Hot Chocolate and Croissants in Cassis

Two summers ago, Maman rented a little apartment in this town none of us had ever heard of: Cassis.  Spelled like the black currant liqueur, but the “s” is silent when you say the town’s name.  Mr. English and I stayed for a few weeks, and we toured around all over Provence, and some of the Riviera, discovering gorgeous seaside villages and majestic perched medieval towns.  I wrote about it all in the Papiers Provence.  So, as my father was in town, and because he had never seen our little seaside getaway, we drove the two and a half hours to Cassis.

It’s a simple town.  Not fancy.  Right on the sea.  With sailboats docked, and a petanque court, and a pebble beach.  It is a natural cove, between the giant calanques, these seaside cliff inlets, that blockade it off from Marseille.  But what I love about Cassis is it’s not to touristy.  The shops sell lovely things.  The restaurants have good food.  There’s an Amorino gelato bar (I’m an addict), and a real beachside ice cream and sandwich vendor that sells me my merguez frites sandwiches for 4.50.  The sea is cold and fresh.  And the sunset against the huge stone cliffs is breathtaking.  There are little garden restaurants that serve ceviche of the local scorpionfish, and seaside terraces that serve “the best bouillabaisse from here to Paris”.  We arrived early, around 9, and I sat down for my breakfast of champions: chocolat chaud and pain au chocolat.  I think only an American would ever order that much chocolate, but I loved it!  Then, we boarded one of the tour boats for the calanques, and a small merry band of us set to sea.  We wove in and out of the secret inlets, the sea so bleu-marine that it was like a siren’s call to dive in and escape the clear sun.  We could see straight to the bottom of the deep sea, and almost straight to the tops of the cliffs.  We arrived to shore windswept, and sad that we’d already seen the whole tiny town, and were moving on to Aix.

Cap Canaille in Cassis

The Cassis Calanques

The Deep Blue Sea in Cassis

I first came to Aix when I was fifteen–my mom took me on a little vacation in the South of France for an early sweet sixteen gift.  I was breathlessly in love with the whole place.  And Aix was my favorite.  We stayed right on the Cours Mirabeau, a shady eighteenth century-looking avenue through the middle of town, with platane trees that tangle their fingers up over the road, and a building that looks held up by two famous Atlas figures bearing up the lintel of the front door.  I tried to take a picture to share them, but they are being cleaned.  I guess a shower after a few hundred years is probably a good thing.

I found Aix, back then, almost sleepy.  Not so two years ago, and not so now.  It is bustling, full of all my favorite French-only shops–Princesse Tam-Tam, Petit Bateau, Aigle–and restaurants and crowds.  But the markets remain my favorite, and they sell purple asparagus, pistou-soaked green olives, zucchini flowers, fruits-de-mer, and my favorite, this homespun, completely not Laduree macarons.  I have a whole post coming on those, because I think they’re the next big thing.

Ratatouille Lasagna in Aix-en-Provence

We dug up an old favorite lunch spot of ours, Le Pizza, and ordered one of those dishes that you dream about and drive anywhere for (my French In-N-Out burger): vegetable lasagna.  It sounds weirds, I know, to drive hours for a vegetable lasagna, but this one is à la Provençal.  A layer of chunky ratatouille in the bottom of a gratin dish, covered in fresh lasagna noodles, a simple tomato sauce, and a mix of mozzarella and Gruyère bubbling on top.  I had to stop myself, so I could save room for my rustic macarons, which I bought in chocolate-raspberry, lavender, and pistachio.  Again, more on those to come…

Jars of Macarons, au naturale, in Aix

Some crazy, savory macaron flavors in Aix: Smoked Salmon with Dill and Fruit Coulis; Shrimp with Anise and Lemon Confit; Foie Gras with Fig and Speck; Goat Cheese with Bacon and Tapenade

We drove back to La Turbie, desperate for our “local”–Café de la Fontaine.  But they were booked.  We drove to Menton, and everywhere was absolutely booked.  Lesson: on the Riviera, in summer, make a reservation.  No matter how crummy some these places look, and how all their tables are empty, they’re “booked”.  Starving and cranky, we tumbled into a little café that I would never recommend because the service was so rude, but we had the best bowls of moules marinière I’ve had in a while.  With itsy-bitsy, tiny mussels.  So much sweeter and less like dead tongues in your mouth than those giants everyone oohs and ahhs for.  I woke up the next morning still tasting the garlic.

Teeny, Tiny Moules Marinière in Menton

The Mussels Came "Frites-Salade"

I’m back in France, having had to go back to London for a few days for work.  As soon as I landed, I went right back to Fenocchio, and made myself try new flavors, even though I love orange flower and am forever loyal to it.  This time, I had rice pudding ice cream (riz au lait) and pear sorbet.  The sorbet was killer, the ice cream was very good, with real plump grains of rice tucked into the frozen cream.  My dad, in Nice for the first time, had the spekuloos.  Amazing as ever, and of course, I stole half of it.

Pichade

Barba Juan

Zucchini Flower Beignet in Menton

Sweet Apple Beignet

The next morning, we went to the market in Menton, where one woman sets up her shop just outside the market.  She is the patron saint of all sinful, delicious, provençal foods.  She sells beignets and pizza.  Could two words ever fit more beautifully together?  I love her Barba Juan, these round fried balls stuffed with blette, a leafy green found in tarts all over the South of France.  Google Translate tells me it’s chard, but it tastes more like dandelion greens.  Just that touch almost sour, and verdant, and good.  And she has giant zucchini flower beignets–the best I’ve had.  Soft, and almost juicy in an impossible way.  She also sells this Menton-only cheeseless pizza, like a tomato pissaladière, called pichade.  I bought a sweet apple beignet from her too.  I love her!  And that was my breakfast.  When in France…

The Monte Carlo Casino

Amazing Ratatouille

Pink Grapefruit Sorbet

For a late lunch, I took my father to Monte Carlo, to a famous restaurant called Café de Paris.  I was there when I was fifteen–I was kicked out of the casino for being too young.  So my mom took me there and bought me ratatouille as a consolation.  I never forget that ratatouille, because it was the best of my life.  I find it very difficult to make well, and this one was cut into a million tiny die, like the ones that come with a travel backgammon game.  They don’t cut it so petite anymore, but I have to report, that even thought it is incredibly overpriced, it is still the best ratatouille I’ve ever had.  I followed it with more ice cream–pink grapefruit sorbet.  It’s getting to be a habit.

The bouillabaisse I had that night deserves its own post.  I spent the rest of the afternoon sneaking photographs of recipe postcards in a gift shop.  I was desperate!  The perfect soupe au pistou might be my holy grail.

I have this serious preoccupation with the “village perché,” or the “perched village.”  Down in Provence, and towards the Riviera, there are all these medieval towns, perched like eagles’ nests on promontory mountainous rocks.  They are full of tiny, perfectly rectangular doorways with wood slabs doors, and footpaths made from the stones of the mountains that curve and go up and down and double back on themselves.  How quaint.  Tiny churches that you can tell the whole town once faithfully fit into.  Hanging gardens, terraces that jut out over the valley below.  It really is like having your head in the clouds–which we literally did when we visited Èze.  But the point is, I collect two things: visits to these villages, and pressed pennies (yes, it’s true!).  But if I see a sign for a medieval “village perché,” we have to go.

Èze

My favorite to date has been Les Baux, which I visited two years ago.  The sad truth is that so many of these villages, which once seemed to have been so self-contained, are now there for tourists.  At Èze, we saw a candy stand on the way up the mountain, and the cafés are not what you would call authentic–although, great coffee and crêpes were surprisingly available.  But the shops in Les Baux seem to actually offer something, and the views and scenery are straight out of Lord of the Rings.  It’s breathtaking.

Èze: A View of the Clouds

Lemon and Sugar Crêpes in Èze

The view from Èze

Gardens in Èze

The tiny streets of Èze

Isn't Èze quaint?

Fantasy Gardens in Èze

A door in Èze

As for Èze, whose old castle is lit up gorgeously at night with floodlights, we had to go.  Just on the way home every night, we can see it, and of course, a perched village with a floodlit castle is like a siren’s call to me.  The day that we went was overcast, and once we’d marched up the mountain to the town, we were literally in a cloud.  The whole town felt even more insular that it already did.  But I think what struck me most about Èze was the little courtyard on the side of the mountain where the church was.  It was the kind of church that you know the whole town went to.  And it couldn’t have fit more than a couple of hundred people.  And outside, as in all French towns and city, was the memorial to the WWI dead of the town, with the WWII losses tacked on, seemingly as an afterthought, around the WWI list.  What struck us was the repeat of names: six from one Asso family.  My mom turned to me and asked, do you think that was the end of the whole family?  I just imagined what life must have been like in these tiny town, so recently untouched and almost medieval, and then to either have to leave to go out into such a scary world, or remain back and watch people leave from such a small, tight-knit community.  Well–as a New Yorker from this day in age, I don’t think I can really relate, and it was that distance that I found so special about Èze.  So much has changed so quickly.  Although, I did think to myself about how I had walked by my old NYC apartment building, where I grew up, and saw plaques on the garden wall to our neighbors lost on 9/11–and I thought, maybe things aren’t so different between a small town and a big city, or the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.  We all make communities for ourselves, and find ourselves in wars we can’t imagine having started.

Peille & Peillon

The next day, we drove to Peillon, a teeny, tiny village perché whose town ordinance forbids any kind of tourist shop–which has kept it perhaps a true village perché, frozen in time and place.  It was there that I found the answer to my mom’s question.  As we were touring the empty streets, if you can call them streets, I looked up into the metal window in a wooden door to see a kitten clinging mischievously to the inside.  I walked over to coo at it, and it jumped back into the house.  On the door, was a For Sale sign, by a certain couple by the name of Asso.  We looked at each other in shock–even though six had died in the war, two with the same first name, and one with a girl’s name, they had lived on.  True French resilience.

View from Peille and Peillon

It's me!

Biot

Matelassé in Biot

And though I was inexplicably in a stormy mood, we carried on to Biot, where my mother likes to buy ashtrays.  It is a pottery stronghold, and if you are a smoker, which I am not, I suppose you will appreciate that they make special ashtrays that allow you to smoke outside without the ashes ever getting blown around.  Something to check out.  But there, I found gorgeous matelassé place mats and olive wood salad servers for my new apartment.  Because, I did hear Nate Berkus say that you should fill your home with beautiful things collected from your travels.  So I felt no guilt!

La Turbie

Artichoke Salad at Café de la Fontaine

Mozzarella and Tomato Salad at Café de la Fontaine

Lobster Salad at Café de la Fontaine

Veal Provençal with Homemade Tortellini at Café de la Fontaine

In terms of eating between these villages, there was crêpes with lemon and sugar and café noisette (espresso stained with milk to the color of hazelnuts) in Èze.  In Biot, I took out a soggy slice of pissaladière I had bought at the boulangère in La Turbie–delish.  And then I bought a gorgeous tart, filled with a kind of pistachio frangipane, topped with fresh raspberries and the slightest drizzle of honey.  And then for dinner, back to La Turbie to the locally famous Café de la Fontaine, which has a changing menu.  I had veal stewed à la Provençal with olives and demi-glace, with homemade tortellini, and an artichoke salad.  It was there that I sat next to and spoke with a chef from a restaurant in Nice, but he was so long-winded, even more loquacious about food than I am, that I even grew bored and decided that’s a story for another time.

My soggy, delicious, Pissaladière

Raspberry and Pistachio Tart from Biot

More Baked Goods from La Turbie: Whole Wheat Fougasse

A delicious Pain au Chocolat

Café de la Fontaine: 4 Avenue du Général de Gaulle, 06320 La Turbie, 04 93 28 52 79

The bakery, Mr & MME Degot, is just down the street

This is why I wake up smelling of garlic in the South of France. It's so popular, they've named a little cape after it! Hilarious.