and, on the top floor, bedrooms for Zoë and me. The master bedroom was large enough to double as my office. Moreover, it seemed symbolic that we should find a three-story nineteenth-century Victorian, whose original intention was to house multiple generations. My mother couldn’t have been more pleased. She started calling our experiment “our year in Provence.” In the face of naysayers, I chose to embrace the reaction of a friend who was living in Beijing: “How Chinese of you!” she said upon hearing the news. When I told my mother, she was delighted. “What have the Chinese got on us?” she declared. And I agreed. The Chinese revere their elderly. If they could live happily with multiple generations under one roof, so could we.

Moscow can be a cold, hard place in winter. But the big old house on Tverskoy Boulevard had always seemed immune to these particular facts, the way that it had seemed immune to many things throughout the years. When breadlines filled the streets during the reign of the czars, the big house had caviar. When the rest of Russia stood shaking in the Siberian winds, that house had fires and gaslight in every room. And when the Second World War was over and places like Leningrad and Berlin were nothing but rubble and crumbling walls, the residents of the big house on Tverskoy Boulevard only had to take up a hammer and drive a single nail—to hang a painting on the landing at the top of the stairs—to mark the end of a long war. The canvas was small, perhaps only eight by ten inches. The brushstrokes were light but meticulous. And the subject, the countryside near Provence, was once a favorite of an artist named Cézanne. No one in the house spoke of how the painting had come to be there. Not a single member of the staff ever asked the man of the house, a high-ranking Soviet official, to talk about the canvas or the war or whatever services he may have performed in battle or beyond to earn such a lavish prize. The house on Tverskoy Boulevard was not one for stories, everybody knew. And besides, the war was over. The Nazis had lost. And to the victors went the spoils. Or, as the case may be, the paintings. Eventually, the wallpaper faded, and soon few people actually remembered the man who had brought the painting home from the newly liberated East Germany. None of the neighbors dared to whisper the letters K-G-B. Of the old Socialists and new socialites who flooded through the open doors for parties, not one ever dared to mention the Russian mob. And still the painting stayed hanging, the music kept playing, and the party itself seemed to last—echoing out onto the street, fading into the frigid air of the night. The party on the first Friday of February was a fund-raiser—though for what cause or foundation, no one really knew. It didn’t matter. The same people were invited. The same chef was preparing the same food. The men stood smoking the same cigars and drinking the same vodka. And, of course, the same painting still hung at the top of the stairs, looking down on the partygoers below. But one of the partygoers was not, actually, the same. When she gave the man at the door a name from the list, her Russian bore a slight accent. When she handed her coat to a maid, no one seemed to notice that it was far too light for someone who had spent too long in Moscow’s winter. She was too short; her black hair framed a face that was in every way too young. The women watched her pass, eyeing the competition. The men hardly noticed her at all as she nibbled and sipped and waited until the hour grew late and the people became tipsy. When that time finally came, not one soul watched as the girl with the soft pale skin climbed the stairs and slipped the small painting from the nail that held it. She walked to the window. And jumped. And neither the house on Tverskoy Boulevard nor any of its occupants ever saw the girl or the painting again.

Every once in a while at a restaurant, the dish you order looks so good, you don't even know where to begin tackling it. Such are HOME/MADE's scrambles. There are four simple options- my favorite is the smoked salmon, goat cheese, and dill- along with the occasional special or seasonal flavor, and they're served with soft, savory home fries and slabs of grilled walnut bread. Let's break it down: The scramble: Monica, who doesn't even like eggs, created these sublime scrambles with a specific and studied technique. "We whisk the hell out of them," she says, ticking off her methodology on her fingers. "We use cream, not milk. And we keep turning them and turning them until they're fluffy and in one piece, not broken into bits of egg." The toast: While the rave-worthiness of toast usually boils down to the quality of the bread, HOME/MADE takes it a step further. "The flame char is my happiness," the chef explains of her preference for grilling bread instead of toasting it, as 99 percent of restaurants do. That it's walnut bread from Balthazar, one of the city's best French bakeries, doesn't hurt. The home fries, or roasted potatoes as Monica insists on calling them, abiding by chefs' definitions of home fries (small fried chunks of potatoes) versus hash browns (shredded potatoes fried greasy on the griddle) versus roasted potatoes (roasted in the oven instead of fried on the stove top): "My potatoes I've been making for a hundred years," she says with a smile (really, it's been about twenty). The recipe came when she was roasting potatoes early on in her career and thought they were too bland. She didn't want to just keep adding salt so instead she reached for the mustard, which her mom always used on fries. "It just was everything," she says of the tangy, vinegary flavor the French condiment lent to her spuds. Along with the new potatoes, mustard, and herbs de Provence, she uses whole jacket garlic cloves in the roasting pan. It's a simple recipe that's also "a Zen exercise," as the potatoes have to be continuously turned every fifteen minutes to get them hard and crispy on the outside and soft and billowy on the inside.

The peace which Kulin Ban purchased by yielding to Rome was not of long duration, for he could not compel his people to observe its terms. On his death (1216) the Pope appointed a Roman Catholic Ban, and sent a mission to convert the Bosnians. The churches of the country, however, increased the more, and spread into Croatia, Dalmatia, Istria, Carniola and Slavonia. Some six years later the Pope, despairing of converting the Bosnians by other than forcible methods, and encouraged by the success of his crusade in Provence, ordered the King of Hungary to invade Bosnia. The Bosnians deposed their Roman Catholic Ban and elected a Bogomil, Ninoslav. For years the war went on, with varying fortune. Ninoslav yielded to circumstances and became a Roman Catholic, but no change in their rulers affected the faith and confession of the great bulk of the people. The country was devastated, but whenever the invading armies withdrew, the churches were found still existing, and the industry of the people quickly restored prosperity. Fortresses were erected throughout the country “for the protection of the Roman Catholic Church and religion”; the Pope gave the land to Hungary, which long ruled it, but its people still holding to their faith, he at length called a crusade of “all the Christian world” against it; the Inquisition was established (1291), and Dominican and Franciscan brothers competed in applying its terrors to the devoted churches.

Pope Innocent III required of the Count of Toulouse, Raymond VI, who ruled in Provence, and of the other rulers and prelates in the South of France, that the heretics should be banished. This would have meant the ruin of the country. Raymond temporised, but was soon involved in a hopeless quarrel with the Pope, who in 1209 proclaimed a crusade against him and his people. Indulgences, such as had been given to the Crusaders who went at great risk to themselves to rescue the Holy Places in Palestine from the Mohammedan Saracens, were now offered to all who would take part in the easier work of destroying the most fruitful provinces of France. This, and the prospect of booty and licence of every kind attracted hundreds of thousands of men. Under the presidence of high clerical dignitaries and led by Simon de Montfort, a military leader of great ability and a man of boundless ambition and ruthless cruelty, the most beautiful and cultivated part of Europe at that time was ravaged, became for twenty years the scene of unspeakable wickedness and cruelty and was reduced to desolation.

Prominent among such teachers was Pierre de Brueys, an able and diligent preacher who for twenty years, braving all dangers, travelled throughout Dauphiny, Provence, Languedoc, and Gascony, drawing multitudes from the superstitions in which they had been brought up, back to the teachings of Scripture, until he was burned at St. Gilles (1126). He showed from Scripture that none should be baptised until they had attained to time full use of their reason; that it is useless to build churches, as God accepts sincere worship wherever offered; that crucifixes should not be venerated, but rather looked upon with horror, as representing the instrument on which our Lord suffered; that the bread and wine are not changed into the body and blood of Christ, but are symbols commemorative of His death; and that the prayers and

Millet's Sower is an invented sower who is burdened with the artist's thoughts; he is but a creeping shadow on a ploughed field which is only a field of the imagination. Another peasant ploughs near the horizon with his oxen, or rather there is a silhouette plough with motionless animal silhouettes, in front of a sky of canvas in which birds cut out of paper attempt to flap their immovable wings. In Vincent's picture a peasant strides across his field, you can feel the very substance of the air. The strength of his motion carries you with him. Hundreds of sowers were embodied in one figure. He strides along, not for you, not for art, not for Van Gogh, but for his work, with every nerve stretched to its purpose and every limb and every rag on his body forming part of his action. The field is ready to receive the seed. There he ploughs, here he sows, and in the background the ploughing still continues. Not a detail in the action is left obscure or isolated. The animals, the earth, the man, everything is but a part of growth, and the air is heavy with the coming harvest. He strides there, not for to-day or to-morrow, but as he strode a thousand years ago as a peasant of Provence, as a Greek, or as a tiller of the soil of Egypt. Sowing is the symbol of eternity.

Clement decided to settle in Avignon, which, lying as it did on the east bank of the Rhône,1 was at that time the property of Philip’s vassal Charles of Anjou, King of Sicily and Count of Provence. The little town—with around 5,000 inhabitants, it was at that time scarcely more than a village—was to be the home of six more popes after him and the seat of the Papacy for the next sixty-eight years. Those years are often referred to as the Babylonian Captivity. They were nothing of the kind. The popes were in no sense captive; they were in Avignon because they wanted to be.

There's no messing with perfection. (Okay, a little messing, just for fun.) A few crystals of coarse sea salt, a drizzle of local olive oil, and a sprig or two of purple basil. Sliced and layered in a white ceramic dish, the tomatoes often match the hues of the local sunsets--- reds and golds, yellows and pinks. If there were such a thing in our house as "too pretty to eat," this would be it. Thankfully, there's not. If I'm not exactly cooking, I have done some impromptu matchmaking: baby tomatoes with smoked mozzarella, red onions, fennel, and balsamic vinegar. A giant yellow tomato with a local sheep's milk cheese and green basil. Last night I got a little fancy and layered slices of beefsteak tomato with pale green artichoke puree and slivers of Parmesan. I constructed the whole thing to look like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. I love to think of the utterly pretentious name this would be given in a trendy Parisian bistro: Millefeuille de tomate provençale, tapenade d'artichaut et coppa de parmesan d'Italie (AOC) sur son lit de salade, sauce aigre douce aux abricots. And of course, since this is a snooty Parisian bistro and half their clientele are Russian businessmen, the English translation would be printed just below: Tomato napoleon of artichoke tapenade and aged Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese on a bed of mixed greens with sweet-and-sour apricot vinaigrette. The sauce abricot was a happy accident. While making the dressing for the green salad, I mistook a bottle of peach/apricot syrup for the olive oil. Since I didn't realize my mistake until it was at the bottom of the bowl, I decided to try my luck. Mixed with Dijon mustard and some olive oil, it was very nice--- much sweeter than a French vinaigrette, more like an American-style honey Dijon. I decided to add it to my pretentious Parisian bistro dish because, believe it or not, Parisian bistros love imitating American food. Anyone who has been in Paris in the past five years will note the rise of le Tchizzberger. (That's bistro for "cheeseburger.") I'm moderate in my use of social media, but I can't stop taking pictures of the tomatoes. Close up, I've taken to snapping endless photos of the voluptuously rounded globes. I rejoice in the mingling of olive oil and purply-red flesh. Basil leaves rest like the strategically placed tassels of high-end strippers. Crystals of sea salt catch the afternoon sun like rhinestones under the glaring lights of the Folies Bergère. I may have invented a whole new type of food photography: tomato porn.

The truth is that she was always much more forgiving of animals than people...Her sympathy for the underdog--or the underwasp, underrat, undercat, undersnail, underbird, underspider, undermouse, undergecko, undercentipede--was limitless. In the depths of a gloomy London winter she would trudge to the park with a bag of snacks--stale bread specially sautéed in drippings--for the poor freezing seagulls and ducks. At the height of a Provencal summer she would fill a shallow bowl with water, put it on the terrace, and watch, transfixed, as the poor thirsty wasps hovered just above the surface to take a restorative sip or two. Dogs and cats slept in her bed, baby birds were fed warm milk with eyedroppers, spiders were fished out of baths, and a colony or red ants, which feasted on honey and scurried around inside a special box with a glass lid, lived on the kitchen table in London for many years.

God give us the favor to see the coming year. And if we are not more, Let us not be less.

although I seldom knew what the date was. It didn’t seem important. I was turning into a contented vegetable, maintaining sporadic contact with real life through telephone conversations with people in faraway offices.

I never thought about food like that, but it makes sense. You aren't a different person when you read versus when you eat or do anything else----everything in us does intersect, I guess..." Cecilia's voice drifted away as she thought, and a blush suffused her face. "Put it that way, I see why I eat terribly. I love American teenage food, and it fits with my soft spot for eighties teen movies. You know, Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink... I even dress like that when I feel sad. Austen's much more intellectual." "That's Jane. If it makes you feel better, I read only cookbooks, and they really shouldn't count as real books." I thought for a moment. "But I never forget a food reference." "Never?" I shrugged. "It's a gift." "Sixteen Candles?" "The cake, of course. Oh, but there's that quiche dinner too. See? Sixteen Candles and Dickens---all about breakfast." "Under the Tuscan Sun?" "Never read it, but I'm assuming a ton of Italian?" "That was obvious." Cecilia smiled. "What's your favorite food reference?" "I've got two. I think the best opening line in literature is Peter Mayle's A Year in Provence. 'The year began with lunch.' All books and all years should begin that way." "And the other?" "Coldtonguecoldhamcoldbeefpickledgherkinssaladfrenchrollscressandwichespottedmeatgingerbeerlemonadesodawater-----" "That's too much!" She laughed. "That's exactly what Mole said. But Rat said, 'It's only what I always take on these little excursions, and the other animals are always telling me that I'm a mean beast and cut it VERY fine!'" I grinned. "I love that line." "What's that even from?" "The Wind in the Willows. It's the best picnic ever.

A tray of drinks was brought out, with pastis for the men and chilled, sweet muscat wine for the women, and we were caught in a crossfire of noisy complaints about the weather. Was it as bad as this in England? Only in the summer, I said.

They were at the top now, barking in that speculative, nervous manner that dogs adopt to reassure themselves when they encounter something unexpected in familiar territory. I reached the top of the hill with the sun full in my eyes, but I could make out the backlit silhouette of a figure in the trees, a nimbus of smoke around his head, the dogs inspecting him noisily from a safe distance. As I came up to him, he extended a cold, horny hand. “Bonjour.” He unscrewed a cigarette butt from the corner of his mouth and introduced himself. “Massot, Antoine.

I said that his dogs seemed fierce, and he grinned. Just playful, he said. But what about the time one of them had escaped and attacked the old man? Ah, that. He shook his head at the painful memory. The trouble is, he said, you should never turn your back on a playful dog, and that had been the old man’s mistake. Une vraie catastrophe.

One doesn’t eat fox in England?” I had visions of the members of the Belvoir Hunt writing to The Times and having a collective heart attack at such an unsporting and typically foreign idea. “No, one doesn’t eat fox in England. One dresses up in a red coat and one chases after it on horseback with several dogs, and then one cuts off its tail.” He cocked his head, astonished. “Ils sont bizarres, les Anglais.” And then, with great gusto and some hideously explicit gestures, he described what civilized people did with a fox.

Hadn’t I already lived vicariously through Peter Mayle’s tales of his moving to Provence in his books, A Year In Provence … then Encore Provence … and finally … Toujours Provence. That could be it for me, too. A year in Provence.

A fresh fig is a coy fruit. Fresh figs hide out a bit. Their exterior is sober, matte--- a dignified, often dusky, royal purple. But crack one open, and you have a pulpy, fleshy kaleidoscope of seeds. A ripe fig, like the cheeks of a well-fed child, should give slightly when you squeeze. Figs make an excellent transition from summer to autumn cuisine. This is particularly useful this time of year in Provence, when we are eating in the garden one day, turning on the heat the next. Fresh figs are at home alfresco, in a rocket salad with Golden Delicious apples, pine nuts, and picnic cheeses or roasted with slices of Roquefort and a drizzle of honey to begin a fall fireside dinner.

Marriage was so sacred that it couid not be celebrated on just any day or month of the year. May was ruled out, because it was the month of the old (maiores): 'Who marries then has not long to live' (Ov., F, 5, 488); the 9, 11 and 13 were in any case devoted to the dead. This prohibition was still observed not long ago in Provence. Also ruled out were the first fortnight of March (season of war: Ov., F, 3, 395) and June (before the 'purification' of Vesta's temple).

Cinder Slaughterhouse-Five Becoming Mrs. Lewis Diary of a Wimpy Kid Buffalo Before Breakfast (Magic Tree House #18) Magnolia Table The Apothecary A Year in Provence Under the Tuscan Sun House of Spies The Paris Architect The Joy Luck Club Little Dorrit A Man Called Ove Nine Women, One Dress Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking

two

Too late, Sebastian realized what he’d admitted. He did want Milly Danforth, badly. She was brave, loyal, and possessed of a kissably stubborn mouth. Worse yet, she bore the fragrance of Provence and understood how shame could corrode a soul. “So marry her, why don’t you? You must have an heir, or the St. Clair holdings revert to the Crown.If Miss Danforth is so oblivious to gossip, then marry her, get some babies on her, and set her up at the family seat. Twenty years from now, your son should be able to barter his expectations for an heiress, new wars and new traitors will have arisen, and your infamy will be forgotten.” Rather than tell Michael he sounded much like a certain elderly aunt, Sebastian straightened a saddle blanket folded carelessly on a trunk. “I would be condemning Miss Danforth to widowhood.

Gloria’s Pork Ribs and Red Beans YIELD: 4 SERVINGS BEFORE I MARRIED Gloria, I knew nothing about Caribbean cooking—Puerto Rican or Cuban. She introduced me to many dishes that through the years we have transformed into our own family recipes. When Roland, my brother, came to visit, one of the first dishes that Gloria would prepare for him was pork shoulder ribs with red beans, which she usually serves with rice and onion pilaf. This dish is great when made ahead, and any leftovers can be served with fried eggs for breakfast, a type of huevos rancheros. With the bones removed, it can be puréed into a sturdy, flavorful soup in a food processor. Although dried beans are typically presoaked in water before cooking, this is not necessary if the beans are started in cool water. 2 tablespoons good olive oil 4 shoulder pork chops with the bones or country ribs (about 1½ pounds) 1 pound dried red kidney beans 2 cups fresh diced tomato flesh or 1 can (14¾ ounces) whole Italian tomatoes, with juice 3 cups sliced onions 1½ tablespoons chopped garlic 1 jalapeño pepper (or more or less, depending on your tolerance for “hotness”), finely chopped, with or without the seeds (about 1 tablespoon) 2 bay leaves 1 teaspoon herbes de Provence (available in many supermarkets) or Italian seasoning 6 cups cold water 1½ teaspoons salt 1 small bunch cilantro Cooked rice, for serving (optional) Tabasco hot pepper sauce (optional) Heat the oil in a large saucepan (I like enameled cast iron), add the pork chops or ribs, and sauté gently, turning once, for 15 to 20 minutes or until they are browned on both sides. Meanwhile, sort through the beans and discard any broken or damaged ones and any foreign matter. Rinse the beans in a sieve under cold water. When the chops or ribs are browned, remove them from the heat, and add the tomatoes and their juice, onions, garlic, jala-peño, bay leaves, herbs, and water. Stir in the beans and salt, and bring to a boil. Meanwhile, pull the leaves from the cilantro stems. Chop the stems finely (you should have about ¼ cup), and add them to the beans. Reserve the leaves (you should have about 1 cup loosely packed) for use as a garnish. When the bean mixture is boiling, reduce the heat to low, and boil very gently, covered, for 2 to 2½ hours, or until the beans and pork are very tender. Divide among soup bowls, sprinkle the cilantro leaves on top, and serve with rice, if desired. Pass the Tabasco sauce for those who want added hotness.

We all need one day a year when we meet our own expectations and allow the world to be as it is instead of exactly how we would like it to be.

coq

...the demented clatter-like nuts and bolts trying to escape from a biscuit tin-of the small Citroën van that every farmer drives home at lunchtime...

Did it really matter if the occasional pressing chore was postponed in favor of lunch? Time was elastic; there was always tomorrow.