A Few Days In Provence

Carrying canvas bags and capacious baskets, we set off to fill them—with rosé wines (for our aperitifs), eight different types of saucisse, for grilling and for nibbling, cheeses, butter, and three loaves of bread, salads, heirloom tomatoes, and olive-sized new potatoes, for starters. Diana Farr Louis

Eating Well Is The Best Revenge

By Diana Farr Louis

ANDROS Greece—(Weekly Hubris)—11/17/2014—My father always said, “Leave at the height of the party. Don’t wait till it’s over. That way you may long for more but you’ll never be disappointed.”

In July we spent five nights in Provence. The invitation came in March just as I was getting ready for another flight from Athens. That would take me to New York and then to Waveland, Mississippi, where my sisters and I would meet to say goodbye to our brother. Woody had decided to give up his battle with cancer—he’d already squeezed out three more years of life than the doctors had predicted—so this would be the last of our family reunions.

I’d sneaked a peak at my emails before my morning stretches—something I try to postpone till breakfast—and Joy of the People found me sobbing when he got up, uncharacteristically a bit later than me for a change. “What’s the matter? Has something happened to Woody?” he asked.

“No,” I bawled. “C and L have invited us to come to France, spend a few days in Paris in their flat and join them in Provence, where they’ve been loaned a house. And not just us, Duff too.”

Already weepy with sadness, I found such kindness and generosity almost more than I could bear. But of course we accepted with pleasure.

And so it was that for the first time in maybe three decades we forsook the Aegean in summer and left Greece for a foreign land. Friends offered to look after the dawg, we gave all the plants an extra long drink, and I spent hours in the sea as if to make up for the swims I’d be missing.

As the plane flew up the Adriatic, I thought how ironic this is, to be leaving on this pleasure trip just as my brother is about to embark on his last journey. When I’d talked to him a month ago, his voice had sounded so strong that I dreamed he might cheat death a little longer, but when I phoned shortly before our departure, he was not capable of speaking to anyone.

“We won’t be able to call you”, said my sister Nancy, “so I’ll have to let you know by email.”

I love Paris much more when it drizzles than when it sizzles. We hadn’t been there in summer since the early 80s and were squeezed by the crowds, astounded by the prices—10 euros for a watery cappuccino near the Invalides, 15 euros for a kilo of cherries in the rue Cler—and dismayed by the mediocrity of our bistro meals. So with great relief we bade Gay Paree au revoir and boarded the TGV bullet train to Avignon and the open arms of our dear friends.

We had been often to Provence, and felt we knew it quite well. After all we had watched a truffle auction at the Carpentras market, seen a Provençal Christmas Eve service complete with baby lambs, walked below the red chalk “cliffs” of Roussillon, and bought wine from a gas station lookalike, with three pumps for rouge, rosé, and blanc, not to mention some classier vintages. So even though the area around Mont Ventoux was terra incognita, the vines and olives, walled villages and artisanal food shops wore a familiar mantle.

Of course, the first thing we did after unloading our bags at the Mas des Arcs in Vaison les Romains was go in search of provisions. Our house, a rambling farmhouse with airy bedrooms, red tile floors, and alarming stairs had a fully equipped kitchen with a professional gas stove that made the three cooks among us gasp with delight. It also had a wine cellar that we would try to decimate, stocked with rouge from its own vineyard next door.

The house could not have been better situated. Opposite us rose the weathered arches of the Roman theater, separated from the road by two traffic circles planted with red, yellow, mauve, and pink wildflowers. We had to walk five minutes along the ruins of the largest Roman residential area in France in order to get to the shops and, on Tuesday, the enormous market.

Carrying canvas bags and capacious baskets, we set off to fill them—with rosé wines (for our aperitifs), eight different types of saucisse, for grilling and for nibbling, cheeses, butter, and three loaves of bread, salads, heirloom tomatoes, and olive-sized new potatoes, for starters. We ordered a boned and marinated leg of lamb before heading for the supermarket, which also held temptations that we did not attempt to resist, as well as boring but necessary staples.

We spent the next days driving hours to visit friends for lunch and regrouping in the evening on our patio. Even a substantial midday meal did not diminish our appetite for concocting something on our own stove and diving into the wine cellar, for sitting round the table until midnight, and basking in the warmth of good talk, as the whinnying of horses and enthusiastic applause made us wonder what was playing at the ancient theater.

As for those lunch parties, they took us to farflung places that don’t appear on any maps, to a lavender plantation up a mountainous dirt road and to a cabanon or shack, in the middle of nowhere. The couple who grew lavender feted us with an aioli with all the trimmings, a spread apparently reserved for only the most esteemed guests. We drank their own wines and felt duly honored. But when as Catherine was guiding me round her lovely modern but cozy home, she said, “Vous avez l’aire triste,” I saw she was extremely sensitive as well as being an excellent scholar, potter, and cook.

I did not think it showed but I confessed, “My younger brother died yesterday. It was his 71^st birthday. He must have planned it, enjoying the symmetry, economy of coming and going on the same day.”

She hugged me and I almost wept. But now was not the time; I would save my tears for more solitary moments.

It was not easy to stay sad in Provence. The next day’s party at the cabanon put permanent smiles on all our faces. There we proved that joie de vivre has nothing to do with age. Our American hosts, art historian Mary Ann Caws and her doctor husband, were both octogenarians but they had the glee and ‘kefi’ of children, the warmth and spontaneity of Mediterraneans. Because the shack was too small to hold us, we sat round a table tucked under a grape arbor that kept the rain off and exchanged life stories and recipes, tales of New York and local personalities, an exceptional cheese and homemade cherry brandy. I made a note to buy Mary Ann’s latest book, The Modern Art Cookbook, and keep her in mind whenever I hear myself droning on about Greece’s dismal politicians.

That night, it was actually cool enough to justify lighting a fire and we sat round in companionable silence, reading books and Ipads. By the next day, our last, the clouds had vanished and we decided to explore the ruins next door, starting with the museum. Mosaic floors and statues of Hadrian made us Greeks feel almost too much at home, so we set off to circumnavigate Mont Ventoux.

Except for the lavender fields and castle turrets, the countryside could have been Greek too. There were even arched stone bridges, the trademark of Epirus, but not a single plastic bottle littered it, not a single eyesore blotted the scenery. And once inside the villages, the resemblance stopped, with each façade. Whether stone or ochre, pistachio, or russet plaster with faded pastel shutters and framed doorways, every one was worth a photo, and the whole was as harmonious as the Pastoral Symphony.

We found a mountain hamlet called Brantes for our last lunch, with a splendid view of Ventoux, a grey and white cat that matched its stones, and no shops apart from the Auberge/Bistrot de Pays, where the menu was part Moroccan part Corsican and each dish not only a work of art but utterly delectable.

So there we were eating again. But is there anything that binds a friendship tighter than sitting round the table? This last lunch was the only one we’d had nothing to do but order. All the others had been a group effort, from the planning, shopping, cooking, to the enjoyment. Even the eventual washing up, when shared, contributed to the conviviality. And each time this happens, your bonds deepen and the layers accumulate, enriched by stories and memories, that for C and me stretch back fifty years to Radcliffe, Paris, Spetses, New York, Paris again, Athens, Cassis, Andros. . . .

When I got back home, I could not stop weeping. Tears flowed for my brother of course, but also for the gift of such good friendships. Five nights in Provence were not nearly enough, but we are already planning where to meet and eat next. The party’s not over yet.

Meanwhile, here is a recipe C sent me.

RECIPE

Tatin d’Aubergines or, more mundanely, Eggplant Upside-down Pie

Preheat oven to 200 degrees C (400 degrees F). Take a pie tin, oil it lightly and sprinkle around cassonade (raw) sugar, not too little not too much, and pine nuts, as many as you can afford.

Slice one medium eggplant and one smallish tomato thinly. Brown the eggplant slices in olive oil. Lay the tomato slices prettily in the middle of the pie tin, and then array the eggplant slices around the tin so that the bottom is entirely covered. Lay a fine store-bought pâte feuilletée (puff pastry) on top, tucking in the edges, and bake in the oven until puffed and brown.

Let the tatin settle 10 minutes and reverse onto a flat plate. Good hot or cold within the day. Not good reheated.