Pas le Mariage Royal mais la Parade de Pâques - not the Royal Wedding but the Easter Parade

Well, dear readers, this is a quickie, born out of several pressing reasons (1) on line time is rather short at the moment due to lots of people chatting - possibly - about the Caspar the Friendly Ghost bridal veil sported by K Middleton for the Event (2) strange goings on in Marrakech (3) the Barca v. Real Madrid second leg. 
Hence, something a little different.  And brief.

My adopted town of Marseillan hosted a rather large and spectacular Easter Parade, held, rather obviously, on Easter Sunday.  Said Easter Parade featured, curiously, polar bears and father christmas, and, less questionably, dwarfs hatching out of eggs and Jonah the Whale swallowing fully clad nubile females. Well, it was Easter and this is a land rich in legend and, er, swans/dwarves/whales???  Holly, my parents and I watched this with much appreciation and a couple of pression.

I should point out that Marseillan is the town responsible for the unsurpassable vermouth Noilly Prat, yes, that's where it is made, so every Martini conoisseur out there will be raising a glass to the sign appearing in the background of several photos - the parade is passing by the factory that makes the perfect martini possible - worldwide!  So, I hope you enjoy this easter parade as much as Holly, Folie M, maman, et papa did, and for those of us not accustomed to such effusive revelry, how lovely to see history , tradition, religion and fun rolled into one sunny, bizarre, music filled day. 

On a final note, how memorable for me to spend such a special day with close and special people in my life, my dear parents and close friend, Holly.

À la recherche du bon café - in search of a good cup of coffee




Latte Australian Style

  Before I even start, apologies to the long suffering Holly who has endured too many rants on this subject and is, without doubt, heartily sick of the whole thing.....

Okay.  I love it here. It is everything I hoped for,  and often more.  Apart from one thing.
The coffee is dreadful.  

I know that, at this point, my French readers (yes, there are, um,  several!) will snort in disgust and immediately delete this blog, or simply shrug and ignore (ça m’est égal).  However, this issue is not something I can ignore, and, for the first time, Folie Madame is having a tantrum. 

Cappuccino Australian Style

There is a certain time in the morning when a cup of coffee is just exactly what is needed. That wonderful aroma, followed by a delicious sip to relish the robust flavours of the bean, the staying power of the crema, the silkiness of the milk.  There could be a sprinkling of chocolate on top of a bouncy cappuccino or a hidden kick delivered by a finely crafted flat white.  A latte goes terribly well with a friande or toastie.  Maybe it's just an espresso and biscotte.  Delicious! 

Not for me, however, as I am living in the land of coffee indifference. It's true. The famous French discretionary palette does not apply itself to coffee.  It seems that pretty much any old thing will do, so long as it is black, served in a cup the size of a thimble, able to be drunk sitting at a café de la chaussée (pavement café), and - most importantly - chatting with friends. Apparently, the French view coffee as a subsidiary to a good seat in a café and its taste is immaterial (je m'en fous).  Coffee with milk is for children at breakfast time.  Wine is to be worshipped. Food is to be savoured. Fashion is to be respected.  Literature is to be admired.  Coffee is a means to an end.

Now, I enjoy a chat with friends in a café as much as the next person, but I don't see why it shouldn't be accompanied by a rocking cup of joe.  And I don't see why one of the most sophisticated cultures in the world wouldn't enjoy that, too.  Maybe I'm missing something. Maybe Starbucks missed something when they opened in Australia, then closed most of their outlets, due to their underestimation of the sophistication of the Australian coffee palatte.  Maybe France would enjoy a fabulous flat white or luscious long black? Maybe I'm barking up the wrong coffee bush.  What do you think, French readers? Do you care naught for my concerns or do you think the time is ripe for a lunatic fringe to introduce to French café society a crazy cup of coffee crafted entirely on taste?  For me, one thing is certain.  Australia should be very proud of its coffee cognoscenti.

Chocolatée - Gay Chocolate Shop Opens in Marseillan!

Shock waves are rippling through the sleepy seaside port of Marseillan, as it finds itself suddenly, possibly, potentially, definitely, maybe Chic....

Spotted late last week, a large and extremely flamboyant chandelier being unloaded from a white van, under the supervision of two fragrant and very well groomed men, accompanied by their fragrant and very well groomed French bulldog.  Said chandelier was then wheeled towards a recently purchased premesis under the throes of opening up for business. 

Having  studiously peered through the darkened windows on more than one occasion, I could see velvet ottomans and mirrored cabinets smouldering at me through the gloomy interior. Clearly some sort of retail outlet was being fitted out, but what could it be?

Not long after, a sign painter began plying his trade on the fascia above this mystery shop.  Gradually, the words "Chocolatée" started to appear. Chocolate!  I was intrigued!  I was interested!  I was hanging around hoping for free samples. 
A day or so later, of the two fragrant gentlemen in charge of the Salon, one was seen walking their eccentric, kerbside rolling, kerchief sporting bulldog along the quayside whilst the other selected to indulge in a carafe of rosé and a spot of afternoon reading in one of our many waterfront cafés - clearly in no rush to open their chocolate shop / salon du thé.

This would never do!  I was keen for the chocolate shop to open! 
Tourists would be keen to drink the thé! 
Marseillan was keen welcome fresh, pink faces to the community! 

I checked at the boules park. I enquired at the Clés du Soleil, real estate agency. I pestered Sylvie at Cap'tifs Coiffeuse. I asked at Le Sporting coffee bar.  Finally, I discovered they knew what was going down in Marseillan at the street wise Spar.  Chocolateé would be opening Wednesday. Watch this space......

Les Gastronomes - #2 in the occasional series French Impressions

It is no secret that the French love food, and I was fully expecting to find food and eating taking up quite a large amount of my time once in France.  What I was not quite expecting was the excellence of presentation, and the standard and variety of choice in the majority of shops purveying food.  It's like shopping for shoes!  As much thought (and creative photography) seems to go into the sale of a camembert as into a pair of Clergerie.  And there is really nothing wrong with that! 

The first supermarket I drifted into, in the small town of Marseillan, saw me wandering through the aisles for more than an hour, eyes glazed, mouth watering, basket empty, unable to choose anything, completely bewildered by the selection on offer. It was like a vast delicatessen, especially in comparison to the choice offered by the supermarket chains in Australia, Coles and Woolworths (yes, there are only two to choose from), who both stock exactly the same stuff and have done so for the last ten years without change. 

Then I discovered that the Carrefour in Marseillan is really quite small and relatively understocked.  You should see the Inter Marché in Agde or the Hyper U in Clermont l'Herault - 74 aisles of cheese, not counting the gourmet section!  Fresh fish, as only seen in the fish markets of Ultimo, served as standard in every store! 
Six aisles of wine not including the 'specialist' climate controlled room for posh labels!  Quails, duck, venison, foie gras, fresh paella, galettes, tartines, macarons, all readily available.  Heaven knows what might be in store in a large city such as Montpellier - fine dining sample areas and free armagnac and cigars afterwards?  It is a food lovers heaven, and I am in fast track training to become one of the team. 

In addition to this, every town has its weekly market where all the local producers bring their fresh stocks and set up stall at dawn, with the residents hot on their tracks to snap up the freshest and best on offer.  Honey, nuts, olives, saucisson, cheese (of course), jams, fruit and vegetables, butter, eggs, herbs and spices, chocolate, bread, cakes - endless displays of hand made, home produced goods, not to mention the wines from local vineyards with the vignerone selling it to you, along with the full story of how it was grown, picked, aged and bottled. 

Flower sellers nestle alongside the foodstuffs and the classic woven baskets essential for every market shopper are on prominent display, too.  Just to keep the balance nicely French, one can pick up a sexy pair of lace top stockings at the same time as a fat brie or a crate of ripe pears - after all, food isn't the only enjoyment life has to offer! What I like most about this approach to food is that it is actually a holistic approach to life itself. The emphasis is on what is in season, local, organic, timely and fresh, as supplied by the people who work the surrounding land. Good food and good living is important enough to be a daily part of life, not something done in one 'big shop' and got out of the way. Yes, sometimes this can be time consuming, but overall, to me, it feels more connected with the rhythms of life and the seasons of nature.

Montpellier Et Ses Environs

I don't exactly know at what point the city of Montpellier became the focus of my thoughts and aspirations over the last year or so - I'd never even been there.  People I talked to who knew the city usually used adjectives such as 'vibrant', 'lovely', 'cool', but that's hardly enough to make the average sane person want to uproot a perfectly good life and defect to the other side of the world, to a city never before encountered. Nevertheless, I felt sure that this place would be 'the' place for us, and I had in my mind it would be akin to my favourite city, Edinburgh, but a warm and sunny, south of France golden version of Edinburgh, nestled on the banks of the Mediterranean. 

No wonder, then, that Montpellier had a great deal to live up to as it had been playing on my mind for over a year as our possible future home. Would I like it? Would Alex like it? Would Roly, Pepper and Oscar fit in here?
How reassuring, then, was it to park the pumpkin on Avenue Georges Clemenceau and walk into Place de la Comédie via Figuerolles, browsing through the weekly flea market, peering into fabric shop windows, stopping for coffee on the way in Place Castellane and feeling like I'd come home.  It was just as I'd imagined, and even better.  Older, more quirky, characterful, yet youthfully alert and purposeful, bustling with students on bicycles, shops twinkling with temptation, trams dividing crowds on their way to the seaside suburbs, gig guides stuck to old city walls and church doors, dogs lunching with their owners, cats sleeping wrapped around wrought iron balconies. 

Fabulous to encounter was the Old Quarter, the ancient part of Montpellier, with blond stone streets polished to a fine sheen from centuries of footsteps, streets the width of an armspan, hidden inner courtyards accessed via five foot high stable doors, unexpected shops of luxury and style, speaking of a thousand years of trading.  A narrow, narrow footpath opens up - suddenly, inexplicably - to a large sunlit square lined by plane trees, dominated by a magnificent church upon whose steps young people cluster, laughing, reading, smoking; a Salon de Thé
cosies up to an art gallery and a violin maker's workshop with the craftsman inside the tiny premesis, actually working on a violin. 

To bring us back to the twenty-first century, a Range Rover forces its way through these medieval streets, pushing indignant pedestrians out of its path, wing mirrors flattened to its sides. But this vehicle is allowed here, the driver lives in the Old Quarter and is going home, probably to an apartment in a building dating from before Vespucci discovered the land now called the Americas, and one that will surely feature a pale wood parquet floor, heavy wooden shutters, a wood burning marble fireplace, crystal chandeliers, and, more than likely, an open-plan kitchen, air conditioning and wi fi internet.  I'd like to be him, I'd like to live here.