“Rhapsodized over the menu” (4)
“hedges of rosemary” …
“wildflowers, thyme, lavender, and mushrooms grow between the rocks and under
the trees” (5)
“The language spoke was French,
but it was not the French we had studied in textbooks heard on cassettes; it
was a rich, soupy patois emanating from somewhere at the back of the throat and
passing through a scrambling process in the nasal passages before coming out as
speech. Half-familiar sounds could be dimly recognized as words through the
swirls and eddies of Provencal: demain became demang, vin became vang, maison
because mesong. That by itself would not have been a problem had the words been
spoken at normal conversational speed and without further embroidery, but they
were delivered like bullets from a machine gun, often with an extra vowel
tacked on to the end for good luck. Thus an offer of more bread—page one stuff
in French for beginners—emerged as a single twanging question. Encoredupanga?
(6)
“Twice a week he would pedal to
the village for his groceries and his gossip” (7)
“Meanwhile, a thousand miles to
the north, the wind that had started in Siberia was picking up speed for the
final part of its journey. We had heard about the Mistral. It drove people, and
animals, mad. It was an extenuating circumstance in crimes of violence…every
problem in Provence that couldn’t be blamed on politicians was the fault of the
sacre vent of which the Provencaux spoke” (9)
“He made clucking sounds of
disapproval” (9)
“Monsieur Menicucci delivered
the first of a series of lectures and collected pensees which I would listen to
with increasing enjoyment through the coming year.” (10)
“Rain they take as a personal
affront” (10)
“Faustin’s rooster having his
morning cough; the demented clatter” (11)
“It was a puzzle, until we
realized how many of the local people had their birthdays in September and
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.” (12)
“The cold-weather cuisine of
Provence is peasant food. It is made to stick to your ribs, keep you warm, give
you strength, and send you off to bed with a full belly.” (13)
“A tray of drinks was brought
out, with pastis for the men and chilled, sweet muscat wine for the women.”
(13)
“It started with homemade
pizza—not one, but three: anchovy, mushroom, and cheese…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. The duck was brought
in…we had entire breasts, entire legs, covered in a dark, savory gravy and
surrounded by wild mushrooms….plates were wiped [with bread] yet again and a
huge, steaming casserole was placed on the table…a rabbit civet of the richest,
deepest brown… We ate the green salad with knuckles of bread fried in garlic
and olive oil, we ate the plump and round crottins of goat’s cheese, we ate the
almond and crème gateau…” (14)
“it was apparent form the start
that he was not a man who trifled with his stomach.” (16)
“I didn’t care. I liked him, and
I had a feeling that he would be a rich source of fascinating and highly
suspect information.” (21)
“Fortunately, his salesman’s
instincts overcame his relish for a
bureaucratic impasse, and he leaned forward with a solution” (22)
“made a great performance of
removing two or three outer laers of clothing, mopping his brow theatrically”
(32)
“the secret to his continued
elegance” (53)
“you cannot reason with a pig on
the brink of gastronomic ecstasy… Unlike pigs, dogs do not instinctively root
for truffles; they have to be trained, and Ramon favored the saucisson method.
You take a slice and rub it with truffle, or dip it in truffle juice, so that
the dog begins to associate… the stick method… likely-looking oak, approach
cautiously and, with your stick, prod gently around the base of the tree. If a
startled fly should rise vertically from the vegetation, mark the spot and dig.
You might have disturbed a member of the fly family whose genetic passion it is
to lay its eggs on the truffle (doubtless adding a certain je ne se quoi to the
flavor)” (59)
“temples of the expense account”
(61)
“He gave us a brief but
extremely complimentary account of his business history.” (65)
“He was now ready to devote his
energies, and ours, to the purchase of property” (65)
“divided between fourteen
cousins, three of whom are of Corsican extraction and thus, according to our
French friends, impossible to deal with” (67)
“A van from the wine cooperative
was surrounded by men rinsing their teeth thoughtfully in the new rose” (72)
“to see what new nonsense is in
the windows of the boutiques” (107)
“Strangers are automatically
classified as tourists and treated as nuisances, inspected with unfriendly eyes
and tolerated for cash.” (117)
“They have a talent for
diarrhea”, a French friend observed. “If an Englishman hasn’t got it, he is
looking for somewhere to have it.” (120)
“Designed, presumably by a
Turkish sanitary engineer for maximum inconvenience” (121)
“the Provencal has a clock in
his stomach, and lunch is his sole concession to punctuality.” (126)
“behaving so decorously” (138)
“It’s a matter of their crottins,”
he said. “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.” We studied
form for a few minutes, and No. 6, Totoche, obliged with a generous effort.”
(139)
“A thin, high-chic Parisienne we
recognized from the night before started to tap on e dainty white-shod foot,
and an unshaven man with a glass of pastis and a heavy paunch asked her to
dance, swiveling his substantial hips as an inducement” (140)
“Henriette’s ministrations were
successful, and the old truck gasped up the drive” (159)
“Living in France turned us into
bakery addicts, and the business of choosing and buying our daily bread was a
recurring pleasure” (167)
“He listened as I told him of
the lost drive, making interjections—quelle catastrophe was mentioned more than
once—to show that he appreciated the extent of the problem” (174)
“where the bills are as
memorable as the cooking” (190)
“such delicate chores” (201)
