Lost in Provence

Le Beaujolais Nouveau Est Arrivé!

It's that time of year again! On the third Thursday of every November, the French find yet another reason to celebrate life with a glass of wine. The Beaujolais Nouveau is released on this day, and its arrival is fêted in style in cafés, bistros and restaurants all over the country. See more at: http://www.intowine.com/beaujolais2.html

It's a big deal. Johann and his co-workers started the festivities early, as the restaurant that delivers lunch to his office included a complimentary bottle of Beaujolais for every four lunches ordered that day. He spent the afternoon sobering up, then hit the road to come and collect me for an evening of wine-tasting in Cadenet. We started at the new and trendy Café Zinc, where we met our British friends Jan and Paul.

Unfortunately, though, we found that Café Zinc was not only serving special Beaujolais Nouveau dinners at thirty euros each ($38, a bit pricey for our budgets) but also that they were booked solid. Fine. That had just been "plan A" anyway. Our intention had actually been to go there and have one glass of wine and soak up the fancy atmosphere before going to our regular hangout, Antoine's, where they know us and give us free drinks. So off we went.

Antoine had made a half-hearted attempt to make the place look festive. A meager strand of colored lights hung over the outdoor terrace. Our brows furrowed as we approached the bar and its emptiness started to register. What was going on? Where was everybody? Why was the place completely deserted? We all had fond memories of enjoying Beaujolais Nouveau there in previous years. Well, as much as a very young red wine that is being drunk way before its prime just for the sake of tradition can be enjoyed, that is. That's the fun, you see. Once a year, you and your pals go out, drink some very sharp, cheap, acidic wine and wash it down with some complimentary snacks. Everyone else in town is doing the same, and you all trade notes on exactly how much worse you think this year's batch is than last year's. Then you all order another bottle for your table and smile winningly at the girl distributing the free appetizers. It's tradition.

Antoine had decided to pass on the whole thing this year, though. They had just purchased a second bar. His wife had been sick. He just became a grandfather. He had a lot going on. So he decided to skip it all. There wasn't a single bottle of Beaujolais Nouveau in the house. It seemed adulturous to our adopted homeland to go home empty-handed on this night intended for the idolization of the indomitable French grape, though, so we ordered a couple of pizzas from Antoine, grabbed a couple of bottles of good wine and went back to Jan and Paul's to enjoy it all in front of their roaring fire. Call us faithless friends of France if you will, but there's something to be said for celebrating the Beaujolais Nouveau without having to drink a drop of it.

If You Like Pina Coladas...

I have a drug problem. It's serious. My problem is that I can't get any good drugs here.

I have had a cold on and off (more on than off) for the last month now. And the stuff that I'm getting at the French pharmacy just isn't doing the trick. The French take the same approach to drugs as they do to food. They would prefer to go to the butcher shop for their meat, then to the bakery for their bread, then to the little fruit and veggie stand run by a local farmer for their produce, rather than just go to the supermarket and buy it all in one shot.

This mentality is evident in the cold and flu section of the pharmacy as well, where you buy a syrup for your throat, pills for your headache, little envelopes of powder to be mixed with water for your sinuses and still more envelopes of powder for your cough. And since I've been wary of taking all this stuff at the same time, I constantly find myself trying to decide which I want to suffer through for the next four hours: drippy nose, hacking cough, brain-bending headache or blazing throat pain.

God, how I miss NyQuil and Sudafed and their one-stop-shopping philosophy on illness.

Then it occured to me that perhaps my attitude toward these French medications had been needlessly prudent. I studied the instructions on the boxes carefully and found nothing that would indicate I couldn't just take all of them at once. Could that possibly be the secret? A recipe started to form in my head. I could mix the sinus and cough powders with some orange juice, add a shot of the throat syrup, throw in some ice cubes, measure out a tablespoon or two of rum (for that nice, sleepy, NyQuil feeling) then whip it all up in the blender. Voila! I call it the "NyQuil-colada." Unfortunately, I don't know whether or not my concoction is effective, because Johann refuses to let me make one.

J: How are you feeling?

L: As God is my witness, the boy who pulls the sword from my head shall be king.

J: I can't believe your head is actually capable of manufacturing that much snot. It's kind of impressive, really.

L: I don't think it's snot anymore. I think it's spinal fluid. Please let me make a NyQuil-colada.

J: No! Mixing drugs and alcohol is very, very dangerous.

L: You make it sound like I'm Robert Downey Jr. or the Rolling Stones or something. We're talking cold medicine and a couple of tablespoons of rum here. Come on.

J: No.

L: One tablespoon of rum? Pleeeeease?

J: No. And it would be a nice gesture if next you could take whichever one of those medications will make you less whiny, please.

L: Ha-ha. Funny. Actually, I'm picturing a nice gesture in my head right now. Would you like to see it?

J: No. I'm going to the bar. Call me there when you're better.

L: Fine.

J: I'm taking the blender with me.

L: Damn.

So until my husband changes his policy on drugs and alcohol (which now includes a clause specifying that if I am ever in a coma that is my own fault, he will pull the plug), or until this cold goes away, I will continue to suffer. In the meantime, though, I ask you to take a moment out of your day to be thankful that you live in a country that provides its citizens with the finest, most effective drugs money can buy. Well, after Canada, I guess. And if you know anyone who works at Vicks or Pfizer, please give them my mailing address.

The Joy of Cooking

Feast: Food to Celebrate Life

Nigella Lawson

Since moving to France I've had the good fortune to learn some tricks of the trade from some of the finest chefs in the world. These chefs don't have restaurants, mind you, and their culinary accomplishments are unknown except to the friends and family members that eagerly patronize their tables, but they have nonetheless given this amateur kitchen-dweller a first-class education in the finer points of French cuisine.

Thanks to their gastronomical tutelage, I now know to make coq au vin, quiche lorraine, gratin dauphiois, soup au pistou, crepes, cheese souflées, daube and an exquisite vinaigrette from scratch. I've also accumulated a list of some of my own recipes, like duck in cherry sauce; rabbit in a creamy white wine, mustard and tarragon sauce; perfect pumpkin soup and the banana, coconut and almond muffins that Johann's co-workers keep begging him to bring to the office.

Because not everyone is lucky enough to have a team of French grandmothers, aunts, neighbors and mothers-in-law to give them advice, and because I am often asked for some of the recipes I've learned, I thought I would share a list of some of my favorite cookbooks (see right, under "Books"), just in time for the holidays.

Though it doesn't focus on French cuisine, I highly recommend Feast, which was a gift from our dear friends Jenni and Colin and is chock-full of festive holiday fare. Check out the cake on page 286, which is made with Guinness and actually resembles a pint of it, with the dark chocolate cake supporting a layer of frothy white frosting that could almost be foam. There are also recipies for a gorgeous Thanksgiving turkey, temptingly tasty Christmas ham and even goose stuffed with mashed potatoes.

French Leave is also a good choice, written by an English chef who took up residence in the southwestern part of France and spent a year researching the best French recipes of each season. It's a good example of adherence to the French principle of fresh, high-quality ingredients simply prepared and beautifully served.

So there you have it, my culinary secrets revealed. Enjoy!