Peter Mayle, Toujours Provence

Toujours Provence, Peter Mayle

Monsieur Angine boasted about his sore throat. Madame Varices countered with the history of her varicose veins. (8)

My wife first saw him on the road into Menerbes. He was walking along beside a man whose neat, clean clothes contrasted sharply with his own disreputable appearance. (27)

I loathed picnics. Rather ungraciously, I said so. (38)

We ate and drank like heroes (42)

He described it as though he were talking about a woman. His hands caressed the air. Delicate kisses dusted his fingertips, and there was much talk of body and bouquet and puissance. (60)

…and a deep bowl of thick tapenade, the olive and anchovy paste that is sometimes called the black butter of Provence. (66)

The weather, once a traditional English complaint, was never mentioned, (78)

In American Vogue, the world’s most cloyingly pungent magazine (103)

And Marseille itself didn’t enjoy the best reputations among its neighbors. (Even today a Marseillais is regarded as a blagueur, an exaggerator, a man who will describe a sardine as a whale, not entirely to be believed.) (145)

…the opportunities that our home provided for any larcenous idiot with a screwdriver. (157)

I had once heard a Frenchman express his opinion of Italian food in a single libelous phrase: After the noodle, there is nothing. (220)

But lamb, above all from the area around Siston where the sheep season themselves wit herbs. (233)