Day 3: Avignon, my first Marché

Day 3: Avignon

Day 3 of our trip and our first full day in Provence! A bit of a late start after the bender last night, and feeling a little partly cloudy and mild. After some amazing local yogurts and cereal it was off to Avignon, 14km north of Graveson. 

The roads in Provence are a maze, half the roads aren't on a map and just getting into our tiny town is a choice of about 5 entry points! So getting lost has been a bit of an issue, not that it matters in such beautiful surrounds. We grabbed a few croissants from the local artisanal Boulanger, and headed off. Avignon is a large town, built on the banks of the Rhône River. The oldest, central part, has been walled off since medieval times. The rest of Avignon isn't that great, dirty and run down like the outskirts of most of the big French towns. 

Within the walls however, things change drastically! The architecture is a sight to behold, with narrow streets lined with boutiques and restaurants. The smells drifting down the narrow allows are incredible. My main mission was to find the Marché in Les Halles. On the way we stumbled across the most incredible kitchen shop, and I picked up a few goodies for my gorgeous mom. Not cheap, but the kinda stuff you don't find back home...

Literally a block away we stumbled onto the market, and that's when I ascended into food heaven! The market situated in a 'hall' with about 30 various market stalls. The stalls aren't how a Safa would imagine it, they are fixed with two stalls in a square about 10X10m with refrigeration facilities, display cabinets and ovens/coffee machines/ice racks for fish etc. 

The market has amazing artisanal breads, fresh fish and oysters, bakers with macaroons etc, spice stalls, green grocers, poultry meat the works! Everything you'd expect in a supermarché but all artisanal and buy per kg or per item, instead of prepackaged. 

Most of the stalls have free tasters, but not little pieces of cheese, chunks of cheese on beautiful crackers, small bowls of mousse, slices of 'pizza' and pieces of charcuterie. 

I had been dying for some asparagus and managed to find some beautiful stems, a few macaroons (terrible), some cheeses, sour dough breads, French tarragon for a bernaise and a few pastries. All, besides the macaroons, were top notch and very affordable! 

After the market we walked the streets of Avignon not knowing too much about it. We stumbled upon the Palais de Papas, the Popes Palace, an enormous structure and surrounding square. In front of it is a massive marble sculpture of The crucifixion with Mary alongside Christ and huge angels praying around the cross. Above is one of the towers of the Palace and right on top is a gold emblazoned Christ blessing the square, an incredible site and feat of engineering! Then it was into Fort St. André, and it's surrounds, all incredibly old and beautiful! 

By now, my tour de Marseilles had caught up with me and my left foot was giving in! Janx and Cands were hungry so we made our way back to Graveson. 

Avignon is an incredible town, steeped in history, the market an absolute gem with beautiful produce, and very reasonably priced, with some specialist stores. I would highly recommend the capital of Cote-d-Azur to anyone coming to the area! 

My next post will be about the incredible meals we made from the produce we picked up in Avignon, with some more amazing, cheap wine from the cote du Rhône, it made for a special meal!

Matty

Day 2: Our first Provincial meal

My first real taste of Provincial ingredients

After unpacking I immediately got to work, finely slicing some tomatoes, mixed with a few leaves and some local olives and a light vinaigrette made the simple salad, the baguette was unbelievably fresh and reminded me of the baguettes they serve at Le Brasserie de Paris in my home town, Pretoria. All complimented with a bottle of local Viognier, a personal favourite of mine.

The star of the show however was the rotisserie chicken.

The chickens here are much older, and larger when they are slaughtered. The meat is slightly tougher/more chewy, but at the same time so much more flavorful! The chicken had been stuffed with provincial herbs, mainly thyme and rosemary and then slow roasted on an open rotisserie, very similar to what you'd find at a Lebanese pita joint, with the rotating slabs of meat, not quite sure of the name. All the chickens rotating in front of gas burners and not in a closed off rotisseries.

At the bottom is a bath of jus that is used to baste the birds and when we purchased the fowl were given an old, clean, mustard jar full of jus. A gravy basically, without the lumps and cloudiness of that horrible bisto gravy powder. So simple, not much done to it or the bird yet absolutely delicious!

I jointed the bird and carved the breasts away, placing it on a serving platter and then spooning over the jus. Served up With the salad and baguette it was light and healthy yet packed to the rafters with flavour!

To say the chicken was the best I have eaten, would be a gross understatement, the herbs had penetrated the meat perfuming it gently with hints of thyme and rosemary, yet never overpowering the natural flavour of the bird. The chicken was lean and large, instead of short and fat like you'd expect from a Woolies rotisserie chicken, with no fat on the bird. 

The salad was incredible, the tomatoes tasted of summer, and with a little salt and some crushed black pepper were a meal on their own. The baguette cut into chunks with lashings of local farm butter was used to soak up the jus. Gastronomic heaven, again! 

It's amazing to cook here, the ingredients are so fresh and flavorful, that very little work needs to be done to them, and respecting and honoring your ingredients, as corny as that sounds, is the name of the game. Keep it simple and you will be rewarded! 

The meal was rounded off with some fresh bruschetta with the left over baguette and a ripe Brie that was oozing onto the plate. A great meal, and the perfect start to my exploration of this region.

We then had a walk down to the local bar to watch the French Top 14 final, I made sure to wear my Blou Bul trui, in support of the magnificent Bakkies 'The Enforcer' Botha and Danie 'Mr World Cup 2007' Roussouw. What a crap game of rugby, the ref was shocking, the French have no idea what a ruck is, but I digress. Their team lost, but we partied late into the night! Catching up on 8 months of life! Bliss!

The rest of the night got a bit hazy, and I'm sure I will feel it in the morning,

Till tomorrow, au revoir!

Matty

Day 2:Marseilles to Graveson, Touch Down in Provence!

Day 3, Marseilles to Graveson

After all that happened yesterday I was happy to sleep in and take the morning off. I took a leisurely stroll around the block in search of what must be my favourite French pastry, the humble croissant. Not a 100m from my apartment I found an 'Artisanal Boulangerie' and cashed in on 2 croissants and a bottle of clementine juice from the local supermarché and that was brekka, all for €2.50, great success! I sat on my balcony and had a moment, not since Paris in 2005 had I tucked into such a good croissant!

For me the trick to a good croissant is to have an extremely flaky and crispy outer shell and a moist, buttery centre that is dense and rich. In SA we usually have these airy crispy things with no actual substance to it, or these massive heavy loaves of breads marketed as croissants. Such a simple piece of pastry, yet so difficult to get right...

Then it was off to train station, and a quick bus trip to meet up with my travel companions, Andrew and Candice Janke. We have known each other since we were 6 years old and as fate would have it, Cands and Janx (what our friends call them) were reunited some 4 years ago and they were wed about 18 months ago. They live in London England, Andrew is a successful Chartered Accountant for Credit Suisse, who holds a British Passport. I haven't seen them for 8 months, which has been really tough as they are two very special people  and having them around generally means late nights and not such upstanding behavior!

We met at the Airport at 11am sharpish, and I was treated with huge hugs and smiles, putting a lump in my throat... Happy days! 

Our destination, Graveson, is a tiny town of I would estimate a 1000 people. Lying 14km south of Avignon is situated smack bang in the middle of Provence, in the Cote-d-Azur region more specifically. It was chosen as such, as it would allow us to explore the region with short day trips in every direction.

Janx has taken the driving responsibilities, I don't trust my heavy right foot and being on the wrong side of the road. I addition, Janx is in love with our Ford Focus rental, and gets audibly excited as he approaches her every time. I just miss Rocco at home...

French drivers are terrible, they drive cheap cars, pushed to breaking point and at the million roundabouts/circles it seems that their game plan is to drive through it as quickly as possibly, minimizing the chance of an accident. Yeah right. Have missed my Scirocco R on a few occasions, to teach these gents a lesson!!!

After we hopped off the main highway, it was onto a small arterial road and on to the direction of St Remy and then Graveson. It was like driving through a worm hole, and into paradise. Boulangeries everywhere, small green grocers, narrow roads lined with massive Mediterranean oak trees, sparsely 5m from each other. Not good if you have photosensitive epilepsy! 

Less than 2hrs after leaving Marseilles we arrived in St Remy, a picturesque old town about 20minutes from our final destination. We found the local supermarché, U Express, the largest such supermarket in the area. Before we could even make it in I dragged Cands and Janx to the Rotisserie shop in the centre, and bought a rotisserie chicken for lunch, with a large bottle of jus. More on that fine specimen later.

Then it was off to the supermarché, gastronomic heaven! To call it a supermarket would not be doing it justice! The selection of fresh produce is astounding! Everything we bought was selected from freshly laid out trays, not prepackaged! Roma tomatoes, that have an indescribable shape, huge Zucchini, mushrooms, fennel bulbs, asparagus the works! In a small town supermarket! I was now getting excited! We picked up some supplies, duck(more on that when we eat it), some steaks, baguettes and lots of cheap vino! 

It became apparent that this was the way to do things, €120 for a stocked fridge, a bargain when you consider a fastfood take out meal is €10, and the quality and exotic nature of our purchases are factored in. 

10minutes later we arrived at our house in Graveson, it is a huge Chateau which has around 8, 2 bedroom apartments in it, sprawling lawns, fresh rosemary everywhere and a huge swimming pool... Paradise, right next to a huge church, with towering steeple and the customary gargoyles everywhere! 

I am going to separate my blogs into activities and food blogging, so as not to bore those that aren't interested in my entire trip and splitting it into manageable chapters. 

Thanks again for following, please leave a few comments,

Matty

An Apology

I sincerely apologies for the lack of editing and poor quality of the lay out of my blog. Unfurtanely off an ipad and without the use of google+ to upload pics etc this is turning out into sleepless nights of trying to work out the ghost in the machines, I will hopefully have this problem sorted ASAP, so please bare with me...

I really appreciate you taking the time out to follow me...

Matty

Marseilles, Chez-Fonfon

Good Morning from beautiful Provence,

Sorry that my blogging hasn't been up to scratch, spare time and wifi have been a slight issue... The plane from Frankfurt to Marseilles was delayed by about two hours, due to a hole in the outer shell of one of the doors, and I was  stuck on the bus outside the plane, major buzz kill. Thankfully I have a PDF of the new Dan Brown book so punished a few chapters of that, which helped pass the time. The flight to Marseilles was absolutely incredible! Flying over the snow capped peaks of the Alpes, the green fields of Provence and eventually Marseilles was an amazing experience! Marseilles is right on the Mediterranean and has multiple small islands off the coast, together with the turquoise blue of the Med made for an incredible approach to the airport. I hate looking like a tourist but I couldn't keep my eyes off the window!

My first meal in France was one of my favourites, Burger King's legendary double whopper with cheese, the meal setting me back a 'whopping' €10!!!! Then it was off on the bus, €8, to the central station and a 1km walk to my hosts for the evening, Emily and Mikaela... Fortunately they were away for the weekend so no awkward turtle in someone else's house, which was great.

After an amazing shower I got dressed up for my much anticipated meal at Chez-

Fonfon. The plan was to take a leisurely stroll down to the old Vieux Port (some 2000 years old) and then walk along the coast to Fonfon. The walk, according to Google Maps, should be about 5km and take just under an hour... Well the walk ended up being somewhere in the region of 15km and I got completely lost! However it turned out being a massive blessing in disguise! I discovered some old churches, a newly built art gallery, and the old embattlements and fortifications of the old harbour, and then proceeded to walked the whole of the old harbour. No mean feat in a pair of brand new country road dress shoes that had not been properly in. My feet, and big toes have suffered sufficiently due to this foresite.

Everyone seemed to have moseyed on down to the harbour for drinks after  work for a bevvie and  catch up with mates. People were banging away on their guitars filled with the customers Friday afternoon banter. It was a great experience, and I eventually made it to Fonfon after about two and a half hours of walking. No thanks to the wind blowing off the Med, PE eat your heart out!

Chez-Fonfon is built in a small harbour/cove in Marseilles. It was one of the original (4) restaurants that signed the Bouillabaisse charter when chefs in the area felt that the recipe was being tinkered with too much and losing its identity. Bouillabaisse is, as most great recipes, a peasant fisherman's dish. Made from the scraps left over after the day's fishing while the fishermen were cleaning and repairing their nets after a long day on the water. 

Bouillabaisse should traditionally contain 5 types of freshly caught fish and  no shellfish. A soup is made, more of a very well flavored deep and rich stock, from vegetables and small fish. Which is then used to poach the larger fish later. 

The experience was phenomenal, I had my own table set up at the windows overlooking the tiny harbour. You are seated and served with a large bowl of bruschetta and various hors d'oeuvres: a smoked fish pâté, olive tapenade and chick pea pâté. After about 30 seconds from when I placed my order my wine had arrived, a beautiful crisp white wine with a nose of - who am I kidding? It was by far the cheapest bottle on the menu, a cultivar I'd never heard of, but it was really easy drinking and got the taste buds and excitement levels going. A minute later my soup arrived, ladled out at your table with a garlic aioli and saffron rouille. The aioli contains no egg and has such a smooth texture and richness that it is a sight to behold, smeared liberally over a bruschetta and unceremoniously dunked into the soup, the combination is heavenly. The warm rich soup, with its deep red hues from the saffron has an almost lobster bisque quality to it, complimented by the rich yet subtle garlic aioli makes for an amazing start to the bouillabaisse. 

Just as you are beginning to float away on the bus to flavor town, the waitress arrives at your table to show you the jewels of the Mediterranean that will be served for main course. She spoke French, and I said oui and merci a lot and had no idea what she was on about. Trying to look like I knew what was potting, I inspected the gills and had a close look at the eyes, the fish were of cause so fresh that they may well have been swimming a few minutes before, beautiful crystal clear eyes and bright red gills. I said another merci and got involved with some wine and soup.

  Not five minutes later the freshly poached fish was served with saffron potatoes. The fish was a study in how to prepare fresh seafood, lightly poached, the larger more flaky fish almost raw at the core, each fish having a different texture and flavor from the others; from light and flaky to dense and firm, almost steak-like. The saffron potatoes were perfectly cooked, with a redness all the way through, firm yet tender, enough to lightly guide the side of my fork through. 

The whole wile my soup dish getting topped up, so as to be able to spoon the fish into the soup and have glorious mouthfuls washed down with glasses of wine. Interrupting myself to have a piece of bruschetta with aioli. The saffron rouille wasn't my favourite, I'm not a huge fan of saffron besides the color it adds, it's wildly expensive and not very flavourful. 

Eventually, I was slightly pickled, and full to the gills. I ordered the bill and met the chef, and €80 later I was on my way. What an incredible experience. The walk home was thankfully much shorter, I was a little concerned about Marseilles' reputation so I made a B line for my accommodation. 

Tomorrow the Jankes arrive, and so does the party. It's been an emotional few days, and not the easiest flights and traveling experience. I'm off to a bed and you know I will be dreaming of Bouillabaisse and ancient ruins... 

Matty